Leslie Van Houten, a follower of Charles Manson who was convicted of murder for stabbing Los Angeles grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, to death, has been denied parole.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom blocked Van Houten’s parole for the fifth time Tuesday, saying she “currently poses an unreasonable danger to society if released from prison at this time.”
Van Houten, 72, was 19 when she and a group of cult members broke into the LaBiancas' home on Aug. 9, 1969, fatally stabbed them and then smeared their blood on the walls.
A day earlier, Manson followers had murdered actress Sharon Tate and four others at the home of Roman Polanski. Van Houten was not among them.
Since her conviction, Van Houten has undergone therapy, earned educational degrees, taken self-help classes in prison and shown “increased maturity and rehabilitation,” Newsom wrote in his parole decision, but still has “gaps in insight” that make her a danger to society.
Manson, a wannabe musician who grew his cult to more than 100 followers in the late 1960s, was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for seven deaths, including Tate, in 1971. He died behind bars in November 2017.
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