A member of the infamous “Manson Family” is released

When I’m down I go back to the top of the slide
Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride
Until I come down and see you again
Helter Skelter (The Beatles)

Leslie Van Houten, now 73, was released from prison on Tuesday “under probation supervision,” according to the California Correctional Services Agency. She was there for 53 years. The reason: Van Houten was a member of the infamous “Manson Family” and was involved in the 1969 murder of entrepreneur Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary.

The murders of the “Manson Family” are still among the most brutal crimes ever. Who are the members of the “Manson Family” and how did these beastly murders come about?

The actions

America is a violent country. Numerous spectacular criminal cases have shaped the nation’s history. What happened on the night of August 9, 1969 in a Beverly Hills mansion was barbaric even by American standards.

Three followers of cult leader Charles Manson broke into the house on Cielo Drive. They killed actress Sharon Tate, who was nine months pregnant, three of her friends and a student who happened to be there. Although “killed” is a euphemism. Some victims were butchered with knives. Tate’s unborn child was not spared.

The next day, the “Manson Family” murdered a supermarket chain owner and his wife. For more than two months, the bloody deeds that shook the world remained unsolved. After a raid on the sect’s headquarters in October 1969, the police were able to convict the perpetrators almost by accident. You were sentenced to death in a spectacular trial in 1971.

Because California briefly abolished the death penalty a year later, the sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. Leslie Van Houten was released in 2023 after 53 years in prison.

The victims

The 26 year old Sharon Tat was considered one of the most beautiful women of the time. The former model had the greatest success as an actress in 1967 with the horror comedy “Dance of the Vampires” by the Polish director Roman Polanski. He wasn’t just attracted to Tate professionally. In January 1968 they married in London. After Tate got pregnant, they rented the mansion on Cielo Drive.

On the fateful evening, Polanski was in the UK on business. Sharon Tate spent the evening with her ex-boyfriend, the well-known hairdresser Jay Sebring. were also present Abigail Fogerthe heiress to a coffee empire, and Wojciech Frykowskia Polish friend of Roman Polanski who wanted to establish himself as a screenwriter in Hollywood.

The student happened to be there StevenParent. He had visited the caretaker of the villa, whom he knew a little. Parent was the first victim of the “Manson Family”. Sharon Tate and her friends were slaughtered with gunfire and dozens of stab wounds. The killers wrote the word “PIG” (pig) on ​​the front door in Tate’s blood.

Desperate Polanski flew to Los Angeles and ostentatiously led the media to the blood-covered crime scene.

Just a day later, the pair became Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, owner of a supermarket chain, murdered. At the crime scene, investigators found the words “Death to Pigs,” “Rise,” and “Healter Skelter” written in the victims’ blood. The killers had also scratched the word “WAR” into Leno LaBianca’s stomach.

The culprit

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Charles Manson is dead

source: ap/ap

Charles Manson was born out of wedlock in 1934. Of the first 32 years of his life, he spent 20 in institutions and prisons. He was short and charismatic, intelligent and uneducated. At the age of 17 he was illiterate. After a career as a petty criminal, Manson joined a hippie commune in San Francisco in 1967.

He soon founded his own cult-like community with “The Family”. She moved to a ranch near Los Angeles that had been built as a set for movies and television series. Up to 100 people would have belonged to the “family”. Authoritarian and highly manipulative, Manson used drugs and sex to tame his minions.

He was involved in the Tate murders only as a client. They were committed by Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Charles “Tex” Watson. Some of them had dysfunctional backgrounds and committed the murders under the influence of LSD. Manson was present at LaBianca’s double murder, and another follower, Leslie Van Houten, took part in the bloody act. Van Houten stabbed the woman 14 times.

Linda Kasabian was present at both cases but not directly involved. She drove the getaway car. After the arrest of the “Manson Family” – Susan Atkins had bragged about the Tate murders to fellow inmates after the raid on the ranch – Kasabian made himself available to the prosecution as a key witness and was given a suspended sentence.

The motive

To this day, it has not been clarified with absolute certainty what drove Charles Manson to commit the beastly murders. He was a fan of the Beatles and the song “Helter Skelter” from the 1968 “White Album”. The loud but harmless song is about a spiral slide commonly found in UK theme parks.

But Manson interpreted “Helter Skelter” as a call for a race war between whites and blacks, which they would win. Unable to rule because of their “slave” nature, they would make Manson—who tolerated only whites among his followers—as their leader. He blamed blacks for the killings and wanted to spark the race war, members of the “Family” said. Manson himself could be sued with that.

Another possible motive is revenge. Charles Manson hoped for a career in music and was sometimes friends with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. He introduced Manson to producer Terry Melcher, but he was not interested. Melcher was the previous tenant of the Cielo Drive house and could have been the actual target, but that is considered unlikely.

The consequences

The term “life imprisonment” can be taken literally in the case of Charles Manson. He died of colon cancer in November 2017 at the age of 83. To the end, the Americans were as fascinated as they were disgusted with him. He received a lot of fan mail, not least from women. He never showed any real remorse for the crimes he committed.

Completely in contrast to his « accomplices ». They have often and credibly expressed their regret. But their requests for release were rejected for years – the memory of the atrocities was too strong. Susan Atkins, believed to be the “primary perpetrator” of the Tate murders, was also not released as she was terminally ill with cancer. She died in prison in 2009.

Only Leslie Van Houten has been free since July 2023, according to an appeals court. California Governor Gavin Newsom said he was disappointed.

Van Houten enters a world that is completely foreign to her. When she entered the prison, there weren’t even ATMs, let alone smartphones or other everyday items. “She’s still trying to get used to the idea that this is real,” her lawyer told the US press.

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