Leslie Van Houten

Leslie Van Houten
Mug shot taken in 1999
Born	Leslie Louise Van Houten (1949-08-23) August 23, 1949 (age 67) Altadena, California, U.S.A.
Criminal penalty	Death, commuted to life imprisonment
Criminal status	Incarcerated
Conviction(s)	Robbery, murder, and conspiracy

Leslie Louise Van Houten (born August 23, 1949) is an American prisoner serving a life sentence for murder in relation to the 1969 killings of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, when Van Houten was 19 years old. She was arrested weeks later, and convicted at the main Charles Manson trial in 1971, at which she repeatedly sabotaged her own defense, and tried to exculpate Manson. She was convicted and became the youngest woman ever sentenced to death in California. However, executions were halted in the state in 1972 after the California Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional in The People of the State of California v. Robert Page Anderson, 493 P.2d 880, 6 Cal. 3d 628 (Cal. 1972). She was granted a new trial at which her defense to the charge of first degree murder was diminished responsibility, but the jury could not agree on a verdict. At a third trial, she was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, although with a possibility of parole. In relation to her case, high courts, parole boards, and the state governor have said that an inexplicable or racial motive for murder could merit exemplary punishment and outweigh any evidence of subsequent reform.

Van Houten was born on August 23, 1949, in the Los Angeles suburb of Altadena. She grew up in a middle-class churchgoing family along with an older brother, and adopted brother and sister, who were Korean. Her mother and father divorced when she was 14. She began taking LSD, Benzedrine and hashish around age 15, running away for a time but returning to complete high school. At 17, she became pregnant and was forced by her mother to undergo an "induced miscarriage." Van Houten's mother informed her sometime later that the procedure could not be referred to as an abortion as the fetus was too far along. Van Houten stated that after this event, she felt very removed and harbored intense anger toward her mother. She had a period of interest in yoga and took a year-long secretarial course, but became a hippie, living at a commune.