Former Charles Manson follower is recommended for parole
A California state parole board recommended parole for Patricia Krenwinkel, a follower of the cult leader Charles Manson, on Friday for the second time.
The decision will now have to be approved by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who denied Krenwinkel's first parole recommendation. The governor's review process can take up to 150 days following a parole hearing.
The 77-year-old is serving a life sentence in the California Institution for Women for her role in the killings of pregnant actor Sharon Tate and four others in August 1969, as well as grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, the following night in what prosecutors have called Manson's attempt to start a race war.
Krenwinkel was recommended for parole for the first time in May 2022, but Newsom denied clemency five months later, according to Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation inmate records. She was previously denied parole 14 times before then.
Krenwinkel was 19 and working as a secretary when she met a 33-year-old Manson at a party, leaving her life behind to follow him because she believed they could have a romantic relationship, she said in 2016 testimony. Instead, she was abused by Manson and tried to flee, but was brought back each time and was often under the influence of drugs.
Krenwinkel admitted to stabbing an heiress to a coffee fortune, Abigail Folger, multiple times on the night of Aug. 9, 1969, as well as participating in the killings of the LaBiancas the following night. During the LaBianca murders, she infamously wrote 'Helter Skelter' and other phrases on the wall in her victims' blood.
She, along with other participants including Manson, were convicted and sentenced to death. However, their sentences were commuted to life with the possibility parole in 1972, after the death penalty was briefly ruled unconstitutional in California.
Krenwinkel is now the state's longest-serving inmate. The California governor's office and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation did not immediately respond to NBC News' requests for comment.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NBC News
3 hours ago
- NBC News
Ukraine's massive drone attack deep inside Russia highlights how they have changed battlefield tactics
Dubbed operation 'Spiderweb,' Ukraine's audacious drone attack Sunday on four Russian air bases — one of them deep inside Siberia — has brought the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in modern warfare sharply into focus. While accounts differ on the extent of the damage caused by the drones, which were reportedly smuggled to the perimeter of the bases in the backs of trucks, Ukraine's security service, the SBU, put the estimated cost to the Kremlin at $7 billion. Russia has said little about the attacks, although the country's defense ministry acknowledged in a statement that some planes caught fire. The strikes have highlighted the increasing importance of drones for both Russia and Ukraine in the war, which entered its fourth year in February. And experts told NBC News that both sides are increasingly turning to cheap, commercially available first-person view or quadcopter drones that can often be purchased from online retailers and easily converted into deadly weapons — simple technology that is having a huge impact on the battlefield in Ukraine and further afield. Their use is 'going to become very, very common,' Robert Lee, a senior fellow at the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute think tank, told NBC News in an interview. Drones were used when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime was overthrown in December, he said. 'They're here and because they're ubiquitous, because they are quite useful and they're demonstrating that every day in Ukraine,' he said. 'There's no doubt that they're going to be used by all sorts of groups, whether it's criminal groups or terrorist groups, and they pose a quite significant threat,' he said, adding, 'I think we're a little bit behind the power curve on this and actually getting ready to counter them.' Targeting civilians As she was riding her bicycle to a cosmetology appointment in Antonivka, a rural community in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, Anastasia Pavlenko, 23, said she noticed a drone 'hunting' her. 'It took off, followed me and I zigzagged on the bike,' the mother of two said of the September attack, adding that a second drone suddenly appeared with 'a shell attached to it.' Despite her best attempts to escape, she said the second drone dropped the shell 'right on my head' and it bounced down onto her thigh and exploded on the asphalt next to her. 'Blood was coming from my neck, and there were fragments under my ribs,' Pavlenko said, adding she somehow managed to keep cycling and take cover under a bridge where she screamed for help until she started to lose consciousness. 'I just had a small purse, shorts, a T-shirt and long loose hair, so it was clear that I was a girl,' she said, adding that she was not wearing military colors or carrying any weapons when she was hit. Doctors were unable to remove shrapnel fragments from her neck, ribs, or leg, she said, adding she had been unable to return to work at her coffee shop because she 'can't handle physical stress.'
Metro
4 hours ago
- Metro
Haunted doll's handler says it's not responsible for disasters while on tour
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video A cursed doll rumored to have gone missing while touring the US with a traveling exhibit is being blamed for local disasters including a fire and a jailbreak. The 'Annabelle' doll, which some believe is demon-possessed and was featured in The Conjuring horror films, is on a paranormal tour along with other items belonging to her ghost hunter owners. Word on the street in mid-May was that Anabelle vanished while stopping at the Ghost City Tours office in New Orleans. It happened to be the same week that a fire tore through a nearby plantation and 10 prisoners escaped from a jail. But Tony Spera, the owner of the Warren Occult Museum in Monroe, Connecticut, said that Annabelle is 'safely back' there locked in her display case. 'You know, it's easy for rumors to start. The fact of the matter is, that doll was never out of our sight, never out of our control,' Spera told NBC News this week. 'It's in a protective case that many precautions were taken to make it safe.' Paranormal investigator Ryan Buell sought to further quell rumors by posting a video on Facebook on May 24 of himself at the museum. 'She's not in Chicago, she never was in Chicago, and she's not missing because she's right behind me,' said Buell, while pointing the camera towards him with the doll sitting in the case over his shoulder. Still, social media users and conspiracy theorists have been skeptical about those accounts of Annabelle's whereabouts. A blaze destroyed the Nottoway Plantation House between Baton Rouge and New Orleans on May 15, and the very next day, inmates escaped from the Orleans Justice Center. Annabelle was touring in New Orleans on May 13 and 14, and among the precautions that were taken were having a Catholic priest alongside the doll. Some people are 'absolutely convinced' that Ghost City Tours is at fault for the fire and jailbreak, said its founder Tim Nealon. One Facebook user asked why Annabelle wasn't left at the Connecticut museum and wrote on Ghost City Tours' page: 'Did it cross your mind maybe she was there for a reason. Some things are better left alone.' 'I did not think people were taking it seriously, I kept seeing jokes about it on Instagram and TikTok,' Nealon told USA Today. 'But, I didn't realize people were out here like, actually thinking that this was legit.' More Trending Spera said he doesn't blame people for being skeptical. 'If people don't know about the demonic, it's very difficult to believe that these thing are happening,' he said. 'But they do happen.' Annabelle has been on sold-out tours across the US – and Buell said that plans are underway for her to be at the Rock Island Roadhouse Esoteric Expo in Illinois on October 4. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Family business '£10,000 out of pocket' after Meta blocks their accounts for 12 weeks MORE: British journalist Charlotte Peet who vanished in Brazil four months ago has been found MORE: FDA tomato recall elevated to highest level due to salmonella risk
NBC News
6 hours ago
- NBC News
'King of the Hill' voice actor killed in San Antonio shooting
'King of the Hill' voice actor Jonathan Joss was killed after being shot outside his former home in San Antonio, Texas. NBC News' George Solis reports on how Joss' husband recounted the incident leading up to the 3, 2025
