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27th May 2022
06:07pm BST
Via Getty[/caption]
Krenwinkel has been denied parole 14 times, but a recent change in the law has altered how parole requests are dealt with. Governor Gavin Newsom, who has previously rejected the parole recommendations of Manson followers, will have five months to decide the state parole board's legal division.
New laws mean that parole panels now have to take into account that Krenwinkel was 21 at the time of her crimes and is now an elderly pensioner.
"She's completely transformed from the person she was when she committed this crime, which is all that it's supposed to take to be granted parole," said Krenwinkel's attorney, Keith Wattley. "I'm hopeful that the governor recognises that he shouldn't be playing political games with people's lives."
"The governor would be blocking her parole not because he's afraid of her, but because he doesn't like her. And the law doesn't allow that," he added.
After her fellow Manson follower Susan Atkins died of cancer in 2009, Krenwinkel became California's longest-serving female inmate. Previous parole hearings heard how Manson physically and emotionally abused Krenwinkel while also trafficking her to other men.
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