The Manson Women and Me

by Nikki Meredith

  I cut over to the beach. My eyes fixed on a schooner with a billowing red spinnaker tacking close to shore. The horizon was without the usual ribbon of tawny haze—it was so clear I could see the tip of Catalina Island. I followed the shore’s scalloped edge to a small jetty, and then I turned back to the beach walk where I stopped at the storefront synagogue. The first summer my parents lived at the beach (they bought the house when I was in junior high and used it as a summer cottage until they retired and moved there permanently), my father was jogging on a Saturday morning when an old rabbi motioned him to stop.

  “Please,” he said in a thick Yiddish accent and motioned for him to follow. He pointed to the light switch. “Would you turn it on for me?” My father looked at the rabbi’s hands to see if they were wet, or dirty, injured or in some condition that would preclude such a straightforward task. My father shrugged, flipped the switch, and was on his way. When he got home and told my mother about the incident, she laughed. “You were his Shabbos goy,” she said, explaining that it’s a gentile who performs work that Jews are forbidden to do on the Sabbath, such as turning on electricity. She kissed him. “You did your part for my people.” This story became part of our family lore.

  I stopped at a hamburger stand, bought a bad cup of coffee (no Starbucks in those days) and headed back to our house. When I got there I discovered that my parents had a guest for breakfast: Craig. I was worried that this was one of my mother’s interfering maneuvers. “What are you doing here?” I asked, trying unsuccessfully to get the accusation out of my voice.

  He said he had called to talk to me, and my parents had invited him to come for breakfast. Clearly I couldn’t rule out my mother’s intrusion. After breakfast, I helped my mother clear the dishes, and in the kitchen I asked her what they talked about before I got there.

  “Not much. He said he loves you and he wanted us to know that he hated what his parents are doing. It did make me feel better that he wanted to distance himself from them,” she said. She came a little closer to me and swept my bangs away from my forehead.

  “Don’t,” I said, recoiling. This bob-and-weave maneuver between us had been going on my whole life.

  “But you’re so pretty. I want people to see your face.”

  “But I don’t,” I said, pushing my bangs back across my forehead. “Mom, I’m not a baby,” sounding very much like one. “I’m in college. I’m allowed to wear my hair the way I want.”

  Craig brought some dishes into the kitchen and asked if I would take a walk with him on the beach.

  As we walked toward the water, he put his arm around me. I pointed out Catalina. The wind was up and there were white caps and several sailboats tacking parallel to the shore. When we got to the water, we turned north toward the Santa Monica Pier. We turned back when we got to the pier. When we got to lifeguard station 25, the one that marks the place where we turn to go to my house, he asked me if I minded if we sat for a bit. We climbed up to the platform and watched the sailboats.

  “I didn’t tell you this last night. I couldn’t bear to. But the situation is even worse than I said.”

  “What could be worse? They want to hire someone named Carmine to kill me?”

  He smiled, but only faintly. “Well, that would be worse. As it is, what they said is pretty shitty for me, for us.” His voice wobbled when he said this.

  “My mother said they had raised me to have good values and they expected me to honor their wishes. My father was there but he let my mom do the dirty work. She said, ‘What happens is completely up to you. You know we love you, but you can’t be with that girl.’

  “And I said, ‘what are you threatening? That you’ll disinherit me?’ It was mean for me to say it. God knows they don’t have much to leave . . . especially divided three ways.”

  Then I remembered my own family’s history. My mother told me that when my grandmother got romantically involved with my gentile, anarchist biological grandfather, her family said they would declare her dead if she married him. The joke was on them. She had no intention of marrying anyone.

  “My mother said it was very simple. ‘You choose her or you choose us. If you choose her, you will no longer be our son.’”

  chapter fifty-eight

  THE TRUTH IS, THE TRUTH DOESN’T MATTER

  1997–2016

  In the first few years of knowing Leslie, I remained distant from the issue of parole. After I had known her for a number of years, she asked me to write a letter on her behalf to the parole board. I agreed. By then I was feeling that the project was so jinxed I’d abandoned the idea of ever publishing anything about the women.

  In the time I’ve known Leslie Van Houten she’s been routinely judged by a justice system that is, in her case for the most part, devoid of justice. I’m talking about the California Department of Corrections Parole Board. It’s true: by nomenclature, it’s corrections, not justice, but I think many people would agree that a measure of justice should be involved when deciding whether an inmate should win her freedom after more than forty years of incarceration. In this context I’m talking about the fundamentals of justice: fairness, impartiality, integrity, and truthfulness. The parole board has routinely struck out on each of these criteria, no matter how broadly or narrowly you apply them. (That is, until 2016. See epilogue.)

  Leslie takes these hearings seriously. She always prepares. She always hopes. It reminds me of a friend who had to get MRIs every six months after he was diagnosed with malignant melanoma. The anxiety and anticipation, the waiting for results, was almost worse than the results, which were always bad. In my head I can hear the Steve Kays of the world saying that what Leslie goes through is nothing compared to the horror she put the LaBiancas through. I don’t have an easy answer for that. I know, though, that she has been punished extensively, and if there’s room in our criminal justice system for rehabilitation and forgiveness, then there is no justification for keeping her in prison. There certainly should be no room for the kind of cruelty the deputy district attorneys routinely subject her to.

  When an inmate appears before the parole board, the policy is to consider the following: the seriousness of the original crime, the inmate’s remorse over the crime, the inmate’s behavior in prison, and the inmate’s academic and vocational achievement while in prison. At Leslie’s hearings there are two groups who weigh in on these criteria: the people who know Leslie very well and the people who don’t know her at all. The unanimous opinion of the people who know her well is that she is ready to be paroled and has been for at least two decades, but the opinion of the people who know her well is disregarded and with every parole hearing, it is more aggressively disregarded. The people who know her not at all (and I do mean not at all) oppose her release, and their opinion carries the weight in the panel’s determination of her suitability for release. (The one thing both sides agree on is the number one item: the seriousness of the crime. No one disputes that.)

  The fact that the people who know her best, either professionally or personally, are so unwavering in their positive regard for her is actually a problem. It took me awhile to see the pattern, but I am now convinced that the more positive people are in their assessments and the larger that group is, the more likely it is that she will be denied parole and denied it rather viciously. (I’m even apprehensive about writing this chapter. The fact that there are so many people who write letters on her behalf is viewed as sinister by the deputy district attorneys.)

  Who are the people who think so highly of her? The positive evaluations she receives include guards and correctional staff who supervise her work daily; psychiatric professionals who are hired by the correctional system to evaluate her; journalists who have interviewed her; teachers who have taught her and others who have overseen her college work, first for her bachelor’s degree and then for her master’s thesis; volunteers who have worked with her; and many, many friends, some who have known her for decades, others who are newer friends. All of these people have been sayin
g, declaring, writing, pledging—shouting it from the rooftops if they could—that she is not only not a danger to society, she has prodigious gifts as a human being (intelligence, integrity, insight, discipline) that, if she’s released, could contribute uniquely to society.

  For a minute, though, let’s go back to the first item on the list: the seriousness of the crime. There are many people who will maintain that she’s been denied repeatedly because of the seriousness of the crime. But the pattern of these hearings belies that. The dreadful nature of the murders has not changed over the years. What has changed is Leslie: her acceptance of responsibility, her remorse, her insight, her maturity. As she has grown into a person her family and friends are proud of, however, the anger against her on the part of the people who oppose her release—the district attorney and relatives of the victims—has grown in intensity and each hearing gets more brutal.

  She is a symbol, not a human being. These people claim to be experts on Leslie Van Houten when, in fact, their only exposure to her is a couple of hours at a parole hearing every few years. When these people take the microphone, they describe a nineteen-year-old girl, a girl encased in amber.

  Over the years, the lengths to which the representatives of the DA’s office go to demean Leslie are stunning. The assault on her character was started by Steve Kay, who, for three decades hacked away at her character and her accomplishments. When he retired, the next guy, Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Patrick Sequeira, assumed the mantle. He’s not quite as bright as Steve, but the blunt-force trauma he inflicts is just as painful. The person he portrays in the parole hearings bears no resemblance to the woman who is described in the multiple staff reports and letters of support the panel receives at every hearing. Over the years there hasn’t been a single positive trait that Leslie possesses that isn’t twisted and used against her. It goes like this:

  • If she’s slim, and she is, she must be anorexic and anorexia is aggression turned inward. If she were to be paroled, watch out! There is a very real danger that her inward aggression could be turned outward. She killed before, she’ll kill again.

  • If she’s intelligent, and she is, she uses her IQ to plot.

  • If she’s personable, and she is, she uses her congenial personality to manipulate everyone around her.

  • If many people write letters of support, and they do, it’s because she’s a sociopath and has conned them into thinking well of her. (None of the psychiatric professionals have diagnosed her as having a personality disorder.)

  • If she expresses remorse for the horrible damage she inflicted on the LaBianca family, and she does, she’s only expressing it so she can be released. She’s not sincere.

  • If she’s done well in prison, and she has, it’s because she’s so adaptable. She adapted to Manson and now she’s adapted to prison. That she’s an ideal inmate, pursuing almost every avenue of self-improvement available to her proves how adaptable she is.

  Some of the accusations are either absurd or totally contradictory. Leslie has had a sustained interest in philosophy and psychology, specifically in the moral development of children; and more recently, in her master’s thesis, she explores the factors that enable inmates to transition from irrational behavior, the kinds of behavior that caused them to commit their crimes, to concluding that “determining actions based on sound reason, it is necessary for the individual to be able to articulate and account for who she is and why she makes the choices she does.” To Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Patrick Sequeira, Leslie’s interest in examining factors that enable inmates to transition from irrational behavior to rational decision making is suspect. To him it’s proof that she hasn’t fundamentally changed since she was with Manson.

  In the past two hearings, it was difficult to figure out if he’s ignorant or desperate or both. For example: when considering suitability for parole, psychological insight is one of the criteria that the board looks for. Sequeira declares she has none. The only way he can claim that she has no insight into her behavior is to totally ignore her psychiatric evaluations and simply repeat the horrible details of the crime and the shocking lack of remorse and insight she had when she committed the crime forty-five years ago. Apparently he’s all for psychological insight, but he’s against psychology.

  She’s been offered a job in the Department of Psychology at Chaffey College, if she’s paroled. The job was arranged by a professor from whom she took a class. He was obviously impressed with her performance, but this offer earns her a black mark in the eyes of the deputy district attorney. “Again, this fascination with philosophy and psychology continues with this inmate,” Sequeira said to the parole panel. He then reminded them that when she first met Manson, she was attracted to his philosophy promoting peace and love. “You would think that at some point in her life, maybe she would turn away from these areas that have caused her problems in the past, but she doesn’t seem to do that.”

  Then: Leslie has said there was a spiritual aspect to her initial attraction to Manson.

  Now: Leslie is sometimes invited to join American Indian inmates in their sweat lodge ritual. Also, Leslie practices a Zen form of meditation.

  Conclusion: There is still a spiritual aspect to her interests; therefore Leslie hasn’t changed.

  Depending on the day, the hearing, perhaps the phase of the moon, Leslie has either changed not at all since the day of the murders or she’s changed so much, it’s cause for suspicion. When Deputy DA Steve Kay was arguing the latter, he said, on more than one occasion, that he had more respect for Charles Manson because he hasn’t changed his tune at all. He’s still spouting the same nonsense (my word) that he was spouting decades ago.

  Another job offer, another strike against her. A defense attorney has said that she could work in his office if paroled. According to Mr. Sequeira, this job offer proves that Leslie still gravitates toward the criminal element because, of course, she would be exposed to criminals in the law offices of a criminal defense attorney.

  Remorse. Leslie has expressed remorse many, many, many times but Sequeira claims she has none. To support that claim he quotes her psychiatric evaluation from 1971, two years after the murders when her brain was still saturated by Manson’s poison.

  “Her character structure and value system is so at odds with society and appears so deeply ingrained in her that it is difficult to see a true change as ever occurring. She views herself as now even more capable of committing a similar offense than in the past, and this is probably not just bravado.” Keep in mind, this is from a report written more than forty years ago.

  Sequeira acknowledges that she no longer spews that rhetoric but claims that she only started expressing remorse after there was no threat of the death penalty. “I find it interesting to note that her remorse only starts after the death penalty has been overturned in her case.”

  This doesn’t even make sense. According to Sequeira, when she was facing death she continued to say she’d murder again. When she was no longer facing death, she expressed remorse.

  That isn’t the only thing that doesn’t make sense. In Leslie’s 2002 parole hearing, the parole panel praised her for her excellent disciplinary record and for taking self-help classes at Frontera. But they denied her parole because, according to Sharon Lawin, the chairwoman at the time, Leslie’s accomplishments were outweighed by other factors—the main “other factor” was her need for “continued therapy to further understand the enormity of the crime and its impacts on the victims.” Sounds reasonable, perhaps, except that psychotherapy was no longer available in the prison. “You just recommended something that they don’t offer,” Leslie responded. But then, clearly worried that she might appear uncooperative, she added plaintively, “But I will do what I can.”

  After the hearing, Leslie’s attorney, Christie Webb, said she had no idea how to advise her client. “What can she do? They are asking her, again, to do therapy that is not available.”

  Webb wasn’t the only one who
was at a loss. This parole denial came just weeks after San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Bob Krug harshly rebuked the parole board for ignoring Leslie’s exemplary prison record, repeatedly rejecting parole for Van Houten in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner in deciding that she remains a threat to public safety based solely on the severity of her crime.

  “I cannot find any indication where Miss Van Houten has done anything wrong in prison. They can’t keep using the crime forever and ever. That turns her sentence into life without parole.” Recognizing her outstanding achievements, the judge wrote, “If I was Miss Van Houten, I wouldn’t have a clue what to do at the next hearing.”

  This decision provided a glimmer of hope but in March 2004, the Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed his decision, ruling that Judge Krug had applied the wrong standard when he held that the parole board had failed to balance the heinousness of Van Houten’s crimes against her subsequent efforts at rehabilitation.

  Presiding Justice Manuel Ramirez, writing for the Court of Appeal, said that the courts must uphold the board’s exercise of its discretion to find an inmate unsuitable for parole as long as there is “some evidence” to support it. And that evidence can come solely from a review of the circumstances of the crime, Ramirez said. On June 23, 2004, the California Supreme Court declined to review the Court of Appeal’s ruling upholding the denial of parole to Van Houten.

  One of the more insidious trends started after 9/11 when the issue of terrorism started to creep into the argument against her release. In Leslie’s 2006 parole hearing, Sequeira said, “We see examples in society now. People will blow themselves up for a cause. People will be so immersed in an ideology, whether it be a religious or social or political ideology, that they will do unbelievable things. And they will do them because they are committed to the cause. And there’s absolutely no question that this inmate was committed to the cause and that she has a proclivity for following causes, for following bad influences in her life.”