. >> a parole board panel is recommending the release of former charles manson follower leslie van houten. >> leslie van houten, a name on the list forever linked with one of the most famous crimes and criminals of the 20th century, charles manson. >> you don't understand me, that's your trouble. not my fault because you don't understand me. i don't understand you either! >> the story of charles manson, his family and all the horror they wrought is buried in archives, memorialized in media long obsolete, and yet somehow it feels present. that hot summer night that caught the world utterly unprepared. when los angeles became suddenly a very scary place. it was august 9th, 1969, around 8:00 a.m. officer jerry derosa was a young cop with the lapd working the day shift. >> the first call i got was to go out to ciela drive coming out as a drunk in a car. >> the officer cruised up the canyon and found the dead-end street. a neighbor flagged him down. suddenly the drunk in a car call became something else. >> he had told me that the maid came running back out, yelling blood and bodies. >> derosa

and so they're sitting there selling, leslie van houten and patricia kremlin go. the woman who was known as squeaky. sandy good, susan atkins, linda to say behan, names you ever before in other contexts. and one of them says, do you know what? heard there was a man on the man today. and the other women started laughing matter. and these folks who follow the man who preached, he was perhaps the second coming of jesus christ, there was an apocalyptic race war about to erupt where the blacks would annihilate the whites, the manson family during the war would hide in a bottomless pit in the mojave desert where, as they head, they could change in to any pretty little being they wanted to, including ferries or else. when the war would be over and the black race would stand alone they would not be able to govern themselves. the manson family would come out of the hole in the desert and rule the world. these women who believe that when one of them had the nerve to claim that a man was walking on the moon. they laughed and said, oh, come on. somebody is making that up. and

leslie came up for the 20th and turned down again. the manson stigma is such that no governor is going let one of the killers out. i will say this. with van houten. again, now i've spent an awful lot of time with her, with krenwinkel. one of the people asked do you think they're really sorry? yes, i do. they both -- when i would interview them, they knew i was writing things that were not necessarily going reflect well on them. they accepted that. they told me to tell me the truth when i asked them questions. they didn't know the other people i was talking to. and i would have to have to hear it from somebody else too o be on the safe side. they accept they did unforgivable acts. they are remorseble. yes, they are resentful of manson. now they don't just say it was him. that they should not have done of it. they are in their own ways attempting in prison to make some kind of amends. leslie finished her masters in philosophy and organized educational courses for young women prisoners who don't have much in the way of that. atricia trained rescue dogs to be guide dogs for the blind. they are hopeful of getting out. i think they know they won't too