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Topics: US News, True crime, Crime
Lisa McLoughlin
A California parole panel has recommended the release of Patricia Krenwinkel, a former Charles Manson follower and convicted murderer in the notorious 1969 killing spree.
The 74-year-old was convicted of seven counts of first-degree murder in the August 1969 Manson family attacks that left seven people dead.
Some of their victims included pregnant actress Sharon Tate, heiress Abigail Folger and celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring, as well as grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary.
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The convicted killer was previously denied parole 14 times for her part in the murders and now the recommendation is set to be reviewed by the state parole board’s legal division.
It will then go to Governor Gavin Newsom for a decision within five months.
However, the politician has previously rejected parole recommendations for other followers of Manson.
Since Krenwinkel was last denied parole in 2017, new laws have come into action that require the parole panel to take into account that she committed the murders when she was 21 - and is now an elderly prisoner.
In light of the news, Krenwinkel’s attorney, Keith Wattley, said relatives of her victims offered the same objections at the hearing as prosecutors have in the past but acknowledged the parole panel was willing to follow the new law.
He said: “She’s completely transformed from the person she was when she committed this crime, which is all that it’s supposed to take to be granted parole.
“I’m hopeful that the governor recognises that he shouldn’t be playing political games with people’s lives.
“The governor would be blocking her parole not because he’s afraid of her, but because he doesn’t like her. And the law doesn’t allow that.”
Krenwinkel met Manson, then age 33, at a party when she was just 19 working as a secretary and living with her sister in LA in 1967.
In a previous 2016 hearing, the prisoner said she gave up her job and place with her sister to follow him, believing they might have a romantic relationship.
Krenwinkel claimed the cult leader abused her physically and emotionally and trafficked her to other men for sex.
Although she ran away from the cult’s compound twice, she alleged she was forcibly brought back, rarely left alone and was under the influence of drugs most of the time.
Krenwinkel, along with several other cult members, were initially sentenced to death in 1971.
However, they were resentenced to life with the possibility of parole after the death penalty in California was briefly ruled unconstitutional in 1972.
She is California’s longest-serving female inmate after fellow Manson follower Susan Atkins died of cancer in prison in 2009.
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