Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten walked out of a California prison Tuesday after serving 53 years of a life sentence for her participation in two infamous murders.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said Van Houten “was released to parole supervision.”

[Of all the Manson Family inmates serving time for those brutal murders, Van Houten was always the likeliest to get paroled. She was 17 at the time of the murders, and only took part in the second night’s slayings of the LaBiancas. Still, Van Houten and the Mansonites were so notorious — and only alive because the Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972, later reversed — that governors of both parties refused to allow parole for any of them. Newsom fought this one up to the appellate level, but lost there when the court ordered her release. Tex Watson is still behind bars, and so is Patricia Krenwinkel, whose parole Newsom canceled last year too. Susan Atkins died years ago of brain cancer, and Manson himself is dead as well. Other Mansonites are in prison for other crimes. — Ed]