Anthony DiMaria's Victim Impact Statement at Patricia Krenwinkel's Parole Hearing 2017 (PUBLIC RECORD)

June 22, 2017

Dear Commissioners Chappell and Lam,

I thank you for the opportunity to be heard as you conclude today's parole hearing and announce your findings regarding Patricia Krenwinkel’s intimate partner victim request which… Initiated 48 years after the inmate killed eight people. 

Commissioners, I ask if the formal complaints I filed to the Board on January 31 and February 16 of this year we're articulated to you and entered in the file? I brought copies for your reference if you like. 

As I stated when last we met on December 29, our families continue to be disrupted and impacted by these endless paroles and what occurs in these hearings. But we return year after year to speak for those who are silent in their graves.

After review of the transcript from the last hearing, I must address these issues:  agenda, narrative, the “intimate partner battery” investigation and what has become the twisted metamorphosis of a killer into victim. 

I’ll begin with AGENDA-

At the last meeting, defense attorney Keith Whatley said he found District Attorney Lebowitz's language "offensive". [p.273, ll. 6-8]

And yet there was silence from Mr. Whatley when his client revealed that she “took care of the children (at Spahn Ranch) and Manson designed” these duties. Ms. Krenwinkel went on to admit she knew Charles Manson had raped children that were young as “12,13,14, 15 years old” at the Ranch. [page 208, ll 18-20]

Patricia  Krenwinkel knew about rapes of numerous children and still hid these sex crimes from authorities?   

Never mentioned these crimes for nearly 50 years…and an investigation wasn’t opened on THIS?

Does it get any more offensive than concealing and perpetuating the rapes of teenagers and children?

Actually, it does when we see the inmate's behavior in these killings and how she gleefully performed during her trial.

I add the unknown, forgotten raped children to the long list of Patricia's victims.

On March 17, 2017 Ms. Krenwinkel in a prime time ABC tabloid said, “I learned choice at the most horrific cost.” SHE learned at the most horrific cost??? 

NOT HER VICTIMS?

This statement is frighteningly insightful in its ironic narcissism as only can be said by a sociopathic killer who feels entitled to usurp the realities and rights of her victims….by positioning herself in the role of victim. It’s in her nature. She doesn’t even know she’s doing it.

You see 5 people before you who live with the cost of the petitioner's choices. These “choices”, as she describes them, destroyed our families as they existed total and complete. For us, there are no programs, certificates or promotional films to restore the decades of loss and suffering. There is no “learning” for Debra, Tony, Lou or Mishele. For our families- there is persistent pain, loss and coping.

On the inmate’s REVISIONIST MINIMIZATION-

I quote attorney Whatley, “I’ve read every transcript and every Psych Report and counsel’s report. And Ms. Krenwinkel’s statement has always been consistent. Her description of what happened has always been consistent.” [p.273, line 12] 

I call to your attention several inconsistencies that illuminate the contrary and point to revisionist tactic and minimization. 

On Motive-

December 29 of last year Commissioner Chappell read a statement from Ms. Krenwinkel at her 2011 hearing. From p. 46 of that transcript “Because there was no doubt that I knew that what was going to happen was not going to be good. I did know that that was the plan to murder two women in the house.”

To which the petitioner replied, “I never said that. [p.155, line 9]…That doesn't even make sense. I never said that.” [line 20]

Clearly Ms. Krenwinkel contradicts herself. So, which intent was it- robbery or plot to kill two women?

Then on the Cielo guesthouse door-

At the last hearing Ms. Krenwinkel describes this account:

KRENWINKEL: “He [Watson] told me to go to the back house and kill anyone that was there…I went to the back house and I just stood there. I didn’t enter. [p.150, line 15-21]

COMM. CHAPPELL: “You just told us that if you didn’t do what was told to you, what was instructed to you, you would be killed or you would be sacrificed.”

KRENWINKEL: “Right.”

COMM. CHAPPELL: “So what stopped you?”

KRENWINKEL: “I just couldn’t continue on. So I just went in the back and I waited till everything quieted down and I went out when it was all quiet and I left with Tex and Susan.”

Yet at her hearing in 1993 Ms. Krenwinkel tells a different account:

“When I went to the back house, I stood there and I opened the door and I was supposed to look in.”

COMM. GIAQUINTO: “Was anyone there?”

KRENWINKEL: “I never saw anyone.”

So did she encounter an empty room as described in 1993, or experience a sudden moral epiphany as described in 2016? 

Sadly, it doesn’t matter because a few nights later she killed two more people.

NARRATIVE v. FACT

Since these killings, our families have been pummeled by exploitative reports in the media and occasional presumption in these hearings. For crimes of this profundity it is imperative that we distinguish fact from agenda. Truth from narrative.

So, I’m compelled to address leading questions that occurred at our last hearing. With respect, I was confused with how Commissioner Lam would direct inmate Krenwinkel regarding “indoctrinating” when no one- in particular, the petitioner herself- ever uttered the word in the hearing until Nga Lam injected the word herself. 

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Okay. I'm glad you 

brought that up, because I wanted to know when did he start indoctrinating you with his own philosophies. When did that start? Because when you met him, he seemed like a normal guy; right? 

INMATE KRENWINKEL: Right. (p.118, ll. 3-8)

Was this presumption from decades of narrative?…Or worse….agenda?

Out of respect for the Board I would never presume. But when we review the transcript, it must be one, or the other.

If there is any question regarding directive questioning in the past hearing I leave you with the following interaction between Commissioner Lam and inmate Krenwinkel:

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: So did you kill because of love for Manson? Or did you kill because of fear of Manson? 

INMATE KRENWINKEL: Both. (p.198, LL.8-11) 

On fact versus agenda-

For several months leading up to the murders on August 8, 1969 the Manson clan were united in racist, terrorist ideologies.  They committed extensive crimes involving drug trafficking, credit card fraud, grand auto theft, prostitution, pimping, extortion, child molestation, torture and the murder of Gary Hinman on July 27,1969.

Then the drug deal burn of Bernard Crowe. Then his attempted murder when he was shot.

August 8- the murders of 6 people on Cielo Drive.

August 10- the murders of 2 people on Waverly Drive.

August 28- the murder of Donald Shea.

September 9,1970 the attempted murder of Barbara Hoyt.

August 21,1971 the robbery of firearms from a supply store and subsequent shootout with 30 police officers in Hawthorne

September 5, 1975 the attempted assassination of US President Gerald Ford 

In 6 years, from 1969-1975:

grand auto theft,

credit card fraud, 

drug dealing,

prostitution,

pimping,

extortion,

torture, 

rapes of children,

2 attempted murders,

an attempted assassination of a US President,

numerous attempts to frame African Americans with murder 

9 people and a full term unborn baby killed and mutilated….

This is no hippie cult. These are not duped, brainwashed teens. This is an extremely dangerous, sophisticated crime organization whose notorious path of destruction continues to impact with cultural and historical consequences even today. 

 We must acknowledge these actualities because anything less is narrative and minimization.

 At what point does Patricia Krenwinkel metamorphize from convicted killer of 8 into a "follower"?

At what point does a cold blooded sociopath- 

after plunging a hunting knife and carving fork into human flesh dozens of times, painting messages in blood, taunting American society as she spat on the memories of her victims by singing, giggling and performing for cameras for months after her murder rampage-

-at what point does she become a VICTIM?…48 years later? It’s as if the world has been turned upside down.  

Regarding Patricia Krenwinkel as an INTIMATE PARTNER VICTIM

Nothing is more telling than the following interaction at our last hearing:

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: But you knew he was sleeping with 12, 13-year-olds then; right? 

INMATE KRENWINKEL: Yes. I never thought about it. Yes. 

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Did that -- did it bother you then? 

INMATE KRENWINKEL: A couple of times things that he did, I mean, his violence against some of these people. But I didn't think about it because we were all -- it was all this communal living.

I’m trying to wrap my head around this. The inmate didn’t think too much about the rapes of children because it was “communal living”?! Yet in this “communal living”, Ms. Krenwinkel considers herself an “intimate partner” of Manson, who was sleeping with anyone he could. Including 12,13 year olds.

This selective hypocrisy is perverse and disturbing. This is the thinking of a sociopath.

-and she’s very good at it. She was manipulative enough to swap nouns when answering the question if knowledge of Manson’s rapes of children bothered her. Her reply, “A couple of times things he did, I mean his violence against these people…” PEOPLE?! PEOPLE?! She was asked about children. 

Commissioners, today you will determine if such deplorable manipulations will be permitted and defined by California law. All of this is in your hands now. I ask that you Commissioners Chappell and Lam put an end to this perversion of justice especially when everyone in this room acknowledges that sadly, there are millions of intimate partner battery victims in this country. 

But fortunately, it’s safe to say, that almost none of them suddenly become a maniacal predator that stalks, pounces, butchers and mutilates her victims. 

Let there be no fog from the attempts of agenda and minimization. Let there be no confusion as to who the ACTUAL victims are. 

I state this- not out of anger, but out of love for the memory of the dead…in outrage for the crimes they suffered in their last moments…in passion for justice. 

Given the horrific dimension of Patricia Krenwinkel’s crimes, how profoundly her many victims suffered, the inexplicable disconnect exhibited in her statements, and the behavioral evidence defining an entrenched sociopath despite decades of rehabilitation-

It is only just and civil to deny Patricia Krenwinkel parole for the longest period of time. 

Anthony DiMaria

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Anthony made a very moving impact statement. These killers don't like the family members attending their parole hearings and making an effort to block their parole, but as I've said before, I'm sure there's a million other places these family members would rather be than some stuffy, airless parole hearing room, listening to these killers trying to justify horrific murder and somehow make it okay for them to get out.

These killers have to remember one thing: they started it. They decided with their own free will to do home invasions and an ambush, and commit brutal, horrific murders on innocent people. Their choice to kill...the families choice to try and keep them in.

My thanks to Anthony, Debra and all of the other family members who are vigilant in their efforts to keep these killers off the streets!!