Leslie Van Houten, a member of the sect known as the “Manson Family”, was released on Tuesday from a California prison (USA) after spending 53 years behind bars for her participation in two murders, according to local media.
The woman, who happens to be on probation, had been sentenced to two life sentences for the murder on August 10, 1969 of supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary.
Van Houten, 73, was 19 at the time of the crime and during the trial the brutality of his acts was highlighted, in which he stabbed Rosemary LaBianca between 14 and 16 times.
A day earlier, members of that sect had killed actress Sharon Tate, wife of film director Roman Polanski, who was also eight months pregnant, and four other people, although Van Houten did not participate in those murders.
“He’s going to have to learn to live in the world after 53 years in prison. It’s going to take a while,” his lawyer, Nancy Tetreault, told the US media.
The cabinet of California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, had indicated this month that he was not going to appeal his release despite being “disappointed” with the decision of the Court of Appeals.
Frustrated actor and singer, Charles Manson, who died in 2017 at age 83, rocked Hollywood and the United States that August 1969 with a bloody spiral of violence in which he and his followers, known as the “Manson Family,” killed seven people to provoke a race war.
The killers used the blood of their victims to write messages on the walls while following the instructions they thought they heard in The Beatles’ song “Helter Skelter.” Manson only actively participated in two of them.
Although Van Houten was originally sentenced to death for the murder of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, when the death penalty was abolished in California her sentence was commuted to life in prison.
