Overview

• In a written decision issued Oct. 14, the governor reversed the parole board’s May 2025 grant, concluding she “currently poses an unreasonable danger to society.”
• The decision cites a 2025 psychologist’s report finding “deficits in self-awareness” and a tendency to externalize blame despite some productive introspection.
• Newsom acknowledged her age, chronic medical conditions, college degrees, and disciplinary record but found elderly-parole considerations did not outweigh the assessed risk.
• Krenwinkel, 77, was convicted in 1971 of seven counts of first-degree murder for the 1969 Tate–LaBianca killings, with her death sentence later commuted to life; she remains at the California Institution for Women in Corona.
• It is Newsom’s second reversal of her parole after a 2022 denial, and while co-defendant Leslie Van Houten was paroled in 2023, gubernatorial review of parole grants is authorized under California law.