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California Parole Board Grants Manson Follower Patricia Krenwinkel Parole for a Third Time

A panel found her suitable at her 18th subsequent hearing on October 6. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who reversed the 2022 and 2025 grants, has the final say.

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Illustration of an empty prison administration corridor with plastic chairs outside a closed hearing-room door and a barred window. Not an actual scene from the case.

A California parole board panel found Patricia Krenwinkel suitable for release on Tuesday, October 6, 2026. It was what the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation called her 18th subsequent parole suitability hearing. Krenwinkel is 78 and has been in prison for nearly 57 years for her part in the Tate and LaBianca murders of August 1969. This is the third time the board has recommended her release. Gov. Gavin Newsom reversed the first two.

The decision is not final. The department, which confirmed it on October 7, says every grant of parole is a proposed decision. The Board of Parole Hearings has 120 days to review it, and because she was convicted of murder, the governor then has 30 days to let it stand or reverse it. If he reverses it, she will get another hearing within 18 months of this one.

The board first recommended her release in May 2022, and Newsom reversed that decision later the same year. A panel granted parole again on May 30, 2025, and in October 2025 Newsom reversed it too. He credited her efforts to improve herself in prison, including several college degrees and an excellent disciplinary record, but wrote that "she currently poses an unreasonable danger to society if released from prison at this time."

Her lawyer, Keith Wattley, said the new finding "offers a glimmer of hope: proof that the Board can uphold the law, recognize decades of rehabilitation." He added: "Now, the Governor must respect these decisions and allow Pat to come home."

Krenwinkel was one of the four Manson followers who went to 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles on the night of August 8, 1969, where Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski and Steven Parent were killed. The next night she took part in the killings of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. In 1971 she was convicted of seven counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder, and sentenced to death. The sentence became life in prison when the California Supreme Court struck down the state's death penalty in 1972.

The 2026 decision is reported here from the department's confirmation as carried by NBC Los Angeles and FOX 11; the board's written decision has not been published. Reports differ by a day on the 2025 reversal: FOX 11 gives October 13, 2025, and Spectrum News reported that Newsom denied parole on Tuesday, October 14.

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