Leslie Van Houten, former follower of Charles Manson, faces her 19th parole hearing. Leslie is an example of  misspent youth: drugs, excessive sex and ritualistic murdering. Years ago, back in the late 60's, she was convicted of particularly brutal crimes, where, upon the direction of Chuck Manson, knifed some people.  The crime was particular shocking --multiple stab wounds delivered to the victims, blood smeared in messages on the wall. Leslie was primarily involved in assaulting Rosemary LaBianca, the other person killed  there was her husband Leno.

Initially, Chuck and his followers were going to get the gas chamber, but the death penalty was overturned and they were confined to life imprisonment instead.   Leslie appears to have been a good girl since her incarceration in the early 1970s, no reports of shanking,  forced lesbian sex dates or even incidences of fermenting oranges in the toilet.   She has positive psychological reports and has been active in self-help groups for elderly women inmates.  For some who go to prison, there is indeed redemption.

A charismatic hippie fringe figure, Chuck not only earned converts who would kill upon command, but garnered respect among the counterculture community at large. During his lengthy trial, various slogans were chanted and other symbols of  support were displayed time and again inside and outside the courtroom by followers and sympathizers.

But a strange thing happened in the intervening years from then to perhaps the early 80's .  Chuck went to seed, abandoned and renounced by  his followers.  This could not have happened if Chuck had the pill dropped on him; as a martyr, he would have died being revered by many as THE dynamic hippie rebel who stuck it to the MAN.

Instead, every few years, he has been looked in upon by various television interviewers. It is a study of a person slowly going crackers. Not a whole lot of these interviews are recalled by myself, but I vaguely remember seeing a small withered man removed from his cell, rambling extensively about his “music.”  The guard, when questioned about his dedication to these philharmonics, sort of CHUCKled and dismissed the assertion.  Apparently Chuck was just saying that for the interview. He was not spending his time in a disciplined way to properly learn his guitar and the other musical instruments he was allowed to use.   This scraggly, withered  character no longer appeared to house his former menace and was literally being consumed by age and gravity.

If there ever was an argument against the death penalty, just look at Leslie and Chuck.

 

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