PAROLE HEARING

Thursday, April 14, 2016

LESLIE
VAN HOUTEN

SUBSEQUENT PAROLE CONSIDERATION HEARING
STATE OF CALIFORNIA
BOARD OF PAROLE HEARINGS

In the matter of the Life Term Parole Consideration Hearing of:
LESLIE VAN HOUTEN
CDC Number: W-13378

CALIFORNIA INSTITUTION FOR WOMEN
CORONA, CALIFORNIA
APRIL 14, 2016
8:46 A.M.

PANEL PRESENT:
ALI ZARRINNAM, Presiding Commissioner
NGA LAM, Deputy Commissioner

OTHERS PRESENT:
LESLIE VAN HOUTEN, Inmate
RICH PFEIFFER, Attorney for Inmate
DONNA LEBOWITZ, Deputy District Attorney
DEBORAH TATE, Victim's Next-of-Kin Representative
LOUIS SMALDINO, Victim's Next-of-Kin
TONY LAMONTAGNE, Victim's Next-of-Kin
LETICIA TREJO, Victims Advocate
SHANNON HOGG, Assoc. Chief Deputy Commissioner, Observer
ROSIE THOMAS, Public Information Officer
AMY TAXIN, Associated Press
ADRIANA WEINGOLD, CBS News
NGUYEN HUINS, Associated Press Photographer
FERNANDO ORTEGA, Correctional Officer
CORRECTIONAL OFFICER(S), Unidentified

PROCEEDINGS

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: We're on record.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. Good morning. The time is approximately 8:46 in the a.m. The date is the 14th of April, 2016. We are in CIW, California Institute for Women, for the Parole Consideration Hearing for a Ms. Leslie Van Houten, CDC number W-13378. Ms. Van Houten was received out of the County of Los Angeles with a life term start date of August 17th, 1978 subsequent to a conviction for Penal Code Section 187 in the First Degree, two counts, as well as a conspiracy 187. Ultimately she received a sentence of life with a minimum eligible parole date of August 17th, 1978. This signifies a subsequent hearing number 19. At her last hearing in 2013, she was denied parole for a period of five years. Subsequent to that time, Ms. Van Houten through counsel submitted a Petition to Advance, and that advancement was granted advancing the hearing to today's date. We are recording these hearings. For purpose of voice identification, we're going to go around the room introducing ourselves stating our first name, last name, spelling our last name and indicating our function in this hearing room. Ms. Van Houten, when it's your turn, also give us your CDC number. When we get to the observers, please -- the victims' next-of-kin, family members, to give their relationship to the victim, if they're a representative, and when we get to the media as well, which affiliated media source are they from. I'm going to start with myself and move to my left around the immediate table, and then we'll get to the gallery and the people observing this hearing. Good morning. My name is Ali Zarrinnam, Z-A-R-R-I-N-N-A-M. I am a Commissioner with the Board of Parole Hearings.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Nga Lam, last name L-A- M, Deputy Commissioner.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Donna Lebowitz, L-E-B, as in boy, O-W-I-T-Z, Deputy District Attorney for the County of Los Angeles.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Rich Pfeiffer, P-F-E-I-F-F-E-R, Ms. Van Houten's attorney.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Leslie Van Houten. My last name is capital V-A-N capital H-O-U-T-E-N, W-13378.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you.

MS. HOGG: Shannon Hogg, H-O-G-G, Associate Chief Deputy Commissioner, observing the hearing.

MS. TATE: Deborah Tate representing John Smaldino family.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Commissioner, I think the witnesses might have to come up to the mic.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Ms. Tate, if you can come up to the microphone. It's not catching in the transcript. Thank you.

MS. TATE: Deborah Tate representing John DeSantis family.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. Ms. Tate, your last name is spelled T-A-T-E?

MS. TATE: That is correct.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you, Ms. Tate.

MR. SMALDINO: Louis Smaldino, S-M-A-L-D-I-N-O, oldest nephew of Leno and Rosemary.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you.

MR. SMALDINO: Representing the LaBianca family.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you.

MS. TREJO: Leticia Trejo, T-R-E-J-O, Victims Advocate.

CORRECTIONAL OFFICER ORTEGA: Correctional Officer Fernando Ortega, O-R-T-E-G-A.

LIEUTENANT THOMAS: Lieutenant Rosie Thomas, T-H-O-M-A-S, Administrative Assistant, Public Information Officer.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you.

MS. TAXIN: Amy Taxin, T-A-X-I-N, Associated Press.

MS. WEINGOLD: Adriana Weingold, W-E-I-N-G-O-L-D, CBS News.

MR. HUINS: The first name Nguyen, the last name, H-U-I-N-S. I'm the AP photographer.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. Okay.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: I'm sorry. Do you pronounce it Van Houten or Van Houten?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Van Houten.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Van Houten. Okay.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: May I ask that you put the mic closer to you? Thank you so much.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. We also have the grandson of the victim appearing telephonically if you can state your appearance at this time, please. Thank you.

MR. LAMONTAGNE: Yeah, absolutely. My name is -- excuse me -- Tony LaMontagne, that's L-A-M-O-N-T-A-G-N-E. My grandfather, Leno LaBianca and his wife, my step-grandmother -- I'm sorry -- Rosemary LaBianca.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you, sir. As already identified, we have a correctional officer in the room for security purposes, and that identifies all parties present here at this time. A couple of issues, administrative issues I need to address. Foremost, we have a victim next-of-kin, the grandson, Mr. LaMontagne. Mr. LaMontagne was appearing telephonically so I have to give him some admonishments and advisements here at this point. So Mr. LaMontagne, you have the right to attend this hearing in person. Do you waive your right to personally appear at this hearing here today, sir?

MR. LAMONTAGNE: At this point, yes, because I'm just not physically there.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. Your participation in this hearing via audio conferencing may be cancelled, limited or terminated at any time for good cause, including equipment failure. Do you understand that this hearing will proceed without your participation if the Panel finds good cause to do so?

MR. LAMONTAGNE: Absolutely, yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. As a condition of your participation via audio, you must agree not to record or transmit this hearing by any means nor allow any unauthorized persons to hear, view, record, transmit any portion of this hearing. Do you agree with these terms, sir?

MR. LAMONTAGNE: Yes, I absolutely do.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you, sir. Now with respect to the media being present here today, they are authorized by our department to take still photographs of participants who agree and consent to their still photos to be taken. So to -- not to disrupt this hearing process here today, we're going to allow that to happen prior to the hearing commencing, and at that point we're going to ask them not to take any more photos. So just by the information I've received here today, it's the Panel's understanding, the Panel wishes not to be photographed at this hearing here today. Ms. Van Houten will be photographed here today because based on CDCR rules and regulations that she is an inmate here today. Mr. Pfeiffer, do you consent to being photographed at this hearing here today?

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. And Ms. Lebowitz, I understand you're not consenting to be photographed. Is that correct?

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: I do not consent.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. Ms. Hogg, do you consent to being photographed at this hearing here today?

MS. HOGG: No, I do not.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. Ms. Tate, do you consent?

MS. TATE: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. Mr. Smaldino.

MR. SMALDINO: Smaldino.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Smaldino. Do you consent to being photographed at this hearing today?

MR. SMALDINO: (Inaudible).

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Do you -- I'm sorry. Your first and last name again?

MS. TREJO: Leticia Trejo.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Ms. Trejo, do you consent to being photographed at this hearing here today?

MS. TREJO: I do not.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: You do not. Thank you. Officer Ortega, do you consent to being photographed?

CORRECTIONAL OFFICER ORTEGA: I do.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. And Lieutenant Thomas, do you consent to being photographed at this hearing here today?

LIEUTENANT THOMAS: I do.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. So at this point we'll allow individuals -- I don't know how the media wants to handle it -- gentlemen -- to photograph the inmate and inmate attorney if you so choose first. Please go ahead at this point. Thank you.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Shall we go off record?

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: No. That's fine. We'll just put it on. Thank you. Sufficient? Okay. And your desire is to take Ms. Tate's photo or just the inmate at this point? We're good? That's it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. All right. So that concludes the photograph session for this hearing here today. Now let's get to the body of this hearing here today. Ms. Van Houten, if I can ask you first to raise your right hand so I can swear you in. Do you solemnly swear or affirm the testimony you give at this hearing is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I do.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. So the Panel will first address ADA, Americans with Disabilities Act, and your 1073 and DEC System has been reviewed by the Panel. That basically in essence notifies us if there is any accommodations necessary for this hearing. It looks by the file review that you signed that document on 11/19/2015. It indicates that you have no disabilities but for you have your own glasses here today, which I presume are functioning properly?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. You have a 12.9 grade point level, total GPL, which is the highest attainable in the institutional setting. So I assume you can read and write and comprehend.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes, I can.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. Is there any -- are you on any psychotropic medication currently?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No, I am not.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Any problems walking here today?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: All right. Let me ask Mr. Pfeiffer, who is privy to more information possibly than I am, with respect to your well-being ADA conditions. Mr. Pfeiffer, any ADA issues that need accommodation for this instant hearing here today for your client?

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: None. I just let her know that if she gets tired or thirsty to just let everybody know.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you so much. And also, anybody in the gallery as well, if they need a break, I would just give the officer's attention or the PIO, the Lieutenant's attention to give us -- we'll accommodate a recess at any portion here today. With respect to your client's hearing rights, those documents were signed and acknowledged by your client on 11/19/2015. Any issues thus far with your client's hearing rights?

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: None.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: With respect to exhibits, there was a collection of documents that were presented at the ten-day file, and also you provided some documents here today inclusive of relapse prevention plan and other documents. Do you want to elaborate what these are and if they're new, fresh documents you would like to mark or are they a collection of things found in the C File?

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Most of them are already in the C File. I'm not sure that they all were. There's one document which is -- it's a very long document. It's a spreadsheet, and what it is is a culmination of all of her hearings, some of the things she's done at those hearings and a psych eval summary of the hearings and the results of those hearings. And I just provided that because there's been so many hearings that it's easier for everybody to follow the history of what she's gone through at these hearings. And basically there's some -- most of the support letters, all except for the three that I handed in today, I believe are in either the ten-day that we got on Watchdox or the ten-day that we got today.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. And we'll address markation of those -- the Commissioner will, at the appropriate time and make the appropriate ruling. Ms. Lebowitz, have you been provided these documents?

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: I was provided with them at approximately 8:25 this morning. It's now nine o'clock and we started the hearing at 8:50. The two documents in particular, the prime insight statement, which is ten pages, which is particularly relevant to this proceeding today, is very long and involved, and I have not had the opportunity to review it. Therefore, I would object to its use and admission. The --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Commissioner, I apologize. I want to move the --

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: I'm sorry.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: I'm going to move the mic over there because --

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Okay.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: It sounds (inaudible).

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Can you hear? Okay. Thank you. I'll sit closer.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Thank you.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Secondly, I would also object to the summary of the decision and psych reports as opinion by counsel and it is not appropriate for this hearing.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Noted. Your objection is noted for the record. They are both overruled. Foremost the inmate has a right to present documents up and including today's date, and so that introduction of them is not an issue for the Panel. With respect to relevance and probative value, obviously the Panel is empowered with addressing and making that determination of the probative value of any evidence that is presented to the Panel here today. So that's how we'll proceed with those and those will be taken in at this point. Now markation --

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Can I make one clarification?

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Yes.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Is the insight statement that counsel was referring to came -- was in the ten-day packet from the Board. It wasn't something that I presented today.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Noted. Thank you so much. Now Ms. Lebowitz, I understand you had some documents. I don't -- you had indicated there was some coroner's report, something to that effect. Why don't you elaborate for us, please? Thank you.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Yes. At the last hearing in 2013, Mr. Sequeira, S-E-Q-U-E-I-R-A, presented copies of the coroner's reports of both Rosemary and Leno LaBianca to the Board in his ten-day packet. In the master Watchdox file that we received, I did not see those coroner's reports and I was unclear as to whether or not the Board had the opportunity to review them or Mr. Pfeiffer had the opportunity to see it. It was requested that it be included as part of the record. I brought copies with me today and I provided them to you, the Commissioner and the Deputy Commissioner, and I had a conversation with Mr. Pfeiffer. He indicated that he has seen them before. He is familiar with them and he did not need an extra copy.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: If you have a copy, I'll take it.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Okay. I do.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Because I haven't seen it in a while.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay, thank you.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: But I have seen it.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. And we did receive those documents and we are going to consider it given that, counsel, you've received it. Previously you've seen these documents before.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: I've seen them before.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Thank you.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: I have just submitted only the coroner's report for Rosemary, not Leno this time.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Thank you.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: We'll probably mark it as an exhibit at the end counsel (inaudible).

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. Now any -- Mr. Pfeiffer, any preliminary objections?

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: I do. I have some motions pending that I filed with the BPH, and at that time I filed them, I also sent copies to the DA's Office. One is to enforce Penal Code Section 3043 which defines who victims' next-of-kin are, and I respectfully request that Mr. Smaldino and Ms. Tate not be able to attend the hearing because they do not qualify as victims' next-o-kin pursuant to Penal Code Section 3043 as put out in my motion.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. I reviewed your motion that was received by our Legal Department earlier this week and they forwarded the same to me. The Panel has reviewed and considered the motion on behalf of Ms. Van Houten to enforce Penal Code Section 3043 with respect to attendance and participants of the victims' next-of-kin and representatives. We have determined that the individuals you stated have the right to appear as descendants of the victims. Ms. Tate is allowed as a representative for the victims and is allowed to participate as such. So your motion is noted. It is overruled at this time based on meeting the requirements as set forth by 3043.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Can I just point out that Ms. Tate is not a descendant of the victim?

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Yes. I understand.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Okay.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And I made my motion -- the ruling that she's a representative at this point and you've made your record.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Okay. Thank you.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. Any other objections?

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: I had another motion.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Motion.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: That was to consider the definition of unreasonable risk of public safety that's pursuant to Penal Code Section 1170.18. That definition is to be used throughout the entire Penal Code, and I respectfully request that that definition be used here today at this hearing. And that definition basically says to be an unreasonable risk to public safety, the inmate must be likely to commit a super-strike in the future.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: I read your motion. It is -- and considered that, and at this point, we believe that the standard that we have been applying and will be applied here today is consistent with current law. I understand it's pending before the Supreme Court on different code sections, Prop --

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Prop 36.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: 36 and 47 are being considered, but at this juncture, your objection is overruled. It is the current law of the State of California while we proceed forward here today.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: I just want to make one more record. And Prop -- what is pending before the Supreme Court is that the application of Prop 36 is retroactive application, and this is prospective application because Prop 47 was passed before this hearing whereas Prop 36 was passed before Prop 47.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. Noted.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Okay.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Anything else? Any objections, motions?

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: (Inaudible).

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Any objections, motions at this point?

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: No.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: No? Thank you. So anything I missed, Commissioner?

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: No.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Thank you. So Ms. Van Houten, the Panel has reviewed your Central File. The Panel has reviewed the confidential portion of your C File. If and when that becomes relevant, we'll advise you further in accordance with Title 15 and allow Mr. Pfeiffer to make the appropriate objections. We've also considered recent documents given that you've been incarcerated for an extended period of time. The most recent document we do have is a Comprehensive Risk Assessment prepared by Dr. Kropf, K-R-O-P-F, and that's a February 2nd, 2016 Comprehensive Risk Assessment which addresses dynamic changes given an extended incarceration period, and ultimately Dr. Kropf's opinion was that you represent a low risk of violence should you be released into the community. More important than the ultimate conclusion is how the clinician arrived at that conclusion which would -- which is partly what we do here at these hearings here today. It is also of note that the previous risk assessments from 2010, 2007, 2006 all also place you in the low risk of violence for recidivism -- of violent recidivism, and even previous to that, which the Commissioner may put on the record at a certain point. So those are the documents we'll be considering that are more recent than a 1969 mental state. The format of today's hearing is the Panel will discuss with you pre- and post-conviction history, everything from your childhood up and including today. After we are done with our inquiry and questions, we'll have opportunity for clarifying questions. First clarifying questions come from the District Attorney's Office, Ms. Lebowitz, representing the County of Los Angeles and The People, and those questions are actually meant for the Panel. She wants to -- the County, the City, The People want to make sure that the Panel has all available information to us before we make a decision here today. So we may adopt her question. We may rephrase her question or we may ask her to move on to her next question, so just wait for our advisement. I'm sure you've gone through these before many times, so after that, Mr. Pfeiffer will also have an opportunity to ask clarifying questions. Given that you are his client, we gave a little bit more leeway in him addressing you directly with respect to clarifying questions, but it's all still under the same umbrella to facilitate the Panel in making a decision. Okay?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Any questions?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: All right. After clarifying questions, we'll have an opportunity for closing statements. I've discussed with participants here, I've discussed with the Commissioner here, my partner, and we determined that 20 minutes is sufficient time for them to articulate a position whether a nexus exists to current dangerousness or to argue against when I think it's sufficient time for them to articulate that position. After that, you'll have an opportunity for your closing statement, should you choose to give one to the Panel here today, at which time and prior to us moving to deliberations, we'll have an opportunity to hear from the victims' family members, grandchildren, representatives, and what's referred to as an impact statement. And that in essence is the last word we hear at which time we'll move into deliberations, and we will come out, have a decision. We'll render a decision at that point whether it be a grant of parole, which thereafter we'll forward to the Governor or a denial of parole ranging from three years to 15 years, okay. Any questions?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No. No, I don't.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: First question I have for you, Ms. Van Houten, is how old were you when you committed this life crime?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Nineteen.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Nineteen years old. How old are you currently?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Sixty-six.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So how long have you been incarcerated?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: About 46 years, but in '77 I was able to bond out for six months and then I came back in July of '78.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: So six months of that period of time I was in the community.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So approximately 44 years you said?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Well, 46, 44.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Forty-six years. Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: All right. So based on how old you were, based on how you are, based on the years you've served, you qualify for certain regulations and decrees. First, based on your age and years served, you qualify for elderly parole meaning the Panel must consider your age at this time as a factor in consideration of determination. The second and -- is the time you -- at the time you committed this offense you were 19 years old, and based on SB 261, as enacted by Penal Code Section 3051 and the progeny of code sections thereto, the Panel must give great weight to your diminished culpability as a youth, the hallmark features and any subsequent growth and maturity. So we must address and adhere this hearing to that great weight standard which we will do here today. Any questions as to those?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: No? Okay. Currently you're in California Institute for Women. How long have you been here?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I've been here my entire incarceration.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And currently is this the general population yard? Is this an SNY yard?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: This is the general population yard.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: General section. Okay. And I note for the record that -- are we okay? Thank you. If you need a recess, just let us know. I mean I don't want you to -- something to happen. Thank you. Okay. And prior to your incarceration, I note that you were a high school graduate, correct?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes, I was.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And subsequent to your incarceration looks like you've amassed education from a BA degree in English lit, I believe.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: No.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: That was after my -- do you mean after --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: After, yeah.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: My incarceration. Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: After your incarceration, a BA in --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: In the 80s.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: In the 80s and then you got your master's as well.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: In humanities, I believe.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. And that was in 2013 through Dominguez Hills -- Cal State Dominguez Hills.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So my question is to the end that you -- we have a full understanding of each other right now, don't we? You understand me?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. If you don't understand something here today, please make sure you stop me and make sure I clarify for you here today.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: The first set of questions -- I know you've gone through this before. This is a de novo hearing so we consider everything anew, and we'll address historical factors in nature. Give me one second to pull this. Okay. In looking at your childhood/adolescent development, you were born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Pasadena, then Monrovia, California. Is that correct?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes. I grew up in Monrovia and I was born in Altadena, California, just at the hospital, but I was raised in Monrovia.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: You were the younger of two children of your parents, correct?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: You had an older brother or sister?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I have an older brother.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Brother. And where is he today?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: He's in San Francisco.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: You have contact with him today?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Currently?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: When you were seven years old your parents adopted a two-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl from Korea. Is that correct?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Your childhood -- for the most part in the population that lifers usually come from, you had a privileged life.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes. I was raised comfortably middle class.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: No domestic violence in the home?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: You were not physically or sexually abused yourself?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No, I was not.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: You were not neglected?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Your father worked as an automobile auctioneer and your mom as a homemaker.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: You described your parents' relationship as mismatched.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: At a certain point and ultimately it resulted in their dissolution of marriage and they divorced.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Can you expound on how your childhood was -- how it led to the divorce and that aspect of it?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: You mean their mismatch?

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Their mismatch.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Okay. My mother came from a more educated background and she came from a pretty rigid Presbyterian background.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: My father came from the lower class. They were both from Iowa. My father was an alcoholic and had a high school diploma but nothing more and I think they were probably, in their youth, physically attracted, and as time went on and the complications of life came on, the differences became too much and --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: How old were you when they divorced?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I was 14.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And when they divorced, you and your siblings lived with your mother in Monrovia?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And your father moved, I guess, to the beach with his second wife.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes, he did.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Did you have contact with your father after the divorce?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes. Part of the reason that the divorce is significant to me is that I was very close to my father, and he told me he was leaving mom before he told her, and when she found out there was an obvious wedge between my mom and I.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Because he didn't tell her?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah. That I knew. And it also put -- I blamed her for his leaving. I think that kind of was maybe the birth of some anger that I began to carry and a rebelliousness against her.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Why would you blame her in that state of mind you were in?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: That she didn't -- he was in AA and she was always trying to hide it and was ashamed that he was in that. I felt she didn't support him. And she felt I was closer to him so she was always criticizing him, saying I was trying -- he was trying to turn me into his mother, you know, just complicated stuff.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So you -- I'm sorry to interrupt you, but you indicated to the clinicians historically in the most recent one that you felt abandoned by your father.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah. I felt he ran out. I felt I should have gone with him. I was closer to him and I felt that I should have been able to go with him.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So these abandonment issues towards your father, then you had anger issues towards your mother.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. But is this really something unusual, I mean that happens in real world, real life?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No. I think --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Did you take it as unusual?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: You mean the divorce?

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: That you -- the divorce, the anger issues, because it happens, right? This is regular life.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: (Inaudible) but in I think it was like '64, I don't think there was many divorces.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Monrovia didn't have people divorcing, and the label of divorce at that time in a small town stigmatizes and I became part of the single parent group of people, and whether socially it mattered on a different level, I felt it did. And my mom was, of course, very angry at dad and she had to go back to work and she would say things like the only reason he picks you up is because I make him, you know. She wanted us to side with her. It's just complicated things that happen to a young person.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Do you believe your life would have turned out differently when you look back at it and the choices you made had they never been divorced? When you look back -- and we all do, right, in our lives?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah. I don't know. I haven't really thought that. I think --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: You never thought what, about that or --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I think it could have been different the way I handled it. I don't think I handled it in -- I think I handled it in a very poor way.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. So prior to the divorce, prior to the separation, do you believe you had a -- your outlook on life was different, was more positive? Did this -- was this the cross in the road or the wedge in the road that changed things for you because --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes, it did.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Before that I pretty much had an idyllic existence. I was popular in the high school. I was very involved in activities and this -- at that time, this made me feel separated from what my life had been. My mother's social life changed, and as a consequence, so did our family's.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: You started using substances at an early age.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes, I did.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: I believe at the age of 15.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: You start using marijuana, methamphetamine, LSD. Why do you think you experimented so extensively in such a short period of time with so many drugs?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Well, I -- the first drug that I tried was the marijuana, and I fell in love with it right away and --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Why?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Because it took me out of me and it was different and I reacted to it in a way that I just wanted more. I had come --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: It took me -- I'm sorry. It took me out of being me. What was me that you were desirous to be taken away from?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Feeling that I was different now and our home structure had changed and I was beginning to hang out with other single parent children and I didn't like who I was at the time.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And how much younger are you than your sister?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: My brother.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Brother, I'm sorry.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I'm four years younger.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Four years younger. How did he handle the situation?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: He was 18 at the time and had just finished school and he left the house. So he didn't really have to deal with the divorce.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Looking back, do you think you overreacted to this situation of your parents or was it normal, -- had to be done given the dynamics that you were living in?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: What do you mean had to be done?

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Meaning the way you felt?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I never really --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Using all these drugs, wanting to get away from it, feeling --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: At that point I was just kind of going about things. I wasn't really analyzing what I was doing. I was just kind of experimenting and I was -- my brother was more or less involved in the beatnik community, so I was around the alternative life.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: What attracted you to that alternative life?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I think that probably in hindsight some of it was rebellion against my mom and my dad's second wife was trying to figure out how to be a stepmother to four kids that she really didn't know.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So from marijuana you graduate to methamphetamine, LSD.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah, the methamphetamine --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Benzedrine.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Came later.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Did it?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: It was first the LSD.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Hallucinogens.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Yeah. What attracted you to hallucinogens?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: At the time, it was still a legal drug, and my boyfriend was spending time with the older college kids and it was a lot of looking at the world through a different lens through Timothy Leary's psychedelic experience and I found that attractive.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And I had read in a different variety of reports that you had used LSD in excess of 150 times. Is that --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: That's what the word -- I took it whenever I could and early on the word -- the number 300 was used and 150. I don't know the exact time. I took it a lot.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So this is during your high school years?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I would take it on the weekends.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Weekends, so --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I took advantage of the fact that my mother was busy and I was living my own life under her radar. And I'm not proud of that. I --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: You had described that at the age of 15, you had another traumatic event that happened to you or resulted in becoming a traumatic event and you becoming pregnant.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: That was 17.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Seventeen. Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah. It says 15, but it's 17.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. What happened at the age of 17?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: My boyfriend and I before my senior year of school had run away from home to San Francisco, but we came back. It was a harsh reality having run away, and when I came back I was pregnant and Bobby and I -- Bobby Mackie -- and I waited for dad to come and pick us kids up that weekend and we told my parents that I was pregnant and -- do you want me to keep --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Please.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Okay. My mother reacted very, very strongly. My dad always deferred to my mom and I went to try to speak to her and she just basically rejected me, said don't touch me.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So she was disappointed that you were -- you had become pregnant.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Disappointed, angry, had no idea that I had been using drugs or having sex. I had hidden everything from her. And Bobby was pretty much what are you going to do about it, you know. He was incapable and unable to figure it out, so over a period of several months, my mother from the very beginning was adamant that I would have an abortion.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: How old was Bobby at the time?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: He was the same age as I am. He was 17.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: How would you describe your relationship with him?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: In hindsight, I think that I was probably suffocating him and I think it was teen love, that we both were looking at each other as a way to fill gaps in our lives.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: But you wouldn't describe it as a controlling relationship, that he was controlling you in any fashion at that time -- or would you?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I didn't see it as that.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Because you're describing it as suffocating, more like you were suffocating him to a degree.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Maybe, you know. I think about it sometimes and I don't know if he was as crazy about me as I was him.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: You know.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: But it wasn't like you were under any sort of his control or the issue of he did things -- he wanted you to do things. He was protective over you, things of that nature -- at that point.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: He might have been protective over me, but I don't view that relationship as him towering over me.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Or forcing me to do things I didn't want to do.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So some time passes between you telling your mother and you get an abortion, correct?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: How much time elapsed?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I don't know exactly, but --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Approximately.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I think I was probably in my second trimester.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: What happened was my mother had arranged through her psychologist that a woman came to our home and gave me a solution. She douched me with a solution that would dislodge the baby. My sister and brother were asleep in the room down the hall, and I began contracting and my mom told me to be quiet, that she didn't want anyone to know. And ultimately after a few hours, I aborted.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: At that time, abortions were legal?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: They were legal?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: They were illegal.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Illegal. Yes. So at that point were you -- what was your feelings towards getting an abortion or having the child?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I wanted the child. I wanted to have a life with Bobby. I wanted to start a young family.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Why didn't you?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I didn't have what it took to buck mom, and dad had offered to let Bobby and I live with -- underneath them in their duplex, and mom convinced me that dad just wanted me to have the baby so his wife could adopt it, and every -- at every turn my mom was just adamant that I have the abortion.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: In looking back, would you have had that child?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: If it were up to me?

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Yeah.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So that experience with the abortion under those circumstances, how do you think that affected you?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: It took away my personality. I lost a lot of who I felt I was.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: I don't really understand what that means. How does that mean -- what took away your personality?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I think it kind of flat-lined a lot of my personality. At that point I wanted to join a yoga renunciate, become -- join an ashram, which is why I went to business school after I finished high school because they needed secretarial skills at the ashram. And --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So what would the ashram provide you at this point in your life?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Pursuing a greater understanding. I was preoccupied with a greater understanding of life and doing it in a sober way.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: And living a life of renouncing the entrapments of the world, you know. It was kind of idealistic for a 17-year-old, but that's --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So at that time were you using drugs as well?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I stopped using drugs.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: You stopped. Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Completely?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: But then I started back halfway through my business school. I contacted my old friends and went back to the using LSD and smoking weed and messing around with methamphetamines.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: After you graduated from high school, you enrolled in the Sawyer.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Sawyer.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Sawyer Business School, S-A-W-Y-E-R, Business School, and I guess you received a certificate in clerical work, correct?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And just to get the timeframe correct, how long were you not using any substances?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Probably for close to seven or eight months maybe. Maybe a year almost.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. And what was your mental state during that time that you didn't want to use? Because you used --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I was --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: To get away from it, to you know, hide from your issues, things of that nature, but all of a sudden --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: For a period of a year, said okay I'm good with it, I don't have to do any drugs.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Well, I think that --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Seems like --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I think that I saw that they were a false way to reaching the states of awareness that Leary and the hippie movement were discussing at the time.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: So it wasn't like I abandoned all of that and suddenly wanted to work at a company or something.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Why don't you talk to us about that era, that time? You keep referring to it as the hippie era and the, I guess, freedom of expression or how would you describe that time period?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: It was --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: For you.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: For me it was questioning the inequalities that were present in society.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Example.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: That my family had a lot, but when we would drive down the freeway and I would see the backs of the slums, I would ask, you know, what are those and what are they doing there, and my mom would say don't look, you know. Those are for people that are less fortunate. And I think in the hippie movement I was beginning to question that kind of imbalance. And it was an alternative lifestyle that I found inviting, that I felt I belonged in, and we would take LSD to try to reach our inner core, you know. Sounds kind of childish now, but that was what was important to me and I took it seriously that it was important to question violence and war and --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: To question violence and war. Okay. At the age of 19 you commit your life crime, correct?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: When did you meet Charlie Manson in relationship to when you committed the life crime?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I met him in the late summer of '68.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: How old were you at that time?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I had just turned 19.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. So how long did you know him between the time period of you met him and the time period that you committed the life crime?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Between ten and 12 months.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. And what initially prompted you to meet or want to meet Charlie Manson?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: After I finished business school, I went to Victorville and stayed with some friends and one of them was heading up for San Francisco and I was without direction or motivation in my life and I went with her to stay with her and a guy I had known from my Pasadena days.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: You say without direction. Where are your parents at this time, your dad, your mom, your siblings?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I left them.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I finished school and I left to find my way in the world.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And what was their response to --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: They were disappointed, you know. My dad offered me the world. I could have lived underneath him on Strand in Manhattan Beach, which is beautiful. And he was going to help me get a job at a company -- I think it was called TRW. And I threw everything away.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Why?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I wanted independence and I wanted to find what was important to me. At that time, I couldn't relate and I couldn't see what he was offering. I was too involved in alternatives to what the world offered, so I left.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Then what happens?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I went -- ended up in San Francisco and I had no means of caring for myself, and Duncan and -- I can't remember her name -- the woman I went up with -- they argued all the time, and we lived on --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Was Duncan your boyfriend at the time?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: He was the husband of the woman I went up with. They were having marital problems.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: And she had a baby that I would take care of and loved, and I'm sure I was transferring a lot of what I didn't have.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: At this time were you using drugs, LSD, experimenting?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Marijuana and LSD.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Marijuana, LSD.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. On a daily basis or whenever it was available?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Whenever it was available. Weed all the time. Marijuana all the time.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Were you working?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. How were you supporting -- how were you guys supporting yourselves?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I was, at that point, pretty much running out of money. Duncan was working and he was resenting that I was there. And I had somehow managed to become a Kelly girl.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: What does that mean?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: That was in the 60s. If you had the skills as a secretary, they would call you if they needed work -- a day or two at a bank or something and you would go and --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Like temp work of sorts.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah, temporary work.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: All right.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: But I never went and everything happened, I think if I recall correctly, rather quickly. So Dee was her name -- Dee and Duncan. And they lived on Stanyan and Carl in the heart of the Haight Ashbury, and she came back home one night, and when she came, she brought Robert Beausoleil, Catherine Share, and a woman named Gail to the house and they stayed the night. And Dee wanted out of her marriage and Gypsy -- Catherine Share's name was Gypsy -- and Gypsy offered me the way to a commune where everybody loved each other and they lived for the moment and they lived in the here and now. And that to go with them, all I needed to do was drop out from society and I did and I went with them.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Wow. Because you wanted to --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Be part of that lifestyle of a commune of people where everyone was equal. That we lived for the moment. That was part of the commune living of the 60s. And at the time it sounded inviting and like I would be accepted and welcomed.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Did you know anything about the commune -- who ran it, how many people were there, where it was located, things of that nature?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Not at that day.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: And then for the next several months, Gypsy --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Which is Catherine.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Catherine Share.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: And Bobby and Gail and I would just drive up and down the coast of California. I hadn't gone to the ranch at that point.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: And we (inaudible) --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Why hadn't you gone to the ranch?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Huh?

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Why didn't you go directly to the ranch when you heard about the situation?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Because Gypsy -- I mean Catherine Share had been asked by Manson to stay with Bobby, and Bobby was looking for some people that had belonged at the ranch or something. I'm not real clear on all of that.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Because I came in while it was all going on.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So you said initially Dee brought over Robert, Gypsy -- Robert Beausoleil. Is that Bobby?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: That's a different Bobby.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: That's a different Bobby. Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Bobby Mackie now is out of my life.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. And Catherine Share.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. So at a certain point before going into the commune, you are traveling up and down the coast --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Panhandling.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Panhandling. Yourself, Robert, Catherine. Is Dee -- did Dee come with you as well or no?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Dee came just for a bit but went back because of her child and she didn't want to be part of it.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Still using drugs?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Then what happens?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: So while we're traveling around the coast, Gail and Bobby are fighting a lot because Gail was his girlfriend and he had two other women with him. And so she was arguing a lot, and Gypsy and I would sit in the back of our pickup and she would talk to me constantly about this Christ-like man that had all the answers and basically spent all her hours convincing me that the two of us needed to go and be down at the ranch with Charles Manson.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: What attracted you at that time to the idea of Charles Manson?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: It was getting stressful with the constant fighting of Bobby and Gail, and I was curious to see what was going on at the ranch, and she was very, very convincing.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Were you using constantly at that time?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. So you make it down to the ranch.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: What is the ranch called? I think it's called Spahn --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes. Spahn's Movie Ranch.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. And you arrive there.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. What happens?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: At first Manson was angry at Catherine for the two of us leaving Bobby because he wanted us to bring Bobby back to the ranch. And I don't know what Catherine said, but he agreed that we'd stay. And life at first at the ranch was -- it was welcoming, but he was always a strong personality. The women were welcoming, but he was a strong personality. And the message at the ranch was to let go of everything that we had been taught by our parents. And because he had spent his prison in life (sic), he wasn't like older people because there was a saying at the time that you never trust anyone over 30. And he was older, but because he had been in prison and had had a hard life, he was different.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Do you believe he ended up controlling you?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes. You know, that's sort of a simplified --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Yeah.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I believe he had an agenda and the agenda was to strip those of us that were with him of our identities and personalities and become indoctrinated to what he wanted.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Why did you allow that to happen?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: It happened slowly. I didn't care for who I was. I didn't feel a connection with my dad, with his wife and their situation.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Well, why did you feel a connection to him, a convicted felon?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: He didn't really talk to -- he just said he was in jail. I didn't know what he was in for at the time. I think it was the group and that I began to believe that he was a Christ figure and that I was destined to listen and strip myself of those things that society had taught me.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: What role did substances play in this belief system where you adhering to him being a Christ figure, this philosophy -- did it play any role?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: He would -- when we would take the LSD, we would sit in a circle around him, and then for the seven or eight hours he would talk and tell us how we needed to strip ourselves and point out individuals and mock them and make us pretty uncomfortable, you know. I feel that at the time I got there, I wanted to believe in someone, you know. I certainly can look back and see that there were times I could have followed my intuition that it was time to go. But I didn't seem to have the ability to do that and --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Why do you think?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I think that I was a very weak personality. That I was looking for someone else to have the answers. That I just wanted to resign myself with going with the flow.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Do you think there was a characteristic that Charles Manson seeked out with respect to people to follow him? Meaning there was individuals in the commune, right, that were regulars. I would assume you were one of those individuals.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And I'm also assuming that there are people that came and went.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Right? Maybe they didn't believe in his philosophy. Maybe they said okay, this is just not for me, things of that nature. But those individuals that stayed, and you were one of those individuals, along with other women at that time.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Is there a characteristic that you guys all shared in common at the time, do you believe?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: From hindsight?

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: In hindsight, yes.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: In hindsight, certainly.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: What were those characteristics?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I think that each of us, in our own way, had had something that had fractured our personalities and made us seeking someone else to rely on.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Sorry.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: When you were on LSD, did that make you more susceptible to suggestions?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes. Yes.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Do you think that's where a lot of the brainwashing was happening while you were on LSD?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I believe he used the LSD trips to set things into our heads and to publicly humiliate us and get his doctrine more in. But after the LSD trips, we did it to each other, you know. No one ever said you know, what happened last night seemed kind of out of it. Instead we always supported what was going on. So I think even communally we became our own enemies as far as holding onto reality.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: But was that the effect, the aftereffect of the LSD or did you feel that -- when you say you're off, were you completely off where you were completely conscious?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: During the LSD?

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: You were saying that you would -- you guys would take LSD and then he would lecture for seven to eight hours.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes. Yes.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: But then you said the next day or whenever it is, you guys would take it out on each other.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Well, with LSD, there's a condensed amount of hallucinating, which is usually about a seven or eight-hour time period. And the next day or afterward, there's -- we were still -- like when I was taking it in high school, I would go back to school and I would have something that would level me off. At the ranch, there was no leveling off. We kept the language and the things that he would do on the LSD, we would mock it with each other afterward to try to continue. Like if I said something about my life prior to the ranch, then the others would make fun of me, and I would do the same with them. It was always to disengage our lifestyle that was and to take on what was happening at the ranch.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Okay. So he was so effective in indoctrinating you that you guys were basically disciples among each other indoctrinating each other, even while you're off LSD.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Okay. Sorry, Commissioner.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: And there were, you know, like nothing belonged to anyone. Like even if you wore the same outfit more than two days in a row, someone else would make sure they would have it, and so there was no possession, no identity with anything in particular that you would be -- that I would be able to call my own so --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: How many regulars were at this commune?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I believe there were probably nine or ten.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And how would you support yourself? How would you find food to eat, things of that nature?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: At the time we could go behind grocery stores and they didn't lock the bins and there was the produce and packaged food that had had their expiration dates. Somehow there was a man who would drop off station wagons full of Van de Kamp's day old food, and after a while, we would get to know the produce boys at the back of the market who would put the old produce in those stands on the road.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Were you in a relationship -- physical relationship with Charles Manson as well?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Only a few times.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: When you say only a few times --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I only had sex with him a few times. But everyone --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: That kind of indicates to me that others had more or you had -- I mean what does -- what are you trying to get at -- only a few times as opposed to --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Well, it wasn't like a one14 on-one relationship.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I guess is what I'm getting at. That the sex at the ranch was anyone with anyone, just not really homosexual behavior. And if the women were expected to have sex with the men when they wanted it, and just like the clothes, you know. You couldn't identify with a particular person.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: I thought I read a report somewhere -- I mean there's been so many of them -- that you never had sexual intercourse with him because he viewed you as Bobby's girl or something to that effect.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes. We did once or twice, but that's true. He wanted me always to get Bobby to come back. Or when Bobby stopped by that I would be with Bobby.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: The initial philosophy that attracted you to this lifestyle was freedom, lack of violence, a different way of thinking, anti-establishment, things of that nature. Somehow this evolves during your stay with -- at the ranch and how did it evolve from that to violent acts and violent ideology?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: In the winter of '68 to '69.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Tell me in proportion to how long now you've been at the ranch.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Probably about four or five months.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Away from Bobby.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Just strictly at the ranch. Some of us were living up in the desert and -- that's the LA area -- and he had gone down into LA, and when he came back --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: He?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Manson. And when he came back, he was much more intense and said that there was going to be a revolution and he started his conversations about violence at that point. Prior to that, which in my reflection, there was one night where he said to us baa like sheep, and every one of us did. And I think that in hindsight, I think that when he realized we all did that -- I don't know. I think something moved inside of him. You know I feel that.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Meaning that he had now total control is what you're --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: His laugh was, you know -- I remember it. And then that was a bit before this whole idea of the revolution and Helter Skelter.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: What was that ideology? What did you understand it to be at that time?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: It progressed over a period of time. It started in the winter. And he said that the blacks had been suppressed and had been subjected to cruelty and slavery and that it was time for the karma to change and that the blacks would rise. And the whites would then be in the position of the blacks.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: That there would be a shift.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. And then you guys were white, so --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: That we -- at that point we needed to prepare. That because he was the Christ figure, we would go into the cities and begin saving the white children and live in a hole in the desert for about 150 years and come back out. And at that point the blacks would be sick of the way of the white man and it -- the process would begin again -- the change of karma.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: That's Helter Skelter in a nutshell.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Commissioner. May I ask -- by the time Helter Skelter -- that concept came around -- were you at this point -- the brainwashing -- has that been complete?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Or not quite yet?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No. It's -- I don't see a way out.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Okay.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: I mean if somebody is going to believe that, I think there's some brainwashing or something going on.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: I wanted to make that clear.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Yeah. I mean brainwashing or not, this is just ludicrous. I mean you're an educated person. You'd gone to high school, graduated. You go to college. Maybe even under some LSD you'd maybe hallucinating you believe this, but then you stop using. You come out and say okay, what hole, what 150 years, what is this guy talking about.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah. I never questioned it.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Why not?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I had --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: You got -- I'm sorry. Before that -- you got to agree this is absurd.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Of course.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Right?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: This is just absolutely --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: To a reasonable person, it looked like what are you talking about.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: And tragically it, you know, it's worse than absurd to me. Its outcome was horrible.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: What do you mean the outcome was horrible?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: The murders.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Yes.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: The loss of life.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Yeah. I mean I'm not even there yet. I'm right now at the hole and the black state being suppressed, Helter Skelter, the whites coming to power, you guys jumping in a hole for 150 -- I mean you really believed that this was a possibility?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And how is that even possible?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: The life at the ranch had become a capsule, like we were isolated. Even though we would go into town, we would go with someone else and see it through a different lens than what it was. Like the plaza, the cleanness of people, everything was like an entirely different world and he would point out things like the Black Panther movement was coming up and he would point what he wanted us to see out.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Did you believe this as true?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes, I did.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And was that based on the substances that you were using at the time? Was it based on a brainwashing at that juncture?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I think it was a combination, and I think it was a combination of all of us that were there not questioning -- no one questioned.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So when you were not using substances, did you think this is out of the ordinary, this is strange?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: When we -- when I wasn't high, I was busy doing tasks and chores, and we kept the idea of what we were doing with each other -- we would do these games of trying to creep up on each other so everything was always preparing for this war. We were getting karate lessons and trying to figure out how to can food that would last for years and finding a place --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Whose idea was that?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Manson. He conducted what we did, but we did it, you know. I'm not -- I hope you're not understanding that I know it's my responsibility that I allowed this to happen to me.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Of course. Now on page 4 of 13 of the risk assessment, in the third paragraph, you tell the clinician the following. She indicated, meaning you, initially drugs were the focus at the ranch. She denied that there was any talk of violence in the beginning, which corroborates your statements here today.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: She indicated that circumstances at the ranch changed and becoming violent and she expressed a desire to leave. She indicated that despite her desire to leave, she was unable to leave because Manson had taken a dominant role in her life and she felt powerless. Clarify that statement to me.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah. There were two --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Let me finish.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Okay.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Because to me it's indicated that you knew what was going on specifically, and based on the brainwashing, you weren't questioning any of this behavior and were preparing and I was busy and the hole and the revolution. But this statement makes it seem like you were questioning at a certain point but unable to do anything about it, which is a little distinction.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No. I was mostly wanting to leave because I was exhausted and I wanted to go and I told him that I did and he drove me up to a cliff with a dune buggy and he said if you want to leave you may as well jump because you'll get caught in the revolution and you're going to die anyway. So it wasn't that I necessarily didn't believe him. I just wanted to go. I didn't know where I was going to go. It wasn't like I was going to go home.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Looking back why do you think you believed what he said to be true? Just looking back at it today. I know you're trying to -- you're telling me in a narrative fashion, but in a simple way, why do you think you believed everything he said?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I believe I wanted someone to have all the answers at that time. That I wanted to surrender my life to someone. And I believed that he was an extraordinary person. And I didn't believe I had or I didn't see that I had alternatives. I felt that I was obligated because of who he was as a human being. Like he would, you know, Manson, son of man, you know, all those connections that I felt that I owed him that for who he was.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So at that point, if he said anything, you would have done anything.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Pretty much. There was an incident one time where Catherine Share was holding a cord that was being rotated into a wench on the dune buggy and he had told her to hold it and guide it and walked away and didn't tell her to let go. And her thumb was beginning to get caught, you know. It's just -- I just use that as an example. I think any of us -- well, I can't speak for everyone because I was the one that went that night. I would have done anything.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Knowing what you know today, what could you have done when you were at the ranch differently? If you get to go back and talk to your 19-year-old self, something that may have changed the last 50 years of your life, what could you have said? Is there anything you could have said given that you were brainwashed to that degree that would have changed the circumstances that --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: To try to wake myself up?

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Yeah. Anything you could have said looking back?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I don't -- I honestly can't say that there would have been because I believed in him and I don't think that a grounded mind telling me to get out -- I didn't see the con artist tricks, you know. I just -- I had gotten to the point where my own intuition was what I criticized more than anything, so those parts of my humanity that were left from my prior life were things that I criticized to destroy within myself, you know. I wish there were. You know I wish there were something that I could have gone back and said, but I was so dependent and felt such loyalty that I don't think I would have listened.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So take us now to the evening or the weeks or the months surrounding the life crime that you believe is relevant.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Several weeks before the murders, he began to say that we were going to have to be the ones to begin the revolution. And in the evening sessions, he would talk about violence. He would create ghoulish scenarios that if we were going to be able to go in and out of the city during the wars that we would have to get used to seeing violence and gruesomeness. And he would talk about would we die for him and all beings are one, so if we were willing to die for him, would we be able to kill ourselves in another body.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Did anybody question him?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Nobody in this --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Ever?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: People began leaving, but nobody questioned. And it really wasn't until -- if I recall correctly, it wasn't until it was really getting down to that point that I remember Paul Watkins leaving and I'm not sure when Ella left. But they didn't say anything. They just weren't there the next morning. Nobody said anything.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Go ahead. Continue.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: And so the -- I'm getting distracted like when we began using credit cards to get nuts and things like that. That happened all the way through the months ahead, so I'm mainly discussing the weeks before.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Thank you.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Okay. So we were having to see how much did we believe in his vision. And the night before the Tate murders, Pat and I had been taking care of the children in a little trailer. And in the late night, Manson came and pulled Pat out to go with him. And Pat Krenwinkel had been the person that in the group was more or less designated to keep an eye on me, really Pat and Tex.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: How come?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I don't know why he picked Pat, but when I first got to the ranch, he had told me to stay close to Pat, that she was the most tuned in to him. And so she was like my person that sort of kept an eye me, see was I kind of going with the program, I guess. And she had been with him from the beginning, and so --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Why would you think that you need somebody to take -- keep an eye on you? Were you questioning events or --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Was it just his MO?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: It was just (inaudible) --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Just like a, you know --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Thank you. Go ahead.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Some people he didn't care if they left and some he did care. So and Tex was asked closer to the crime to keep an eye on me, because at that point, he had had a lot of bikers coming up and I was spending time with the bikers. And he was fearful that I might leave with them and so that was why he told Tex to keep an eye on me.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Continue.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Go ahead.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Okay. So the next morning, I saw Pat and she was shaken up and she said that Helter Skelter had started and it seemed wrong and the people were young, and at that point when I knew that Pat had gone, I knew that I wanted to go and show my --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: What was Pat referring to?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: She was referring to the murders of the people at the Tate house.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Did you know what had happened?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I knew that people had been murdered. I didn't know exact details and I knew that it had started -- that Helter Skelter had started.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Did you know that the Tate murders were going to happen?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I knew -- during that two week period, he didn't specify tonight they are going to happen, but when she was called out -- because it had been growing in intensity, I had assumed something was going to happen.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Did you know how many people were killed?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: It's hard to say if I knew at that time. I knew it was a lot of people and I knew they were young and I knew that, you know, it was gruesome and that Pat said it seemed very wrong.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So Pat told you it seemed very wrong.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: How did you take that at that point?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: That who were we to question what he felt needed to be done.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And did you ever think what was the motive of this and we're killing young people or these individuals specifically? What was the plan or --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: The plan was to have it blamed on blacks so that the whites would retaliate and the blacks would retaliate and there would be a revolution.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So Pat tells you this and then this is the -- obviously the night before the murder. Then what happens?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: So I knew that she had crossed the line.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: What does that mean?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: She had participated in the crimes, that she was committed to the belief of Helter Skelter, and I wanted to also show Manson that I equally believed in him and the necessity for this and I wanted to be selected to go the next night. So --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So an individual that's never harmed anybody, never killed anybody, you were ready to kill?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I felt that I was, yeah.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: No questions asked.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: On my part?

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Yes, on your part, obviously.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No. I felt that I was obligated. That it was something that needed to be done for the betterment of mankind, you know. And it's absurd to sit here right now and talk to you like that, but that's who I was.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So what happens next?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: So he stops me on the boardwalk and he says are you crazy enough to believe in me and I said yes. And he said go get a change of clothes and get in the car. And so I did. And there were six or seven of us in the car. And we drove around LA for a few hours, him trying to decide where we were going to go, and ultimately we ended up at the door of the LaBianca home. He and Tex went into the house and the rest of us stayed in the car. After a while, he came back --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: After a while? Five minutes, ten minutes?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: It's hard for me to tell, but probably within a 15-minute range. And called Pat and I to get out of the car.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Did you have weapons at that point?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No. I believe Tex Watson did and he was in the house and --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Was there a plan how the killing was going to occur?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It might have been -- no. It was Manson that came and got us. Yeah.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Was there a plan how the murders were going to occur?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: He said that he didn't want them to be as gruesome. He didn't want it to be as frightening for them. That they believed that it was a robbery and to go in and do what Tex said. So we went into the house, and Mr. and Mrs. LaBianca were sitting on the sofa and --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: When you walked in, that's what you saw?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So they were already detained and --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes. And they were frightened, and he told Pat and I to go into the kitchen and get knives, and we took Mrs. LaBianca into the bedroom and put a pillowcase over her head. And she had been pleading, you know, take whatever you want, and we took her into the bedroom. I wrapped the lamp cord around her head to hold the pillowcase on her head. I went to hold her down.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: What noises do you hear around you now?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: At that point, not much, and then when I went to hold her down, we could hear Mr. LaBianca dying. And she jetted forward and started calling his name saying what are you doing. And I tried to hold her down more, and Pat went to stab her on the collarbone and the knife bent. And I ran to the door and I told Tex we can't kill her, it's not working, or something to that effect. Tex came into the bedroom. At that moment, I stared off into a den and then Tex turned me around, handed me a knife and said do something. And I stabbed Mrs. LaBianca in the lower torso with the knife he gave me.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: You said you stared off to the den. What do you mean by that?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I was standing in a doorway and like kitty-corner from the bedroom was a den.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Why were you standing there?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I was overwhelmed with what was happening. I --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Overwhelmed how?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I believe that thinking about being able to be a part of that much violence and then actually having the gumption or whatever it is to see it through. I feel that I know that I was having a hard time holding onto what was happening at that moment. I'm not saying that I suddenly felt it was wrong. I became more critical of myself that I wasn't as able to participate as Tex and Pat.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Had you seen the stabbings yet -- any of them?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No. Not at that point. I was just staring into the den.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Then how did you know stabbings were occurring? Did you hear?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah, I --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: What did you hear?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: The sounds of death, guttural sounds, struggles. Then he turned me around and said do something, and that's when I stabbed Mrs. LaBianca in the lower torso.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: How many times did you stab her?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: At the time, I couldn't have told you. Coroner's reports say between 14 and 16 times.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Why did you stab her?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Because Tex told me to and I knew I needed to do something. And during the LSD trips, Manson had talked about us doing horrible things to the bodies and I knew I wasn't capable, so I stabbed her multiple times rather than mutilate her any further than had been told us.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So now you see --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: So then I began wiping fingerprints in the bedroom.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Let me ask you this. You would have done anything at this point, right? If there were babies in the home, would you have killed babies, newborns, toddlers?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I've been asked that a lot, and to honestly answer that question, I don't know. I think I would have if he'd have said.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And that's more to ask obviously the degree of alliance that you had with Manson -- the brainwashing -- more than -- people want to know or I want to know how deep you -- it was. So you would have done -- would you have killed yourself?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: To answer that honestly, yeah. Yeah. I feel in a sense I certainly surrendered myself completely, morally, ethically. I sold everything out.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And what was that moment in the den about?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I was just staring there. I think I was just trying to get a bearing. I wasn't really conscious. I just stared. I think I was trying to get a bearing. It was a horrible thing that happened and I think I was trying to --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Do you believe that Ms. LaBianca was dead at the time you were stabbing her?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I believed it at the time.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Why did you believe it at the time?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Because she wasn't moving. It seems that way.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Would it have made a difference in your behavior?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I don't think so. You know I don't let myself off the hook, you know. I don't find parts in any of this that makes me feel the slightest bit good about myself in looking back at what I did.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: When people say the name Manson, what do you think people think about?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I think that surrounding that name now is a myth of a person that had great ability to get other people to do what he wanted and that he represents a very ghoulish part of Americana now.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Do you think that name invokes fear in people?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes. Although I'm not so sure if it's the kind of fear that was in the 70s and 80s. I think he's almost a caricature of horror now, you know. I think that -- I'm not -- I think that the fear was that people's homes were no longer safe. That there was no rhyme or reason why they were selected, and that meant everyone was vulnerable. But society has scared itself a lot.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: True.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Through the movies and stuff, so I'm not sure it has the same impact as the 70s and 80s. I think he's more of a cartoon now, to tell you the truth, as a human being.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: But you do agree that the perception of Manson in the general population evokes fear to a certain degree?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Evil.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: To a certain degree.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes. And I understand that I helped contribute to that.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: After you wiped down the fingerprints, what did you do? Where did you go?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Tex came in and told me he wanted my change of clothes and to change my clothes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Were you still in the house?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes. Still in the bedroom.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Visually you see blood everywhere, blood on your hands, blood --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I didn't have blood on me.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: You did not?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: And I told him I didn't need to change my clothes, and he, at that point, said that Manson wanted us to change our clothes, so I had to change my clothes and to get Mrs. LaBianca's clothes. And I did.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Were you in a state of disarray at this point?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Were you?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: There's reports that say you went into the fridge and got chocolate milk.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: On the way out through the kitchen I think -- I don't know which one of us did, but we took chocolate milk and cheese out of the house. I believe it was Tex that did it. He also took a shower.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So that leads to my question of disarray. Seems like it was -- the way you were at it, you guys were just machines doing what you did, afterwards getting some -- taking a shower, very calmly getting some chocolate milk, changing clothes and leaving.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Is that how it was or was it more in a state of --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I was pretty much following Tex's lead, but he was certainly comfortable with what he was doing, and I was making sure that I did what he wanted me to do.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Commissioner, questions.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Before he sent you out on this murder, did he -- besides indoctrinating you, did he test your resolve? Does that make any sense?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Did he test --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Your resolve in going through with this? Did he put you through any tests?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: He would see how far each of us were into him on a daily basis. He --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: How did he go about doing that?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: He like would bump into us on the boardwalk or something like that and would begin making faces and seeing how well would we keep up with his faces and spend time and see what we were doing, and there were some women that I think he checked how we were doing. I'm sure he talked to Pat about things regarding me, and Catherine Share certainly was involved in who I was and how I was doing. So I think he had a network of ways of watching how far were each of us with him.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: So during that entire time, you were not aware at all that you were slowly being brainwashed?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I thought I was becoming a better person, a more in-tune person. I didn't think of it in terms of brainwashing. It was right there, you know, be one, be one with him, surrender yourself, give up all of the teachings of really the three main institutions that help people become part of a community.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Well, that's very far9 fetched from that to violence. So why didn't the violence wake you up? The concept of killing, what did he -- maybe I should start by asking you what did he teach you about death and killing?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: That we were all one. That bodies are shells. That our spirits live forever. That there is no death.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: So when you kill, what does that mean?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: That the shell isn't there.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: So that helps you to make it easier? Does that make it easier for you to kill when he taught you that? That when you kill, a shell isn't there?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I don't know if it made it easier, but that was the philosophy. That you -- that we were killing ourselves. That -- and you know, with all honesty, once in the house, it was certainly clear that that was not -- all of the preparation was not reality at all. In the house it was very clear to me that it was two individuals who had lives and wanted to live.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: It's my understanding that the control continued even when you were at CIW after the first trial. Is that correct?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Pretty much. And it took me three years after being here. And the warden at the time made a real effort with my mother to do things to bring me back to my family of origin and begin the process of re-indoctrinating myself to what the norms of society are.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: What was the plan? What did he do?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: One of the things the warden did was she and my mother brought -- she allowed my mother to bring in a box of photos of our family throughout the time and fix photo albums, and so I would begin separating the photos to go into everyone in our family's photo album with the idea of just reminding me of what my life was like before.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: What else?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: The warden at the time brought in some doctoral students from Santa Cruz.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Was that --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: They talked to us about feminism and all of that.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Was that Nancy Stoller?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: One of your support letters?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes. And we were very limited on who we had access to when we were back in the isolated unit. And so family came and there was also a lot of time spent talking with the correctional officers and --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: What about education? What kind of education were you offered to bring you back to the person you were?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Some of the education was English classes and all of that, but the Santa Cruz people, they were feminists, and in the early 70s was really sort of when the feminist movement was beginning to take hold. And they would come and talk about independence, and remember, there was a lot of discussion about means and ends, you know, and the importance of understanding that, and just -- I think the classes were challenging the mindset. And then a family member knew of a man who was doing time in New York and they approved my writing him, and he would begin to tell me games people play to sway other people to try to let me see that I was, you know, taken for a ride. That there was nothing spectacular about Manson.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: How many years did it take for you to break free of the -- of Manson's control mentally?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I think by the third year I was doing well. Because during the trial we saw him every day, and he kept kind of running the show with how terribly we disrespected the judicial system and --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: I'm sorry. What do you mean?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: We used to stand up in court and yell at the judge and get thrown out of the courtroom and --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Did you do that at his direction or you just --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: He would pretty much tell us the agenda for the day.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: You're telling me he had communication with you the whole time during the trial?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: How?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: He sat at one corner of an L and the -- my codefendants and I sat, you know, in front of or behind our attorneys, and so he would signal us and tell us things and the attorneys would pass messages and we would have group meetings in a little side room. We would have discussions and he would tell us things then. And you know, that was that.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Was there a moment, a pivotal moment where you knew that he no longer had a grasp or a hold on you?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes. As I remember it, they had turned the isolated unit I was in into a unit for people who were Manson affiliated, and the two of the women that had been out in the community came on a robbery of a weapons store and the prison put them in with my codefendants and me. And when they came in, they were talking the old Manson jargon and that Manson had lost us in a card game and we now belonged to some other guy whose name I don't remember. And I remember myself -- looked across from Krenwinkel and I remember that I looked over at her and I said I've changed. But it was really at that point that I realized that I had completely removed myself from the language and saw it as offensive and that I was on my own. And at that -- about that time I never forgot what happened in the home. It's not like I was going through something where I've lost it. But I also believe I was numb to what had happened, and so it was around that time period that I also began to realize the magnitude of what had happened and that I was going to have to find a way to live with what I had become and who I would be as I lived with it. The guilt really started coming then.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: What have you done since your incarceration to ensure that you will never find yourself in this position again?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I've --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: I mean granted, you're 66 years old. We're very well aware of that and I think that certainly helps you, but what else have you done other than aging to ensure that there won't be a repeat?

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Commissioner, before we answer that question, can we take a quick break?

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Sure.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. The time is approximately 10:47. We're going to take a five, ten-minute comfort break. Thank you.

(Off the Record.)

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Back on record.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. The time is approximately 11 o'clock. All parties previously identified are present. When we were going -- when we did go off record and clearing the room, it was brought to our attention through Mr. John LaMontagne that this hearing was too stressful for him so he would no longer participate through audio communications, so he has now disconnected with us and we are going to move forward. We may try at the time of impact statements to give him a call to see if he wants to. I'm not sure. I was a little confused if he desired at that point, but just to the side of caution, we may make that communication and avail him to that. I don't believe there will be any objections to that. Okay. So Commissioner, I think it was your area.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Thank you.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: I think we left with the question -- left off with the question of what -- and by the way, I apologize if when I say aging it came off disrespectful and it was not meant to be disrespectful. I was more interested in what have you done in here to address the issues that we do not see a repeat again in the future.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Do you want me to start at the beginning?

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Sure.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Okay. Early in my incarceration, my mother took the position that you're not here by happenstance, or you know, you did something and you're going to be paying for it and so don't lose sight of that, which I was very thankful for, because it -- when you're the incarcerated one, there's a way of transferring the attention onto what's happening to me and not what I did. And I appreciated that and I think that that was important in decisions I made in how to live with myself as I sobered up and landed and knew that my life would be dealing with the murders of two innocent people. In the beginning, there was a lot of psychiatric intervention -- the women coming in from the Santa Cruz Prison Project, and there was great emphasis that I needed to earn all the privileges that I had. That they -- the prison system wasn't just going to hand me certain housing benefits and that I would be monitored and watched.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: What was the importance of that lesson?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: That I needed to be conscious of things that I was doing and to begin thinking about consequences of actions and --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Which was the opposite.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Becoming responsible. Yeah. Which was the opposite of where I had been.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: So they were going to reprogram you.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: From the reprogramming.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes, yes. And all of the -- this was done without medication. I was concerned that when the heavy reality of the murders and a real consciousness of them hit me that I didn't know what would happen, because by then my guilt and my shame were escalating, and so the psychiatrist at the time -- because I was in an isolated area, a psychiatrist came and monitored, you know, assured me that I didn't need medication and that I would be fine. Then I began being able to take college courses. Over years I was moved to the psychiatric treatment center because I had been in isolation for five years. They felt that that would be the best transition into going into the general housing. And I began to work using the secretarial skills and I feel that that was beginning to give me a foundation of stability in the prison environment. For I think probably all the way through the 80s, group therapy and one-on-one counseling were part of the life prisoner packet or recommendation, so I was able to be in different therapy groups and I participated in that. And the levels of understanding of who I was and how I managed to surrender myself so willingly was at the root of the therapy. And as the years go by, the dimension and the level of awareness of what was going on became more evident to me, you know.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: What became more evident to -- relevant -- I mean --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: That I have had a weakness in being preoccupied with pleasing people and making sure that they're happy -- excuse me. That I've had a tendency to be a rescuer. That underneath my ability to be easygoing, I was very self-critical.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Where is all that coming from?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: The pleasing?

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Yes.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Well, when I was growing up, I didn't have a set of -- you know I -- what I want to say is I'll tell you where I see that it came from, but I'm not blaming this on what happened to me, you know. How I ended up, who I was that was part of the Manson group and the murders -- I'm not --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: I don't think we're --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Okay, okay.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Accusing you of that.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Okay.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: I just want to understand --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: You want my awareness.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: I want a sense -- yes.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Of who I am and how things started.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: And how you resolved it.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Okay. So when I was growing up, I didn't have restrictions. My mom would say I know you'll never let me down so I don't need to have a curfew. And that inability for me to measure out put a need for me to always be sure that I pleased her, because if I didn't I would hurt her, and I didn't want to hurt her. And the whole idea of resisting confrontation, which has been something else I think that has been a real damaging speck in my personality is I felt that if I had a confrontation with someone that they would leave me forever. You know I didn't have a sense of independence. I always felt dependent on other people. What I've done to address all of the character flaws that made me want to be with Manson and wanted to give up who I was I've addressed through the therapy, becoming aware of -- the click word right now is triggers, but I can read myself and see what's going on and why something is happening and --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: How do you stop the need to please?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: When I feel that I'm thinking too much about a situation that made me uncomfortable, when I should have been able to let it go shortly after it happened, I see that as holding onto something, that I'm making it bigger than it should have been and not resolving it right then and there. That to please people is to assume that I know what they want, and by assuming and acting on it, I'm taking on that behavior myself instead of having conversations.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Do you still have a need to please people?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No. Not -- I think that there's little leftovers, but not enough that it controls my personality at all.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: And how have you resolved your tendency -- and I believe over the years some of the doctors, they couldn't come up -- they said you didn't warrant an Axis I diagnosis, but a couple of them came up with dependent personality.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: And that sounds like everything you've testified to today supports that. How have you resolved that?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Well, I don't look to others for answers. I probably look to others for conversation. I don't feel that someone else can correct or fix my problems in life. That I need to do that. I've deliberately put myself in positions that I need to be focused and a problem-solver and put my ideas forward. I think that my job has helped me become very independent, and I'm currently on the Women's Advisory Council Executive Body, which means that there are always people who are displeased with me, and I'm comfortable with that because I know I'm standing on what I need to. And I'm not shy of having discussions and I'm comfortable when there are disagreements if I know that I'm comfortable with my position.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: How have you resolved the self-critical part?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I've worked so hard at trying to just become comfortable with who I am that I'm not looking for perfection.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Well, and that's my next question. Do you like who you are as you sit here today?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes, I do.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Why?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I've worked very, very hard to -- there are some days that it's harder when I think of all of the damage that I did as a young woman. That I see that as just part of living my life, that those days come and they're hard, but for the most part, I like how I've managed to turn my life into an amends. I feel good about my morals and my ethics. I have a good set of friends, those incarcerated and outside. I love helping younger women learn how to become independent women. I get a great deal of satisfaction out of that.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: How do you live with yourself knowing that you took part in such a gruesome murder?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I realize that the way that I could live with myself was to do as much good as I can in the environment that I'm in, and when I help a young woman find her way and she doesn't recidivate because I shared my life, that helps.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: I'd like to go back, if I may, about the abortion, because that seems to have been a very pivotal point in your life.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Why was that so devastating to you? Was it at a religious level? Can you unravel that?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I wanted a baby. I wanted to have the baby. I felt very connected to the baby and I was devastated that mom was so firm. And I was quite critical of myself that I didn't stand up to her. I was critical of myself -- not quite as critical of myself but almost as critical of myself over that as not standing up to Manson, you know, not acting on it.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: So you blame yourself for the killing of the fetus?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah. That I somehow, even though in the 60s there weren't a lot of options for young women who were pregnant, there wasn't conversation about it, you know. There was adoption. There was abortion or marriage, you know. Those were the --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: When was the very last time you had any communications with Manson?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I believe I was called out to court for one of his trials and I didn't testify and that was that. And then over the years, now and then he'll send something in through the mail.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: When is the last time you received any communications from him?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I received something in the mail through him which I think came from someone else writing it for him.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: What year?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Shortly after my last Board hearing.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Wow. So he's still trying to communicate with you to this day?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Every now and then. Not often. I've only, over the 40-year period, I've probably only received three missives and I turned them over to the institutional investigator's office.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Did you read what was in the letter?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah. Yeah.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: What did he want?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Accusing me for not standing loyal, making up stuff, you know, not -- it's all geared toward him getting out of prison and being critical of me and I've turned into the very thing that he tried to save me from, you know.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: How does that make you feel? What does that do to you when you receive a letter from him like that?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: First of all, I wonder why the authorities didn't catch it, you know, and then I feel uncomfortable that he remembers me and --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Do the old memories come back?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I'm more thankful that they -- his words don't mean anything to me anymore. But it kind of validates who he was in my life when he does that.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: What do you think of him today?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I probably -- I had an early group -- I mean this was a one-on-one with a Dr. Ponath. I think it was in the 90s. She really worked with me to help me understand that he's just an abusive man, not greater or lesser than any of the other people that choose to be abusive.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Do you believe that?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah. Yeah. I was able to just turn him into a guy that had the skills to manipulate young people, and while I surrendered myself, I just think that I've tried to negate him, you know. I've tried to remove him from who I am. And years ago I felt fragmented. I would always tell someone well, this was before I knew Manson. Well, this is during Manson and this was after. And so I asked if I could have therapy that I give myself back to me and not define my life by the fragments of him. And I questioned sometimes why he's able to have some of the privileges that he has, and I find him extremely offensive, that he still mimics and mocks so much pain, and I think it's offensive that he can still get recognition.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: What do you mean when you say he still mocks so much pain?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: The bits that I see of him, he makes fun of the murders. He makes fun of the pain. He makes fun of the family. He makes fun of, you know, all of the people that have suffered, and you know, I don't think much of him.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: You talk about the recognition of Charles Manson, but you yourself have engaged in recognition tools as well.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes, I --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Is that correct?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes. In the -- around '94 I gave two or three interviews, and part of that was because at that time, he was becoming popular with teens that were wearing T-shirts with his face, and Guns N' Roses, which was a rock band, were singing a song of his, and I decided that I was going to try and say as much as I could, as I did today, to try to get people to be able to see who he was.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: When is the last time you had any communication with Pat?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I see her -- she lives in the same prison that I do.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Right.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: So I see her now and then on the sidewalks, and sometimes we're in the same groups together.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Do you guys still talk about the past anymore?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No. No.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Are you still in contact with any other of the Manson family?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No. No.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: You've been denied parole 19 times.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: And yet when I read the clinician's report, you say that you're mostly optimistic.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: How? Where are you getting the strength to move on after being denied 19 times?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: It became pretty clear to me that the crime might well override my ever gaining release from prison, and I have a solid support network of friends, and I realize that I had a -- I needed to figure out how to create a life for myself that has value and it's not second-best. And within the confines and restrictions of a prison environment to know that I have been able to create a life that if this is the end of the road for me, I can at the end know that I lived a life as good as I could for what I had done. And so I've been able to get great satisfaction in what I do today and in the programs I'm involved in and being able to help women obtain advance, you know, associate of arts degrees, from their high school or GED, gives me great value. I'm treated well by the community in here, despite who I am, and I've been able to make a life for myself that is rewarding. I mean it's frustrating, too, you know, but I'm sure --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: How have you --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Bumper to bumper traffic is like when we're locked up and I can't do something. I deal with those things.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: How do you deal with the disappointment of a denial each time?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I go back and over a period of time I -- I'm sorry. I get emotional. I evaluate what's the true meaning of life, what creates happiness. My family are resigned to whatever the State and the system do and decide. They are with me in this and they love me and we have a beautiful relationship and I --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Some people would argue that you had a death sentence.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes, I did.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And that death sentence should have been carried out.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And by virtue of you not being put to death, that in a way is your gift or your release.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: I don't normally interrupt, but I want to interrupt here and is -- her death sentence was overturned by the courts.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: I understand.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Okay.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: I totally understand. I know it wasn't her.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: She never had a death sentence that stood like the others did.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: I understand.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Yeah.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And how did you feel initially about your death sentence?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: In the beginning it was what had been predicted by Manson. It was with the abolishment of the death sentence that I began to wonder. He had said --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Wonder about what?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: The revolution and all of that, you know, because they abolished the death sentence rather quickly after I came here, within a year, year and a half. And with that -- I agree with you that with that I understood that I had a huge responsibility and a new life to decide who I was going to be. And even though I was a young person and I've made mistakes along the way, I determined that I needed to be someone that never deliberately did harm to another human being, even with words. I understood that I had a strong obligation to become as forthright of a person as I could.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: The Commissioner has asked you in different facets how your age played a role. She asked you about how you've changed, the maturity throughout the years and things of that nature. I want to ask you about how your age played a role at the time of your life crime. Do you believe it played a role in any facet?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I believe if I'd have had more life experience, I probably wouldn't have been so willing to surrender to Manson.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: I asked you initially if you were to go back to talk to yourself in the commune, there was no changing the path of where you -- what you were going to engage in and to change your behavior. At what point in your life would there have been an opportunity for you to talk to yourself and change the path?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I would have hoped that I could have talked to myself when I finished business school and my dad offered me the best thing a kid my age could ever be offered. I would have hoped that I could have broken through to myself then.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Commissioner.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: I think I read somewhere in the file that you actually were able to make bail for your third murder trial.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Third trial, yeah.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Third trial, right. But you had decided to bail after Christmas because you felt that's the least you owe the LaBianca family. Is that correct?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Was that at the suggestion of someone else or that was your --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No. That was mine.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: What year was that, '78?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: And at that point you were -- what year were you completely free of Manson, in your mind?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: It's hard to pick an exact year, but '73, '74, around in there.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: So by '78, would it be fair to say you were free of -- of a pretty clear mind?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: All right. When did you feel remorse for what you'd done?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I think that the remorse started when Catherine Share and Mary Brunner came into the housing unit and I realized that I had moved away from them and --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Is that when you --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: It was a slow process. I think that might have been around '73 or '74. I'm not clear on it exactly.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: I believe that's the same period when you were slowly coming out of it, right?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Okay. So you didn't feel any remorse the first few years.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I don't think independent remorse. I felt badly that it had to happen, but I still believed it had to happen. Do you understand what I'm --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Yes.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Okay.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: So when did you have true remorse?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: When I was able to understand that it was senseless. That it was a loss of innocent lives for no purpose.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: What crimes do you think you were responsible for?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I feel that I'm responsible for -- I robbed my dad before the murder. I robbed my dad's house. I feel that I am responsible for not ever speaking up or saying anything, so basically I feel responsible morally for the entire crime, the first, second -- I feel responsible for all of it. Even if legally I'm not charged, I never said no. When Pat told me what happened, I did not go to the Malibu Police Department. I made no effort. I made no effort, so certainly morally I'm bound to that.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So although counsel makes a legal argument about victims' next-of9 kin being present at your hearing here today, you still know that the -- nonetheless believe that these individuals were all victims of your crime.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes, I do.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Morally.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Anything else, Commissioner?

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Could any of this happen without the introduction of drugs into your life?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: And I want to talk about sobriety.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Or do you want to finish the --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: No. Please go ahead.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: I mean I must be honest with you. I spent an inordinate amount of time on your case and reading these past transcripts. It seems to me that over the years, the Panel -- the past Panels have pretty much taken -- I guess because you've been facilitating AA/NA and all that -- that it's kind of a given that you kind of have your sobriety issue under control. But I'd like to revisit that. What is your sobriety date?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: 1976.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: So you were using while you were in here at CIW?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: What did you do?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Marijuana briefly.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: What about harder stuff like LSD, meth?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No. I had one LSD trip when I was on death row.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: What year was that?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Early 70s.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: How did that go?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I spent the trip trying to -- it didn't go well. I won't tell you. It adds to the madness. Unless you want to know.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Actually I do want to know.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Okay.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: What do you mean?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I spent the trip trying to break down my molecules so that I could exit the building, and I didn't take any more after that.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: How did you stop using drugs with -- I mean coming from somebody who has used everything, how did you stop?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: At some point it occurred to me that to continue to use drugs when they played a part in the crime is very disrespectful of the memory and it's irresponsible of me.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: How did you come to that?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Therapy groups and me. I was always -- once I found out that Frank Struthers -- who is the son of Mrs. LaBianca -- found his stepfather, it impacted me. I knew it at the trials, but it impacted me more later on. That was one of the key realities that I reflected on and had a lot to do with decisions that I made in the second trial. Susan Struthers was the one that came into the courtroom and identified the photos, and I felt moral obligations to them throughout my time, which is why I didn't want to bail when they didn't have their mother and stepfather.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: But none of that stopped you from using drugs for the next six years.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I had already stopped.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: I'm sorry. That's right. That was back in '78.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Sorry.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: But you know to go to the AA/NA, I have chosen to believe in the genetic connection, that my dad was an alcoholic, and you know, while I didn't become an alcoholic, the addiction thought process is something that I pay very close attention to. And I try to live my life as much as I can by the 12 steps. I think it's life-saving, and even if people aren't addicts that the 12-step program is a really good way to live your life.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: How come I don't see chronos of you continuing to AA and NA?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: AA and NA are at night, and so I spoke with the chaplain, the Catholic chaplain, to see if we could have a daytime small kind of home group and the women that worked at night that were part of that group decided that we would make it -- instead of an AA or NA group, it would become Emotions Anonymous, EA, which falls under the umbrella of AA. They're sanctioned.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: So that's your --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: My home group and --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Yeah. So you are still working on your 12 steps.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes. I feel like I will always do that, and I have a sponsor in the community that, you know, it's a little awkward, but I have someone there so --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Who is it? Who is your sponsor?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Her name is Kim.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Yeah. I read so many letters, I don't -- did she submit a letter?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: She submits a letter through the lawyer because of the anonymity.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: And how long has she been your sponsor?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: About two years.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: And how did you get a hold of her?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Through a friend.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: I see.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I'm not -- you know she probably won't remain my sponsor forever from how it works.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: In the 46 years you've been incarcerated, how many of those years did you spend on AA/NA concepts on working on your sobriety?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Until 1986 I was on close custody and I couldn't go out in the evening, and the Board made AA/NA part of a requirement for my next hearing. And so since the mid-80s I've been part of the AA/NA program.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: So 30 years?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Can you give us an example of how you work your steps every day?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Now I mainly focus on ten and 11 and 12.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: And I also pay attention to six and seven. I pay a lot of attention to the shortcomings because I don't ever want them to get out of control.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: What is six and what is seven?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Six is when you become conscious of your shortcomings and become willing to have them removed. And seven is asking your higher power to remove them.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: How many times have you gone through the 12 steps in the last -- I mean if there's too many, there's too many, but do you remember?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: So you've gone through it (inaudible).

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Even in the home group, we just continuously review steps.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: And you do all the written exercises?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: The step four and eight.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Correct.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes. I've done those.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: So in step four, who is on that list?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Of the personal inventory?

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: The people that you've harmed.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I think that's eight.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: I apologize.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No, that's all right.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: I was just testing you.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: That's okay. That's okay.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Who is on that list?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Certainly the family members of my victims, the friends that cared about Mr. and Mrs. LaBianca. On the list are my own family and what they went through as a result of my behaviors.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Let me ask you this. Besides the list being present, how do you show amends? How do you show remorse? How do you show empathy?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I feel that I do it as best I can with every decision I make every day on who I am.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And how does that play -- how does that work? What do you mean, every decision I make? So you make a decision. You say oh, I want to make -- I want to show remorse or how does that --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No. I think I try to live my life as an act of contrition, you know. If I see someone and they seem troubled, I ask them do you want to talk or do you want to be left alone or how you doing today. In my living community I --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: I've seen you've done a lot of work in not only participating per se in groups, but leading, facilitating different groups through your time. What benefit does -- has facilitating, leading groups, tutoring, mentoring -- how does that work in your life?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Well, I've been at this, you know, the therapy and everything, for years. So to become a facilitator is only to pass on what I have gained through my own therapies.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Yeah. But I've seen a lot of people that have been incarcerated for 20, 25, 30 years never become facilitators.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I get great satisfaction out of being able to take all the lessons that I've learned and hopefully introduce questions to other women that might open doors for them.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: What do you learn from facilitating for say yourself -- anything?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: How unremarkable, how common the downfalls of people are. How fragile we all are. And how much empathy I'm able to have and understanding who the people are. I get, I think, probably more out of facilitating than the people that are going through the program.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: When you started your prison term, you were still under the control of Manson. At a certain point you realized or you came out of that way of thinking. And did the progression happen for you that you started initially blaming Manson for all your troubles, your history?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Sure.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: That happens. I think it's, to a certain degree, human nature.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Part of being overwhelmed with what I was facing, that's where I think when I mentioned my mom being a real guiding light in what I was going to do with my life, you know. She never fed into my being able to find an excuse for what I did.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Would these crimes have happened without Charles Manson being in your life?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: You mean -- I don't quite understand. If --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: You said drugs played a role. You wouldn't have committed these crimes but for the drugs.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No. No. I wouldn't have committed them.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: When did you start taking responsibility that you were in fact responsible for these crimes?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I think around that whole same time period, probably the mid-70s. Not as much as I do today, you know. Life is in layers, and each time I go back, it's a little deeper.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. Anything else? While you ponder I'm going to go -- I'll put on the record the risk assessments in a variety of areas just for the record to be clear. The risk assessment by Dr. Kropf was prepared on February 2nd, 2016 and we addressed a lot of the issues, child and adolescent development, adult development. We talked about your criminal history, the life crime, prior risk assessments, substance abuse. The clinician makes the assessments that it seems that substances did not -- this is on page 7 of 13, the third paragraph, second sentence. It seems that substances did not play a significant role in her commission of her life term offense. It appears that her involvement in a cult played a more significant role in her commission of the offenses. The last paragraph in that section the clinician notes in this examiner's opinion that Ms. Van Houten meets the criteria for other hallucinogen use disorder severe, cannabis use disorder severe, stimulant-related disorder moderate. On page 8 of 13 under analysis of historical factors, second -- last paragraph in that -- on that page, on page 8 of 13, she has exhibited prosocial behaviors throughout most of her imprisonment. Substance abuse and negative peer associations seem less relevant risk factors today than they represented at the time of imprisonment. Clinician opines in the next paragraph on page 9 of 13 that her PCL-R score is far below the means of North American female inmates and well below the cutoff or threshold commonly used to identify dissocial and psychopathic personality. On page 10 of 13 the last paragraph. Ms. Van Houten seems to recognize the impact of her crimes on her victims, her victims' families and the community. She understands the factors contributing to her involvement in the cult and her commission of her life term offenses. She cited factors, including dysfunctional relationships with her mother, her feeling of abandonment by her father, her feeling of alienation, the trauma of her abortion, her modest coping skills, her substance abuse, and her drug addiction. On the first paragraph on the next page -- page 11 of 13 -- the clinician opines she evidenced understanding of how her propensities toward addiction and dependence on others led to -- her to gravitate to the cult. She cited the trauma of her abortion, the shutting down of her personality, and the drug use as contributing to her willingness to kill and to be a good soldier. The clinician noted youthful factors in her final analysis as well as elderly parole in ultimately concluding that she represents a low risk of violence in this clinician's opinion. Commissioner.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Should I go through the post-conviction now? Okay. I'm going to -- at this point we went through most of your post-conviction factors, ma'am. I see that your last hearing was on June 5th, 2013. I'm only going to go over what you've been doing since the last hearing, okay. Looks like you had a five-year denial and then we advanced the hearing. Placement score is still at a mandatory minimum of 19. Custody level Medium-A and you still work as a tutor, correct?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: You've been doing that for what, 11 years?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Ten years.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Ten years. Okay. And your institutional behavior is excellent. There's never been any problems other than in 1981 for talking. And you've upgraded educationally. You got a BA. I thought you also had a BA not just in English lit, but wasn't there a psychology?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No. That was the minor.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Okay. Because I thought I saw that.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: And then your MA in humanities. You got that recently. I have to -- was going to ask you because you did your thesis on -- was it sustainable rehabilitation?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Can you tell me more about that?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I took the full virtues of Socrates and I put compilations of women in the prison and I overlaid Plato's Socratic dialogues and took the position that until someone has advanced in their morals and ethics that rehabilitation is often temporary. That someone has to truly understand why the behavior is erroneous and living in the community so the -- that was basically my thesis.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Very nice. And I see some of the professors sent in support letters citing your work.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: All right. Vocations. So as far as vocations, I saw two, and that is data processing back in the 80s, was it?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: And but basically at this point your skill is in tutoring and teaching.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Okay. No other vocations that I saw, correct?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Okay. And work -- so is -- give me an idea of what a week is like for you here. What is your schedule here?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I work between 12 and 7:30 at night.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Tutoring?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Well, kind of preparing for the Chaffey program. They just received a large grant and they're trying to expand their program so a more diverse population can get certificates.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: What's the Chaffey program? I know you've been engaged in that program.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Chaffey College is a local community college and they have a relationship with this prison. And for the last ten years they've been offering AA degrees in different subjects. They started with liberal arts, and now it's been business entrepreneurship. And the women take 12 units a semester and it's a 2-1/2 year commitment program and so we have someone from the Chaffey College that supervises us and then we have someone from the education department that supervises us. And we act sometimes as teaching assistants and at the same time tutors. So we make sure that the program works well in here maintaining the standards of the community college.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: And that's full time Monday through Friday?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: And what are you teaching or tutoring?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Right now I'm -- because of the change in the program, I'm not doing as much in class work and I'm tutoring in intercultural communications and the basic beginning guidance class. And I've also -- recently UCLA has -- is doing a pilot program called Merits of Change and I was fortunate to be selected as the teaching assistant for that class.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Okay. So I mean you gave me a list of all the self-help that you've done since the last hearing, and I've cross-referenced it against the -- your record. When do you have time to do all these other things that you've done? Emotions Anonymous, Business Smarts, Ethics, Compassion, Cooperation, Jewish Ethics. Where do you find time to do that?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Those were in the mornings and early afternoon, and then the -- some of them are on weekends. And I have permission to have one night off to do the Victim Offender Education Program. I --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: You've been doing that for how long? You facilitate it, right?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I just started the facilitator. The original group that I went through was about 22 months of every Thursday night, and now they select someone to become the facilitator and work with the outside facilitators, so I've been doing that for maybe four or five months.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: I saw within the chronos recently in 2014 and '15 this program called Actors' Gang Prison Project.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And it was signed by the artistic director, Tim Robbins.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: What is that?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: The Actors' Gang was started at UCLA, I guess, many, many years ago, and they use a series of exercises that they do out there. And a woman named Sabra Williams joined the group and said what are you doing regarding prison. And it doesn't have to do with acting. That is simply the people that are sponsoring the program. What they do is in the program there are different exercises that promote community awareness and being part of a group and working well within a group, and then they work off the idea of four basic emotions, which are sadness, happiness, anger and fear. And they use these thought characters from the 1500s and a participant will pick one of those characters, and then through the character express those emotions, and what it's designed to do is help people become more aware of what's going on inside of themselves because it's more comfortable to do it through a fictitious character than from yourself.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Thank you.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: So that's basically what it is.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: What do you get out of the Victim Offender Education Group?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: With all of the therapy that I've done and everything, I think the design of the Victim Offender program really hits head-on what I did and understanding why I did it but know that doesn't justify it. It's learning -- I'm learning to live with what I did in a way that is not harmful in the future. It is an organized way of looking at some of the things we talked about today regarding growing up and the effects it had to help understand the things that were going on inside of me. And then the second half of the program talks about the victims and the responsibility that I have toward the victims and understanding that my behavior has affected all of those lives and I have a responsibility to live the best way that I can. And the exercise had a lot to do with the depth of the sorrow and suffering, how it doesn't end.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: But since the last hearing, you've engaged in one-on-one counseling. I think part of it was to respond to the last Panel's concerns, correct?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: You've been doing it since August of 2014. What have you learned from the one-on-one counseling?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I just got more understanding of my relationship with my parents. The last Panel felt that I hadn't made connections to the depths of what their divorce meant and so I looked deeper into that and also the abortion, you know. The last Panel felt I didn't have a sense of why and how one thing led to another, so I had ten weeks of two-hour sessions to gain more insight into that.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Well, it says here that Van Houten has dealt specifically with issues dealing with the lack of boundaries and the need for acceptance. What did you learn about your life with boundaries?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: That I didn't have any. That I felt an overwhelming need to make sure other people were okay, even if it was at my expense. I didn't really have a sieve of discernment, and part of that was connected, you know, to some of my upbringing.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Okay. Then you also took Zen meditation and Buddhism. So how many courses are you facilitating now?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Right now I facilitate the Victim Offender.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I'm being trained to facilitate the Prison Project.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I am on the Executive Body of the Women's Advisory Council. I have my tutoring, and once a week I have Emotions Anonymous. So I think that's about it.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: That's a handful. All right. And you have so many laudatory chronos that I -- it's in the file. I'm not even going to go through it at this point. As far as parole plans, you have a lot of support letters from a lot of childhood friends, right?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Uh-huh.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Susan Talbot, Elizabeth Gray, Linda Grippi and etcetera, and they're all offering their home basically to you and said that you're welcome there and they'll help you with transportation, with money, with whatever it is that you need. And you also have a letter from Rosie Rose transitional home. Is that -- I think that's the only transitional home that you applied to. Is that right?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes. I used to -- last hearing I had Crossroads, but the Board determined that wasn't a good idea.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Is it Roxie Rose or Rosie Rose?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Roxie.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Roxie. Okay.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Sorry. I wrote Roxie and I said Rosie. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: So do you want me to talk about the transition home?

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: No. Let's talk about what your plan is when you get out.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: If and when you're granted parole, if and when you're released from parole, what is your parole plans? What do you envision doing? Where do you envision living in the next six months to a year?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I would live at Roxie Rose.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: And there are a number of reasons that I would like to do that. One is that the woman that runs the program was a lieutenant here and I have a relationship with her where she knows me. And she runs a transitional living, and in her letter she said that she would hire me to help with some of the women that are there, and I think that would be a good thing for me as I begin to figure out how I'll live my life.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Ideally, how long do you plan to live there?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: She offered me up to the three years. Ideally I would stay as long as the agent felt that I needed to and I felt comfortable. So if it's the full three years, I'd be good with that.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And then what?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: At that point I would -- it's hard for me to say sitting here today since I know so little of the world out there, but I'm sure that by then I would have found a way to care for myself and probably live in a home with a friend so that I never was overwhelmed with expenses.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: What do you envision the biggest issue would be upon release for you, trigger, consternation -- the biggest issue for you on -- in a free society?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Fitting in, you know. Last time I said having anonymity and I was pointed out all the things I've done to counteract that, and I have to look at that and acknowledge it, but I would like to live a life that's quiet and close to the people that love me.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: We know from the record there are thousands and thousands of opposition signatures that have been provided, not from only this city, not from this state, from countries all over the world. How do you feel about that? How does that play a role -- these many people some way or the other you've impacted?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I feel very badly that I created that much fear in their lives that they would want me to remain incarcerated forever.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: As far as work, I mean I have a letter here from Professor Nancy Stoller at UC Santa Cruz that says that she was -- we offer you a job as a research assistant. Is that one of the plans or do you have other offers than that?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: That's one of the offers. The one that I would like to pursue the most is to see what I could do within the Chaffey community.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: I see. And I apologize but did they send a letter? Did they offer you a job?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: They haven't directly offered but said that they would help me.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Good, yeah, okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: And that I have the skills.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: I see. I thought that I missed it.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: And I have the skills to be able to be employed.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: She's talking about the recent letter, yes.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I enjoy research, and you know, at this point, whatever I'm able to do and get with the skills that I have I would love, so --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. I think your education and parole plans and support are by any standard of Title 15 -- you demonstrate viability at least.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Anything else about your parole plans or your programming? Anything I've missed? Anything you wish to highlight further?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Just that should the day come, I have a tremendous support network that will make sure that I do all that is expected of me and --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: And we do see that, so --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Okay.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Okay. Nothing more, Commissioner.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. We're going to take another recess. The time is approximately --

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: I do have one thing. This might be a really good time to really quickly -- there's a mistake -- a typo on page 7 of the psych report and on the substance abuse and history, the last sentence of that paragraph it says that --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Sorry. Let me get there first.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Okay.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: What page again?

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Page 7.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Page 7. Okay. What paragraph?

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: The first paragraph, the last sentence. It said that Ms. Van Houten had used substances in the community prior to her resentencing and --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: It's documented in the Probation Officer's Report on item (h) that she was -- while she was out on bail she was clean and sober and I think it's just a typo from when --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. So you never indicated that to the clinician?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Thank you. That's it.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Okay.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. The time is 12:15. We're going to recess for a break. Thank you.

(Off the Record.)

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: All right. We're back on record.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. The time is approximately 12:35. All parties previously identified are present. So we covered all areas. I think we're ready for clarifying questions at this time.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Thank you. Would the Panel ask --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: (Inaudible).

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: I'm sorry. Thank you. I didn't want to cough into the microphone.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: That's okay.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Would the Panel please ask the inmate if she feels that the evaluation from the MFT Alyson Hurlbutt is an independent unbiased opinion.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: MFT.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: MFT, marriage and family therapist.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And the one she submitted to the Board?

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Correct.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And what is the question?

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: If she believes that it is an independent, unbiased evaluation or opinion.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Next question. Thank you.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Could the Panel please ask the inmate how long she has been a friend of Alyson Hurlbutt.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. So she submitted this letter and this document, and so this individual is -- let's get to where this is going before -- so I know exactly where the question is leading.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Okay.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: I mean I can't ask questions that I don't know what I'm asking about.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Thank you.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: You understand?

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Yeah.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: The inmate told the Panel at the last hearing that Alyson Hurlbutt had been her friend of ten years back in 2013. Now it appears she has been a friend for approximately 13 years. It is also -- Alyson Hurlbutt has also submitted letters in support of this inmate for previous Board hearings.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. So you want to explore that area?

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Alyson Hurlbutt. Who is she?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: She's a woman I met though a man named Chris Chesser who has been my friend for about 30 years, and when the Panel said that --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Who is she?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: She's a friend.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: She's a friend.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: And she has --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: How long have you known her?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I have visited her about three times before we did the session, and I've known her --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Hold on a second. Hold on.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: As a secondary friend for about ten years.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So you've known her a total of ten years. I'm trying to understand.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes. Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Ten years.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Roughly.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And how did you communicate in these ten years with her?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: She visited a few times and we wrote each other a few times.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. And I saw that she submitted a document on your behalf after having some professional contact with you?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: What I did was when the Board said that I needed further insight into the divorce and the abortion, I knew that Alyson was now a family therapist and I asked her if she would come and work with me to gain insight and not really recommend --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: If I was healed or not, but to help me.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So in her professional capacity.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. And do you believe that she provided -- or therapy to you was unbiased based on the relationship you had previously? How do you -- how is your assessment of that because she's a family therapist, you've known each other for some ten, 12 years. The question is -- and she's offering some sort of documented support of you in a professional manner, right?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah. I felt that we had good therapy groups. That she was professional and she wasn't recommending parole or not. She was stating what our discussions had been and --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I was able -- I don't qualify for therapy inside of the prison and so I did what I could to address the Board's needs.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Noted. And the Panel now recognizes that they had a friendship prior to this conversation. Thank you.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Thank you. Could the Panel ask the inmate what she learned from Emotions Anonymous between 2013 and 2016 that she did not learn between 2009 and 2013?

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: So you've taken Emotional Analysis for a long time -- Anonymous -- Analysis -- Anonymous?

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Anonymous.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Anonymous. Okay. Emotional Anonymous for extended period of time and you took in the late 2000s and then again recently in mid-2010s. How has your growth in that program evolved?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: The Emotions Anonymous is a home group.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: What does that mean?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: A small group of women that meet that work at night and we meet and we have our 12- step discussions. It's not really continuous. We review the 12 steps. If there's something going on in someone's life they discuss it and we look at it. And the premise of Emotions Anonymous is basically that there are some things in life that have no solutions, and as a 12-step home group, it's more of a discussion group where we use the 12 steps to look at life's problems.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. What do you learn from it -- life's problems? Do you -- is it basically based on other people's experiences that you talk about or is it based on some sort of book?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: We use the 12-step book.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: As a guiding, you know, as the guide.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: As a template. Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Like AA 12 steps, NA 12 steps. It's the same premise that --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Is it run by inmates?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Is that what home schooling means is that it's run by inmates?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: It's home -- yeah, a home -- I don't -- not home schooling. Now I can't -- home group.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Home group. Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: All right. And that group has helped you how?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: It keeps me in touch with the steps, what we were talking about earlier with addiction.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. I remember you talked about steps ten, 11 and 12 and then four, five and eight. Thank you. Next question please.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Could the Panel ask the inmate if Mrs. Van Houten (sic) was already dead when you stabbed her, why do you think Tex Watson handed you the knife and told you to do something?

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Mrs. Van Houten was dead?

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: I'm sorry. Ms. LaBianca.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. You testified here today that Tex handed you the knife and told you to do something, and I believe you testified that -- why don't you tell us. Why did you stab her if you believed that she was dead?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Because he told me to and I knew that Manson wanted all of us to do something.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: To participate you mean?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yep.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Thank you.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Could the Panel please ask who was Michael Vines? When did your correspondence begin? Under what circumstances and how did it last -- how long did it last?

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Who is Mr. Hines?

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Vines.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Vines.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Michael Vines. I started writing him.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Who is he?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: He was a man doing a life sentence in Huntsville, Texas.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Is that the gentleman you were dating for a while?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: No. Okay. Go ahead.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: And we had a writing correspondence and we wrote off and on for about 16 years. And he ended up in I think Illinois and he hung himself.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Thank you.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: What was the nature of your correspondence? My offer of proof is that this person was a -- he was a sentenced life prisoner for two murders of two women in two separate states. This was after Ms. Van Houten indicated that she had cut off ties from all men who were bad influences on her life after she had divorced herself from Bill Sywin, who was also an ex-con.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Thank you. Mr. Vines, when did you meet him?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I wrote him. We were both editors of our prison papers. I think probably in the early 80s maybe.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. And the nature of your communication was what?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Friends, prison romance, something to do with the opposite sex.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And he was also a lifer?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I wasn't clear on his charges. He didn't talk about them now.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: How did you initially come in contact with him?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I wrote him because he was editor of the Huntsville paper and I was editor of the CIW paper.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: How long did your communications last for?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Off and on for 16 years.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: And are you still in contact with him?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No. He hung himself.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: He hung himself. I'm sorry. What was the nature of your relationship?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Prison correspondence.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Could the Board ask if the inmate feels responsible for her crimes, why did she file a habeas corpus petition to gain exculpatory evidence regarding statements by Tex Watson in 1971 -- not meaning -- not that the habeas was filed in 1971, but Tex Watson's statements from 1971?

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: I'm responsible for that.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Thank you. Next question. It's a legal issue. Thank you.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: May I have a moment please?

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Please. Thank you.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Why does the inmate feel that she needs to live at Roxie Rose for three years?

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Is there -- you indicated to us that your parole plans are Roxie Rose and three years -- you were granted for a three9 year period of time or your whole period of time on parole to live there. Do you believe you're going to live there for three years or how-- what is your perception? I think we discussed this briefly, but I don't -- I also had that thought in my mind. That's a pretty long time to live somewhere.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Well, I wouldn't intend to, but I don't know what is ahead, you know. I would imagine that probably within a one-year period of time or -- I haven't been there in 46 years.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Been there meaning been out?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: In the community.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Other than bail, you know. I was merely saying if that's what was deemed to be the best, I would certainly do that. If six months is all that seems appropriate, I'll do that.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I'll just work with my parole agent.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: I have no further questions.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. Any questions?

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: A few. When you dealt with Ms. Hurlbutt as a -- in counseling, were any -- was there any other counseling available to you?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No. To none of us.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: When you were talking about -- they were asking you -- the Commissioners were asking you about your contact with Pat Krenwinkel and you described basically superficially seeing her around the prison that you're both at. Do you have any close relationship with her, both of you having shared so much of the past together?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Pat and I are different people, and I don't seek her out. I see her in formal gatherings and we're very different people. We approach life differently and she's not someone that I choose to engage in conversations with.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: But at a certain point you did have a close relationship or friendship with her.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. What changed?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I believe that the more I developed into my own person and she developed into her own person and how I approach life and how she approaches life. I'm not comfortable with her, and over the years, what makes us have something in common is not something I want to nurture.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Okay. And in page 4 of the psych report they talk about your -- that when you were at the Spahn Ranch and things were changing that it says you expressed a desire to leave but you weren't able to leave because Manson had taken a dominant role in your life and you felt powerless and that you indicate to the psych that you were once allowed to leave and you froze. Were you ever allowed to leave?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Okay.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No. I had told her something different and I can tell you the events.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Please.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I had gone up into a cave with one of the bikers, and Manson was having more of the biker community come and stay at the ranch, and there was one in particular named Sammy that I was enjoying. And he and I took a mattress up into a cave and spent the night, and when I came down that morning, Manson was very, very angry and threw Sammy off of the ranch and told Tex we're losing this one and you need to keep an eye on her. And then a carload of guys from Venice Beach came up to get me out of the ranch and I wanted to go, but I felt like my feet were in dried cement. I was not able to -- I wasn't able to follow.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: So you worshipped him but you were afraid of him? Is that fair?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes. By that time.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Was Sammy in that carload that came out to --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yes. Yeah.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: No further questions.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Sammy and his friends.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Commissioner, with regards to the DA question about Mr. Vines, when did he hang himself?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Probably about 15 years ago.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: So we're talking -- no wait, 2000, 2001?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No. Longer than that.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: In the 90s?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: In the 90s, I think he hung himself. His family sent me a letter and told me.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Well, I mean she does bring up a good point because was -- how do I ask this question. Why would you want to get involved with somebody like that?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Because it was writing letters. It didn't -- we're both doing life sentences. It didn't seem like it was really going anywhere other than to communicate. And for years I felt that that was probably the level of person that I could have relationships with because of my own history and we wrote.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Okay. So that's about what, close to between 15 and 20 years ago?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah. We had stopped, you know, writing as often near the end, and he had married someone, so --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Okay. Because he sounds like he's in a worse situation than the guy you did marry. You see where my question is going?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Can you elaborate on that?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Well, the one I married was here and had presented himself as rehabilitated, and I really never connected the two of them.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: How is Vines better than him?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I didn't look at it like better. He just was not available in a real way.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: So it's just fantasy in your mind?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Because it wasn't going to come to fruition.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Yeah.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Would you --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: At that point I was really just doing what a lot of people incarcerated do, which is write other people incarcerated. It doesn't really --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: So it wasn't a serious romantic situation or it was?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No. Only in fantasy.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Did you meet him? You never met him?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: This is just a pen pal kind of situation from prison to prison.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Pen pal 100 percent, yeah.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Are you worried that if and when you are back in the community you may fall prey to the wrong people again?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: No.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Why not?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Because of my support network. Because of my therapies and understandings of who I am. Because of the solidness of who I am as a person. My interests. My -- I don't have the neediness to be in a relationship.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: If you date again, if and when you're back in the community, and chances are you're an attractive woman even at 66, you will have suitors. What kind of man would you allow in your life? What's your standard now?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: At my age --

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: What's your minimum criteria before you allow somebody in -- to involve yourself romantically?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: A thinking person. Someone who doesn't drink a lot. Someone who probably has children that he raised and grandchildren that he enjoys.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Why?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Stability. That shows stability and commitment and longevity. Someone who is interested in world events. Someone who likes the arts. Someone who enjoys having theoretical exchanges. Possibly an educator. I would enjoy that.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: And in your mind, how should he be treating you?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Well.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Anything else other than just well?

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: With dignity, with care, equally.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Okay. Nothing more. Sorry, Commissioner.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. Those are good questions. Closing statement, Ms. Lebowitz.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Thank you.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: For all the reasons I state below, The People of the State of California believe that the suitability factors are far, far, far outweighed by the unsuitability factors here. The unsuitability factors are as follows. Number one, the inmate has an unstable social history. We didn't go that much into this at this particular hearing, but we do know that the inmate rebelled from what she called an idealistic or an ideal lifestyle. She rebelled from that lifestyle and sought out a life of drugs. She began ingesting hallucinogenic drugs at the age of 15 whereupon she ran away to San Francisco as an unmarried female, had a pregnancy out of wedlock. She dabbled in various non-traditional religious type viewpoints. And we didn't go into this and I'll go into this a little bit further in a little while, but in any event, she did all this in her teens and then she ended up in Spahn Ranch. She told the Board that she had a period of time where she was not doing any drugs while she was in San Francisco and while she was living with Bobby Beausoleil and Catherine Share. However, on page 10 of 13 of the CRA of this year -- from this particular psychiatrist -- she said when talking about her drug usage she said that it was four years of continuous drug usage. That is an inconsistent statement from what the psychiatrist, psychologist wrote in her report than what the inmate told the Board here. She also has prior criminal activity. She admits that she -- what she called robbed her father's house, but in reality it was a nighttime residential burglary where she and the members of the Manson family would do something called creepy crawling and they would go into people's houses at night and steal their things, and it was in preparation for this mission. They dressed in dark clothing and it was preparation and the mission that she talked to you about, about sneaking up on people. She also had, as the Probation Officer's Report indicates, several theft charges that she was never convicted for but readily admits and indicated a criminal lifestyle while they were still committed while at the Spahn Ranch. This indicates a pattern of criminal activity and a pattern of what I consider to be a crime family which exactly -- that's what the Manson family was. The inmate has demonstrated a lack of insight in several areas. In Re Shaputis, S-H-A-P-U-T-I-S dictates that if despite years of rehabilitative programming, of which the inmate has a lot, the inmate still lacks insight into the offense, into the gravity of the offense, or prior violent acts, this constitutes some evidence that the inmate is still a threat to public safety. The inmate demonstrates lack of insight by minimizing her involvement in the crime. She told the Board here today, as she has told several psychologists in the past, and several Boards in the past, that she looked away when Tex Watson stabbed Mrs. LaBianca. It is beyond reason and beyond recognition to believe that for the following reasons. First of all, when they went into the house, Patricia Krenwinkel immediately went to the kitchen and got some knives for them to use. Tex Watson had brought a bayonet with him. Tex Watson had stabbed and butchered Leno LaBianca in the living room. The inmate and Patricia Krenwinkel went into the bedroom, as she told you, and the inmate, as she told you, put the pillowcase over her head and wrapped the lamp cord around her neck. Mrs. LaBianca, as she told you, hearing the guttural screams of her husband, tried to get up and help him, but instead what did the inmate do. She held her down and Krenwinkel could not kill her because the knife that Krenwinkel was using hit the collarbone and bent. So the inmate calls Tex Watson, who had already killed Mr. LaBianca in the living room. While Watson was inside killing Mrs. LaBianca, Krenwinkel was out in the living room stabbing him with a carving tong that they had used for the family Thanksgiving dinners writing war, carving it into his skin on his stomach. And that's when Mr. Watson and the inmate were inside the bedroom stabbing Mrs. LaBianca. For her to say that she was looking away and did not participate in the stabbing at that point is not only inconsistent and disingenuous. The CRA from this year, 2016, gives a statement of facts, and usually the Board reads the statement of facts either as the inmate tells it or from the appeal decision. In this situation, the psychologist gives the same statement of facts as that which was used in the 2007 CRA and indicates that the inmate amended a few changes. However, there are no changes. The inmate's statement in the CRA is exactly the same statement as the 2007 report. The inmate adopts the statement that she stabbed Mrs. LaBianca 16 to 18 "superficial wounds" which surprised me when I heard this. The reason that I brought the coroner's report to make sure that the Board reviewed it was that Mrs. LaBianca was stabbed 41 times. The inmate believes that she was already dead. There's an unnumbered page in the coroner's report that is approximately four pages in -- five pages in and has a chart and it talks about the lower back stab wounds described as 3/4 to 1-inch wounds meaning the size of the wounds, not the depth of the wounds described but not numbered -- "some postmortem" not all postmortem. So if the inmate stabbed Mrs. LaBianca as she claims to, and maybe she doesn't have any independent recollection, I don't know how you could be stabbing someone to death and butchering them and mutilating them and counting the times that you plunged that knife into a poor woman's back. But let's say the inmate got that number from the coroner's report. Only some of those wounds were postmortem, and if the occurrence -- if it happened as the inmate said, Mrs. LaBianca was not dead when the inmate stabbed her. In addition, on page 2 of the narrative that is somewhat further back in the coroner's report, the coroner describes the stab wounds not as superficial. The coroner describes the stab wounds as stab wounds -- and this is on the narrative on page 2 which is the fifth paragraph down -- on the lower portion of the posterior trunk numerous lacerations -- stab wounds whose depths are up to 1-1/2 inches at approximately 3/4 to 1-inch in maximum width. That is not a superficial stab wound. The superficial description is made later. However, these do not show any significant hemorrhage into the connective tissue surrounding it, meaning they weren't the fatal wounds. However, Mrs. LaBianca had 41 stab wounds, eight of which were fatal, seven of which were on her back. The superficial nature talks about "also present are linear lacerations very superficial from 5 to 7 inches in length." If there's any doubt in anyone's mind that these stab wounds that this inmate inflicted were nowhere near superficial and could have also possibly been one of the seven fatal stab wounds. She talked about Tex taking her clothes. Tex Watson was a 6 foot 1 man. This inmate was a slight -- at the time -- slight female, 19-year-old. It is inconceivable that she would give Tex Watson or Tex Watson would be able to wear this inmate's clothes after the murders. Manson had instructed them to all bring a change of clothes. If she brought a change of clothes, then she could have given, as she says, Watson her change of clothes. If her clothes were not, in fact, bloody as she claims they were not, there would have been no reason for her to change clothes. And whose clothes did she change into? Rosemary LaBianca, as she sat -- laid there bloody in her bedroom. The next example of her lack of -- her minimizing her involvement in the crime is the fact that -- and it has not been discussed yet -- but the defendant, through her -- the inmate through her counsel has filed in 2015 a writ of habeas corpus to force the District Attorney's Office and the LAPD to disclose transcripts of statements by Tex Watson made to detectives in 1971 indicating that they would be exculpatory evidence for her parole hearing and exonerate her in her parole hearing. If the defendant admits responsibility as she says here today, there would be no need for her to find exculpatory statements from Tex Watson from 1971. That was a trial issue and it has been determined that she has -- was culpable in this crime. After she stabbed Mrs. LaBianca, she put on her clothes and what happened then. They left the house. They went back to the Spahn Ranch and she burned the clothes. But before doing that, she wiped clean the entire house of fingerprints. She told the Board that she only wiped clean the fingerprints in the bedroom, and at one point in one of the hearings, she described it as busywork. That is far from busywork. That is something that is deliberately designed such that none of the participants would be found, identified or charged. In the 2000 transcript from her Board of Parole Hearings transcript at page 46, she said she felt for a fleeting moment what was happening was wrong, and in the hearing today she also minimized her conduct about how she felt that it was wrong and that when Patricia Krenwinkel came back and talked about the Tate murders, it was wrong. Based upon her conduct there, there was nothing that indicated that this inmate felt for a fleeting moment or a nanosecond that anything she did was wrong. In contrast, her statements back at the ranch to the 13-year-old girl, Diane Lake, it was fun. "It was fun and the more I did it, the more I loved it." Does that sound like someone who had a fleeting moment of morality? She told the Board in 2013 during her transcript or in the transcript at page 48 that she said that the only reason she said that was because Diane Lake was a 13-year-old girl. She wanted to use the language that she understood and she wanted to impress her. Why did she want to impress her? Because Diane Lake was seen to be the perfect woman, the perfect specimen of what Manson wanted. This was a prepubescent 13-year-old girl. Why in the world would this inmate need to impress her? In the life prisoner evaluation done on -- for the hearing, prepared for the April 24th, 1986 hearing by Christine Sinatra at page 2, the inmate said that she has "morally suffered over the years and that she does not consider herself a career criminal." The morals she learned as a child has not changed except during -- her words -- "the one chance occurrence" when she was part of the Manson family. If that's a chance occurrence, that is the understatement of the century. The inmate has also demonstrated a lack of insight by failing to personally apologize to the family. At every hearing, Louis Smaldino, as he sits here today and as he sat here at previous hearings, has stood up and told the Board that the inmate has never personally apologized to the family. She's never reached out to the family to apologize. She states at every hearing how sorry she is and how she apologizes to the family while she's sitting here in the Board room, but that's not the whole family. This is one descendant. There's sons. There's daughters. There are grandchildren. There are nieces. There are nephews. At the 2010 hearing she read a letter that she wrote, but again, still in the hearing room. She's a facilitator for a 12-step program. She talked about step six, step seven, step ten, 11 and 12, and where's step nine. Well, step nine says that she's to make "direct amends" to people she's harmed except to do so, except when to do so would injure them or others. She has never made direct amends to the family. She's quoted that her amends are simply to teach children -- I'm sorry -- to teach other women and to be a good mentor and to be a good person. That is not a direct amend. Coming from a facilitator of a 12-step program that's unconscionable. Mr. Smaldino has practically begged at each hearing, and at this point it would be too late because it would appear that the inmate would be doing it just to satisfy the Parole Board. How about instead of making quilts for the homeless or teaching or taking ribbon-folding lessons or tutoring others, why doesn't she send one to the family? It's been 46 years and she still doesn't get it. On the contrary, she does two things which are passive-aggressive. Number one, she says -- and she has said at previous Board hearings, especially in 2007 from the transcript at page 84. I've apologized the best way I know how. I leave myself open for a personal apology. What does that mean? That they're supposed to come here and sit in front of the window and have her apologize to them? She says again in the transcript at page 6 "if ever a system is set up where the victims would want to speak to me, I would." Well, I have to tell you. There's a system that's set up to apologize. It's called the United States Postal Service and it's been around since the 1700s and she's not availed herself of it. Each time the Board makes a suggestion to her, she comes back and she trots in with her papers and she says here, I've done everything the Board has told me. The Board has told me to look at the insight into my causative factors. I've taken a report from a friend that I've known for -- now for 13 years and she's evaluated me and I've come back to the Board and I've done that. Has she done that for Mr. Smaldino's request? No. That is a beautiful example of lack of insight. She's demonstrated a lack of insight for the physical injuries that she caused to Mrs. LaBianca. She says -- and we've gone over this -- about her belief that some of the -- that the wounds were superficial and we have shown that they are not. She's demonstrated her lack of insight into relationships with men. She claims that the reason that one of the causative factors of this crime was that Charlie made me do it. She married a man named Bill Sywin in 1982 -- in 1981. She divorced him eight months later in 1982. I assume there was some sort of courtship prior to marriage and this was an ex-con who served time in prison. She told the Board that she divorced him because he overstepped the boundaries. That she had a contract with him. That if he ever overstepped the boundaries she would divorce him and what did he do. He was caught with a female prison's uniform -- a female guard -- strike that -- a female prison guard uniform that they use here in CIW and a map to the prison. Now the inmate was never implicated in this scheme that was thought to be a scheme to break her out, but she was adamant to the Board about how she asserted her boundaries from there on with men and she asserted her boundaries and did not have any irresponsible relationships with men. But what does she do? She writes to a prisoner, a twice convicted double murderer not only in Texas, but also in Idaho. And in the Board hearing meeting -- in the BPH transcript of 2010, she said at page 59 it was a strictly platonic relationship because he was married. Well, just because someone is married doesn't necessarily mean that it's strictly platonic. And she told the Board here that for 16 years she communicated on a romantic sexual fantasy level with a double murderer and that was after she had told the Board that she had terminated all inappropriate relationships. That is an inconsistent statement and deceptive. She's also demonstrated a lack of insight as to the carnage and devastation that Manson incited. In previous Board hearings she said that she feels indifferent to Charles Manson. Today she says that she's offended that he gets so much recognition. That she's offended by what he did. How about disgust? How about revulsion? How about disdain? How about something stronger than a very neutral feeling about him? Everyone in the world is repulsed by what he created and this inmate is simply offended. She's indifferent. That is a complete lack of insight as to what caused this crime, what she participated in and who she associated with. She also demonstrated a lack of insight by presenting an analysis of progress to the Board authored by a friend. Another instance of a demonstration of lack of insight is that she claims to the Board that one of the causative factors was her abortion. It wasn't until 2002 that the inmate actually called it an abortion. In 1971 when she spoke to her probation officer prior to her sentencing before she received the death penalty, she told the probation officer that she had a pregnancy at age 16 that resulted in a miscarriage in the third month. During a 1978 custodial evaluation on page 25 of 30, the inmate "said she was 15 when she became pregnant by a local boy who had just dropped out of high school. She had a miscarriage when she was about four months along." Now in the 2002 Board hearing, the inmate wanted the Board to know how detailed she was about her descriptions about her life and the facts and the following exchange took place. The Board asked her at page 41, so at about age 15 you became pregnant and had a miscarriage. Answer, yes, at 17. I know the documents say 15 and I'm not sure how that happened. That was a detail that she corrected about her age. Then there was a discussion about Bobby Beausoleil and the Presiding Commissioner asked "is there anything else about your background that you would like the Panel to know?" And the inmate talked about her high school drug use again, doesn't mention the miscarriage or doesn't correct the idea that it wasn't a miscarriage. At page 44 she corrects the Board about being -- her being a homecoming princess and not a homecoming queen. Page 44, "Sometimes I feel like I have to be a little careful of all the little technical details and so that's a small thing, but" -- again, doesn't correct the Board that she had an abortion and not a miscarriage. The Panel turns the tape over and then the inmate says "My attorney mentioned something that I overlooked. And that's that you referred to losing of the baby as a miscarriage and it was an abortion." It took her attorney to tell her that it was important that she had an abortion and now it takes on a life of its own. It takes on a life of its own as a causative factor that the inmate uses as an excuse but has no insight that many people have abortions and don't go slaughter innocent people in the community.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Ms. Lebowitz, 30 seconds. Thank you.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Commissioner, I know that I didn't have any objections at the beginning on the record. I said that on the record. But at that point in time you had not talked about the 20-minute limitation. I think that this case is an extremely important case and it deserves more time than an ordinary case. I'm almost finished, but I think that The People of the State of California deserve to be heard as to the opposition.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Go ahead. I'll give you the same amount of time, Mr. Pfeiffer.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Twenty minutes will be fine with me.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Thank you. The inmate also demonstrated a lack of insight by claiming that the LSD made her do it. She talks to the psychiatrist in this year's CRA in 2016 on page 7 of 13 that she used heavily for four years. Now she used these on her own free will. There was no mention that she ever gave it up for four years. This is important for the following reason. The inmate talks about the fact that she has no way or that she did not question anything that Charles Manson told her. She did not question his theories. She did not question anything that he told her. But in -- but when she was in San Francisco, her purpose for running away was to join the Self-Realization Fellowship and she told the Board that the reason that she left the Self-Realization Fellowship was because she found it to be hypocritical. Now it's important in this respect. That if she was on LSD for that period of time and that she could recognize hypocrisy in the Self-Realization Fellowship, but she was on the same LSD when she met Charles Manson and she could not recognize the destruction, the complete -- I don't even know the word -- the ludicrous philosophies that he presented but she could recognize hypocrisy. That is inconsistent and it doesn't make sense. Her causative factor that Manson made me do it was not believed by the jury. It was also not asserted as an issue on appeal in 1980. She claims that Manson was -- she was so fearful of Manson that she couldn't leave the ranch, but in 2007 in her Board of Parole Hearings transcript at page 82, she said part of the -- part of being at the ranch was to have your -- turned your back on your family. And she claimed that Manson taught them to distrust everything that their families taught them. But on page 83 she describes a situation where she went back to the home and got clothes from her mother. If Manson would not let her leave the house or leave the ranch and taught her to turn her back on everything that her parents taught her then how in the world was she able to leave the ranch. She told this Panel that she was never allowed to leave and that she was fearful, but the fact of the matter is that several people left. She indicated to one Panel that she thought that she would suffer the same fate. In 2004 she told the Board of Parole Hearings at page 61 she thought if she left Manson would kill her and she would suffer the same fate as Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Now there's no evidence in any written document to suggest that Charles Manson or anybody in the family killed anyone for leaving and she was allowed to leave. She was allowed to go have sex on the mattress in the cave and she was allowed to go to her mother. If she was allowed to leave, then Charles Manson's hold was not as tight as she would like the Board to believe. She was looking for something to be embraced. She left San Francisco. She left Victorville. She left the tumult from Bobby Beausoleil and Catherine Share and she came to live at the ranch and she described it as a family. In the hearing today she described about -- she described that everyone was welcoming and that it was a family. This inmate has no remorse and had no remorse about the crime or even within three years after. She talked about making amends and that -- I think that her time period was three years after she broke from Manson that she was able to make amends and she was able to -- she talked about how she shows remorse as being the best she can be by making every day -- by making every decision she makes every day. In 1978, which was well after she broke off from Manson and well after she decided she could be the best she could be every day, the custodial evaluation described her as being manipulative. It was written on 10/2 -- October 2nd, 1978, a 30-page custodial evaluation that I've referenced previously. At page 14 the custodial staff found "she is very manipulative and plays one staff against another along with her crime partners. So adept is she at manipulating that there was dissension among the watchwomen." That doesn't sound like being the best she can be after she broke off from Manson. The inmate can't live unless she is in a strict disciplined situation or custodial setting. To this psychiatrist -- to this psychologist, Kropf, when asked her self14 perceived character weaknesses she responded I can become preoccupied with others' problems or injustices. When others are displeased, I have to reconcile myself. In 2013 she told the Board that she relies upon her friends to tell if she's getting carried away with something. She doesn't have a good set of boundaries. She doesn't have a good definition of where she ends and someone else begins and that's at page 88. In 2002, the Board talked about a situation where she was trying to please her cellmate talking about the same characteristics as she did with Bobby Beausoleil, smothering him -- or not Bobby Beausoleil, but the first teenage Bobby -- smothering him. This inmate needs boundaries. If she doesn't know where other -- where she leaves off and other people begin, as Commissioner Lam indicated, how will she know where to stop if someone tries to manipulate her? Perfect example. She thought it would be a good idea to have her friend write an evaluation for the Board. I know that the Board is interested in me ending my argument, but I haven't even begun to go through the brutality and the carnage that happened at the LaBianca house. This crime was committed in a heinous, atrocious and cruel manner. Multiple victims were butchered. The crime was carried out in a dispassionate and calculated manner. The victims were tortured and murdered. The inmate showed a callous disregard for human suffering, and the motive for these crimes are trivial in relation to the offense. The inmate escaped the death penalty when it was overturned. Her conviction was overturned because her lawyer mysteriously disappeared in the middle of the trial. Although that murder has never been solved, it is presumed that it was at the hands of someone from the Manson family. If the defendant -- if the inmate were convicted today, she would be convicted of special circumstances, a murder involving special circumstances, and there are several. A special circumstance murder entitles the defendant to be either put to death or live in prison without the possibility of parole. Her third trial ended in 1978, just months before this law was instituted. Today these special circumstances would be torture, the murder during commission of a torture, the murder during the commission of a residential burglary, a murder -- because they were multiple murders, a murder done for racial motivation, a murder done by means of lying in wait, and potentially that the Manson family would be considered today a criminal street gang. The facts of the murder were not gone over in detail by the Board, and I know that I have a time limit, but I think it's important to put this on the record. The inmate was a member of the Manson family. Two weeks prior to the LaBianca murders, there was a murder by a Manson family member of a person named Gary Hinman. Similar circumstances appeared at the Hinman house. The word pigs was written in blood on the wall of blood of the victim, the same as that which was done here. The blood of Mr. LaBianca was written on the wall, rise, Helter Skelter written on the refrigerator wall and death to piggies. Brutal slayings had just happened two nights before at the Tate house. Six people. Six lives were taken, Sharon Tate, her unborn fetus, Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring, Steven Parent covered all over the news and the inmate watched it. She watched every gory detail on the news and got a firsthand account from Patricia Krenwinkel about what it was like. These people were ready to start a race war. The fact that the inmate tells you that Patricia Krenwinkel says that it was wrong and that young people were killed, I think is not credible. These people were ready to kill anyone and anyone who would further their cause to start this racial war. The inmate felt left out. She was dying to go. She was chomping at the bit. She was jealous that she didn't get to participate in that carnage the night before. It's been said in several hearings and at the trial that she premeditated these murders, that she thought about it for two days about whether or not she could kill, and she decided she could kill and then she went. She also took Tex Watson's murder class that he held at the Spahn Ranch to teach people how to stab people and to teach people to pull of the knife a little bit further just to make sure that they're dead. They met in the bunkhouse the night before. Manson went over the rules of engagement, don't make a mess like the night before, don't let them know you're going to kill them. Seven of them piled into the car, Manson, Krenwinkel --

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: All right. Thank you, Ms. Lebowitz. That's about 40 minutes is sufficient time for you to close. I appreciate your closing. Maybe I was unclear about the intent of closing, but I thought I was. That we're trying to determine whether somebody is currently dangerous. But maybe that was my mistake. Mr. Pfeiffer.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Thank you, Commissioner. You were clear and you were also clear about the time limits. At first I thought, you know, the DA maybe was not familiar with parole hearings, but as she went on, I started to question some credibility with some of the careful uses of some of the facts out of context. Anyway, the unstable social history, the thefts, the crime, those are all immutable, unchangeable circumstances of -- they do not constitute some evidence of a current unreasonable risk according to Lawrence at page 1181. The DA relies on Shaputis that Ms. Van Houten has no insight. In Shaputis, the inmate raped his daughter, beat up several wives, put them in the hospital, denied it all, blamed it on the wives and then he didn't even go talk at his parole hearing. He was quiet. This guy says nothing whatsoever related to the lack of insight displayed in Shaputis. A writ for the Tex tapes. I did that. And the reason I did that is because I was told that there was some exculpatory information on those tapes, and I tried to get them and the DA refused to give them. And the DA's Office position is that Ms. Van Houten, because it's post-conviction, has no right to discovery -- no due process right. And the Supreme Court asked their office to answer, and in their answer, they -- three top deputies from the Appellate Division signed this document, and basically they go over and over again how Manson had complete control over these people, how that was the theory of the whole case, and although -- and the reason that the Tex tapes don't apply is because they don't make Ms. Van Houten not guilty of the commitment offense. But they do diminish, to some degree, her culpability, and Penal Code Section 4801, Subdivision (b)(3) talks about, you know, if a prisoner presents evidence of intimate partner battering, it can't be used to support a finding that the prisoner lacks insight. And to a degree, Manson was a batterer, maybe only emotionally of Ms. Van Houten and the other family members, but it somewhat does apply. It's certainly a lot closer than Shaputis applies to this case. In Lawrence they talk about the other things that the Board and Governor must consider and it's remorse, and I just ask that you listen and you make a credibility finding of Ms. Van Houten's statements before you today. You're sitting across the table. You got to ask her questions. You got to see the body language, and please make a credibility finding on that. I think she tried to be as honest as she could be. It has to be remembered some of the details of some of the facts are not going to be exactly right. It was so long ago. Her plans for release or develop marketable skills, I don't think that those are any kind of issue. Past and present mental state and past and present attitude towards her crime. I think she described how she feels about her crime and how it affects her. She says today -- even today she has bad days and it's when she relives that, and that's part of the sentence that she's going to have for the rest of her life, whether paroled or not. It doesn't matter. Consideration of the inmate's post-conviction conduct and as it relates to her current ability to function within the law if released from prison. One of the arguments that the DA made was that she has to be in a highly structured facility to be able to function. Well, she was out on parole for a while at the -- or on bail on the third trial and nothing bad happened. She went to work. She functioned in the community. You know it wasn't for a very long time, but she did well. As far as Ms. Lebowitz wanting Ms. Van Houten to address the victims' families through the mail or personally or directly at a hearing, I don't think she understands that that's not possible. If Ms. Van Houten were to do that, she would be reprimanded for that, so certainly not doing it can't be used against her. She says the claim that Charlie made me do it -- well, their office said the same thing in their Supreme Court brief over and over again. She says the jury didn't buy it but their office bought it, and her office relies on it to this day. So for her to now argue against that is disingenuous. The abortion. She, you know, it's something that she didn't address right away because it was so hard for her. And then to have her fetus buried in the back yard, this was a situation she could not escape. And for her to block that out, I think that's a normal human reaction and just kind of in the beginning not address it head-on and just look at it as a miscarriage and that's -- that is at that time a lack of insight and not addressing all of these things that were pivotal at the time her life had changed so radically. The other thing that was pivotal at that time that her life changed so radically was the family's divorce. And I read a book John Fogerty wrote last year and I was surprised. He spent seven pages on his family's divorce. And if you're not familiar with him, he wrote all the songs for Creedence Clearwater Revival. And he concluded with these sentences. He says divorce was an immense failure to -- for me -- not for his family but for him. He felt that responsible. He said it just didn't happen to good families and his family's divorce was the same time as Ms. Van Houten's. He said I felt that I was at the bottom end of the social totem pole. Ms. Van Houten today talked about how her friends changed when she had her divorce. She was with these single parent kids and that's when the drug use started. He said my parents' divorce was almost too much to bear. People handle divorce differently. It has different impacts on everybody. And you know, it's -- John Fogerty, he went and hid in his music and music writing, and Leslie, she went and hid with drugs and lesser friends, and it was a bad decision and she recognizes it today. At the time that she was going to go to the Self-Realization Fellowship, that time period, she was sober. She had just finished business school. She was sober. And so all those arguments about doing it while on drugs don't apply. The -- she says that Ms. Van Houten did not apply the issue that Charlie made me do it. Well, the DA never appealed her sentence. Now she says that oh, she was sentenced just barely before this new special circumstances penalty was imposed by the law. It was imposed by the law, but they can't impose the law on a crime that was committed almost a decade earlier. That's an ex post facto violation, but yet that's the inference that the DA thinks that they should have applied to this case. Premeditated, that's another issue. The second trial was hung on the issue of premeditation. The third trial, Ms. Van Houten was convicted of felony murder rule, which they didn't have to prove intent, premeditation or any of that. So not only, you know, did she not acknowledge the premeditation, the jury didn't either. The youthful offender, this Board shall give great weight -- whatever that means -- and I don't know what it means yet -- I hope you do -- and if you could put that on the record if you know what it means and put it on the record, I think it would be helpful for all of us about the diminished culpability of juveniles. And in Miller v. Alabama, the Supreme Court talked about those hallmark features, immaturity, impetuosity, failure to appreciate risks and consequences, prevents taking into account the family and home environment that surrounds them. No matter how brutal or dysfunctional the family life might be, they can't get away from it. And neglects the circumstances of the homicide offense, including the extent of the participation in the conduct the way peer pressures may have affected them. Well, Ms. Van Houten certainly had peer pressure from Charlie on down at the ranch. They were pressuring each other because that's what they were taught and trained to do. As far as the elderly parole, at this stage of her life, you know, she's got diminished capacity to be able to do something violent. Matter of fact, the only violent thing she's ever done in her entire life was the commitment offense. Into substance abuse. It was severe. It was heavy and it occurred at a time when the divorce happened which -- and shortly thereafter was the abortion which probably fueled it. But she's addressed that and she's continued to address it, and she talked about how she would do 12 steps probably for the rest of her life. The home meetings, what those are called by the people in the 12- step programs are the one meeting where you have your closest friends and you share most intimately and it's the one that you don't miss no matter what happens in that week. I think that she referred to who it was and when it was, but that's what's normally referred to as a home meeting in the AA meetings on the outside anyway. Ms. Van Houten talked about how first of all ludicrous, as Commissioner pointed out, this whole going into the hole for 150 years, and you know, emerging and everything was. Some people say Christianity is ludicrous, too, where Jesus Christ dies for three days and is born again and then will live forever. But there, you know, Christianity has had its wars through the years and it doesn't justify any of this, but it just shows the plausibility of somebody who has the ability to control minds and is a godlike figure, how this situation could possibly have happened, and they took, as Ms. Van Houten pointed out, vulnerable people whose, you know, relationships in their lives had been fractured was the word she used. I think that was a good word. The drugs that they took, the LSD in the circle where Manson would talk to them for seven or eight hours and indoctrinate them. I'm not an expert on brainwashing. I'm not an expert on cults. But I was a Navy Seal and we were taught how to get information and how to get people to give us what we wanted them to give us. And these are the kind of tactics that they taught us. Said we all shared characteristics. We're all in some place we had fractured personalities. Coupled with that the drugs, coupled with Manson's ability and knowledge to manipulate people, the LSD made us more susceptible to suggestions. As far as what the law says, unless today Ms. Van Houten poses an unreasonable risk to public safety if placed on supervised parole, this Panel shall parole her. And all I'm asking is that you follow the law. And if you find that she's an unreasonable risk to public safety, please state what that risk is, and if you don't, please follow the law and grant her parole. And I think that the one last thing I wanted to point out is the amends. She can't make direct amends to the family and step nine says to do so unless it would hurt them or others. And trying to make direct amends, first of all, would violate prison rules, and second of all, it could hurt them. So the only way she can make amends is I heard one Commissioner state it as universal amends where you pay it forward to other people. That's how she's living her life. When you look at all of the work she's doing, Deputy Commissioner says how do you fit all this into your work week. For years, I've represented women here, and it's an emotional thing for -- especially for women to go to parole hearings, and they start to get very anxious and nervous and almost mental basket cases. And I've always sent them to Leslie to calm them down and she's never said no. And I mean that's the kind of stuff you get combat pay for, but she'll always take them, open arms, has made a difference in their lives. A lot of them have written letters. Some people say don't trust a letter from an inmate. My experience is if inmates sat on the other side of this table, they'd be a little bit more careful than some of the Commissioners on who they let out. They don't want to see one person go home who can mess up this whole thing for everybody else. And you're seeing people who are writing letters who are successful on the outside who became rehabilitated in some part through Ms. Van Houten's efforts in here. And that's the way she's making amends. She's making a difference in the world. And how can she stay optimistic as the Deputy Commissioner asked being denied parole all these years? She said I'm going to live my life the best way I can, and that's what she's done, and I think that her record reflects that. So with that I just ask you to follow the law and grant her parole. Thank you.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Ms. Van Houten, this is your opportunity to address the Panel directly with your closing statement if you so choose.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: I would like to just say thank you for the opportunity to come today. I answered your questions as candidly as I'm able to. And I want to again say how sorry I am for my unconscionable behavior in 1969 and who I was. And I try to make recompense for what I have done so that I can live with myself and I'm deeply sorry for what I've done.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you, Ms. Van Houten. We'll have an opportunity at this point to hear victims' impact statements. Do you have the written letter at this point?

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: We do.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Let's take a recess right now. The time is approximately 1:50. Thank you.

(Off the Record.)

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: We're back on record.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you, Commissioner. The time is approximately 2:07. All parties previously identified are present. We're ready at this juncture for impact statements first from the letter, if possible, and the microphone if possible. Thank you.

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: I will read this the best I can as the printer cartridge on the fax does not seem to be working. My name is Tony LaMontagne M-O-N-T-A-G-N-E (sic), and I am the oldest grandson of Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary. I want to start by asking a question not to be directly answered but to be considered. Why are we actually here? Are we really here to try and justify why -- unintelligible -- oh, why we should allow a convicted and admitted mass murderer out of prison? Please think about this statement -- about that statement for a second. Are we really at a point in our society where we are actually spending our time and energy on this nonsense? This is a person who invaded my family's home. This could have been any of your homes as well, but she and her group decided to invade our home and stick a knife into my family over and over and over, and I could continue, but you've heard all the evidence for decades. We're here to decide if we want this type of person in our neighborhoods. This is not someone else's neighborhood. This could be your neighborhood or my neighborhood. Last time she was in my neighborhood, she murdered my family. My family has forever been changed since that tragic night, but I'm sure that you've heard the story before as we've been doing this for almost 50 years. What can I say that can convince you to keep this murderer in prison for the rest of her life and not allow my family to continue to endure this ongoing pain of living this out over and over again? I would really love an answer to that question. I spent the last several days looking over transcripts and letters from the past of this topic, and the reasons for keeping this inmate in prison haven't changed. She's convicted of murdering Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. This by itself should be enough to keep her behind bars for life. She has shown absolutely no remorse to our family for her actions, and at this point, it couldn't be genuine even if she tried. That ship has sailed. Everything that I heard this morning in this hearing is a complete excuse as to why she committed these horrible crimes. There is absolutely no real remorse or ownership of her actions. It's everyone else's fault, not hers. Take ownership of your actions and the consequences that come from them. Everyone else in society does. It's time to accept your punishment of murdering my grandfather and his wife in cold blood and stop working the system to get out. God is watching. Please remember that Leno, Rosemary and our family are the victims here, not this inmate. I repeat, not this inmate. I want to conclude my statement with a short and true story that I've heard time and time again from my mother, Leno's first child, about the last memories he has of her father -- she has of her father. The last time I saw my dad was on Father's Day 1969. I can still feel his arms around me in what would be our last hug, and I remember our last words on the telephone a week later as we discussed what he'd do for his birthday. He said it might be better to get together a week later. If he had not said those words, my brother, my sister and I would have been there that night and we would have died beside him. "Then you're going to have to wait for your present" I told him with a smile in my voice. "I can wait" he said. "I love you Cory." Parole Board, please make the right decision. Tony LaMontagne and family.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. Ms. Tate, would you like to make a statement first or Mr. Smaldino?

MS. TATE: I'm coming up.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Okay. Thank you, Ms. Tate.

MS. TATE: Sorry (inaudible). As I stated when I checked in, I'm here to represent cousins of John DeSantis, a cousin of Lou's, a nephew of Leno LaBianca. I've also in the past represented Angela Smaldino who is in extremely fragile mental state as a direct connection to Ms. Van Houten's actions. I feel that I know very well how these people feel and how it affects generations going forward, which I believe you experienced today with John Montagne on the phone. That's a grandchild who never had the privilege of meeting his grandfather, and still to this day he's traumatized. The ripples in the pond are tremendous, and it doesn't stop here. I don't believe that a just society has anything in mind to -- they don't even -- most of them don't think it's possible that our justice system could let out a member of a serial killing family, which is what these people are bottom line. The ripple effect that could happen there could be tremendous. Who knows who is going to go off the deep end first -- her or the public. I want to make sure and so does the entire relatives on both Leno and Rosemary's side of the family that nobody breaks. And the only way that this can be ensured is to let Ms. Van Houten and the rest of her crime partners live out their life in a controlled environment where they can truly do good. She's done a great job here in jail. I will not refute that and neither will any of these family members. But there are a few things that I would like you to take into consideration. Over and over again the family members have pled for a personal contact and the lawyers keep saying that that's impossible. It is not. That is a blatant lie and an abuse of the system. There is technique involved in getting letters to the victim's family. The truth of the matter is Ms. Van Houten has never wanted to cross that bridge. There are so many people involved here. She admits that she holds herself responsible for the killings the night before. You've got Gary Hinman's family. You have the Tate family which includes me, the Sebring family, the Wojciech Frykowski family. You have Steven Parent's family. You have Gary Hinman's family, which all of these occurrences were designed to cover up that particular incident. Each of those prior murders she wanted to be a part of. She trained for them. If that's not lying in wait, I don't know what is. If that's not special circumstances and an indicator of an extremely potentially sick individual, there are markers here which the psychology community takes into consideration. Perhaps better doctors -- there are better and worse in everything, but their opinion is that people that have these markers are almost destined to have trouble adapting because they can't see the world through empathetic or passionate eyes. This is shown again with the lack of concern of contacting the family. If she had -- she only wants to do her dues or her due diligence in her way, in her world. There's a sea of people out here that need an apology before they can be taken -- she can be taken seriously, and I do want you to take that into consideration. Also, nowhere in these laws that have been quoted does it state that the severity and magnitude of the crime doesn't count. It does count. You can take that into accountability and I know that John DeSantis expects that. We all do. So with that I would like you to give her the maximum years possible, which would be the five years at this point in time given her record. And I thank you.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you, Ms. Tate. Mr. Smaldino.

MR. SMALDINO: First of all I'd like to thank you for allowing me to speak on behalf of the LaBianca family. My name is Louis Smaldino. I am the oldest nephew of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. My mother is Stella Smaldino, who is Leno's older sister. The victims here, we're here to protest against any parole for Ms. Van Houten or any of the Manson family members. I have attended ten of these hearings with a great deal of sadness, angst, anger and disgust for what these people did to our family. It is very difficult to relive the tragedy each time I appear, but I believe it is important that I do so. Someone has to speak for the victims of this violent murderous rampage visited on them as well as our family. Someone has to speak for justice. Leno and Rosemary were in life's prime, in their mid-forties with five children and were dearly loved. He was the owner of a successful grocery business which subsequently failed due to his absence at great personal financial loss to the family. Rosemary was life personified. I don't know if you've seen pictures of her, but she was literally -- she could have been a movie actress and she was beautiful, gregarious, giving, and most importantly a good mother. Both were brutally attacked and murdered in the sanctity of their home by sociopaths bent on murder and starting a race war. It was not enough to kill before, but they did it again here with no remorse. All still live and keep burdening our legal system with frequent parole requests as if their heinous crimes and acts never took place. I'm here to remind the Board that we can never forget the acts committed or the void in so many lives that exist. We ask for justice. Excuse me. The facts have been painfully laid before you today. The premeditation, the zeal, the thrill of the kill, all are traits of a sociopath which is incurable. Ms. Van Houten is someone who is without real remorse and has a disregard for human life. To this day, she has offered no apology to any of the victims' families and claims only -- she was only a spectator who stabbed Rosemary after she was dead. This is someone who is deficient as a human being and I hate to say that about anyone. Who of us would not accept total responsibility for these murders if we participated in any way? She is a danger to society and can never be trusted or be released with this sort of a mindset. Ms. Van Houten is without empathy or compassion, and frankly, in my opinion, is a narcissist who only thinks of herself and finding a way out of prison. The place where these murders took place was our traditional family home where we all gathered to enjoy holidays. It was my grandfather's house. The home was desecrated. The knife Leno was stabbed with and left in his body was the same utensil that was used to carve turkeys and hams by my grandfather, my dad, and Leno himself. How does anyone forget this -- ever? How does anyone forget the last moment of Rosemary's life as she heard Leno's last screams and knew her demise was soon to follow? The horror of it all. How do we forget? Both my grandmother and mother never were the same after these events. They were constantly sad before their deaths. The children of the deceased cannot bring themselves to come to these hearings. As the oldest, I've assumed this role, God help me, to save them the anguish of facing these horrific murders once again. The Manson family are terrorists, albeit home grown. They are long before their time. I mean what we're saying today these people were back in the 60s. They are a gang of murderers who are unrepentant and use excuses of brainwashing and drugs to vindicate themselves from their actions. How would we deal with the terrorist today if they did these sort of things, you know? Parole them? They will say and do anything to game the system and try to achieve freedom. They gave up their right to freedom, even life, when they committed these murders -- multiple murders. In fact, they should have all suffered capital punishment for their deeds, but due to the quirks in our legal system, they have the possibility of parole. We stand firmly as a family against parole and ask that Ms. Van Houten accept responsibility for her part in these heinous murders and pay the just price for them. Leno and Rosemary will never be able to enjoy their children, grandchildren or extended family. They will never be able to enjoy a meal or a family gathering. They will never be able to enjoy the fruits of their labor. They will never be able to enjoy old age. These were all taken away from them. It is not fear that causes thousands of people to oppose this parole, but a demand for justice for the heinous crimes committed. Only justice can restore some semblance of equity by keeping Ms. Van Houten in prison for the rest of her life where she can pray and do good works to make some amends for her unspeakable deeds. Again, I would like to thank the Board for allowing me to speak. I'm sorry for my temperament.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you, Mr. Smaldino. With that, we're going to recess for deliberations. The time is approximately 2:25.

RECESS
--o0o--

CALIFORNIA BOARD OF PAROLE HEARINGS DECISION

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Back on record.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you. The time is approximately 3:20. All parties previously identified are present. We have reconvened for the pronouncement of the Panel's decision in the matter of Ms. Leslie Van Houten with a controlling offense of Penal Code Section 187, two counts, and conspiracy in the first as well. In our deliberations we did consider the Central File, the additional documents submitted and marked, all responses received from the public and the testimony presented at this hearing by Ms. Van Houten. Also, obviously we took into consideration Ms. Tate's impact statement here today as well as Mr. Smaldino. We also took into consideration at this hearing here today the inmate qualifies as a youthful offender pursuant to Penal Code Section 3051 as enacted by SB 261 and the great weight requirements set forth therein, namely, giving great weight to diminished culpability of juveniles as compared to adults, the hallmark features of youth, and any subsequent growth and maturity. We also considered that the inmate, Ms. Van Houten, her current age at this time qualifies her as an elderly parole. We considered the confidential section, did not rely on said information for this instant hearing here today. Ultimately, Ms. Van Houten, we have made a decision unanimously to grant you parole and find that you are suitable at this time and as such do not pose an unreasonable risk of danger to society. Ms. Van Houten, this decision is not final. BPH Decision Review has 120 days to review this decision. Thereafter, the Governor himself has 30 additional days during which time he may review this decision de novo. In our deliberation, we discussed areas tending to show unsuitability, and foremost, obviously the life crime has impacted many people in many walks of life over decades and generations that still go on today. Your actions were deemed to be atrocious, cruel and monstrous. Your actions, as Ms. Tate stated eloquently here today, resulted in a ripple effect of family members, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, and the general public. The other areas we discussed in our deliberation was the very essence of this crime here today, and that is the life crime itself. In certain unique cases, the law in the cases and the dicta directs us and tells us that in extraordinary cases that those cases -- those individuals responsible for those cases may be the sole basis of denial irrespective of years served. At first glance, reviewing these documents, reviewing this case, I believe this was one of those cases. The mere mention of the name Manson half a century later invokes the thought of evil, fear and danger to the general public and the perception and that's not only delegated to people in this city or this country, but around the world as was demonstrated by all the support and opposition we've seen. But in our deliberations we discussed that this case, your case, is distinguishable from those cases. That case is a Charlie Manson case and a Charlie Manson hearing. That case factor, the manipulation, the control, your age at the time, makes your case distinguishable and not that case that case law refers to. So that was really the sole issue before the Panel in our deliberations. We listened to closing arguments. We listened to the body of the hearing here today, and there's a lot of evidence that supports unsuitability, but the problem is there needs to be a nexus. Otherwise, you'd never get out. Nobody ever gets out in this world if that's the case. The crimes are so atrocious, the crimes are so deeply gruesome and monstrous, but that's not the law. That's not justice. And to be quite honest, if that was the law, and you were sent to death, that's the law. But currently where you're sitting and the rules that we have to abide by, that is not the law. So we have to follow the law. For this very body of individuals, we have to follow the law. Otherwise, all laws can be violated against all people. So that factor loomed large in the Panel's -- and when you see victims like the ones that appeared here today, when you see the letters, it just looms large. You see the victims before you where as a Panel, we're human. But ultimately the Panel determined that these factors were far outweighed by other circumstances not only showing suitability, but it's exemplary behavior. But I think to a certain degree you have to show exemplary behavior. You have to show something beyond the normal inmate. It just looks like that's how it has to be. And given a long period of time, those immutable factors no longer indicate to the Panel here today a current risk of danger to society in light of a lengthy period of positive rehabilitation, and that's what we have. You have been incarcerated for approximately 46 years. You were 19 years old when you committed this life crime, and you're currently 66 years old. You're now much older, less susceptible to peer pressure, and you have significantly matured, not only in age, but also through work you've done and the maturation process, the self-study, education and the like. That was evidenced here today and we saw it. The juvenile status, the great weight played a role in this hearing here today. We have to take that into consideration and give it great weight, and the very essence of those laws is what we see before us in Ms. Van Houten. Juveniles are less susceptible to deterrents, are less susceptible than adults because they lack the maturity and underdeveloped sense of responsibility which often results in impetuous and ill12 considered actions. Your choices that you made in your life at an early age based on the belief system that the family was over when there was a dissolution led you to a lifestyle of drugs, running away, unplanned pregnancy, the abortion, anti-establishment philosophy of the times. You exhibited these hallmarks of youth at the time of the crime as compared to adults, lack of maturity, underdeveloped sense of responsibility, leading a reckless, impulsive lifestyle. So that was 261. That was what the Supreme Court has ruled on, and that is on point with the case factors we see before the Panel here today, so the great weight played a role. Your age played a role. Historically speaking you did not have a record of assaulting others as a juvenile, and you lacked a significant history of violent crime as an adult. Since your incarceration, you've had a positive performance rating in prison. You've been a tutor, culinary, porter, upgraded educationally, your BA degree, master's degree, a thesis to go with that. You have received vocational training in data processing and tutor to go along with vocation of education in and of itself that will help you put -- and secure employment in the community. You have been involved in numerous self-help programs in the institution, not only involved in taking them for over 40 years, but also as a leader and facilitating, inclusive of Alternatives to Violence, Victim Offender Education Group, Emotions Anonymous, Chaffey College for over a decade now. Your behavior in prison speaks for itself. Forty-six years, not a single serious rule violation. None for violence. None for substance abuse. You spoke about your substance abuse issues early on while incarcerated which shed light on your credibility at this hearing here today and we found you to be utmost credible at this hearing.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Thank you.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: You have an outlined detailed relapse prevention plan to ensure your sobriety. You could relate the 12 steps. More importantly, you understand what tools AA and NA have provided, which is essential to making the changes necessary to prevent relapse over time. You were able to demonstrate to us and were able to verbalize to us the requisite insight into the causative factors and triggers that plagued your life. This understanding is important to us, the Panel, in that you were able to verbalize and demonstrate why you did what you did, what changes you have made throughout the years, and what tools you have garnered to safeguard against repeating those past mistakes. You demonstrated this not only through your testimony here today, but also documents we've marked as exhibits, insight letters, relapse prevention plans, parole plans, community resources, support system in society. Ultimately the Panel determined that you did not minimize nor blame others for your actions, and you took full responsibility for your conduct. Your version that you articulated here was deemed to be plausible and not against the face of reason. You demonstrated the requisite remorse indicating you understand the nature and magnitude of the offense. I understand that the Tates -- Ms. Tate's comments here -- and I also understand that Victims Services doesn't accept letters to forward to the family members at this time, but we saw the contrition. We saw your expressed remorse for loss of life. Your parole plans are viable. You have identified people and place, transitional home and appears you have a network of support in the community. We want to also note the Comprehensive Risk Assessment not only in 2016, which found you to be a low risk of recidivism, 2010, 2007, 2006 and seems like from 1980 on, they have been positive. And to be quite honest, after these 46 years, we looked for even a singular issue to demonstrate an indicia of evidence that creates a nexus to current dangerousness. There just isn't one anymore. Commissioner, comments.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Thank you, Commissioner. I must tell you, no matter how many of these hearings we do, every time we listen to the victims' family or the victims' family representatives speak, it's excruciating, I mean, so I want to let you know that we don't give -- take grants lightly at all. But in your case, I will tell you that it is overwhelming the evidence that you are suitable. Because when I was prepping for your case, I'll be honest with you. I had a really difficult time believing in brainwashing. I really do. I mean you know, nobody in this room hasn't heard of Manson and the murders, so -- but I will tell you that by the time I was done reading everything that I could, that is the only conclusion that I could come to. That that is the only way to understand your case. And that is you were a follower and you were under his control. Everything that you've explained today and everything I've read in the file, it clearly -- it's very clear that he was a mastermind at mind control at every move, and within those few months that you were with him, there's no question to me after having heard everything and read everything that that's what was going on. I think that's why you were, after the murder, as you told the last Panel, I mean the facts of your case have been heard so many times that I found such consistency really over the years that we didn't -- I didn't feel I needed to drill much into it, but that would explain to me why you spent two months after the murder in Death Valley looking for this hole, the bottomless pit. You were gone. So for me, your hearing, it was very important for me that you understood how all that came to be and how you deprogrammed from it and where you are at this point, and I think you answered every question that I needed to know to feel safe in my heart and my intellect that you are ready and you are safe to be released. And I think you have tremendous insight, and if you are not rehabilitated, I don't know who is. But I want to put on the record something else that is -- cannot be ignored, and that is I printed out every single one of your psych reports all the way back to '71 and read them all. And from 1980 until today, 17 doctors have said that you are a low risk to an extremely low risk and that you -- on psychopathy you rank very low to low which tells me that -- which actually fits into the understanding that you were brainwashed, and that's why we see a girl who didn't have any violence before commit this horrific crime, and when she comes out of it, we don't see any more violence. I think all the facts fit. That is not to say that I don't hold you accountable because you led yourself to that point, but I do want to read -- because I think it's very -- supports this grant, you know. In '85 Dr. Cotter says that there's no contraindication to your release other than public opinion. '86, Dr. Weathers says that your rehabilitation is complete. Your violence potential is low. Every single person says you were low or extremely low. I believe Dr. Coburn even said that he felt safe enough for you to live on the upstairs of his home. So you know, in reviewing this and digesting everything, I have to ask myself, okay, one doctor, you know, okay, maybe incorrect. Two, three, four, five, but 17 over 36 years. I cannot sit here and be dishonest with the facts is what I'm telling you. And is that to say that if every case 17 doctors said you're safe, I would rubber-stamp it? No. What I saw in the last five hours tells me that they're right. I didn't see -- beyond all the factors of suitability, insight, no assaultive juvenile record, rehabilitation up the wazoo, beyond all that, I'll be honest with you, what I look for in the end is whether you still have criminal thinking, criminal behavior, any vestiges of that criminal mind, and I saw nothing today. And I think after five hours you don't see any, I have to stick with what the evidence shows and not pretend that something is there when it's not. So I really commend you. You know, usually after a grant, I like to tell inmates that the only way you can keep the memory of suffering alive and the memory of the victims alive and the victims' family alive and what they're going through is to live a life of integrity and pay it forward. But in your case, you've already been doing that for so long, so I guess all I have to say is keep it up and I wish you good luck.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Thank you.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Thank you, Commissioner. With respect to term calculations, the term of confinement of the life crime is as follows. Per Penal Code Section 3046(c) a qualified youthful offender found suitable and eligible for parole regardless of any remaining terms to be served subject to BPH Decision Review, Governor's review and any terms to be served pursuant to In Re Thompson as a result of our decision today you are eligible for parole upon reaching your MEPD or youthful offender parole eligibility date, whichever occurs earlier, which you have. With respect to conditions of parole, you're subject to all imposed general and special conditions of parole as set forth by Penal Code Section 2512 and 2513. Based on that statutory authority, this Panel orders the following special conditions of parole. For you not to have any contact with the victims' family or next-of-kin. For you to participate in a residential program, transitional home as is ordered by DAPO of your choice. The Roxie is --

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Roxie Rose.

PRESIDING COMMISSIONER ZARRINNAM: Roxie Rose is sufficient for the Panel here today for -- at a minimum of one year I think is a good start for you to engage in transitional home. With that I'd like to thank all the participants here today, and this hearing is hereby concluded. The time is approximately 3:40. Good luck to you.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Thank you.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Good luck, ma'am.

INMATE VAN HOUTEN: Thank you very much.

ATTORNEY PFEIFFER: Thank you both.

ADJOURNMENT