The Charles Manson follower known as Big Patty has been recommended for release after more than five decades behind bars.
Patricia Krenwinkel, 74, has been refused parole 14 times for the murders of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four other people in 1969.
She helped kill grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary the next night, using their blood to scribble ‘Helter Skelter’, ‘Rise’ and ‘Death to Pigs’ on the walls.
Krenwinkel claimed her actions came after Manson told her to do something ‘witchy’.
The recent recommendation by California’s parole board is the closest Krenwinkel has been to release.
The decision is likely to go to Governor Gavin Newsom for a definitive decision who’s previously denied parole requests for other followers of Manson, who died in prison aged 83 in 2017.
New laws since Krenwinkel was last refused parole in 2017 require the panel to consider that she committed the murders at a young age, 21, and is now an elderly inmate.
She claimed in 2017 that she was affected by battered women’s syndrome when she assisted in the bloody killings by the Manson Family cult.
Krenwinkel’s attorney Keith Wattley said his client was no longer a threat to society and added that she was completely transformed.
Krenwinkel was a 19-year-old secretary when she first encountered Manson, then 33, at a party, but the fact is the victims are still dead so there should be no parole, ever.
She met Charles Manson in Manhatten Beach in 1967, along with Lynette Fromme and Mary Brunner.
In later interviews, Krenwinkel stated that she had sex with Manson the first night they met and that he was the first person who told her she was beautiful.
Mesmerised by Manson’s allure and starved for attention, she chose to go to San Francisco with him and the other two girls, leaving behind her apartment, car, and last paycheck.
As the Manson Family grew, Katie, as Krenwinkel was now known and the others went on a drug and sex-filled 18-month tour of the American west in an old school bus.
She said they were just like wood nymphs and wood creatures and that they would run through the woods with flowers in their hair, and that Charles would have a small flute.
In the summer of 1968, Krenwinkel and fellow Family member Ella Bailey were hitchhiking around Los Angeles when Beach Boys founding member and drummer Dennis Wilson picked them up.
After being invited to his home while he continued on to a recording session, Krenwinkel and Bailey were able to contact the Family and tell them of their new crash pad.
When Wilson returned later that evening, he discovered Manson and the rest of the Family eating his food, sleeping in his bedrooms, and partying inside and outside his home. The group ended up staying for several months forcing Wilson into financial difficulties, but later Manson and the rest of the Family left his mansion.
Krenwinkel was a participant in the murders on August 9, 1969, at 10050 Cielo Drive, home of actress Sharon Tate and her husband, director Roman Polanski.
After stabbing Abigail Folger, Krenwinkel went back inside and summoned Tex Watson, who also stabbed Folger.
During her trial, Krenwinkel said that she stabbed her and kept stabbing her, and when asked how it felt, she responded that she felt nothing.
Krenwinkel participated willingly in more murders the following night, and along with Manson, Watson, Atkins, Clem Grogan, Leslie Van Houen and Linda Kasabian, Krenwinkel went to the home of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca where Krenwinkel, Watson and Van Houten killed the couple.
The Tate-LaBianca killings were a string of murders committed by members of the Manson Family during August 8-10, 1969, in Los Angeles, California, United States, under the leadership of Tex Watson and Charles Manson.
The perpetrators first slaughtered five people on the night of August 8-9 – pregnant actress Sharon Tate and her friends Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, and Steven Parent.
The child that Sharon Tate was pregnant with later perished of asphyxiation in Tate’s womb.
Manson was allegedly dissatisfied with the messy operation of those slayings, and after, the Family then also killed supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles.
Sharon Tate’s baby, if still alive would have been younger than me, and what might have been if she was alive now, but instead it was a life that was taken away, and this should strike terror in people because this kind of thing could easily happen again, and Krenwinkel should never be freed from prison because fifty years for the deaths of five people and an unborn child just isn’t enough.
It’s fair to say that Krenwinkel could have been transformed in jail, but nevertheless, she still couldn’t have paid her debt to society, especially when you’re taking the life of another human being and she should be kept in prison.
And let’s face it after spending all that time in jail she would have no understanding of how our current society has changed over the years and how to support herself.
She killed an unborn child and its mother. The child would be 50 years old now if the baby were still alive, so Krenwinkel serves no purpose in our society and it would be better that she stay in prison knowing that she has lived longer than those whose lives she took.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 