Maybe It's Time We Gave This Manson Family Killer a Break

[Jilly_in_VA]

Caroline Leavitt

OK, so most of us are obsessed with true crime. But what happens when the true criminals want to change and reinvent their lives—and we somehow won’t let them?

Leslie Van Houten was released from prison on parole, on July 12, 2023, after serving more than five decades for the brutal Manson family murder of Leno and Rosemary Labianca in Los Angeles in 1969. No one thought she’d ever get out—but she just did, the only Manson family member to do so. And many people aren’t happy.

The murder was committed when she was a teen, just 19, and on an acid trip. Unrepentant and under Charlie Manson’s spell, she certainly deserved prison for her heinous crime. But once inside, she went into therapy, flooded with shame, guilt and remorse, and she became determined to better herself. By all accounts she was a model prisoner, and the older she became, the less of a threat to outside society she became. Yet she was denied parole 16 times.So why is everyone seeming to deny her a future? And why can’t we envision any kind of happy ever after for her? There are no second acts in American life, Fitzgerald famously said, but I kept thinking, he’s wrong. He has to be wrong.

Years back, the Manson story obsessed me into writing a novel set against the brutal murders and trial, Cruel Beautiful World, and that’s when I realized, deep in research, that the Manson girls’ part in all of this was hypnotizing us because they were such sweet-faced young girls besotted in love, even if it was with a maniac. They not only betrayed society, but they also betrayed our notions of what young girls should do and be. The fact that they were female made it even more sensational.

Some former criminals have brilliant afterlives, but still, like a stain, the idea of non-acceptance lingers. A few years ago, a close friend introduced me to a woman friend of hers. “Everyone loves her,” she said. I quickly did, too, but it wasn’t until six months later that I was told her real name—and her real fame, which I promised never to reveal. When she was 15, she had viciously murdered a friend’s mother. She served her time, she was filled with remorse, and when she was let out, she reinvented herself, with a new name, a new profession, and a huge desire to give back to society. When she did tell people the truth, she lost friends, she lost jobs, she lost potential romances. When do I get to be forgiven? she kept asking. When does it get to end?

https://www.thedailybeast.com/maybe-its-time-we-gave-this-manson-family-killer-a-break

Unfortunately the American "justice" system is based on revenge, not rehabilitation. That's why so many people still hate her and Cyntoia Brown and others, who were just kids when they did what they did and had time to repent and rehabilitate.

[hlthe2b]

1. She's out. I'd like to respect her victims' family now & let her just live out her life in anonymity

I think that is the best thing we can ALL do for ALL concerned. Ms. Leavitt got a gratuitous "True Crime" article out of this--the very thing she supposedly bemoans and by her own admission poses an obsession for her-- but I hope this marks a change in the frequency of all things Manson.

to all the TRUE victims of Manson and NOT to his followers that perpetuated his murderous lead.

[JohnSJ]

3. +++

[JohnSJ]

2. I suspect Dylan Roof was under the influence of others which motivated his racist murder spree.

He was “only 21”. Should he be given a break too?

[Tetrachloride]

4. He has not paid up and he has not earned model prisoner status

[Jilly_in_VA]

5. Not nearly YET

False equivalence. There's a big difference here...like 40 years. Give him a chance to become a model prisoner and repent too. And 40 years of time served.

[calguy]

7. I think maybe he should

After he serves at least five decades behind bars and rehabilitates himself like the Manson girl did.

[1WorldHope]

9. Maybe in 50 years.

[Harker]

6. A lot of adjectives come to mind when I think of them.

"Sweet-faced" is not one of them.

[Siwsan]

8. I just watched a documentary on the Manson women

I know that Leslie and Patricia Krenwickel long ago came to regret their actions. I'm not so sure about Susan Atkins but then she's dead.

These women were so young and damaged before they ever met up with Manson. I'd cite Patricia and Leslie as good examples of how rehabilitation can work.

The show interviewed several other women - Sandra Goode, Lynette Fromme, Diane Lake and Catherine Share (Gypsy).

Goode and Fromme are still under Manson's spell. Diane and Catherine, along with Barbara Hoyt, who died in 2017, and Linda Kasabian, who died this year, definitely are/were not.

The 'family' tried to kill Barbara Hoyt to stop her from testifying. Diane Lake was about 14 when she joined the family. Her parents had abandoned her. Her story is heartbreaking.

I suspect much can be learned from these women.

[Aristus]

11. To me, the most sincere expression of remorse for murder is not committing it in the first place.

If that seems a little reductive, just remember: my way, nobody gets killed.

When Scott Fitzgerald wrote that there were no second acts in America, he didn't mean there were no second chances. He meant that the trajectory of the American lifestyle has people advancing from the first act to the third act, with no intervening second act.

A rather more wry way of putting it is: America is the only society that went from barbarism to decadence with no intervening period of civilization.

[keithbvadu2]

12. Second act... Always something new to learn. I had to look it up.

https://www.americanheritage.com/no-second-acts

KEVIN BAKER’S CRITICISM (IN HIS INTER- view with Harold Evans, September issue) of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s observation that there are no second acts in American lives is, I believe, based on a common misunderstanding of what Fitzgerald meant. Unlike traditional theater, where there was a first act that presented a problem, a second act that looked at complications and alternative solutions, and a third act that resolved it, Americans want to skip the second act and leap immediately to solutions. Any history of America, including, I suspect, Mr. Evans’s, will provide ample evidence of this attitude.

[LiberalFighter]

13. Have to rely on experts that know what they are doing.

Knowing when to return them back to society is difficult.

If it it happens early in life is different from having a long criminal past.

[spike jones]

14. I wonder what was going through Van Houten's mind as she held her victum down

while a guy stabbed her screaming victum 41 times. She is a mad monster that should have been put down 50 years ago.

[Jilly_in_VA]

15. Please

A. She was not in her right mind, she was out of it on acid.
B. it was 50 years ago.
C. Read the addendum comment on my post and THINK about it, FFS.

[spike jones]

16. So, I have thought about it.

Nineteen years old is not a kid. I know guys that had to go to war at nineteen. I have taken acid many times and know of dozens of others who have also. Acid does not make you want to kill people. I have been in love and know hundreds of people that are in love. Love does not make you want to kill people. It was fifty years ago and her victim is still dead. There is certainly no second act for Rosemary. This murderer is evil and should remain in jail until she dies. Let her do her “good” work among the other prisoners. Charles Manson did not kill anyone and he died in jail. You THINK about it. What’s next for you? Releasing the “kid” that shoot-up elementary school children when he rehabilitates himself and finds Jesus or whatever? Many people that commit crimes can be helped, but some people just need to be locked out of society forever.

[Jilly_in_VA]

18. Apparently

you either do not believe that people can change for the better, or do not believe that 50 years is a long time, or do not believe in statistics, or something. (Statistically, people are MUCH less likely to re-offend after 70, but perhaps you didn't know that or don't believe that.) Perhaps you are just too hard-headed to discuss with, which is what it sounds like, in which case I bid you a good day and will go on to further things and possibly even ignore you in the future.

[Skittles]

17. the "friend" sounds like Anne Perry

I agree, I think young folk can be rehabilitated......Ms. Van Houten was still in jail not because of what she did, but because of the notoriety of the victims.

[Joinfortmill]

19. It's the nature of the crime, the close-up, hands-on brutality of it. Both crimes you mention were