Leslie Van Houten was convicted of the brutal 1969 slayings of LA grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary and has been denied parole five times previously.
A former follower of infamous cult leader and killer Charles Manson was released on parole Tuesday after spending more than five decades in a California prison for murder.
Leslie Van Houten, 73, was convicted, along with other cult members, for her role in the brutal 1969 slayings of Los Angeles grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary when she was 19 years old. She had served 53 years behind bars.
During a two-day spree in August 1969, Manson instructed a handful of his followers — including Van Houten, Susan Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkel — to kill seven people. One of the victims included 26-year-old actress Sharon Tate, who was eight months pregnant at the time of her death.
Also murdered were coffee heiress Abigail Folger, writer Voytek Frykowski, hairstylist Jay Sebring and 18-year-old delivery boy Steven Parent.
![Sharon Tate and hair dresser Jay Sebring pose for a portrait on a plane circa 1966](https://people.com/thmb/Uu9wyzCet6kgGUOtda3Un9O_jIw=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(749x0:751x2):format(webp)/jay-sebring-sharon-tate-071223-1-5d00dd8b36a24cafa957a0394fb05dbd.jpg)
Manson and his followers, including Van Houten, were convicted in 1971 and ultimately given life sentences, being spared execution after California temporarily banned the death penalty.
‘A Real-Life Monster’: How Charles Manson Terrorized America
The killings were part of a plot by Manson to start a race war, which he named “Helter Skelter” after the Beatles song. The career criminal died of natural causes in November 2017. He was 83 and serving nine life sentences in California’s Corcoran State Prison at the time of his death. Though found legally responsible for the murders, he never technically committed them directly.