Van Houten’s Sixth Bid for Parole Rejected

After a grueling six-hour hearing, former Manson “family” member Leslie Van Houten was denied parole Friday for the sixth time for the gory 1969 killings of Rosemary and Leno LaBianca.

“The savagery displayed goes beyond description,” Rudolph Castro, chairman of the three-member Board of Prison Terms panel, said of the crime in announcing the decision at the California Institution for Women here.

Castro, who said after a shorter hearing last year that Van Houten was “much closer than she might realize” to obtaining a release date, told the disappointed 36-year-old woman that she can request a seventh hearing next year.

Van Houten, who told the board she feels remorse for not having tried to prevent the killings, seemed to be fighting back tears.

However, Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Stephen Kay, a prosecutor in each of Van Houten’s three trials, described himself as “very happy” and added, “I was pretty worried this year.”

Castro said that in addition to the crimes themselves, key elements in the panel’s rejection included the fact that Van Houten has never participated in drug abuse programs in prison, even though she took LSD and other substances for several years before her 1969 arrest.

He also said the panel was troubled by Van Houten’s 1982 marriage to ex-convict Bill Cywin, a union that ended in divorce months later, after he was arrested again. When he was picked up, he had in his possession a woman prison guard’s uniform, Kay told the board.

Castro also questioned Van Houten’s lack of specific living arrangements or job plans if released, even though, he acknowledged, the earliest release date she could receive would be in about 10 years. She has been in custody for 16 years.

Thus far, none of the Manson family members directly involved in the killings of the LaBiancas and the Benedict Canyon slayings of actress Sharon Tate and four others has received a parole date. Charles Manson was turned down for parole a sixth time last February, after he read from a rambling, often unintelligible statement that seemed to involve politics, religion and philosophy.

Van Houten, in addition to her conviction in the LaBianca murders, was found guilty of conspiracy in the Tate murders.

Model Prisoner

Panel members Friday termed her a model prisoner. She told them that if released, she would take a secretarial-type job while pursuing an education in paralegal work or office management.

Van Houten spoke reflectively about the murders and the bizarre theories of the Manson family members, who lived in a commune on the remote Spahn movie ranch near Chatsworth.

“I blame myself for not having the ability to prevent the thinking at the ranch at the time and for having gone and not tried in some way to prevent it,” said the one-time Monrovia High School homecoming queen, who at last year’s hearing refused to answer many questions on her attorney’s advice.

She told the board members that at the time of the murders, she was influenced by the charismatic presence of Manson, heavy drug taking and a need to belong.

‘Twisted Caring’

“I was disillusioned with society at the time,” she said. “I was looking for answers and a group to belong to and to be a part of. There was a certain feeling of twisted caring that existed at the ranch. Like a lot of stray dogs finding each other.”

Kay questioned whether she could ever adapt to life in society. Although she is “very bright,” he said, “she has never been happy with leading a normal life.” Throughout her life, he added, she has been “a follower, follower, follower . . . falling in with unstable males.”

Van Houten sat in the hot hearing room with her chin in her hand as Kay argued for keeping her in prison.

Kay called her unsuitable for parole because of “the gravity of the offenses” and predicted, “She’s going to be a follower and led astray.”

The Manson murders, he said, were “at the top of the spectrum of crimes in U.S. history.”

‘Destroy Society’

The prosecutor said of the Tate-LaBianca slayings, “This was really political murder . . . the purpose was to destroy society. I don’t want anybody to wake up and find Miss Van Houten is their next-door neighbor.”

Van Houten’s attorney, Daniel Mrotek, urged the panel to set a release date for her, because “there is no question this prisoner has shown signs of remorse.”

Mrotek said Van Houten has set a series of goals for herself in prison, that she succeeded in earning a bachelor’s degree in 1982, was transfered to a medium-security unit within the Frontera facility and currently works as a clerk for the associate superintendent of the facility.

Van Houten, Manson and three other clan members were originally sentenced to death, but their terms were commuted to life in prison in 1972, when the California Supreme Court struck down the state’s death penalty. Van Houten’s 1971 conviction was later overturned on the grounds that a mistrial should have been declared after her attorney disappeared. A second trial ended in a deadlocked jury, but she was convicted in a third trial and sentenced to life in prison.