I wonder if she still has that scar between her eyes?
I think the scars behind her eyes are probably the ones we all ought to be a bit concerned about.
Van Houten could get her memoirs published, like Squeaky Fromme.*
*reported a few years ago as peacefully living in a rural outbuilding decorated with skulls, along with her boyfriend, a reported “Manson fanatic”.
That was fast. Its going to take some getting used to, being able to go where she wants when she wants. Me, I’d walk around all day.
Was John there to greet her?
Maybe she should avoid any weirdo hippies with a cult following.
Does California have “Son of Sam” type laws, to prevent her from making any profits book deals?
I talked with someone once who met Squeeky in a business type setting. He said after a few minutes talking with her it finally dawned on him who she was, and at that same moment she realized that he recognized her. Said it was really creepy, neither brought it up. Never know who you’re gonna meet sometime.
There’s a follower perhaps yet today, in Nebraska, a brief “family member” who was kicked out of the group at Spahn Ranch. Runaway, ended up there. Parents get a long distance collect phone call. It’s Charlie! Come get your daughter, he says. She’s a little too weird.
John Waters is not a weirdo hippie!
I think it’s her - she’s the one that has a replica diorama model set of Spahn Ranch in her living room.
What’s weird about cult members, old line communists and nazis, et al, they rarely if ever become contrite or remorseful or deprogrammed. They don’t come back to reality, they are usually True Believers till the end. Must be a one way ticket.
I’m pretty sure I’ve heard Waters refer to himself and his troupe in the 60s-70s as such. Regardless, it was just a joke.
Tis okay. The article says she has to learn how to use a computer, cell phone, card, etc. Culture shock.
I wonder if anyone else is next, to be released. Bobby?
The inside of a car will be a huge shock. Digital gauges, touchscreen, key fob.
It’s not grandad’s 64 Chevy.
She’s watched movies and tv shows and read magazines. She’ll know what a new car looks like from the inside and that they have key fobs.
I think of myself as an affable fellow. One of my friends once told me, “I think you’re the only guy I know who would just shrug off someone taking a shot at you.” I certainly don’t think of myself as vindictive of revenge-oriented, but if someone killed my wife, my kid, or someone I really, really loved there’s a good chance I’m going to hate that person an awful lot. I might not ever be able to forgive them.
I think you’ve got the right idea here.
Which makes we wonder a LOT about the future of the USA once the current very popular Reactionary Wacko Traitor cult loses its leader and eventually some of its major cheerleaders / hangers-on.
Story time …
When I was a kid I knew a 40-something guy my Dad dealt with in his business regularly. The guy had come to the USA from Germany in about 1947. When he was then about age 17. At the time I knew him he had a skilled aviation engineering sort of job. As a teen I hung out with him a bit at his work and briefly considered going into a similar career myself.
He was a pleasant affable fellow with a pronounced Cherman accent to his precise English. Until anything about politics, banking, the war, or Jews somehow entered the conversation. Evidently the Hitler Jugend had thoroughly programmed him and once he was triggered full-bore frothing unrepentant Nazism came boiling out and there was no stopping him. This was 20-30 years after the war had ended.
I lost touch with him when I went off to college. He’d be in his early 90s now if still alive. I doubt he’s gotten better.
Byron White, who voted in 1972 for the death penalty moratorium (which saved Houten’s life), then reversed his opinion, and voted for reinstatement, said in an interview I heard on NPR replayed when he died, that he never imagined “victim impact” statements becoming part of death penalty cases, and if he had, might either have reconsidered, or at least have tried to structure the decision so as to exclude them.
Which reminds me of something else I read, a very long time ago, so long ago, I remember little about it except that it was written by someone Jewish, and I know that only because it appeared in a Jewish publication. The thrust of it was whether killing someone with a large family and lots of friends ought to be a worse crime than killing someone who was introverted, obscure, itinerant, or had aged out of foster care and had no family. If you thought victim-impact statements should influence juries, than you were essentially saying “Yes.”
Technically, and it’s a thin reed, but it wasn’t Byron “Whizzer” White (Supreme Court) that saved Van Houten’s life. If I’m not mistaken, it was the California supreme court that outlawed the death penalty. The SCOTUS decision came later, so it was moot by then.
For some reason I am reminded of Japan - apparently they do not have a set date for execution, so the condemned have to wonder every day “is this the day”, or whenever they hear footsteps coming down the hall or whatever. Nice.
I’m going against the grain here, but no, Leslie Van Houten should die in prison. A life sentence should be a life sentence. Leslie participated in two gruesome murders, and there is no doubt of her guilt.
If the death penalty is abolished, something I support BTW, then the ultimate penalty should be life in prison without parole. Period. Doesn’t matter if the prisoner has reformed, or is completely a different wonderful person now, or old and sickly. Leno and Rosemary didn’t get the chance to get old and sickly. There are some things in life that you can’t come back from and murder is one of them.
No, there’s no danger that Leslie will kill again. But that’s not the point. She hasn’t paid back what she owes society. She can’t. The LaBiancas are still gone.
That would require a change in California law, to eliminate the existing parole system. As the law stands now, murder convicts have the right to apply for parole.
Well, “no amount of rehabilitation or reform will ever suffice” is an opinion on morals. The release though is a matter of law.
ISTM that when the capital punishment was stricken at the time, the next level of punishment under the laws of the state was life with the possibility of parole. The court could not legislate from the bench creating life w/o parole to everyone formerly on death row, and the legislature could not legislate it either because that would be ex post facto law.