Newsom blocks Charles Manson follower's parole

SACRAMENTO >> California's governor blocked the parole of Charles Manson follower Patricia Krenwinkel on Friday, more than five decades after she scrawled “Helter Skelter” on a wall using the blood of one of their victims.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Krenwinkel, now 74, is still too much of a public safety risk to be freed.

“Ms. Krenwinkel fully accepted Mr. Manson's racist, apocalyptical ideologies,” Newsom said. “Ms. Krenwinkel was not only a victim of Mr. Manson's abuse. She was also a significant contributor to the violence and tragedy that became the Manson Family's legacy.”

A two-member parole panel for the first time in May recommended that Krenwinkel be released, after she previously had been denied parole 14 times. Newsom has previously rejected parole recommendations for other followers of Manson, who died in prison in 2017.

Krenwinkel became the state's longest-serving female inmate when fellow Manson follower Susan Atkins died of cancer in prison in 2009. Her attorney, Keith Wattley, said he understands Krenwinkel is the longest-serving woman in the United States.

She and other followers of the cult leader terrorized the state in the late 1960s, committing crimes that Newsom said “were among the most fear-inducing in California's history.”

She was convicted in the slayings of pregnant actor Sharon Tate and four other people in 1969. She helped kill grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary the next night in what prosecutors say was an attempt by Manson to start a race war.

Newsom agreed that she has been well-behaved in prison, has completed many rehabilitation and education programs and has “demonstrated effusive remorse.” But he concluded that “her efforts have not sufficiently reduced her risk for future dangerousness.”

She still doesn't have sufficient insight into what caused her to commit the crimes or her “triggers for antisocial thinking and conduct” during bad relationships, Newsom said.

“Beyond the brutal murders she committed, she played a leadership role in the cult, and an enforcer of Mr. Manson's tyranny. She forced the other women in the cult to obey Mr. Manson, and prevented them from escaping when they tried to leave,” he said.