Leslie Van Houten stabbed my stepmother 14 times. California can’t parole her | Opinion

In California, parole for violent offenders has become increasingly focused on the concept of rehabilitation and the possibility that a violent offender may return to society and contribute in a positive way.

Evidently, the law applies to everyone equally — at least in theory, no matter the severity of the crimes or the havoc wreaked on society, such as when followers of Charles Manson murdered nine people starting in 1969. The victims included my father Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary — my stepmother.

Opinion

Surviving perpetrators of such crimes have a chance of parole regardless of the unspeakable details of their actions. At the end of May, for example, a California Appeals Court said that Leslie Van Houten – the Manson family follower who helped kill my father and stepmother - should be paroled. Their ruling overturned Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2020 decision to deny parole for Van Houten, who was convicted of stabbing my stepmother 14 times.

“Van Houten has shown extraordinary rehabilitative efforts, insight, remorse, realistic parole plans, support from family and friends, favorable institutional reports, and, at the time of the Governor’s decision, had received four successive grants of parole,” the judges wrote.

These words stand in stark contrast to the horrors endured by my father and stepmother in their final moments before death.

“Mrs. LaBianca’s body, clad in a peignoir and bathrobe, was found on the floor of the master bedroom of her home in a wealthy neighborhood in the Los Feliz district of Los Angeles. A pillowcase was pulled over her head and tied loosely with an electric cord from a lamp,” wrote the New York Times in 1970.

“The body of her 44‐year‐old husband, the owner of four Los Angeles supermarkets, was discovered on the floor beside a living room couch. He was wearing pajamas and his head had also been covered by a pillowcase held in place by a knotted lamp cord. He had been stabbed 12 times. A carving fork was stuck in his abdomen, a kitchen knife in his throat and the word ‘war’ had been cut on his abdomen. He also had 14 puncture wounds in his abdomen, apparently from having been stabbed seven times with the fork.”

It is difficult for me to try and understand the leniency as it currently has been interpreted by the law. Personally, the topic of the 73-year-old Van Houten’s bid for release has been very difficult. I was 13 years old at the time of the murders in 1969.

Before too long, the names of my father and stepmother, and those of the other Manson family victims, became familiar news to many people around the globe, much to my chagrin as a young girl.

How do I react to such news in 2023 that Van Houten may soon be released after 53 years?

Should I speak out and share the personal side of what it means to be a survivor? Should I stay quiet like I always have and let the older members of the family deal with it? My cousin Louis Smaldino has been a pillar of strength for many years, so I have always felt confident and comfortable with his representation at parole hearings and other matters. I have certainly become accustomed to media barrages focused on the Manson cult.

Why should this time be any different? Yet somehow I feel that this time it is very different and becoming increasingly complex.

As someone told me long ago, it might be helpful to keep telling yourself — that was then; this is now.

I tried, but it isn’t working. Lately, I have felt like I am back in my childhood home, 14 again, and trying to finish my homework as my biological mother argues with television newscasters. She would say things like, “Why don’t they just lock all those murderers up and throw away the key? Leno didn’t deserve this fate. He was a good man.” Or “Why don’t they show Leno as the fine man he was — they don’t even mention our suffering.” No wonder I had nightmares for more than a year.

Not only had I lost my dad at a vulnerable age; the trial of the Manson family and the incessant questions from people added to my trauma.

It is my fervent hope that Governor Newsom’s rejection of parole for Van Houten will be reviewed by the state Supreme Court.

“While I commend Ms. Van Houten for her efforts at rehabilitation and acknowledge her youth at the time of the crimes, I am concerned about her role in these killings and her potential for future violence,” Newsom wrote in his 2019 decision to reject parole for Van Houten. “Ms. Van Houten was an eager participant in the killing of the LaBiancas and played a significant role.”

The topic is difficult for me to intellectualize. It is a personal feeling I have, an intuition, an uncertainty about the parole release of a Manson follower, even an ex-follower as one journalist recently reminded me. Although I continue to study the various aspects of the law in order to grasp the situation, doing so always brings back the painful memories of long ago in 1969.

Yet the issue is important now — not only for me or my family but for others who are similarly distraught. The argument that was then, this is now does not apply.

Louise LaBianca is the daughter of Leno LaBianca, who was murdered along with his wife Rosemary in 1969 by members of the Manson family cult.