Gov. Newsom has reversed her last two grants. A decision could take until early March.

October 9 2026, LOS ANGELES — For the third time in five years, a California parole panel has decided Patricia Krenwinkel is fit to leave prison. Whether she does is up to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has twice said no.

Krenwinkel, 78, was found suitable for parole Tuesday at her 18th subsequent hearing, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) confirmed Wednesday. She was convicted for her part in the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders, committed with followers of Charles Manson, and has spent more than five decades in custody.

The ruling is only the first step. The Board of Parole Hearings has 120 days to review it. Because she was convicted of murder, Newsom then has 30 days to approve, modify or reverse it. By my math, that puts a final answer as late as early March 2027. If he reverses it, she gets another hearing within 18 months.

Two reversals already

Panels recommended Krenwinkel’s release in May 2022 and again on May 30, 2025. Newsom overturned the first later in 2022 and the second on Oct. 13, 2025.

His 2025 decision was not a dismissal of her record. He credited her with working to improve herself in prison, noting her college degrees and an excellent disciplinary history. But he wrote that she still poses “an unreasonable danger to society.”

Her lawyer, Keith Wattley, has argued for years that California law requires release once a person with a parole-eligible sentence is no longer dangerous, no matter how severe the crime.

The 1969 killings

Krenwinkel was 19 when she met Manson in 1967 and moved into his commune. Two years later, on his orders, she joined the killings he hoped would set off a race war he called “Helter Skelter.”

On the first night, she helped kill actress Sharon Tate, who was pregnant, and four others at Tate’s home in Benedict Canyon. The next night, she took part in the murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in Los Feliz.

A jury convicted her of seven counts of first-degree murder in 1971, and she was sentenced to death. That sentence became life with the possibility of parole after the California Supreme Court struck down the state’s death penalty law in 1972. She is held at the California Institution for Women in Corona.

Who has been released

If the decision stands, Krenwinkel would be the second woman convicted in the Tate-LaBianca murders to go free. Leslie Van Houten was paroled in July 2023 after 53 years. Manson died in prison in 2017.

Source: FovNews