Editing Leslie Van Houten (section)

===Early life===
Van Houten was born on August 23, 1949, in the Los Angeles suburb of Altadena. She grew up in a middle class churchgoing family along with an older brother and two adopted siblings, a brother and a sister, who were Korean. Her mother and father divorced when she was 14. She began taking LSD, Benzedrine, and hashish around age 15, running away for a time but returning to complete high school. At 17, she became pregnant and was forced by her mother to undergo an abortion. Van Houten's mother informed her sometime later that the procedure could not be referred to as an abortion as the fetus was too far along. Van houten stated that after this event, she felt very removed and harbored intense anger toward her mother. She had a period of interest in yoga and took a year long secretarial course, but became a hippie, living at a commune.