AP: Manson follower Krenwinkel denied parole

[alp227]

(01-21) 04:00 PST Corona, Riverside County --

Charles Manson follower Patricia Krenwinkel - one of two surviving women convicted in the Sharon Tate murders - has been denied parole by a California panel.

The two-member parole board said after a Thursday hearing in Los Angeles that the 63-year-old Krenwinkel will not be eligible for parole again for seven years, the longest such period handed down to any of the Manson Family convicts.

The panel said they were swayed by the memory and of the crimes, along with 80 letters which came from all over the world urging Krenwinkel's continued incarceration.

Krenwinkel told a parole board Thursday she threw away everything good in herself and became a "monster" after she met Manson. Krenwinkel, who was convicted in the Sharon Tate killings, is one of Manson's two surviving female followers.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/20/BA0B1HCBKL.DTL

[Ohio Joe]

1. Good - nt

[hlthe2b]

2. I will NEVER understad the Manon family phenomenon...

but those (then) young women certainly did everything possible to throw their lives away.

[slackmaster]

3. They were all very young and already alienated from their families.

Manson is like a lot of other hard-core psychopathic criminals in that he knows how to pick out vulnerable people and has a talent for molding their behavior through reward and punishment, enhanced by massive use of mind-altering drugs.

He convinced them that the end of the world was coming soon, and that they had a chance to not just play a part in it but to thrive in the chaos that was coming. These were people with almost no life experience, blank slates ready and eager to be conscripted.

It really was all about Manson. If not the particular group of individuals he herded together, it would have been some other kids. Patricia Krenwinkel and the others were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. If they had never met Manson, they would all have had a decent shot at growing up to be normal adults.

[hlthe2b]

4. Yes... I actually lived through the period and read lots about it

at the time and since. It makes some sense from the standpoint of a Jim Jones cult or similar at Waco--but to so control the cult that they commit the most heinous of murders on your behalf. Wow... that is some potent mind control. :shrug:

[H2O Man]

5. Respectfully disagree.

Not entirely. But Manson had a fairly large social circle, with his "family" in the center. Even within that sub-group, there were many who didn't commit murder. Charlie had a talent for identifying what kids already had that level of hatred and violent potential within them.

It is certainly possible that Krenwinkle would have grown into a "normal" adult, or at least not a murderer, if she had not met Manson. It is also possible that she would have been involved in some other violent group action. She and her co-defendants certainly had more potential to be dangerous, without Charlie, than those who hung out with him but didn't commit violent crimes.

Just my opinion, though I remember Vince Bugliosi expressing a similar opinion.