# Should Leslie Van Houten (Manson Family) Be Paroled? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 8, 2006, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824 "2006-06-08T00:44:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/201 "2010-07-08T17:25:44Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Nor do I need any. Her crimes speak for themselves. Normal people cannot carve up a nine months pregnant woman with a knife for no reason (literally, for NO reason). Well, plenty of Rwandans did it back in 1994. Or at least, they carved up lots of people generally - I’m certain pregnant women were among that number. Now, one explanation for that might be that Rwanda somehow had a far, far higher portion of psychopaths in its population than most other states - that Rwandans, like the Manson gang, are or were somehow different from the rest of humanity. But that’s not really a satisfying explanation, and there’s no evidence to support it. The better explanation is that mentally healthy people can, under the correct circumstances, do remarkably horrible things. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/202 "2010-07-08T17:27:53Z")
> [@](#): > > Personally, I wish she would write and find someone to publish. I believe she could offer a unique perspective to those young people who have problems. I know she is active in prison…I wish we could hear from her more. What’s the unique perspective she has to offer? That she committed murder? That she’s spent thirty years in prison? I’m thinking there’s plenty of other sixty year old women out there who have done more with their lives and have more useful insights to offer. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/203 "2010-07-08T18:09:57Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > What’s the unique perspective she has to offer? That she committed murder? That she’s spent thirty years in prison? > > I’m thinking there’s plenty of other sixty year old women out there who have done more with their lives and have more useful insights to offer. Perhaps the perspective that’s evidently lacking among some people in this thread that ordinary people sometimes do amazingly horrible things. We could teach it along with “Ordinary Men” and “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families”. ---
**Author:** ![SayWhat\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@SayWhat\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SayWhat_1)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/204 "2010-07-08T19:02:43Z")
She has been in prison nearly 4 decades to reflect on her horrible crime. My opinion, that length of time is extremely significant. Sure there are plenty of sixty year old women who have useful insights. This particular sixty year old woman has been thinking about one horrible nightmare crime for nearly 4 decades and I believe she might have something interesting or unique to say that other sixty year old women would not. They should simply inform her that she has no possibility of parole so she can move. I hate to see anyone or anything suffer. I agree, what she did was horrific…no excuse. I believe she too feels that way…I could be wrong. If she were to author a book, I would read it…there would be an academic value. I am from that period of time in Southern Calif (I’m an old guy)…and as a medical professional I would like to read more. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/205 "2010-07-08T20:17:39Z")
Adolf Eichmann was a loving father who was late off the bus the night he was kidnapped by the Israelis because he had stopped to get a special birthday cake he couldn’t afford for his youngest child; he also sent millions of people to their death with seemingly a complete lack of conscience. Erwin Rommel’s last known words were telling his housekeeper to put his beloved dachshund into another room so she wouldn’t be upset at seeing him led out, and he also was responsible for countless violent deaths of enemies and his own soldiers. A story from the Civil War that’s always stuck with me is of a teenaged girl from a well to do family who’d been sheltered and pampered most of her life and whose house was requisitioned for use as a field hospital (I don’t remember which side used the house or what side her family was on [Tennessee was fiercely divided], not that it matters). The first time she saw a bloody soldier on their property she fainted; within a couple of days she and her little brother and the household servants were tossing water onto the floors to get the blood up and calmly picking up severed limbs, putting them into wheelbarrows and taking them to be burned. There’s a tendency on these boards by otherwise intelligent posters to view all people of a group as inhuman monsters- Nazis, slaveowners, Fundamentalists, Klansmen, whatever, when the truth is they weren’t. Their leaders perhaps were psychopaths- Manson almost certainly is- but psychopaths aren’t magnets who attract other psychopaths to work for them- in fact they probably get along less with their fellow psychopaths than we would since their ability to prey on emotions is their stock in trade. The most horrifying thing about Leslie Van Houten is that I DON’T think she was a monster- she was a girl from an unhappy but not horrible family who wanted to be a nun and she grew up to take part in one of the most famous senseless horrible crimes in U.S. history. I’d love to read Van Houten’s book because it’s fascinating to me how non-horrible people can willingly do horrible things. It’s fascinating to me how hundreds of people killed themselves at Jonestown- many not willingly but many of them were, and almost all of them followed this madman to this hellhole willingly- and I don’t think it’s because they were all retarded sheep- in fact they ran the gamut (ex-cons, law abiding, black, white, poor, well-to-do, educated, illiterate, etc.). It’s also fascinating which ones didn’t commit suicide- some young and able bodied people drank the Flavor Ade and one old lady with cancer successfully hid- she wasn’t going to die like that. Also interesting how society picks and chooses: religious zealots choosing mass suicide at Jonestown: fanatical mass Darwin Award, religious zealots choosing mass suicide at Masada: national heroes- some see John Brown as a hero and some compare him with Timothy McVeigh. While the Mansons have never been heroes to any save the extremely disaffected (and most of them probably poseurs) LVH and Patricia Krenwinkel (who I know much less about) and even Tex Watson (who had some troubles in his past but NOTHING that would imply he would do the things he did) all have stories that need to be told. They’re alive anyway so we shouldn’t waste the opportunity to learn all we can about them. To what extent was it the psychadelic drugs? When did they realize the gravity of what they had done? Was it harder to stab somebody the first time or was it all about the same? Were they in fear of their life at the time? I’d definitely read anything she wrote. Atkins and Watson put out some born-again “God loves me” stuff but it’s largely about how they’re forgiven, I would love to read something more cerebral. Perhaps Waters will cook something up. ---
**Author:** ![BigBertha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@BigBertha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigBertha)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/206 "2010-07-08T21:47:22Z")
Karlene Faith wrote a book about leslie. ---
**Author:** ![SayWhat\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@SayWhat\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SayWhat_1)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/207 "2010-07-08T21:58:35Z")
YouTube has an excellent interview: Larry King Live Leslie Van Houten The Charles Manson FAMILY Murders (1994) Parts 1-6 ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/208 "2010-07-08T21:59:40Z")
“How did it feel when the parole board was making love to you?” ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/209 "2010-07-08T22:35:04Z")
I think Leslie was briefly his 11th wife due to a typo. I may have her confused with Krenwinkel. ---
**Author:** ![pinkyvee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6de8d8/32.png) [@pinkyvee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkyvee)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/210 "2010-07-08T22:56:34Z")
Parole denied. ---
**Author:** ![pinkyvee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6de8d8/32.png) [@pinkyvee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkyvee)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/211 "2010-07-08T23:05:56Z")
Leslie earned life in prison by willingly committing murder. She forfeited a life outside prison. I have no problem with her never getting out. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/212 "2010-07-08T23:20:54Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Perhaps Waters will cook something up. Back in the day I was a casual acquaintance in Baltimore. He is truly interested in True Crime and the people involved. You just know he has a zillion ideas to put LVH and Patty Hearst together somehow. I think he is pragmatic to know that grand plan will never happen, but I think he will find a way to get this story to the public. I just don’t think he will jeopardize any chance at parole by undertaking any project first. ---
**Author:** ![SayWhat\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@SayWhat\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SayWhat_1)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/213 "2010-07-09T00:08:04Z")
Parole Chairman Robert Doyle says Van Houten is “not yet suitable for parole” and is disappointed in lack of depth in the psychological report. Hint: a dozen experts (psychologists, psychiatrists) indicated in their report that Van Houten is a very low risk to society. Chairman Doyle, who was a deputy sheriff, sheriff, and political appointee to the parole board. Hmmm…Mr Doyle, what did you say your education level is? Dude, why not have the balls to tell the truth? Ok so you think she should rot in prison…just say it like it is and let the old woman move on with her life. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/214 "2010-07-09T00:48:00Z")
> [@not\_alice](#): > > Didn’t you say upthread that since the Mansons were the only witnesses, there is no way to know who did what, and so they are all equally culpable? > > So what is the purpose of this post? Hey, Van Houten herself is the source for that. It was my impression that you all believed she was incapable of lying. If you want to drink up everything else she tells you, why not that? Do you dispute it? Do you deny it? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/215 "2010-07-09T00:54:12Z")
> [@not\_alice](#): > > Back in the day I was a casual acquaintance in Baltimore. He is truly interested in True Crime and the people involved. You just know he has a zillion ideas to put LVH and Patty Hearst together somehow. I think he is pragmatic to know that grand plan will never happen, but I think he will find a way to get this story to the public. I just don’t think he will jeopardize any chance at parole by undertaking any project first. I saw an interview with him years ago in which he showed off part of his “collection” of the odd, strange, and curious: a jar of dirt from John Wayne Gacy’s basement, a piece of Hitler’s stationary, a bullet casing allegedly from Gary Gilmore’s execution, and other such stuff. When I first read he was an advocate for Leslie Van Houten I remember thinking “I’m not so sure he’s good for _her_ reputation.”😃 He seems very sincere though, and he’s mellowed a bit with age (he says he genuinely regrets some of the bad-taste true crime humor of his early no-budgets) and he writes well, so I don’t think he’s done her any harm. He said in one interview (I haven’t read the book article, just the HuffPo, so it may from there) that it’s the strangest thing sitting with this gray haired soft spoken woman and remembering that there is a wax figure of her in Mme. Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors, and that she’s completely 100% guilty of what she was accused. Did anybody see the movie [Longford](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0759612/), incidentally? Not being British I was only vaguely familiar with the [Moors Murders](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors_murders) and couldn’t have given you the names of those involved if you’d paid me. For those who haven’t seen it and aren’t familiar with the case, it’s about the long time relationship between Frank Pakenham, Earl of Longford, and Myra Hindley, a convicted mass murderer he visits in prison and becomes an advocate for when he comes to believe in her- not so much innocence as ‘not as guilty as thought’ status. Dramatically the climax is when Longford realizes after years of believing her that she’s been playing him like a fiddle and is as guilty as hell, perhaps more guilty than previously suspicioned The notion of the Waters/Van Houten friendship is an interesting “upside down and backwards” version of the longtime Longford-Hindley friendship. Longford was the anti- Waters: very traditional (hereditary aristocracy, extraordinarily devout Catholic, zealously anti gay rights [not touched on in the movie really, possibly because his views in the 1970s would make him seem too unsympathetic in any way to today’s audiences though he was far from unlikeable [visited prisoners almost daily for decades], an intellectual and patriarch of an intellectual family (his daughter Antonia Fraser is a well known biographer- I’d read a couple of her books before I ever heard of her father) and medieval scholar, vs. Waters, an openly gay atheistic counter-culture icon whose interests tended to the macabre and to camp, who delights in tastelessness and who skewers pretty much everything that was dear to Longford. I could see a \*Frost/Nixon \*style adaptation of _Waters/Van Houten_ being one amazing play. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/216 "2010-07-09T00:56:26Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Hey, Van Houten herself is the source for that. It was my impression that you all believed she was incapable of lying. If you want to drink up everything else she tells you, why not that? Do you dispute it? Do you deny it? She admits she was there, that she put a pillowcase over Rosemary Labianca’s head, that she stabbed her repeatedly, that she ate her food and wrote in the Labianca’s blood and played with their dogs before she left that evening, and that she lied under oath about it. What more do you want her to admit? That she wore white after Labor Day that year? ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/217 "2010-07-09T00:59:20Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Hey, Van Houten herself is the source for that. It was my impression that you all believed she was incapable of lying. If you want to drink up everything else she tells you, why not that? Do you dispute it? Do you deny it? So you are not going to answer the question? Why not? ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/218 "2010-07-09T01:05:44Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > He seems very sincere though, and he’s mellowed a bit with age (he says he genuinely regrets some of the bad-taste true crime humor of his early no-budgets) and he writes well, so I don’t think he’s done her any harm. I think he has mellowed, but I don’t think he truly regrets anything, why should he? It got him where he (and many of the early friends) where they are - with nice lives. I bet he misses Devine and Edie fiercely but in the end their deaths were inevitable. I think he has moved on in a sense, he works in different circles now, especially regarding finance for his projects, and he probably needs to finesse his past somewhat there to reassure people they are not investing in one of the original movies. He is a charmer though, he is fine I am sure. I don’;t think he wants to be a characature of himself, and he isn’t, good for him! ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/219 "2010-07-09T01:12:27Z")
> [@not\_alice](#): > > He is a charmer though, he is fine I am sure. I don’;t think he wants to be a characature of himself, and he isn’t, good for him! I’ve known a couple of people over the years who have met him- one was an actor friend was an extra in _Serial Mom_ and spent a day with him, another was a ‘media escort’ [well, nothing quite that formal, but similar] who drove him around a college town where he had a speaking engagement, and former Doper Eve knew him fairly well. These people never met each other and they knew him at different times and in different capacities from each other. What impressed me was that ALL of them said he’s probably the nicest celebrity they ever met. ---
**Author:** ![SayWhat\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@SayWhat\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SayWhat_1)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/220 "2010-07-09T01:34:17Z")
I read the John Waters: Leslie Van Houten: A Friendship, Part 1-5 tonight. Thanks for the reference. Interesting and good reading. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824.md?page=12)