After almost 60 years behind bars for murder, former Charles Manson follower Patricia Krenwinkel has been preliminarily approved for parole, California prison officials said.
Krenwinkel was convicted on seven murder counts for her role in the August 1969 killings of actress Sharon Tate — who was eight months pregnant — and six other victims. The latest decision marks the third time she has been recommended for release.
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Previous parole recommendations were overturned by the governor’s office.
“All grants of parole are proposed decisions and become final only after a thorough and comprehensive review by the Board of Parole Hearings and the Governor,” officials with the prison department said in a statement.
Krenwinkel is one of the most infamous members of the Manson family and is California’s longest-serving female prisoner.
Fellow Manson cult member Leslie Van Houten was released in 2023
She was initially sentenced to death alongside Manson and several other followers for the series of murders, including the killing of Tate, the wife of filmmaker Roman Polanski.
That sentence was changed to life imprisonment after California’s 1972 ruling declaring capital punishment unconstitutional, which invalidated death sentences already imposed.
Leslie Van Houten, another Manson follower who acknowledged taking part in a separate double murder the night after Tate’s death, was released in 2023.
State governors, including Mr Newsom, had repeatedly rejected her parole requests.
An appeals court later overturned Mr Newsom’s final refusal, citing Van Houten’s exemplary conduct in prison and her decades of participation in therapy.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said incarcerated people are typically denied parole four or more times “before they are found suitable”.
Manson died in prison in 2017, aged 83.
He led an apocalyptic cult and directed his followers to carry out killings in Los Angeles as part of a deranged plan to trigger a race war.
Decades later, the murders remain deeply embedded in the American imagination, sustaining a grim fascination through books, songs, tourist trails and films.
