CHINO, Calif.—Leslie Van Houten sat before the California panel that would soon recommend her parole as a slight woman with shoulder-length gray hair, a wrinkled face and glasses, a far cry to from the rebellious teen she was when she joined the cult of Charles Manson more than 40 years ago and helped kill a wealthy grocer and his wife.
At a five-hour hearing she described in detail how she descended from an idyllic childhood into psychedelic drug use and eventually found Manson, whom she described as a “Christ-like man that had all the answers” for a young woman whose parents’ divorce had left her feeling abandoned and angry.
On Thursday she convinced the state panel that the murderous young woman she had been was a long-distant memory and that she was now fit to be paroled. She has completed college degrees and been a model inmate.
“Your behavior in prison speaks for itself. Forty-six years and not a single serious rule violation,” Commissioner Ali Zarrinnam told Van Houten at the close of her 20th parole hearing.
The decision will now undergo administrative review by the parole board. If upheld it goes to Gov. Jerry Brown, who has final say on whether Van Houten is released.
Brown spokeswoman Deborah Hoffman on Friday said it would be premature to comment.
The now-66-year-old Van Houten was “numb” after the panel announced its decision, said her attorney Rich Pfeiffer.
“She’s been ready for this for a long time,” Pfeiffer said outside the prison. “It really should have happened a long time ago.”
Van Houten participated in the killings of Leno La Bianca and his wife Rosemary a day after other so-called “Manson family” members murdered pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others in 1969.
