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In
September, a California parole board recommended that Van
Houten, 68, be freed. At age 19, she was the youngest member of
the so-called Manson Family and was convicted of taking part in
the brutal stabbing deaths of two of the seven homicides
attributed to the cult.
California Gov. Jerry Brown said in a statement that Van Houten
still lays too much of the blame of the killings on Manson, who
died in prison last year at age 83, the Los Angeles Times
reported.
While noting that Van Houten has been a model inmate for more
than four decades, Brown said "The aggravated nature of the
crime alone can provide a valid basis for denying parole, even
when there is strong evidence of rehabilitation and no other
evidence of current dangerousness," the newspaper reported.
Brown's office was not immediately available for comment on the
decision.
Manson, who served a life sentence, directed Van Houten and his
other followers to slay people in August 1969 in what
prosecutors said was part of a plan to incite a race war.
Van Houten was convicted of the stabbing deaths of Leno and
Rosemary LaBianca in their Los Angeles home. She was sentenced
to death in 1971, but that conviction and sentence were
overturned on appeal. She was retried, convicted and sentenced
to life in prison in 1978.
The Manson Family victims included actress Sharon Tate, the
pregnant wife of filmmaker Roman Polanski. The words "pig" and
"Healter-Skelter", a misspelled reference to a Beatles song,
were written on the walls in blood.
(Reporting by Rich McKay; Editing by Michael Perry)
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