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Associated Press

Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten walked out of a California prison on Tuesday after serving more than 50 years of a life sentence for her part in two infamous murders.
Van Houten “was released to parole supervision,” the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement.
She left the California Institution for Women in Corona, east of Los Angeles, in the early morning hours and was driven to transitional housing, her lawyer Nancy Tetreault said.
“She’s still trying to get used to the idea that this is real,” Tetreault said.

Days earlier California Governor Gavin Newsom announced he would not fight a state appeal court ruling that Van Houten should be granted parole. He said it was unlikely the state Supreme Court would consider an appeal.
Van Houten, now in her 70s, received a life sentence for helping Manson’s followers carry out the August 1969 killings of Leno LaBianca, a grocer in Los Angeles, and his wife, Rosemary.
How many Manson family murders are still unsolved, 50 years on?
The LaBiancas were killed in their home, and their blood was smeared on the walls afterward. Van Houten later described holding Rosemary LaBianca down with a pillowcase over her head as others stabbed her.
Then, ordered by Manson follower Charles “Tex” Watson to “do something,” Van Houten said, she picked up a knife and stabbed the woman more than a dozen times.
The murders happened the day after Manson followers killed actress Sharon Tate and four others at film director Roman Polanski’s house in Beverly Hills, California. Van Houten, who was 19 at the time, did not participate in the Tate killings.
Van Houten is expected to spend about a year at a halfway house, learning basic skills such as how to drive a car, go to the supermarket and get a debit card, according to her lawyer.
“She has to learn to use to use the internet. She has to learn to buy things without cash,” Tetreault said. “It’s a very different world than when she went in.”
Van Houten, who is likely to be on parole for about three years, hopes to get a job as soon as possible, Tetreault said. She earned a bachelors and a master's degree in counselling while in prison and worked as a tutor for other incarcerated people.

Van Houten was found suitable for parole after a July 2020 hearing, but her release was blocked by Newsom, who maintained she was still a threat to society.
She filed an appeal with a trial court, which rejected it, and then turned to the appellate courts. The Second District Court of Appeal in May reversed Newsom’s rejection of her parole.
Newsom was disappointed by the appeal court decision, his office said.
“More than 50 years after the Manson cult committed these brutal killings, the victims’ families still feel the impact,” the governor’s office said in a July 7 statement.
In all, Van Houten had been recommended for parole five times since 2016. All of those recommendations were denied by either Newsom or former governor Jerry Brown.

Cory LaBianca, Leno LaBianca’s daughter, said last week her family was heartbroken by the possibility that Van Houten could be released.
Van Houten, a former high school cheerleader and homecoming princess, saw her life spiral out of control at 14 following her parents’ divorce. She turned to drugs and became pregnant but said her mother forced her to abort the fetus and bury it in the family’s back garden.
Van Houten met Manson at an old film set ranch on the outskirts of Los Angeles where he had established his so-called family of followers.
Manson died in prison in 2017 of natural causes at age 83 after nearly half a century behind bars.


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Crime

Manson family follower Leslie Van Houten released from prison after 50 years

Leslie Van Houten at the California Institution for Women in 2017. Van Houten has been released from prison after serving 53 years for her role in the infamous Manson family murders in 1969. Photo: Los Angeles Daily News via AP

Charles Manson is escorted to court in 1969. Photo: AP 

Charles Manson followers, from left, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten, walk to court in 1970. Photo: AP

Sharon Tate was a model and rising film star when she was murdered by Manson Family killers in 1969. Photo: AP 

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James Lewis in 1995. The suspect in the 1982 Tylenol murders was found dead on Sunday at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. Photo: AP

James Lewis, a one-time leading suspect in the 1982 murders of seven people who swallowed tainted Tylenol, in 1984. Photo: The Kansas City Star via AP

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Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armourer on the set of Alec Baldwin’s film Rust, where cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot in October 2021. Photo: Twitter

Alec Baldwin on the New Mexico Rust set immediately following the shooting of Halyna Hutchins and Joel Souza on October 21, 2021. Photo: Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office / TNS

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Kevin Spacey (far right) in the 1995 film The Usual Suspects. Photo: Corbis Sygma

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World

United States & Canada

Van Houten, now 73, had been behind bars for her role in an infamous double murder in Los Angeles in 1969
The murders happened the day after Manson followers killed actress Sharon Tate and four others


Van Houten, now 73, had been behind bars for her role in an infamous double murder in Los Angeles in 1969.


Fame and celebrity

United States