Patricia Krenwinkel, once a devout follower of cult killer Charles Manson and now the longest-serving female inmate in California, appeared again Thursday before a parole board — 47 years after she helped kill pregnant actress Sharon Tate and six other people.
Krenwinkel, 69, has been denied parole 13 times since her conviction in the 1969 slayings.
She acknowledged during her trial that she chased down and repeatedly stabbed Abigail Ann Folger, the 26-year-old heiress of a coffee fortune, at Tate's home and helped kill grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, the following night.
Los Angeles County prosecutors say Krenwinkel carved the word "war" into Leno LaBianca's stomach, then wrote "Helter Skelter" in blood on the couple's refrigerator.
Krenwinkel's attorney, Keith Wattley, successfully petitioned the state to hold the hearing a year early at the California Institution for Women, about 40 miles east of Los Angeles, where Krenwinkel is imprisoned.
"Ms. Krenwinkel is fully aware of the difficulty she faces," Wattley told The Associated Press in an email. "But California law officially recognizes a person's capacity to change and to address the factors that contributed to their previous behavior so that they can safely be paroled."