A party was already in full swing when Patricia Krenwinkel, 19, entered her sister’s apartment in Manhattan Beach, California, on a cool September night in 1967. That little surprise — a spark of social levity after a long day of work — would begin her bloody path toward becoming the longest-incarcerated female inmate in the state’s history.
Krenwinkel had been living with her sister while working a job as a secretary. A year prior, she was attending a Jesuit college in Mobile, Alabama. In her teens she taught the Catechism, and, after a life of bullying due to her weight and an endocrine condition that caused her to grow excessive body hair, thought that perhaps she could find purpose serving as a nun.
