Manson acolyte Van Houten released after decades
Leslie Van Houten, a disciple of notorious serial killer Charles Manson, was released from prison Tuesday after more than five decades, California prison authorities said. Van Houten, now 73, had been behind bars for her role in an infamous double murder in Los Angeles in 1969. That crime was among at least nine shocking and grisly murders committed by members of the Manson cult in the city that summer, striking dread into people all over southern California. In the decades since, the state's governors repeatedly blocked all efforts to free her, before incumbent Gavin Newsom last week said he would not challenge her release. According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Van Houten was released "to parole supervision." No further information on the location of her release was provided, "for safety and security reasons," said a statement. Van Houten was being held at the California Institution for Women in Corona, near Los Angeles. She was 19 when she joined Manson's "family," an apocalyptic cult who hatched a bizarre plot to commit murders across Los Angeles in hopes of sparking a race war. Manson, who notoriously led his gang to murder heavily pregnant actor Sharon Tate and her friends in the killing spree, died in prison in 2017. While Van Houten was not involved in those murders, she has admitted to participating in further killings by the group on the following night, during which she stabbed Rosemary La Bianca, a grocer's wife, up to 16 times. Van Houten was recommended for parole five times since 2016, but California governors Jerry Brown and Newsom vetoed on each occasion. Newsom's latest veto in 2022 argued that Van Houten could still be a danger to society, and said she had not fully explained how she fell under Manson's sway and came to commit horrific acts of violence. But in May, appeal judges overturned Newsom's veto, with a 2-1 majority finding that "there is no evidence to support the Governor's conclusions" and ruling in favour of her release. (AFP)