Tag killer

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California Governor Gavin Newsom has denied parole for former Manson family member Leslie Van Houten.

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Van Houten, who is serving a life sentence behind bars for her role in the Manson family murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in August 1969, was recommended for parole by a panel in July, but Newsom has reversed that decision, just as he did last year.

Newsom insisted the evidence “shows that she currently poses an unreasonable danger to society if released from prison.”

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This is the 71-year-old’s fourth parole reversal.

Van Houten, who did not take part in the infamous murders at actress Sharon Tate’s home, testified at her trial that she and fellow Manson family member Patricia Krenwinkel held a pillowcase over Rosemary LaBianca’s head, gagged her with a lamp cord, and stabbed her to death.

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She was sentenced to death in 1971 but the decision was overturned when the state abolished the death penalty and instead she was sentenced to life in prison with a possibility of parole in 1978. She has since applied for parole 23 times. A parole board first recommended Van Houten’s release in 2016, when then-California Governor Jerry Brown denied the request. He did so again in 2018.

Van Houten’s lawyer, Rich Pfeiffer, insists he will appeal Newsom’s decision.

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Actor Ricky Schroder reportedly contributed $150,000 US towards alleged killer Kyle Rittenhouse’s $2 million bail.

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The NYPD Blue star’s donation to the fund emerged after one of Rittenhouse’s attorneys, Lin Wood, tweeted a triumphant photo on Friday showing lawyer John Pierce, Rittenhouse and Schroder, shortly after Kyle was released from custody, reports TMZ.

“FREE AT LAST!!!” he penned, with Wood previously thanking Schroder in a tweet, writing: “Special thanks to Actor Ricky Schroder… & Mike Lindell @realMikeLindell for putting us over the top.”

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Lindell is the founder and CEO of MyPillow, and an avid supporter of President Donald Trump.

Rittenhouse, 17, allegedly shot three protesters after travelling with an AR-15-style rifle from Antioch, Illinois, to Kenosha, Wisconsin, on August 25, while the city was engulfed in civil unrest following an earlier shooting by a Kenosha police officer that left Jacob Blake paralyzed.

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The teenager was charged with multiple counts of homicide and unlawful possession of a firearm. He claims he was acting in self-defence.

While many people on social media criticised Schroder for his involvement in the case, journalist Seph Lawless tweeted that the actor’s publicist told him the contribution was “contingent on rights to (Rittenhouse’s) story (aka documentary).”

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Peter Sutcliffe, the notorious British serial killer known as the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’, has died after contracting COVID-19.

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Sutcliffe, who murdered at least 13 women across the north of England in the late 1970s, died at University Hospital of North Durham, England, a U.K. Prison Service spokesman confirmed to Sky News on Friday.

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The 74-year-old, who also had a number of other underlying health problems, reportedly refused treatment for COVID-19.

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Sutcliffe terrorized West Yorkshire and Manchester from 1975, sparking one of Britain’s biggest manhunts which finally concluded in 1981 with his conviction for the murders of 13 women.

He spent three decades at the Broadmoor Hospital high-security psychiatric unit before being moved to Her Majesty’s Prison Frankland in County Durham in 2016.

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Sutcliffe is known to have started attacking women in the late 1960s but his first known murder took place in 1975 when he killed 28-year-old mother of four Wilma McCann – and he remained at large until his arrest in 1980.

McCann’s son Richard told Sky News: “He ruined so many lives. He will go down as one of those figures from the twentieth century in the same league I suppose as someone like Hitler.”

An official cause of death has yet to be confirmed, pending a coroner’s examination.

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More than seven years after gunning down his girlfriend, killer Paralympian Oscar Pistorius is still seeking forgiveness from her mother.

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Pistorius, sent to prison for 15 years for killing model Reeva Steenkamp in 2013, told a close friend he is still hoping her mother accepts his apology, according to the UK Sun. He has maintained that her death was a tragic accident despite being found guilty of murder in 2016.

“What he really, really wants is forgiveness,” Bill Schroder, a 76-year-old former teacher of ‘Blade Runner’ Pistorius who has visited the athlete in prison a handful of times, told the Sun. “I said to him that if he had killed my daughter I doubt I would forgive him. He is more concerned about forgiveness than actually getting out on parole. In fact, he has a real fear about getting parole as he knows they’ll be a backlash.”

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Steenkamp’s mother, June, said in 2018 that she had forgiven Pistorius but still wanted him jailed. He is serving 13 years and five months at a low-security prison in Pretoria.

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Pistorius, 33, shot Steenkamp in his Pretoria home on Valentine’s Day in 2013. He said during his trial that he awoke during the night heard a noise in the bathroom then opened fire because he thought it was an intruder. Instead of taking out a burglar, he killed 29-year-old Steenkamp.

“He still maintains to this day it was an accident,” Schroder said. “I did feel he was showing remorse. He quoted a study by an expert that when you are woken from a deep sleep and are put into a situation of fear that you act very differently to when fully conscious. I listened to him but did not buy it.”

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Pistorius, who had both legs amputated below the knee when he was a baby due to a congenital defect, ran in three Paralympics and the 2012 Olympics, where he became the 10th athlete to compete in both. He got the nickname Blade Runner due to the prosthetic limbs he wore for racing.

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