Patricia Krenwinkel, a Charles Manson follower convicted in the 1969 Tate-LaBianca killings, has been recommended for parole for the third time in four years after more than 55 years behind bars.
Fox News Digital reported the California Board of Parole Hearings backed the move on Tuesday, less than a year after Gov. Gavin Newsom blocked her prior bid. The 78-year-old remains at the California Institution for Women in Corona while the process continues.
The recommendation does not free her. The board must finish its review before Newsom decides whether to allow release or stop it again. Newsom has already reversed her parole path twice.
Krenwinkel entered the state prison system on April 28, 1971. A court first sentenced her to death. California invalidated its death penalty system in 1972 and reduced her term to life.
In August 1969, Manson followers carried out two nights of attacks that left seven people dead. Krenwinkel was 21 at the time.
On August 9, 1969, authorities found five victims slain: actress Sharon Tate, who was eight months pregnant; Abigail Folger; Wojciech "Voytek" Frykowski; Steven Parent; and Jay Sebring. The next night the group murdered Leno and Rosemary LaBianca and left bloody messages throughout their home.
Newsom’s earlier written summary stated that Krenwinkel fatally stabbed Folger and helped attack several other victims, and that she took part in the LaBianca murders. She was convicted alongside other Manson followers including Susan Atkins and Leslie van Houten.
Those facts still sit at the center of the public safety debate now facing California’s parole machinery and the governor’s office.
The board previously recommended Krenwinkel for parole in May 2022 and again in May 2025. Newsom reversed those recommendations, including in an October 2025 decision.
In that October decision he wrote that she "lacks the requisite insight she needs to be safely released." He also stated, "When considered as a whole, the evidence shows that she currently poses an unreasonable danger to society if released from prison at this time."
"When considered as a whole, the evidence shows that she currently poses an unreasonable danger to society if released from prison at this time."
Newsom acknowledged rehabilitation efforts yet cited concerns about self-awareness and a tendency to blame others. His office now faces another decision window once the latest board review is complete.
That pattern of repeated board approvals and gubernatorial blocks has kept the case inside California’s broader fight over how far parole rules should stretch for the most serious offenders, a fight that also surfaces in other Newsom-era judicial and release controversies.
Krenwinkel’s attorney, Keith Wattley, disputed Newsom’s October findings and argued she no longer poses an unreasonable risk.
Wattley said, "Patricia Krenwinkel is the longest-incarcerated woman in the United States." He added that for more than five decades she has committed to deep healing and rehabilitation, earning degrees, counseling others, and becoming a mentor to younger women inside.
"For more than five decades, she has committed to deep healing and rehabilitation, earning degrees, counseling others and becoming a mentor to younger women inside."
Wattley further stated, "Patricia's record meets that standard. She deserves to be paroled." Fox News Digital reached out to Wattley, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and Newsom’s office for comment on the newest recommendation.
The department’s inmate database confirmed the latest parole recommendation. Krenwinkel remains housed at the Corona facility for now.
Former Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert is spearheading a lawsuit that challenges new California Board of Parole Hearings guidelines. She warns the rules open a pathway to freedom for serial killers, mass shooters, and more of the state’s worst violent criminals.
Full case caption, filing date, and the precise text of those guidelines are not detailed in the available account. The suit still frames the institutional stakes: whether life sentences for the most notorious killers stay meaningful when boards repeatedly clear the same inmates for release.
That accountability question tracks other running disputes over Newsom’s governance record, including a DOJ criminal probe focused on benefactors who bankroll his travel.
California voters and crime victims’ families have watched similar high-profile parole fights for years. Each new recommendation restarts the same core test: does the inmate’s prison record erase the original risk finding, or does the crime’s scale still control the outcome?
Investigators and the board have already produced the recommendation. The remaining steps are procedural. The board must complete its review. Only after that window does Newsom gain the clear choice to let the release proceed or block it for a third time.
Authorities have not publicly released a full new risk assessment beyond the board’s action and the governor’s prior written findings. No public results have been issued that reverse Newsom’s October conclusion that she poses an unreasonable danger.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation continues to hold her under the existing life term. Any actual release would require the governor to stand down from the danger finding he already placed on the record.
Policy fights around the governor often spill into adjacent arenas, from public safety to costs imposed on residents, as seen when a Newsom wildfire plan triggered an insurance revolt over homeowner burdens.
Krenwinkel’s prison record, as described by her lawyer and noted by Newsom, includes college degrees and mentoring work. Newsom still treated those efforts as insufficient to overcome the insight and danger problems he listed in October.
Wattley’s claim that she is the longest-incarcerated woman in the United States stands as an advocacy statement, not an independent official finding quoted in the report. The verified timeline shows more than 55 years served since she entered prison in 1971.
Sharon Tate’s pregnancy and the seven deaths remain fixed facts of the 1969 crimes. So does Krenwinkel’s conviction and original death sentence. The live legal question is narrower: whether California’s current parole standards, now under lawsuit challenge, will treat that history as controlling or as distant background.
Transparency fights around the same governor continue on other fronts, including when Newsom opened tax returns to handpicked reporters while barring copies and called the process transparent.
Personal and political disputes have also followed him, including the episode in which Ruby Rippey-Gibney fired back at Newsom over affair claims in his memoir.
Every repeated recommendation forces the same institutional choice. Boards can credit rehabilitation files. Governors can still apply a public-safety veto. Schubert’s lawsuit argues the newest guidelines tilt that balance toward release even for offenders once marked for permanent removal from free society.
Krenwinkel’s case now sits inside that larger contest. The board has spoken again. The review clock is running. Newsom’s prior words remain the clearest official statement of risk on the public record.
Law-and-order systems either mean what they say about permanent consequences for mass murder, or they slowly convert life terms into waiting rooms for the next board vote.
