Leslie van Houten, who will turn 74 on August 23, has little to do with the 19-year-old who in the summer of 1969, along with other members of the clan led by Charles Manson, participated in the murder of merchants Rosemary and Leno LaBianca at her home in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. It was days after the massacre that the Manson family took the lives of Sharon Tate and four of her guests in the house that the actress, then pregnant, shared in Beverly Hills with her husband, the filmmaker Roman Polansky, at that time in Europe.
Van Houten stabbed Rosemary LaBianca "about 16 times" in the lower back when the woman was lying on the ground after receiving a few other stab wounds and bayonets from the other two direct perpetrators of the double murder, Tex Watson and Patricia Krenwinkel. The victim had heard Watson kill her husband.
Once the crime was perpetrated, Leslie cleaned the house of fingerprints, changed her clothes, and hitchhiked back to Spahn's ranch, Manson's estate, and his troupe of hallucinated and soulless. Van Houten was then a blind follower of the famous psychopath, considered one of the cruelest murderers of the 20th century.
After a uneventful childhood and adolescence, except for her parents' divorce, the young woman had gone from being a "homecoming queen" at Monrovia, California, to a somewhat disoriented, drug-addicted hippie, like hundreds of others. of thousands of his generation at that time. In between, an abortion at age 17.
What a psychiatrist assigned to her case would also describe as "a spoiled little princess" entered the Manson clan in the fall of 1968 at the hands of a spontaneous friend, Bobby Beausoleil, who would become her lover.
On the day of the fivefold murder at the Polansky home, Leslie stayed home "taking care of the children." And she felt left out of the expedition. That's why the next day she wanted to show off before her adored leader and fulfill her part.
Van Houten was found guilty of two counts of first degree murder and one count of conspiracy to murder. She was initially sentenced to death, but her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
It took her a while to accept and become aware of what she had done. “She went through a long job to break away from the cult mentality and accept responsibility for her crimes,” her attorney, Nancy Tetreault, said at her release Tuesday.
But once he accepted the seriousness of his actions, Van Houten became an example of rehabilitation. Through correspondence courses, he earned a bachelor's degree in English literature and a master's degree; he was active in Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous groups; he edited a prison newspaper, and became involved in programs to teach other inmates to read. He expressed his regret and shame over and over again. And he didn't get into trouble.
His release on probation after 53 years of sentence, numerous judicial refusals and vetoes by the governors on duty is a rare example of a commitment to reintegration, rather than social revenge, in a country where blood crimes have great repercussions. media tend to be punished as severely as possible and to the end.
The appeals court judge who decided the release, Helen Bendix, explained the decision thus: "Van Houten has demonstrated extraordinary efforts of rehabilitation, insight, remorse, realistic parole plans." And he has the necessary support from family and friends, as well as "institutional support." In short, he is no longer a monster and has the right to return to society.
Charles Manson died in prison in 2017. And four other members of his clan remain in jail. 54 years have passed, but no one forgets what they did.
