Leslie Van Houten: A Friendship, Part 1 of 5

I have a really good friend who was convicted of killing two innocent people when she was nineteen years old on a horrible night of 1969 cult madness. Her name is Leslie Van Houten and I think you would like her as much as I do. She was one of those notorious "Manson girls" who shaved their heads, carved X's in their foreheads and laughed, joked, and sang their way through the courthouse straight to death row without the slightest trace of remorse forty years ago. Leslie is hardly a "Manson girl" today. Sixty years old, she looks back from prison on her involvement in the La Bianca murders (the night after the Tate massacre) in utter horror, shame, and guilt and takes full responsibility for her part in the crimes. I think it's time to parole her.

I am guilty, too. Guilty of using the Manson murders in a jokey, smart-ass way in my earlier films without the slightest feeling for the victims' families or the lives of the brainwashed Manson killer kids who were also victims in this sad and terrible case. I became obsessed by the Sharon Tate murders from the day I read about them on the front page of the New York Times in 1969 as I worked behind the counter of the Provincetown Book Shop. Later, when the cops finally caught the hippy killers and I actually saw their photos ("Arrest Weirdo in Tate Murders", screamed the New York Daily News headlines) I almost went into cardiac arrest. God! The Manson Family looked just like my friends at the time! Charles "Tex" Watson, a deranged but handsome preppy "head" who reminded me of Jimmy, the frat-boy-gone-bad pot-dealer I had the hots for in Catholic high school, the guy who sold me my first joint. There was Susan Atkins, a.k.a. Sadie Mae Glutz, devil go-go girl, with an LSD sense of humor just like Mink Stole's sister Mary (nickname: "Sick") whom I lived with at the time in Provincetown in a commune in a tree fort. And look at Patricia Krenwinkle, a.k.a. Katie, a flower-child earth-mother just like Flo-Ann who squatted with us that wonderful summer on Cape Cod. And, of course, my favorite, Leslie Van Houten, a.k.a. Lulu, "the pretty one". The homecoming princess from suburbia who gave up her title for acid. The all-American girl who went beyond insanity to unhinged criminal glamour just like Mona, my last girlfriend, who took LSD and shoplifted and starred in my underground movies all under my influence. Until, that is, the day she caught me in bed with a man (who looked kind of like Steve "Clem" Grogan, another Manson fanatic) and dumped the contents of an entire garbage can on us as we lay sleeping.

"The Manson Family" were the hippies all our parents were scared we'd turn into if we didn't stop taking drugs. The "slippies", as Manson later called his followers, the insane ones who didn't understand the humor in Yippie Abbie Hoffman's fiery speeches on his college lecture tours when he told the stoned, revolutionary-for-the-hell-of-it students to "kill their parents". Yes, Charlie's posse were the real anarchists who went beyond the radical SDS group's call to "Bring the War Home". Beyond blowing up their parents' townhouses, draft boards, even the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. Sure, my friends went to riots every weekend in different cities in the '60s to get laid or get high, just like kids went to "raves" decades later. But, God, this was a cultural war, not a real one and the survivors of this time now realize we were in a "play" revolution, no matter what we spouted. But the Manson Family! Yikes! Here was the real thing -- "punk" a decade too early. Dare I say it? Yes, the filthiest people alive.

Even before the Manson Family had been caught, "The Dreamlanders", my gang of actors, took credit for the Tate/La Bianca crimes in a $5,000-budgeted movie entitled Multiple Maniacs which I wrote, directed and shot in Baltimore in the fall of 1969. Divine's character tortures David Lochary's with knowledge of the murders. "How about Sharon Tate?" she threatens, "How about THAT?!" "I told you never to mention that again!" David pleads but Divine won't let it go. "Had yourself a real ball that night, didn't you?!" she chortles. "Who's Sharon Tate?" Divine's dimwitted but studly teenage bodyguard character "Ricky" asks. "It doesn't matter, darling," Divine coos lecherously, dismissing his nosiness, "go fix yourself a sandwich."

Later, after Manson was arrested, I drove across the country for the first time in my life to Los Angeles for the California premiere of Multiple Maniacs and the next day began attending the insane LSD media-circus Manson trial which I've never really gotten over. After Manson and the three girls were convicted of the Tate/ La Bianca murders and sentenced to death, my rabid following of the subsequent but much lesser-known Manson-related trials never ceased. I needed to know more. How had these kids, from backgrounds so similar to mine, committed in real life the awful crimes against peace and love that we were acting out for comedy in our films?

In late 1971, still free, second-tiered Manson Family members robbed the Western Surplus Store in the suburbs of Los Angeles and stole 14 guns (supposedly to break Manson out of jail) and a shoot-out with the police occurred. All six robbers were arrested. At their trial, many members of Manson royalty, now awaiting the promised Helter Skelter end of the world from death row, were called as witnesses by the robber defendants so they could have a courtroom reunion of sorts. The nervous trial judge called the proceedings "the biggest collection of murderers in Los Angeles County at one time". There were only two court spectators the day I went to a pre-trial hearing; myself and a lower-echelon Manson groupie with a shaved head and a fresh X carved in her forehead who was furiously writing what looked like a thirty-page letter to one of her "brothers". When about fifteen of the Manson Family were brought into court, hand-cuffed and chained together, women on one side and men on the other, many with their heads shaved, the atmosphere was electric with twisted evil beauty. Not having seen each other in about a year, the cultists started chanting, jerkily gesturing, and speaking to one another in a nonsensical language that only the Family could understand. Sexy, scary, brain-dead, and dangerous, this gang of hippy lunatics gave new meaning to "folie à famille", group madness and insanity as long as the same people are together and united. It was an amazing thing to see in person. Heavily influenced, and actually jealous of their notoriety, I went back to Baltimore and made Pink Flamingos which I wrote, directed and dedicated to the "Manson girls", "Sadie, Katie and Les".

Then I went deeper into the Manson flame and started visiting Charles "Tex" Watson in prison. "What on earth were you thinking?" you may wonder and today it is a question I have to ask myself. In Los Angeles I had met his post-conviction girlfriend Lu, a German hippy girl with an obvious off-kilter sensibility who had come to America speaking little English and accidentally met some of the still-free "Manson girls" as the initial trial was taking place. "God, kids sure are wild in the United States," she told me she remembered thinking, not understanding how different these hippies were from the American love-children she had read about back in Munich and hoped to hook up with when she came to our shores. But Lu would only go so far. Refusing the demands to shave her skull, she broke away from the unincarcerated B-list Family members to the relative safety of a "jailhouse" love affair with "Tex", a convicted killer who was still clearly out of his mind and had almost no chance of ever being paroled.

Charles "Tex" Watson was perhaps Manson's best piece of work; a high-school football star who turned hippy and came to L.A. like millions of other kids to find '60s grooviness. Instead he met Manson and was turned into a killer zombie in just ten LSD, Belladonna-drenched months. "Tex" personally stabbed or shot all nine Tate/La Bianca victims. Lu and I would hitchhike to the California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo from either L.A or San Francisco to visit him and I wrote about our times, rather inappropriately and with little insight, in my book Shock Value.

At that time, Charles Watson was no longer "Tex", but he was definitely still coming out of his Manson indoctrination. You could tell by the toy wooden helicopter he made me in jail, decorated with words like "Game is Blame", "Tweak", and "Fear". I used it in the credits of my next movie, Female Trouble, a fictitious biopic of a woman who is brainwashed into believing "crime is beauty". The film was also dedicated to Charles "Tex" Watson, and a few critics -- quite correctly, I guess -- were appalled by my flippant disregard for the terrible aftermath of these crimes. Maybe I had taken too much acid myself? How could these villainous murders seem so abstractly "transgressive" to me? Could a movie ever be as influential as these monstrous crimes?

Was Manson's dress rehearsal for homicide, known as "creepy crawling", some kind of humorous terrorism that might have been fun? Breaking silently into middle-class "pigs'" homes with your friends while you are tripping on LSD and gathering around the sleeping residents in their beds, not to harm them but to watch them sleep (the way Warhol did in that movie) and "experiencing the fear"? It does sound like it could have been a mind-bending adventure. When the Mansonites went further and moved the furniture around before they left, just to fuck with the waking homeowners' perception of reality, was this beautiful or evil? Could the Manson Family's actions also be some kind of freakish "art"?

When Charles Watson left behind his "Tex" persona for good, found Jesus Christ, and became saved, he and Lu broke up and I slowly drifted away from the visiting room. While I understand his need to find comfort and forgiveness I wasn't a born-again believer and I sometimes made insanely sacrilegious movies so we now had little in common. He then got married to a fellow-Christian on the outside, started a ministry, and through conjugal visits fathered three children (who have turned out fine), much to the horror of Sharon Tate's family and the citizens of California. Lu went back to Germany and had an un-Manson child of her own and we stayed in touch right up to her sad death from emphysema a few years ago. I remember once staying in some fancy hotel in Munich on a studio promotional tour for Cry-Baby where I invited Lu over for a visit, not having seen her in person for many years. The concierge called up to my room and said, "We're not sure if it's a man or a woman, but there's somebody here who claims you told them to come over and we're sure it's a mistake." "Is her name Lu?" I asked. "Well...yes," he stammered. "Send her up!" I bellowed. Lu had cut off most of her hair (not sure if for politics or fashion) and was now obsessed with Sarajevo refugees and I loved hearing her rant about jumping out of military helicopters (in her mind?) to spread the word for her new cause. Charles Watson is, to no one's surprise, still in prison and once or twice a year we correspond politely and he always sends kind words.

In 1985, ten years or so after Charles Watson and I had last seen one another, I was doing some journalistic pieces for Rolling Stone and they asked me to interview Manson. I had little curiosity about a man who had reminded me of someone you'd move away from in a bar in Baltimore, and was still much more interested in the followers who had come to their senses and were now definitely ex-followers. Leslie Van Houten always seemed the one that could have somehow ended up making movies with us instead of running with the killer dune-buggy crowd. She was pretty, out of her mind, rebellious, with fashion-daring, a good haircut, and a taste for LSD -- just like the girls in my movies. Instead of being a "good soldier" for Charlie and participating in the murders of Leno and Rosemary La Bianca, which she certainly believed was the right thing to do at the time, I wish she had been with us in Baltimore on location for Pink Flamingos the day Divine ate dog shit for real (our own cultural Tate/La Bianca). Maybe she would have enjoyed cinematic anti-social glee and movie anarchy just as much as a misguided race-war entitled Helter Skelter designed by a criminal megalomaniac who believed The Beatles were speaking directly to him. If Leslie had met me instead of Charlie, could she have gone to the Cannes Film Festival instead of the California Institute for Women? Actually, I think if Leslie hadn't met either of us she might have ended up as a studio executive in the movie business in Los Angeles. A good one, too.

So I pleaded with Jann Wenner, the editor of Rolling Stone, to let me interview Leslie, "the only one who has a chance of ever getting out", the one I could tell from press reports had broken from Manson's control and was beginning to see that the apocalyptical scenario Manson had preached was complete bullshit. What a painful, horrible realization that must have been!

In 1972, Leslie's death sentence (and those of her co-defendants) had been abolished by the California State Supreme Court and like all death penalty prisoners at the time, her sentence had been changed to life in prison. Not life without parole. The two other female death-penalty cases at the time besides the three "Manson girls", also murderesses with very serious cases, were paroled eight or nine years later with little fanfare or outrage.

In 1976, Leslie's original conviction was thrown out due to "ineffectual counsel" (her original lawyer drowned in the middle of her trial and was replaced) and she was given a new trial in 1977. This time, she was all by herself as a defendant in the courtroom. Remorse had started to creep in soon after she was imprisoned away from Manson. Locked away forever, Leslie, Susan, and Patricia were of no further use to Charlie and he dropped them quickly. The outsider voices of reason from the prison social workers started to seep in and Leslie began to see the holes in Manson's brainwashing. "When I'd be questioned," she later told author Karlene Faith for her very insightful and intelligent but little known book The Long Prison Journey of Leslie Van Houten, "I'd go blank and become frustrated like when a machine jams and just sits there making noise. In my head nothing was functioning. I was trying to understand, breaking down stiff little slogans that had been drilled into me." When two other "Manson girls", Mary Brunner and Catherine Shaw, a.k.a. "Gypsy", were sent to jail and placed with Leslie, Susan and Patricia, Leslie grew tired of listening to their Manson talk and confided to Patricia that "I've changed. I'm not into this." "It took three years to understand" and five or six years of therapy to "take responsibility" for the terrible crime she had helped commit.

Leslie finally had a good lawyer for her second trial. Taking the witness stand truthfully for the first time, she tried to explain her state of mind through the Manson madness and his control techniques. And the jury listened, too. After about twenty-five days of deliberation there was a hung jury; seven voted for guilty of first-degree murder, and five for manslaughter due to her cult domination and uncertain mental health at the time of the crime.

Refusing to offer a plea bargain, the prosecutor took her to trial for a third time in 1978 and added a felony robbery motive (clothes, a wallet and a few coins had been taken from the La Bianca home), a crime that now couldn't legally be excused by state of mind. But this time Leslie made bail and was released from prison. She found employment as a law clerk and lived in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles. She was free for six months and lived quietly, unnoticed by the press. When a few of her new neighbors found out who she really was, after they already thought they knew her, all were "supportive" and "protective" of her anonymity.

When Leslie's third trial finally began, she came to court every day on her own. Long gone was the shaved head, and the X on her forehead was covered by bangs. No more trippy little riot-on-Sunset-Strip, satin miniskirt outfits either, like the ones she and her female co-defendants wore to the first trial. This time she was dressed tastefully and looked lovely, something that obviously didn't sit well with Stephen Kay, the prosecutor who had inherited all the Manson-related cases from Vincent Bugliosi. "All dolled up", Mr. Kay cracked to the press, giving Leslie one of her first, but definitely not last, opinionated fashion reviews. When she was finally convicted of first-degree murder at the end of the trial, life imprisonment suddenly became very real.

Rolling Stone gave me the go-ahead to pursue the Leslie Van Houten interview so, in 1985, seven years after her final conviction, I wrote to "The Friends of Leslie", a now-disbanded, loose-knit support group made up of Leslie's real family (Mom, Dad, brothers, sisters -- all glad to have her back from Manson even if it was in prison) and her jail-house teachers and counselors who had seen how this teenage girl had been completely dominated by one of the most notorious madmen of our time during the 1960s, a decade which may never be surpassed in misguided revolutionary lunacy. Susan Talbot, one of the organizers, who met Leslie through classes offered in prison through Antioch College wrote me back and told me that Leslie was not interested in being in Rolling Stone or any other magazine at the time, but recommended I write Leslie to see if there was any rapport. In other words, Susan (who did know who I was, whereas Leslie did not) was intrigued and slightly puzzled by my offer of support but mistrustful of my intentions. Who could blame her?

Excerpted from the book Role Models by John Waters, to be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2010. Role Models is a self- portrait told through intimate literary profiles of his favorite personalities; some famous, some unknown, some criminal, some alarmingly middle of the road.

Comments

[Krisgi]

I´m sure Leslie Van Houten is a much better, kinder, more generous, and more reflexive and giving person now than I am on most days, but ask yourself WHY and HOW she got that way. She has nothing but time on her hands, nowhere else to go, nothing to worry about, and only herself to focus on. It´s all about HER. And has always been, I would venture to say. Homecoming Queen turned Groupie Murderess.­.. the epitome of the Narcissistic Chick, empathy-less personality.

I am glad that she has understood the full weight and horror of what she and the others did. That is the least that we, as a society, could expect from people like them after 40 years in the can.

Thank you very much, Leslie, but you do not get a Brownie button.

[VictimsRightsAdvocate]

MANSON FOLLOWERS TO RECEIVE PAROLE? NEVER!

During August of 1969, willing followers of Charles Manson set out to commit acts of such brutality and savagery that they boggle the human mind. We are talking about All of the Manson followers who carved other human beings up as cattle at a slaughter house. Hinman, Shea and the Tate-LaBianca murders. Many people, minds glazed over by 40 years of apathy, now see these butchers as ready for parole. Why? What is the name of Heaven gives any of these Murderers the right to think that they deserve parole? Just because they have stayed out of trouble while serving their sentences? Because they have become religious people while in jail? Ok, maybe they have assisted and made positive impacts on their fellow inmates during that time. And yes, maybe some of those prisoners’ lives will be enriched and changed due to this intervention and assistance. But isn’t that the purpose of “rehabilitation” as the system is set up for? But parole? Not in this lifetime!
How does anyone ever repay for a life they took away from the victim? Or the victim’s family and friends who will forever feel the loss and pain? By just spending a “few” years behind bars? I think not.
These killers massacred, not just “killed” but carved their victims up. They felt absolutely nothing but contempt and joy from their victims’ pain and suffering

[VictimsRightsAdvocate]

Cold-blooded murders who went about their acts with a satanic delight. And even bragged about their deeds later. Add to that the fact that they did not even know their victims, had no reason to even be angry with their victims, let alone such hatred as to warrant this type of butchery. Mindless followers of a Cult leader? Followers yes, mindless no, they had the chance to “just say no”. They chose with fervor to “say YES”. They made their choices, now they must accept their punishment for those choices, their “complete” punishment. In the annuals of criminal history, few crimes are as barbaric, heinous or savage as those these people committed.
Parole? I will agree to their parole when this condition applies. They took the lives of innocent people, lives forever lost, never to be lived again. The victims did not “ask” for their lives to be terminated so early, and Sharon’s unborn baby NEVER got a life at all. When those “killers” can restore those lost lives, bring back those victims they murdered, allow those innocent dead to live and enjoy their lives again, then and ONLY then will these butchers be eligible for parole. Dead is dead, never to be alive again. These killers were given “parole” as such when their death sentences were reduced to live imprisonment. That is the only parole they should ever be considered for. They must remain behind bars where they belong for the entire remainder of their lives.

[VictimsRightsAdvocate]

Gary Hinman, Steven Parent, Sharon Tate, Paul Richard Polanski, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, Leno LaBiance, Rosemary LaBiance, Donald Shea all had their lives, they very existence stolen from them by these “followers” who now seek their paroles, to live the remainder of their lives as free people. And society is now supposed to feel sorry for these killers? Set them free to live the lives their victims were deprived of?
Again, I think NOT!

Let those of us who deal daily with the pain and sorrow of having lost loved ones, family members, close friends, remember that these murderers deserve no consideration for leniency at all. After all, they showed no mercy to their victims, then why do they expect what they were incapable of giving to others. I charge all who seek to release these killers, to remember the victims first. This society we currently live in has swung so far to protect the rights of criminals, that we have forgotten or ignore the rights of the victims. It is the victims, those who lived and maybe died observing society’s laws that we need to protect, not those criminals who by their very nature and actions show nothing but contempt and disregard for our laws. Let us get back to remembering and protecting all of the “victims”, and punishing those criminals who defy ours laws.
Serving 18 years for murder…poppy cock, you take an innocent life, you spend the remainder of yours behind bars, forever!

[rtlr1004]

I have followed this case from the time it happened. I was a young teenager and I was terrified. I am now 52, and I have seen and heard interviews with Leslie Van Houten. I truly believe she should be granted parole. Since the Manson murders, we have seen so many examples of how evil individuals have brain-washed their following.­..such as Jonestown. Leslie was fed LSD, and she was forced to do Manson's work. I ask you: suppose you were 17 and under the influence of LSD and Charles Manson was demanding you kill. She was a child. She was a frightened child. She was not Leslie; she was LSD. This was a tragic, tragic event; I believe the evil one--Manson--should and always remain behind bars. Release her.

[Geewhittakers]

I know that I am going to catch much hell for what I am about to say, but not only do I think that Leslie should be paroled, but that prison sentences in the United States are way too long. We should follow the Canadian model (18 years for murder and a focus on rehabilitation), or better yet, the Finnish model.

If you look for any correlation between the severity of punishment, which the United States is one of the worst countries, and crime rates and recidivism, you will see that though we punish more harshly, we have MUCH MORE crime and many people returning to prison (revolving door). So punishing harshly does not help in the big picture, it hurts us as a society.

BUT, people in the US released after serving sentences for murder do not usually come back thorugh the revolving door. It's the petty crimes, drugs, car theft, assaults.

We have way too many people in prison and they serve sentences that are way too long. Though Charles Manson is one of the very rare cases: he should NEVER be paroled, but should stay in a hospital for the criminally insane.

[Mark Bellis]

It's life with the chance at parole at 25 years , with a 'faint hope' shot at parole at 15 in Canada for first degree murder for adults - this was a compromise approach when the death penalty was abolished in Canada.

[keatseye]

Dear John,
I wanted to send you some support for your efforts to see your friend paroled. I have heard a couple of the interviews you have done on NPR and I would encourage you as you continue to speak publically and write about Leslie’s situation that you emphasize that she has rehabilitated herself in prison. You mentioned this in the first interview I heard and I think that is what is really important for the public to understand. The question is: what are prisons for if not for rehabilitating people who can become a better person in society? Some people are kept in person to keep the public safe from the harm they might cause if released. Clearly, from Leslie Van Houton’s prison record she has proved herself to be a model citizen. Good luck with your work to get her released on parole.

[Lisa1964]

Mr. Warters, That's just great that Van Houten is sorry for her crime of 40 years ago! That's great that you are her friend! But just because you consider her a friend doesn't mean she should be released from prison. Van Houten should of thougt of her behavior during the trials. Van Houten and her PALS mocked the system and didn't seem to have remorse. Your 5 part blog seems to make the justice system the bad guy and Van Houten the good guys. Just because these people have "found Jesus" and obtained many college degrees while in jail doesn't mean the deserve to be released. I think the cobmination of there crimes and behavior during the trial shows they deserve to rot behind bars!

[jaybone23]

If what Mr. Waters says is true -- that Van Houten has served more time than any other woman in the California prison system, with many other women being released after convictions for comparable or much worse crimes -- then Van Houten should probably be released. If she weren't associated with the notorious Charles Manson, she probably would have been released some time ago.

[Lisa1964]

Jaybone23: Van Houten's associaton w/Mason and her behavior during the trial shows she should never be released. The only thing good about this 5 part series was that it shows the long term effects of a persons bad choices.

[JTyroler]

When you compare Van Houten's crime(s) and the amount of time she has spent in prison, it does seem excessive. Besides the guilt of her crime, there's the guilt of association - association with Charles Manson and some of the most horrific murders of the last half century.

How many people convicted of 2 murders have been sentenced to less than 40 years, much less serve that amount of time?

[BooBots]

Mercy? Consider it more-than-mercy that they were supposed to be dead long ago, but they are still alive, unlike those they unspeakably, unmercifully tortured and slaughtered. Their death penalty was replaced by Life Imprisonment. So be it. If what they did is not worthy of true imprisonment for life, then that sentence has no meaning whatsoever.

[Lisa1964]

Well said BooBots! I consider myself a liberal but i think Mr. Waters takes it to far in his support of Van Houten. Sure he has a right to support her. But I think he goes to far when he makes the Parole Board and the Prosection the bad guys. Van Houten was a follower and a drug addict who made a series of bad choices and two inoccent people had to pay the price. I think Van Houten gets what she deserves!

[AllenShadow]

Water’s sense of justice is misplaced at best. Maybe he’s just seeking to reclaim his past celebrity. He’s always courted the outrageous, so why should his appeal hold, uh, water.

Sharon Tate's sister, Debra Tate told CNN this spring that Manson family members convicted of murder should remain behind bars. She said the slayings were: "so vicious, so inhumane, so depraved, that there is no turning back. The 'Manson Family' murderers are sociopaths, and from that, they can never be rehabilitated. They should all stay right where they are -- in prison -- until they die. There will never be true justice for my sister Sharon and the other victims of the 'Manson Family.' Keeping the murderers in prison is the least we, as a society who values justice, can do."

[Krisgi]

Debra Tate is unbearable. I wonder if she has ever done anything else in her life but "be" interviewed with regards to the murders and, in later years, the parole hearings. She has been caught making a lot of things up, too. She needs some real closure. Big time.

[NRDavis]

While I can't agree with John's final point that LVH should be released, my heart is filled with admiration for the director (an acquaintance) and for his friend. She should be praised for the strides she has made as a human being. She is spending her time behind bars helping people and feeling apparently genuine remorse -- this is awesome. The crimes were so horrific that the punishment must be carried out fully, but we want our behind-bars brothers and sisters to live purposefully during their incarceration, right? While it's sad that her choices have put her where she is and should remain, it is an inspiration to see her making the best of a bad situation. Good for her, and good for all those who she helps. Her presence may save and improve lives within her correctional facility, and that is good news for society. LVH does deserve thanks for that, but not a parole. At the same time, John Waters deserves thanks for opening his heart, demonstrating how he has grown as a person, manifesting forgiveness and compassion, and being courageous enough to do it publicly.

[Pony Heirloom]

I'm disgusted by the arrogance of the commenters on this post. I'm reminded of the Milgram experiment. Now a lot of you might be telling yourselves you would never have been in a similar situation to Leslie, never having run away from a middle class background, never having dropped acid, etc., but the situation she was in was not that unusual at the time. What made her situation different? Well, Charles Manson. Tell yourselves you would not have gotten swept up in his spell had you been in the same situation.

Whether or not Leslie needs to rot in prison is beyond me, but I honestly believe her actions were those of a lost, confused, thoroughly brainwashed teenage girl. How about some perspective here

[leogeee]

Running off with a low bred nomad with those devil eyes is sad but forgiveable. Lost, impressionable teenage girls do it all the time. (Even from Pasadena). We are talking about heinous bludgeonings of innocent people. The BIG picture is for the benefit of those young girls approaching their teenage years and their children and generations beyond that. It's called setting precedent.

[huffinterested]

I think it would be very hard to sit on the Parole Board for her next hearing.