By all accounts, Leslie Van Houten was not only a model inmate at the California prison where she was jailed for more than 50 years, she was “kind” and “thoughtful”, according to former prison teacher Angela Cardinale.
“A good person who did a bad thing.” But as a member of the Manson “family”, a cult of murderous hippies who went on a killing rampage over two nights in Los Angeles in 1969, that “bad thing” will never be forgiven or forgotten by her victims’ loved ones. As Van Houten, 73, was released on parole on July 11, taking her first steps of freedom in 53 years,
