Free Republic

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A California parole panel recommended the release of Patricia Krenwinkel for the first time Thursday, more than five decades after she and other followers of cult leader Charles Manson terrorized the state and she wrote “Helter Skelter” on a wall using the blood of one of their victims. Krenwinkel, 74, was previously denied parole 14 times for the slayings of pregnant actor Sharon Tate and four other people in 1969. She helped kill grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary the next night in what prosecutors say was an attempt by Manson to start a race...

LONDON, Aug 2 — They were the murders that ended the 1960s, the decade of love, in a bloodbath that shocked the world. Now, on the 40th anniversary of the killing of Hollywood actress Sharon Tate and her friends by Charles Manson's "Family", the gang member whose testimony convicted the killers has revealed for the first time her full involvement in the crimes. On the night of Aug 9, 1969, Linda Kasabian was sent by Manson with three other members of his Family — Tex Watson, Susan Atkins and Patricia "Katie" Krenwinkel — to break into Tate's home. There they...

It’s hard to believe it has been almost fifty years since the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders of 1969. Unfortunately, we are reminded of these murders on too regular a basis. They were again in the news recently when Gov. Brown overruled the parole board’s recommendation to release Leslie Van Houten, one of several Manson Family members convicted of murder. Good call -- she is where she belongs. If you lived in southern California at the time, you likely have strong memories of those events. It was an unusually hot August that year, when the Tate murders hit the news. Six people...

A Charles Manson follower has been ordered to remain in prison after parole board officials rejected her claim she was a changed woman. The two-member panel said the viciousness and notoriety of Patricia Krenwinkel's crimes outweighed her efforts at rehabilitation behind bars. Krenwinkel, now 63, wept and apologised during the hearing, but officials said the deaths of seven people in the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders 'remained relevant'.