According to theAssociated Press, on Monday governor Gavin Newsom overruled a parole board’s January decision to free Van Houten, after former governor Jerry Browndenied her release twicein previous years.
“While I commend Ms. Van Houten for her efforts at rehabilitation and acknowledge her youth at the time of the crimes, I am concerned about her role in these killings and her potential for future violence,” Newsom wrote in his decision, according to the AP.
“Ms. Van Houten was an eager participant in the killing of the LaBiancas and played a significant role,” he added.
A former homecoming princess,Van Houtenwas convicted — along with other members ofCharles Manson‘s “family” — of the brutal 1969 slayings of Los Angeles grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary. She was 19 and the youngest of the group at the time.
She admitted to attacking Rosemary, who was stabbed 47 times. Convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder, Van Houten was sentenced to life in prison and began her sentence in 1978.
“Without a deeper understanding of what led her to submit to Mr. Manson and participate in these horrific murders, I cannot be sure that Ms. Van Houten is capable of acting differently in the future,” Newsom wrote, according to CNN.
Nick Ut/AP Photo
George Brich/AP
According toCNN, Van Houten has been a model prisoner, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees and completing “extensive” self-help programs.
“She has a master’s degree and her thesis is on sustained rehabilitation,” Van Houten’s attorney Rich Pfeifferpreviously told PEOPLE. “They are using her thesis as a model for setting up rehabilitation programs in Europe. She is a special person.”
“Nobody wants to put their name on her release, but when they’re speaking honestly or off the record, everyone wants her to go home,” he said, according to the AP.
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“[Newsom is] going to have more political aspirations that go well beyond the state of California, and he doesn’t want this tagging behind him,” he added, the outlet reports. “Not a surprise. I would have been shocked if he would have said ‘Go home.’”
source: people.com
