EXCLUSIVE: ‘This opens the doors for the other four.’ Outraged cousin of Manson Family victim urges Gov. Newsom to keep killers in prison after cult member Leslie Van Houten, 73, is finally granted parole and could walk free this week
- Speaking to DailyMail.com, Kay Hinman Martley said she’s ‘in such a state of shock’ over LA appeals court’s decision to grant Leslie Van Houten parole
- Martley, 85, is the cousin of Manson Family victim Gary Hinman, who was 34 when he was murdered by cult members in 1969
- Van Houten, who is serving a life sentence for two counts of murder, had applied for and been granted parole five times, only to have it overturned each time
Kay Hinman Martley spoke out against the recent court order granting Manson Family murderer Leslie Van Houten parole in an interview with DailyMail.com
The cousin of one of the Manson Family’s victims has told DailyMail.com of her ‘never-ending nightmare’ after a Los Angeles appeals court overturned California Governor Gavin Newsom’s decision to deny killer Leslie Van Houten parole for the fifth time.
As a result, Van Houten, 73, is being prepared for release from the California Institution for Women in Chino – and could be out of prison as soon as this week even if the decision to free her is contested.
Newsom now has to decide whether to file an appeal against the decision in the California Supreme Court – setting up a potentially years-long legal battle over Van Houten’s future.
For Kay Hinman Martley, 85, whose cousin Gary Hinman was savagely murdered in July 1969 by members of Charles Manson’s cult, Van Houten’s legal victory came as a shock – and she now fears it could lead to the release of the other four surviving Manson killers.
Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, she said: ‘This is opening the door for the other four. I can’t believe the courts would do that – how can they override the governor?
Van Houten (pictured in 2020) was the youngest member of the Manson Family cult which was responsible for the brutal murder of Martley’s cousin Gary Hinman in July 1969
Leslie Van Houten pictured in a Los Angeles lockup aged 22. She could be out of prison as soon as next week even if the decision to free her is contested
‘Every year, [Newsom] has taken away every parole that the Manson group has tried.’
Kay lives in Denver and has fought for years alongside murdered actress Sharon Tate’s sister Debra to block the release of any of the Manson killers.
Despite her age, she has repeatedly flown to California to argue her family’s case at parole hearings – and has repeatedly faced down UCLA music student Gary’s killers: Manson’s ‘right-hand man’ Bruce Davis, now 80, and drifter turned cult member Bobby Beausoleil, 75.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has to decide whether to appeal the parole board’s decision to free Van Houten
She told DailyMail.com the verdict has made a mockery of her and Tate’s efforts.
Kay said: ‘I don’t know what I will do. I am in such a state of shock and Debra Tate is in such a state of shock; she lives there. I live in Colorado.
‘I can’t believe California would do this, that they would let a killer who tortured several people… I mean the Manson Family has got a terrible reputation.
‘I don’t care what this woman says, if she says she’s sorry.
‘She was given a death sentence and then it was turned to life imprisonment and they forgot [to add] that darn “without parole”.
‘I’m just livid. I don’t know what else to do.
‘I’m 85 years old now and I fight Beausoleil and Davis [at parole hearings] all the time, and then I help on the other three to support the other victims’ families.
‘This is an infringement on all the victims’ families.
‘I feel terrible. It’s so frustrating because you feel so helpless. You have nothing. You’re depending on the powers that be to take care of you and they’re not doing it.
Manson cult members Susan Atkins, (left), Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten,(right), laugh after receiving the death sentence for their part in the Tate-LaBianca killings on the order of Charles Manson in 1971
Leslie Van Houten, pictured being transported to jail in 1977, had been originally sentenced to death before being resentenced to life imprisonment after California briefly jettisoned the death penalty
Leslie Van Houten at her parole hearing at the California Institution for Women in Corona, California, in 2017
‘These people can never bring back those people’s lives and given the manner they did it, they should not be forgiven for that.’
In a desperate plea to Governor Newsom, she added: ‘Please do not let any of these Manson killers out on the street.’
Van Houten was 19 when she and other cult members knifed grocers Rosemary and Leno LaBianca to death in August 1969 as part of Manson’s deranged plan to incite a race war by terrifying Los Angeles with a killing spree.
The 73-year-old held Rosemary down as she was murdered before stabbing her in the stomach 16 times.
Van Houten then helped Patricia Krenwinkel, Tex Watson, and Clem Grogan to carve up Leno’s body before smearing the couple’s blood on the walls.
She is one of five surviving members of Manson’s cult still in jail. Krenwinkel is currently locked up in Chino alongside Van Houten.
Meanwhile Davis is at the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo, Watson is at the RJ Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, and Beausoleil at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville.
Cult leader Charles Manson was found responsible for seven of the murders. He died aged 83 in 2017
Grogan, 71, was released in 1985 – handed parole after helping cops find the body of Manson victim Donald Shea and heading up a jail program aimed at deterring juveniles from leading a life of crime while incarcerated at Corcoran State Prison in Bakersfield.
Charles Manson followers Bruce Davis, left, and Steve Grogan are pictured leaving court after a hearing in Los Angeles in 1970
Bobby Beausoleil, now 75, is one of five other surviving Manson killers serving time behind bars. he is pictured in mugshots in 1969 and 2019
From left to right: Voityck Frykowski, Sharon Tate, Stephen Parent, Jay Sebring, and Abigail Folger, were among the victims of the Manson Family
Originally sentenced to death, Van Houten was resentenced to life imprisonment after California briefly jettisoned the death penalty, and has applied for and been granted parole five times, only to have it overturned by Newsom and former governor Jerry Brown.
She applied for a writ of habeas corpus in November 2022 and the Appeals Court for the Second District of California made a two to one decision to grant it in a ruling handed down on Tuesday last week.
The habeas corpus law allows prisoners to challenge the grounds for their incarceration and often leads to release.
In Van Houten’s case, judges said Newsom’s decision to deny her parole was based on ‘intuition’ and did not take into account her unblemished prison record and efforts to rehabilitate herself.
Kay believes the judges have not taken into account the feelings of the families and says the constant round of parole hearings could have been avoided had the killers not been given a chance of release when they were resentenced following a moratorium on the death penalty in California in 1972.
As a result, Kay and other family members have had to repeatedly attend parole hearings and file legal challenges to stop the gang going free.
She said: ‘It just goes on and on. Legal fees, some are paid for, some are pro bono. It takes a toll especially on family members.
‘Debra Tate has so many health problems and I’m sure it’s all caused by all this nonsense by the Manson family, trying to beat them at their game.
‘It’s a never-ending nightmare. It never goes away. We’re always the victims’ families.’
Sharon Tate’s sister Debra has worked alongside Martley in fighting to prevent members of the Manson family getting parole
Actress Sharon Tate was eight-and-a-half months pregnant when she was brutally murdered by four cult members in 1969
Kay’s cousin Gary was the gang’s first victim and he died a death that was brutal even by the standards of the Manson cult – tortured over three days by Beausoleil, Davis, Susan Atkins, and Manson himself.
Gary was targeted because Manson believed the ‘bright’ PHD student had access to a $20,000 inheritance and sent his gang to get it – only for them to stab and suffocate him to death when they realized he didn’t have the money.
Manson, who died behind bars at Corcoran State Prison in November 2017, then told his followers to make the UCLA student’s murder look like a political killing in a bid to put cops off their scent – with Beausoleil smearing the words ‘political piggy’ on the wall in Hinman’s blood.
Kay said: ‘He was cut off from his life. He was bright man. He was working on his PHD.
‘Sharon Tate was a nice person, the Sebrings were nice people. They weren’t hurting anybody.
‘The LaBiancas. Everybody was ordinary, doing their thing, being a productive citizen.
‘All these Manson groupies, they were digging in trash cans, stealing credit cards, they were the trash of the world.’
The Manson Family would go on to claim at least seven more victims – among them pregnant actress Tate and coffee heiress Abigail Folger.
However, authorities have said the gang could be responsible for as many as 35 other deaths.
Kay is now hoping Newsom will appeal and succeed in blocking Van Houten’s release but says she should never have been able to get so close to freedom.
She said: ‘They say it was a mistake, I was young, I was on drugs. They have lots of things saying why they did it.
‘Now they want everybody to forgive them. It doesn’t bring all those victims back. They’re gone. And in such a horrible way. The victims are gone.
‘I don’t care how many times you say I’m sorry. I don’t want them tortured or anything.
‘I just want them to pay for their crimes and I think that’s what life imprisonment is – it is paying for their crimes. I don’t care if it was 50 years ago.’
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