(RepublicanDaily.org) – On August 10, 1969, followers of cult leader Charles Manson brutally murdered a husband and his wife in their LA home, carving “war” on the woman’s stomach after she died in agony on her bedroom floor.
Leslie Van Houten, who was 19 at the time, was one of those convicted and sentenced in the murder of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, going on to serve 53 years in prison in California. Van Houten is now a free woman, living in a halfway house under supervised parole with the approval of California Governor Gavin Newsom who recently said he won’t try to “block” this parole. Newsom’s office claims he is “disappointed” with the parole board’s decision but won’t veto it.
The details of the grisly murder were recounted by Van Houten during a 1994 interview on ABC, in which she said she had a brief moment of doubt while hearing Rosemary LaBianca screaming out desperately for her husband. Van Houten committed the murder along with fellow Manson cultists Patricia Krenwinkel and Charles Watson, who she said handed her a knife that she used to repeatedly stab Rosemary in the back.
The night before the LaBianca homicides, Manson followers brutally slaughtered Sharon Tate and her unborn child as well as four others who were in her residence at the time of the attack.
Manson died in jail in 2017 at 83-years-old. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1971 for inciting others to murder wealthy people around the LA area. Manson believed that a race war between white and black people was coming and had been foretold in the Beatles song “Helter Skelter.” He exhorted followers to accelerate violence and chaos in order to speed up the time when the final war would occur and the world would be cleansed of evil.
Van Houten was originally handed a death sentence after being convicted, but it later became life in prison without a chance of parole, and has now become life in prison with parole. Van Houten is 73-years-old and has undergone five decades of therapy in prison. Kay Martley lost her cousin to Manson’s crazed followers in July of 1969 and said Van Houten’s parole shows that Newsom has failed to protect California or respect Manson’s victims and survivors of his cult.
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