Former member of murderous Manson crew is recommended for parole

By Adeel Hassan

Patricia Krenwinkel, a onetime follower of cult leader Charles Manson who was convicted in the murders of seven people in the summer of 1969 in Los Angeles, should be released on parole, a panel of the California parole board recommended last week.

Krenwinkel, 77, the state’s longest-serving female inmate, is one of two Manson followers connected with the August 1969 murder spree who remain in prison.

She was sent to death row in 1971. After the state’s highest court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972, Krenwinkel’s sentence was reduced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, as it was for all those convicted in the Manson group’s murders.

Krenwinkel, who has spent the last 54 years in the California Institution for Women in Chino, first became eligible for parole in 1976. This was her 16th appearance before the parole suitability panel.

The provisional decision has to be reviewed by the legal division of the Board of Parole Hearings. That process can take up to four months, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

If the full board agrees with the panel’s recommendation, Gov. Gavin Newsom has 30 days to review its decision. He could reject it, or send it back for further review.

In 2022, the parole board panel recommended that Krenwinkel be paroled but Newsom reversed its decision, according to state records. Newsom wrote at the time that Krenwinkel “still poses an unreasonable danger to society if paroled at this time.”

“At her parole hearing, Ms. Krenwinkel accepted responsibility for her direct crimes, yet she continued to shift disproportionate blame to Mr. Manson for decisions and conduct within her control,” Newsom wrote.

At the four-hour hearing Friday, Krenwinkel did not speak, but family members of her victims read statements opposing her release.

“For years, this woman laughed about the murders in court and showed absolutely no remorse at all,” wrote Debra Tate, Sharon Tate’s sister, in an online petition Friday. “Society cannot allow this serial killer who committed such horrible, gruesome, random killings back out.”

Krenwinkel and other followers of Manson engaged in a two-night murderous rampage, beginning on Aug. 9, 1969.

They stormed the home shared by actress Sharon Tate, 26, and her husband, film director Roman Polanski.

Tate, who was pregnant, and four others — Thomas Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski and Steven Earl Parent — were stabbed and shot to death. Polanski was in Europe at the time.

Krenwinkel testified to chasing Folger, a coffee heiress, with a knife and stabbing her 28 times. She later testified at trial that her hand throbbed from stabbing so many times.

The next night, Krenwinkel and the other Manson followers killed a grocery store executive, Leno LaBianca, and his wife, Rosemary, at their home. Both homes had walls smeared with blood, and Krenwinkel used blood to scrawl the words “Death to pigs.”

In 1971, a Los Angeles jury convicted Krenwinkel on seven counts of murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. In the 14 previous parole denials, panelists cited the brutality of the murders.

Charles Manson and three of his followers, in addition to Krenwinkel, were convicted of all the murders in 1971.

Manson, who died in prison in 2017, did not personally kill the victims, but he was found guilty of ordering their murders as part of a delusional plot to ignite a race war.

One of the other followers, Susan Atkins, died in prison in 2009. Another follower, Charles Watson, 79, remains in a prison in Los Angeles County. Linda Kasabian, who was a Manson follower but became the prosecution’s lead witness and testified against him, died in 2023.

Separately, Leslie Van Houten, who played a role in the second night’s double murder, was released on parole in 2023, after serving more than half a century in prison.

A lawyer who has represented Krenwinkel at past hearings, Keith Wattley, was not immediately available for comment Saturday.

At earlier hearings, Wattley has insisted that medical professionals who have examined Krenwinkel have determined that she poses no danger to society.

At her hearing in 2016, Krenwinkel said that she was “just haunted each and every day by the unending suffering my participation in murders caused.”

“I’m so ashamed of my actions,” she said. “I am ever aware that the victims who perished had so much life yet to live.”

Family members of the victims remain opposed to the release. Chief among them is Tate, who often attends parole hearings for Manson family members.

“I’ve been asking for a program called restorative justice — which would be a face-to-face meeting — for many, many years now, and they’ve all refused,” Tate said in an interview Saturday.

“They could have an opportunity to actually sit down face-to-face and say they’re sorry, but they won’t do it,” she added. “When you refuse to talk and your victims’ families are asking for it over and over again, isn’t that yet another kind of torture? Isn’t that another way not to allow any kind of conclusion or peace to happen?”