Cult expert: Former Manson family member Patricia Krenwinkel should be free | Opinion
I’m an expert in cults, and I believe Patricia Krenwinkel should be free. She is a survivor of Charles Manson’s violent cult, and her actions over half a century ago don’t reflect who she is today: an elderly woman who has spent 56 years incarcerated and who has broken free of Manson’s grip.
The Board of Parole Hearings rightfully granted her parole. Now, Gov. Gavin Newsom should let it stand. In my decades of academic research and personal experience as a cult survivor, cults have five primary features: an authoritarian and charismatic leader; an isolating structure; a total ideology; and alternating fear and love within the system or group, along with other mechanisms of coercive control — all resulting in deployable followers who are willing to override their own survival needs and autonomy in service of the group. Charles Manson was a psychopath, both charismatic and authoritarian, controlling and subjugating his followers for his own purposes. One of those followers was Krenwinkel.
Krenwinkel met Manson when she was just 19, after growing up in an unstable home, while she was living with her drug-addicted sister. Manson’s charisma and promises of love and affection drew her in, but that quickly turned into an abusive, push-and-pull dynamic where Manson alternated between adoration and violence. As he did with his other female followers, Manson abused Krenwinkel emotionally, physically and sexually. To facilitate his abuse, Manson isolated his followers by giving them new names and removing their IDs. He eventually sequestered them at Spahn Ranch — isolation that made it easier to indoctrinate his followers in his total, all-encompassing worldview, which included his deranged beliefs about an impending race war that he called “Helter Skelter.”
Manson’s beliefs also formed the motivation for the crimes he later had his followers carry out: Literally unable to escape and operating within the hierarchy he created, Krenwinkel was subjected to drug trips during which Manson would exert his control and preach his dominance. He created social and psychological isolation that engulfed Krenwinkel within what appeared to her to be a benevolent cultic system that also was steeped with stress and fear. As a result of Manson’s extensive coercive indoctrination, Krenwinkel became a “deployable agent,” willing to believe and do anything required by Manson.
Krenwinkel has now served over 50 years after being convicted on seven counts of first-degree murder for her role in the Tate-LaBianca murders, on Aug. 9 and 10 in 1969. Krenwinkel, specifically, confessed to stabbing 25-year-old Abigail Folger 28 times and assisting in the murder of grocery store executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary. According to NPR: “Krenwinkel said she stabbed Leno LaBianca with a fork and used the couple’s blood to scrawl ‘death to pigs’ on the wall.”
It is my judgement that Krenwinkel committed these crimes because she was one of the most vulnerable of Manson’s followers — both in her immediate situation and in her history of deprivation, abuse and psychological vulnerability. Had she had a way out, she would have taken it (and, in fact, she tried to do so multiple times, but was stopped by Manson). Cult control can be broken. Once a follower is no longer under the influence of a cult leader and has left the cultic environment, they can regain their mental autonomy and ability to manage their own behavior and actions. This is exactly what has happened with Krenwinkel. Over her 50-plus years of incarceration, Krenwinkel has disavowed her association with Manson and developed the ability to think and act independently of others.
In short: She is no longer a danger to society. Since her crimes from more than half a century ago, Krenwinkel has been working to make amends for the harm she caused while operating under Manson’s control. She has developed prosocial skills, and has not engaged in violence even once in the five decades she has been incarcerated. She has lived a life of service, volunteering in many programs, including the training of service dogs.
The Board of Parole Hearings recognized her personal evolution by granting her parole this past May. I urge Newsom to affirm that parole grant, because acts committed while under the coercive control of a violent, authoritarian leader from whom she has since dissociated have no impact on Krenwinkel’s identity today. Dr. Alexandra Stein is chair of The Family Survival Trust, a registered charity that provides support for cult victims.