Patricia Krenwinkel, 78, has received a 3rd parole recommendation after spending about 56 years in prison for the Manson family’s Tate-LaBianca murders. California Gov. Gavin Newsom blocked her release after the previous 2 recommendations and can intervene again.
The preliminary approval came on October 6. Her release still depends on review by the Board of Parole Hearings and Newsom. Los Angeles County prosecutors reportedly plan to urge the governor to keep her incarcerated.
On the night of August 8–9, 1969, Krenwinkel went with Charles “Tex” Watson and Susan Atkins to 10050 Cielo Drive, the home of actress Sharon Tate. Linda Kasabian drove and stayed outside. Five people were killed there: Tate, who was pregnant, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger, and Steven Parent.
Krenwinkel chased Folger and stabbed her; at trial she said she “kept stabbing her.” Watson also stabbed Folger.
The next night she took part in the murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca at their Los Feliz home, along with Watson and Leslie Van Houten. She later admitted stabbing Rosemary LaBianca. She was also tied to the messages written in blood at the house.
In 1971 she was convicted with Manson, Atkins, and Van Houten of seven counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. She was sentenced to death; that sentence was later reduced to life with the possibility of parole after California’s death-penalty law was struck down. She has been imprisoned ever since.
In February 1971, on the stand, prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi asked if she felt remorse. She said she did not know what the word meant. Asked if she felt sorrow for the murders, she said no, and that it had been “the right thing.”
Thankfully, her years in prison have given her more perspective.
In a 1994 interview with Diane Sawyer she said she wakes up every day knowing she destroyed life, and spoke specifically about Abigail Folger: “That was just a young woman that I killed, who had parents. She was supposed to live a life and her parents were never supposed to see her dead.”
At a 2011 parole hearing she wept and said she was “haunted each and every day” by the victims’ suffering and “so ashamed” of what she did.
At her 2022 hearing she said, “how terribly sorry I am for all the pain and suffering that I created when I took the lives that I did.” Governor Newsom, in reversing that parole grant, acknowledged she had “demonstrated effusive remorse.”
Her lawyer says she now fully accepts responsibility and does not minimize the harm. Victims’ relatives, including Sharon Tate’s sister Debra Tate and Jay Sebring’s nephew Anthony DiMaria, have long argued the apologies are inadequate or insincere, pointing to her courtroom demeanor at the time and to statements they consider self-focused.
Krenwinkel is held at the California Institution for Women in Corona and is the longest-serving female prisoner in California’s prison system.
