Charles Manson and The Family Part 2

On the morning of August 9, 1969, a housekeeper arrived at her job to find a horrific scene. There were five dead bodies in the home on 10050 Cielo Drive on Benedict Canyon in Beverly Hills. The victims were actress Sharon Tate and several of her friends, as well as a teenager who had been visiting the house’s caretaker. Scrawled on the front door in blood was one word: PIG. The following night, a wealthy couple was brutally massacred in their LA home. There were several more words written in blood on the walls of the couple’s home, most notably a phrase on the refrigerator that read “Helter Skelter”. This made seven brutal murders in less than 48 hours. It wasn’t long before investigators connected the two attacks, along with an earlier murder, tracing them all back to a cult-like group called the family. The family was led by a single individual, who exhibited control over all of them. The man was Charles Manson. Investigators had a hard time believing that one man could have such an influence over others that they would murder for him, yet after meeting Manson, they learned that he was no ordinary person.

For Part One, Click Here!

The Murders

Around 8AM on Saturday, August 9th, 1969, Winifred Chapman headed from the bus stop to her job as a housekeeper at 10050 Cielo Drive. As she approached the gate to the residence, she saw that a wire had been cut near the gate mechanism, but the button still worked to open the gate. She saw a vehicle parked at an odd angle in the driveway, but it wasn’t abnormal for the residents to have overnight visitors. Winifred entered through the service entrance at the back of the house. When she walked inside, she picked up the house phone, which was dead. She went through the house, looking for someone to alert that the phone line was down. As she walked through the dining room to the living room, there were two large steam trunks on the floor. She found this odd, as they hadn’t been there when she’d left yesterday afternoon. There were also two towels laying in the entryway. On the trunks, the towels, and on the nearby floor, Winifred saw blood. Part of the living room was blocked by a couch that had been moved, so she couldn’t see the entire room, but what she could see was covered in blood. The front door was open and there were pools of blood on the porch. As she looked further out across the lawn, she saw a body. Winifred said ABSOLUTELY NO and turned around, running out of the home through the same door she’d entered through, running to a neighbor’s home for help.

At 9:14AM, the official police report stated that units were notified that there was a possible homicide at 10050 Cielo Drive. When a patrol officer arrived, he was unable to get much information from Winifred, as she was extremely upset. The neighbor was able to advise that the house belonged to Rudi Altobelli, a talent manager, who was currently in Europe. He left a man, William Garretson, as a caretaker. Garretson was living in the guest house in the back of the property. Altobelli, in his absence, had rented the house to Roman Polanski, a movie director, and his wife, Sharon Tate, who was an actress. The couple had been in Europe since March, but Tate had returned back to Cielo Drive about a month earlier. While they were gone, Abigail Folger and Voytek Frykowski, two friends of the Polanskis, had moved in. The pair was staying with Tate until her husband returned.

The patrol officer made his way onto the property. He looked inside the vehicle that was oddly parked in the driveway and found a body inside, a young male, covered in blood. The ignition was off. Another officer arrived on scene and they checked the other vehicles, without finding anything. A third officer arrived and all three officers noticed two bodies on the lawn. They said that “from a distance, THEY LOOKED LIKE MANNEQUINS THAT HAD BEEN DIPPED IN RED PAINT.” (NEVER A MANNEQUIN.) One body was about 20 feet from the front door. It was a male, with his head and face that had obviously suffered severe blunt trauma. He had multiple puncture wounds, dozens, on his torso and extremities.

The next body was a female, about 25 feet further past the male. She was wearing a white nightgown that had turned red from the massive amount of blood loss. There were several, what appeared to be, stab wounds.

The officers were aware of how quiet it was, which gave them the heebie jeebies. They were worried that the assailants may still be inside the residence. A screen had been removed from a front window and was leaning against the house, with a slit in the bottom of it. There was an open window on the side of the house, leading to what appeared to be an empty, freshly painted room. The front door had a word written on, that looked to be written in blood: PIG. Inside the living room, there was blood everywhere. One of the officers noted two small pieces of wood on the floor that appeared to be from a broken gun grip.

On the other side of the couch, they found a young blonde female wearing a flowered bra and matching underwear. She was obviously very pregnant. A white nylon rope was wrapped around her neck twice. One end of the rope was thrown over a wooden rafter in the ceiling. The other side of the rope was extended across the floor and wrapped around the neck of another body, this one a young male. There appeared to be a bloody towel covering his face and he was soaked in blood. None of the officers checked any of the bodies for a pulse or signs of life. They knew that there was no way anyone could survive their injuries.

The rest of the house had blood spots throughout and evidence that the victims had been getting ready for bed when they were interrupted by the killers. As they went out into the backyard, they saw the guest house and heard a dog barking. They also heard a man’s voice saying, “Shhh, be quiet.” They forced entry and found 19-year-old William Garretson, the house’s caretaker. Garretson didn’t seem to know what happened and denied having heard anything abnormal last night. He said that he was up all night listening to records and writing letters. He was led past the bodies in the front yard. He mis-identified the female as housekeeper Winifred Chapman, the housekeeper, due to the victim’s skin being so discolored from the murder. Chapman, who police knew was alive and well, was black. He then identified the male body as “the young Polanski”. Clearly not Roman, as he was in Europe, police assumed Garretson didn’t know the individual. (It was later found that Garretson believed the victim, Voytek Frykowski, was Roman’s younger brother. That’s why he called him “the younger Polanski”.) Garretson was immediately read his rights and arrested for murder.

The Investigation

Between 10 and 11AM, a telephone company worker arrived on scene, climbed the telephone pole outside of the home, and found that four phone wires had been cut. He told police that the person who cut them would’ve had to climb the pole to do so. A forensic chemist was called to the scene to collect blood samples. This would prove extremely difficult, due to how much blood was in the home and the fact that there were five victims. Certain spots were overlooked and the chemist intentionally did not take samples from certain areas near the bodies, assuming that they belonged to the victim they were nearest to. There were several pools of blood on the porch, of which he only took samples from one. He later testified that he assumed they were all the same.

Around this time, William Tennant, a close friend of the Polanskis, and Roman’s business manager, arrived on scene. He was escorted onto the scene by police. He did not recognize the young man in the vehicle, but identified the man on the lawn as Voytek Frykowski and the woman as Abigail Folger. The pregnant woman in the living room was Sharon Tate and the male was likely, Tennant believed, Jay Sebring. He wasn’t positive about Sebring due to how badly his face was battered.

The fifth victim, who was in the vehicle, was still unidentified. He had no ID on him and no one close to the victims had any idea who the young man was. While questioning Garretson about his whereabouts and what he was doing the previous night, he said that he’d had a visitor around 11:45PM. It was 18-year-old Steven Parent. He said that a few weeks ago, he’d hitched a ride with Parent, and that when Parent dropped him off, he told him to stop by anytime if he wanted to hang out. Garretson didn’t have much contact with the residents in the main house and seemed excited to have company when Parent dropped by on the night of August 8th. Parent showed Garretson a clock radio that he’d fixed up and asked Garretson if he was interested in buying it. Garretson declined and Parent left shortly after.

LAPD was able to confirm the identity of the deceased male in the vehicle as Steven Parent. An El Monte police officer went to the home of Parent, where he lived with his mother and father. He handed his father a card with a phone number on it and told him to call it. He gave him no further information, then left. Parent’s father called the number, reaching the County Coroner’s Office. They told him that they believed that an unidentified body they had belonged to their son. The family’s priest made his way to the Coroner’s Office and made the identification.

The Victims

Sharon Marie Tate Polanski (most often referred to as Sharon Tate) was 26-years-old at the time of her death. She loved the spotlight from a very young age, winning beauty pageants and hitchhiking into LA to wander around the film studios. She was a beautiful young blonde and had her heart set on becoming a star. She appeared in a few commercials and a TV series before a producer took her under his wing. She began singing, dancing, and acting lessons while playing small parts in movies and television shows. In 1963, she met internationally acclaimed celebrity hairstylist, Jay Sebring. The two quickly fell for each other and became inseparable.

In the summer of 1966, while filming a movie in France, Sharon met famous movie director, Roman Polanski. He was known as a “playboy” director. Those who knew him described him as arrogant, but with significant talent, that was only matched by his enormous ego. Sharon and Polanski first met a party, neither leaving a significant impression on the other. Her agent introduced them, wanting Sharon to be cast in a role in Polanski’s upcoming horror movie spoof. He was writing, directing, and starring in his own film. Polanski agreed that Sharon would be a good fit, and, before the filming was over, the two transitioned from being on-screen lovers to having an off-screen love. She ended her relationship with Sebring, who took it very hard, but ultimately settled as being a family friend, likely hoping that the relationship would fizzle. And he’d still be around. Many believed that Sebring was still in love with Sharon up until their murders.

Sharon continued to have minor parts in films, with her biggest role being in 1967 in “Valley of the Dolls”. She was unable to hit star status, but that dream ultimately fell to the wayside when she married Polanski in 1968 and found herself pregnant. Her friends and family said that her unborn child was her dream now and she loved being a wife. Sharon was found to have multiple stab wounds to the chest and back, which penetrated her heart, lungs, and liver. She was stabbed a total of 16 times. Five of these wounds were found to be fatal. Her cause of death was exsanguination. Sharon was eight months pregnant and her unborn son had been fully formed.

Jay Sebring, born Thomas John Kummer, arrived in Hollywood after four years in the Navy as a Navy barber. He believed that his appearance was incredibly important. He reflected a lavish lifestyle by driving a sports car, wearing custom clothing, having a full-time butler, and throwing parties in his lavish mansion. He had a salon in LA, which quickly became the regular shop for celebrities like Frank Sinatra, Paul Newman, and Steve McQueen. Many of his clients invested in his company, Sebring International, helping him expand into multiple franchised barber shops and marketing a line of men’s toiletries. He was considered to be responsible for the revolution of men’s hair care and was requested worldwide by celebrities. Sebring was found to have been stabbed seven times and shot once. Three of these stab wounds, as well as the gunshot wound, were fatal. Sebring’s cause of death was exsanguination. He was 35-years-old at the time of his murder.

Abigail Folger, known to friends and family as “Gibby”, was 25 years old when she was murdered. Abigail was the daughter of Peter Folger, the chairman of the Folger Coffee Company. Abigail was the heiress to the coffee empire. Despite being well-known and very wealthy, Abigail enjoyed her work as a social worker. She first worked in the lower income areas in NYC. It was while she was living in NYC that she met Voytek Frykowski, who was new to America. The two of them drove to LA and rented a house in the Hollywood Hills. Abigail continued to volunteer as a social worker in many of the poor neighborhoods in LA. Despite how much she loved helping people, Abigail soon developed depression over the lack of impact she felt like she was making with the families. Regarding the job, she said, “I can’t. The suffering gets under your skin.”

Abigail and Frykowski had begun experimenting with drugs, but it sooned turned to regular, heavy use. The couple moved into the Cielo house with Sharon, but the drug use continued. Tennant, who IDed the bodies, said that every time he came to Sharon’s home, Abigail “always seemed to be in a stupor from narcotics.”

Not oblivious to her problems, Abigail met with a psychiatrist five days a week. Following her murder, the doctor said that he believed Abigail wanted to leave Frykowski, but she was still building up enough courage to be on her own. Abigail was found to have been stabbed 28 times, with exanguanation being her cause of death.

Voytek Frykowski was 32 years old at the time of his murder. Frykowski had known Polanski from Poland, where Frykowski was known as a playboy. Polanski later described his friend as “a man of little talent and immense charm.” Frykowski told others he was an aspiring writer, but no one could recall reading anything that he’d ever written. Polanski had given him money often to fund projects, but he never followed through. Friends of Frykowski said that Abigail had introduced him to drugs to keep him. Abigail’s friends said the opposite, that Frykowski got Abigail hooked on drugs to keep her under his control. Police reports said that he didn’t have a job and had no income. He supported himself off of Abigail’s money and used cocaine, mescaline, LSD, marijuana, and hashish regularly. Frykowski was shot twice, struck over the head 13 times with a blunt object, and stabbed 51 times. He had obviously given the killers a run for their money.

Steven Earl Parent had graduated from Arroyo High School in June of the same year. He worked full-time as a delivery boy and part-time as a salesman for a stereo company. He loved folk music and playing guitar, but his passion fell with electronics. The Parent family’s priest said that if you ever wanted to know anything about electronics, Steven was the guy to ask. He was saving up money to attend junior college in the fall. Steven had one defensive wound from a knife and had been shot four times.

There was no evidence that the motive for the murders had been robbery. Sharon still had her jewelry on and Sebring was wearing his Cartier wristwatch. Meanwhile, Garretson was still in police custody and had requested a polygraph test. He ultimately passed and police found no indication that he was lying, however, he continued to ask one very important question, which police couldn’t answer: “I’m just confused…for one thing, how come I wasn’t murdered?”

The Hinman Murder

During the continued investigation of what was being referred to as “The Tate Murders,” two homicide detectives from the LA County Sheriff’s Office came to LAPD Sergeant Buckles, who was one of the detectives assigned to the case, with information that they thought might be pertinent. They told Buckles that on July 31st, they’d responded to a homicide in Malibu. The victim was a 34 year old music teacher named Gary Hinman. He, like the Tate victims, had been stabbed to death. What the detectives found strange was that, in Hinman’s apartment, there had been two words written on the wall of his living room in his blood: POLITICAL PIGGY.

They arrested a suspect for the murder named Robert “Bobby” Beausoleil. He’d been found driving Hinman’s car and had his blood on his clothing, along with a knife in the tire well. They said that Beusoleil had been living on Spahn Ranch with other “hippies”. They said that the group was strange and had a leader named Charlie, who had convinced the others that he was Jesus. The LAPD detective dismissed the information, believing that the motivation behind the Tate Murders was drugs.

The LaBiancas

Around 1 AM on Sunday, August 10th, just one day after the Tate Murders, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca dropped off their daughter at her apartment, after they returned from vacationing in Lake Isabella. Before heading home, the couple stopped at a corner newsstand near their home. The LaBiancas were regulars at the newsstand, and they stopped for a few minutes to chat with the owner. He said they spoke about the Tate Murders and how scary it was. He said that the two finally drove off sometime between 1 and 2AM, but more likely closer to 2AM. It was reported that Rosemary was especially upset by the Tate Murders. A few weeks prior, she had told a friend, “someone is coming in our house while we’re away. Things have been gone through and the dogs are outside when they should be inside.”

Later that night, Frank Struthers, the LaBiancas 15-year-old son was dropped off after the Lake Isabella vacation. As he walked up the driveway, he saw that the family’s speedboat was still attached the car, which was strange, as his stepfather didn’t like to leave the boat out overnight. He knocked on the back door several times, but there was no answer. He walked to the nearest pay phone and tried calling the house. No answer. He tried calling his sister, Suzanne’s work, but she wasn’t there. Her boss offered to call her apartment and tell her to call Frank back on the pay phone, which she did, just after 9PM. Suzanne told her brother that she hadn’t heard from them since they’d dropped her off early that morning. She called her boyfriend, Joe, and the couple went to pick up Frank. The three found a spare set of keys that Rosemary left in her vehicle and entered the house through the back door. Joe told Suzanne to stay in the kitchen.

The boys walked into the living room and saw Leno laying on his back on the floor. There was a pillow over his head and a cord around his neck. They could see that something was protruding from his stomach. It was obvious that he was dead. Joe didn’t want to disturb any evidence or for Suzanne to see Leno, so they left the home and asked a neighbor to call 911. Two officers responded in under 10 minutes. Not long after, an ambulance arrived and pronounced Leno LaBianca dead. The cord around his neck was wrapped very tightly and attached to a large lamp. His hands were bound behind his back and the object that was protruding from his stomach was a bi-tined carving fork. In his stomach, someone had carved the word “WAR”. Later, once the pillowcase was removed from Leon’s head, it was discovered that there was a knife lodged in his neck.

In the master bedroom, police discovered the body of Rosemary LaBianca, facedown on the floor, covered in blood. She had a pillowcase over her head and a lamp cord around her neck. She had been stabbed 41 times and was also pronounced dead on scene.

There were three phrases printed throughout the LaBianca’s house, written in blood: in the living room was “DEATH TO PIGS,” on the opposite wall was “RISE,” and on the refrigerator door was a phrase that had been misspelled, reading “HEALTER SKELTER”. Similarly to the Tate Murders, there was no evidence that the attack had been a robbery gone wrong. The LaBiancas were wealthy, as Leno was the president of a chain of LA supermarkets. Their valuables were still in the home. There was no evidence of a struggle or forced entry.

Police noted there were similarities, but didn’t believe the Tate Murders and the LaBianca murders were connected for multiple reasons: no link between victims, the fairly large distance between the two homes, and the absence of drugs at the LaBianca’s house when there were drugs found at the Tate home.

Back to the investigation

On the afternoon of September 1st in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood of LA, 10-year-old Steven Weiss was in his backyard when he found a gun. In Bugliosi’s book, ‘Helter Skelter,’ he described how Steven handled the gun.

“Steven had watched ‘Dragnet’ on TV; he knew how a gun should be handled. Picking it up very carefully by the tip of the barrel, so as not to eradicate prints, Steven took the gun back to his house and showed his father….”

Mr. Weiss called LAPD and gave them the revolver his son had found, with a missing right-hand grip. A few days later, LAPD sent ou confidential flyers to surrounding police departments describing the gun that they were looking for from the Tate murders. Unfortunately, one was not mailed to the LAPD Valley Services Division, of which had retrieved the gun from Steven Weiss.

LAPD officers assigned to the LaBianca murders had failed to check if the LA Sheriff’s Office had any similar murders in their jurisdiction. In October, they finally did and found out about the Hinman murder, where “POLITICAL PIGGY” had been written in blood on the wall. The officers from the Sheriff’s Office said that they’d recently raided Barker Ranch, which was located near Death Valley. This was where Manson and the family had recently relocated to. They’d arrested 24 members of the family on multiple different charges. They spoke to the girlfriend of Bobby Beausoleil, the suspect in the Hinman murder. She told officers that she’d heard that Manson had sent Beausoleil and woman named Susan Atkins to get money from Hinman. When they couldn’t, they killed him. Police questioned Susan Atkins, who was in custody from the Barker raid. She said that Beausoleil had indeed killed Hinman and she’d been there, but she said nothing to implicate Manson in the murder. Susan was arrested on suspicion of murder and move to the Sybil Brand Institute, a prison, in LA. It was there that she met Ronnie Howard and Virginia Graham.

Susan Atkins is a fucking idiot

Susan loved to talk and she immediately told Virginia all about Manson, that “he was their father, their leader, their love.” She also told her that Manson was Jesus Christ. Bugliosi wrote about Virginia’s first thoughts regarding Susan, “Susan, Virginia decided, was nuts.” In November, Susan came to Virginia and told her that she wasn’t worried about the police, that there was a murder case going on right now that they had no clue what had actually happened. She said it was the Tate Murders. Susan asked Virginia if she knew who did it. Virginia obviously said no. Susan told Virgina that she was looking at her. She told Virginia details about the murders, that there were four of them, three women and a man, from the family that committed the murders. She described how they found each victim and how each one reacted to their presence. She then described how they murdered each of them. In regards to Sharon, she told Virginia that it was obvious she was pregnant, but she didn’t care. In fact, Sharon had begged Susan to spare her, that she wanted to have her baby. Susan said her response was “Look, bitch, I don’t care about you. I don’t care if you’re going to have a baby. You had better be ready. You’re going to die, and I don’t feel anything about it.” When Susan tried to explain the concept of Helter Skelter to Virginia, she (obviously) didn’t understand. Susan said, “you have to have a real love in your heart to do this for people.”

Susan continued to answer any and all questions Virginia had. When Virginia was moved to a different facility, she told fellow inmate Ronnie Howard about what Susan had said. Susan was quick to repeat her confession for Ronnie. Both Ronnie and Virginia, after debating whether Susan’s stories were true, finally decided to tell someone. She ultimately testified before the grand jury, telling them about the Tate murders.

The Arrests

Detectives felt confident that the family was behind the Hinman, Tate, and LaBianca murders. With the confessions from Susan Atkins and the many people who had been involved with or dealt with Manson and the family reporting things that had been said connecting them to the murders, in December of 1969, several members of the family were indicted. Manson, Atkins, Charles “Tex” Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian were charged with conspiracy and murder for the Tate murders. They also indicted the group in the LaBianca murders, adding family member Leslie Van Houten to this list.

When Van Houten was questioned, she said that she’d heard four people had gone to the Tate home on the night of the murders, but she wasn’t one of them. She also said that Manson wasn’t involved. She implied that three girls had gone, but one of them hadn’t murdered anyone. One male had been with them. Meanwhile, Bugliosi, who had been assigned as the prosecutor for the case against Manson, Krenwinkel, Atkins, and Van Houten (who were all being tried together) was elated that they finally had their first piece of physical evidence tying the group to the Tate house. Tex had been fingerprinted and his print matched one that was found on the front door of the home. He was in custody in his hometown of McKinnney, Texas, though McKinney police were fighting to have him not extradited to California. Tex was well-known in his hometown. He’d been an honor student in high school and a very good athlete. When he graduated high school, he attended North Texas State University and joined a fraternity. He seemed like an all-American guy, so many in his hometown had a difficult time believing that he’d been involved in the murders. Because of the delay in his extradition, Tex had to be tried separately from the other family members.

The Trials

In June of 1970, the trial of Manson, Krenwinkel, Atkins, and Van Houten began. The trial itself was an absolute circus. All of the defendants fired their attorneys and asked for new ones multiple times. There were countless outbursts from all four defendants and they were all removed from the courtroom many times. None of the defendants ever showed any remorse. Linda Kasabian agreed to testify about her involvement in the murders and what she knew. Despite not having physically hurting anyone herself, Kasabian was incredibly remorseful about her minor involvement in the murders and had clearly broken the emotional tie she once had to Manson. This was especially critical to the prosecution, as Atkins had recanted her entire grand jury testimony. Despite Manson’s threats towards her in court, Kasabian testified for 18 DAYS. She was given immunity in exchange for her testimony.

In January of 1971, after a week of deliberation, the jury found the four defendants guilty on all charges of murder and conspiracy of the Tate and LaBianca murders. Shortly after, the four were sentenced to the death penalty. In 1972, their sentences were commuted to life in prison when California abolished the death penalty. Tex Watson was tried by himself in October of 1971 and was also found guilty on seven charges of murder. His death penalty sentence was also commuted to life in prison.

What Happened?

Though the exact events of the nights of the murders are only known by those who were there, through confessions and accounts, this is what is believed to have happened at the Tate house: Before leaving the ranch that night, Manson told the girls (Kasabian, Susan, and Patricia) to do whatever Tex told them to do. They left and drove to 10050 Cielo Drive, where Tex used wire cutters to cut the telephone lines. The four were hiding in the bushes on the property when they saw headlights coming down the driveway. Tex told the girls to lay down on the ground and he walked towards the car, shooting and killing Steven Parent.

The girls joined Tex by the house, where he crawled through a dining room window, then opened the front door for the girls. Kasabian stayed outside while the other three entered the home. Frykowski was laying on the couch and awoke to Tex pointing a gun at him. Susan went to check for others in the house. In one bedroom, she saw Abigail, who was reading a book. She smiled at Susan. She likely believed Susan to be one of Tate’s friends. Susan walked to the next bedroom where Sharon and Sebring were talking, but neither saw her. Susan then, at Tex’s instruction, tied up Frykowski, then used a knife to force Abigail into the living room. She then did the same with Sharon and Sebring. Tex shot Sebring, who fell onto the floor. Susan went to kill Frykowski, but he had freed himself from his bindings and fought back, before running towards the front door. Tex caught him, hitting him over the head, then stabbing him. Tex then stabbed Sebring multiple times. Tex told Susan to kill Sharon, which she ultimately did. Abigail, like Frykowski, escaped to the front yard, where Tex caught her and stabbed her until she stopped struggling. They were all dead.

Linda had watched as the murders happened and begged Susan to stop. Horrified, she ran from the front yard back to the car. She said that she thought about running to a neighbor’s to get help, but then remembered her young daughter was still back at the ranch. She was terrified that they would hurt her if she ran. Instead, she waited in the car until the other three were finished. When they returned to the ranch, Manson asked the four if they had any remorse. They all said no, but Linda was lying. She later said that she was scared for her life if she said anything other than what Manson wanted.

Charles Manson died in prison of natural causes in November of 2017. He continued to maintain his innocence up until his death. Susan Atkins died in September of 2009 of brain cancer while in prison. She petitioned for compassionate release, which was denied. Ironic as fuck. Leslie Van Houten, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Tex Watson remain imprisoned.