LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Latest on the parole request by Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten (all times local):
2:45 p.m.
A California parole panel has recommended that Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten be granted parole after serving more than four decades in prison.
State Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Luis Patino says the panel on Wednesday found that the 69-year-old prisoner is suitable for parole.
Her case will rest in the hands of California’s new Gov. Gavin Newsom after a 150-day review process. Van Houten was recommended for parole twice previously, but then-Gov. Jerry Brown blocked her release.
Van Houten was among the followers in Manson’s murderous cult who stabbed to death wealthy grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, in 1969. Van Houten was 19 during the killings.
Manson died in prison in 2017.
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12:15 a.m.
The woman who was the youngest follower of murderous cult leader Charles Manson will again ask to be freed from prison.
Leslie Van Houten, now 69 and serving a life sentence, has a parole hearing Wednesday at the California Institute for Women.
Van Houten was twice recommended for parole, but then-Gov. Jerry Brown blocked her release. Brown said Van Houten still laid too much blame on Manson for the 1969 stabbing deaths of wealthy grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary.
Van Houten, then 19, was among those who murdered the couple a day after other Manson followers killed pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others in Los Angeles.
In prison, Van Houten has been a model inmate, earned a master’s degree in counseling and headed programs to help inmates.
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