Tate murders

The Tate murders were the notorious and brutal killings of five people by members of the Manson Family on August 8, 1969. Four members of the family invaded the home of married celebrity couple, actress Sharon Tate and director Roman Polanski at 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles. They murdered Tate (who was eight months pregnant), along with three friends who were visiting at the time, and an 18 year old visitor, who was slain as he was departing the home. Polanski was not present on the night of the murders as he was working on a film in Europe.

The murders were carried out under the direction of Charles Manson. Manson, an aspiring musician, had previously attempted to enter into a recording contract with record producer Terry Melcher, who was a previous renter of the house along with his then-girlfriend, actress Candice Bergen. Melcher snubbed Manson which left him disgruntled. In retaliation, Manson ordered the attack, thinking that Melcher still owned the house, but which had by then been rented to Polanski.

Murders

On the night of August 8, 1969, Tex Watson took Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Patricia Krenwinkel to "that house where Melcher used to live" and told them to "totally destroy everyone in [it], as gruesome as you can."^{[1]:463–468[2]} Manson had told the women to do as Watson would instruct them.^{[1]:176–184, 258–269} Krenwinkel was one of the early Family members and one of the hitchhikers who had allegedly been picked up by Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys.^{[1]:250–253} The current occupants of the house at 10050 Cielo Drive, all of whom were strangers to the Manson followers, were movie actress and fashion model Sharon Tate, wife of film director Roman Polanski, who was eight and a half months pregnant at the time; her friend and former lover Jay Sebring, a noted hairstylist; Polanski's friend and aspiring screenwriter Wojciech Frykowski; and Frykowski's lover Abigail Folger, heiress to the Folger coffee fortune.^[1]:28–38 Polanski was in London working on a film project; Tate had accompanied him, but returned home only three weeks earlier.

When the murderers arrived at the entrance to the Cielo Drive property, Watson, who had been to the house on at least one other occasion, climbed a telephone pole near the entrance gate and cut the phone line to prevent telephone access to the house.^[3] It was now after midnight, August 9, 1969.

Backing their car to the bottom of the hill that led up to the estate, the group parked there and walked back up to the house. Thinking the gate might be electrified or rigged with an alarm,^{[1]:176–184} they climbed a brushy embankment at its right and dropped onto the grounds.

Just then, headlights approached their way from farther within the angled property. Watson ordered the women to lie in the bushes. He then stepped out and ordered the approaching driver, 18-year-old student and hi-fi enthusiast Steven Parent, who had been visiting the property's caretaker, William Garretson, to halt. As Watson leveled a 22-caliber revolver at Parent, the frightened youth begged Watson not to hurt him, claiming that he wouldn't say anything. Watson first lunged at Parent with a knife, giving him a defensive slash wound on the palm of his hand (severing tendons and tearing the boy's watch off his wrist), then shot him four times in the chest and abdomen, killing him. Watson then ordered the women to help push the car further up the driveway.^{[1]:22–25[2]}

After traversing the front lawn and having Kasabian search for an open window of the main house, Watson cut the screen of a window. Watson told Kasabian to keep watch down by the gate; she walked over to Steven Parent's AMC Ambassador and waited.^{[1]:258–269[1]:176–184[2]} He then removed the screen, entered through the window, and let Atkins and Krenwinkel in through the front door.^{[1]:176–184}

As Watson whispered to Atkins, a sleeping Frykowski awoke on the living room couch; Watson kicked him in the head.^[2] When Frykowski asked him who he was and what he was doing there, Watson replied, "I'm the devil, and I'm here to do the devil's business."^{[1]:176–184[2]}

On Watson's direction, Atkins found the house's three other occupants and, with Krenwinkel's help,^{[1]:176–184, 297–300} forced them to the living room. Watson began to tie Tate and Sebring together by their necks with rope he had brought and slung up over one of the living room's ceiling beams. Sebring's protest – his second – of rough treatment of the pregnant Tate prompted Watson to shoot him. Folger was taken momentarily back to her bedroom for her purse, out of which she gave the intruders $70. After that, Watson stabbed the groaning Sebring seven times.^{[1]:28–38[2]}

Frykowski's hands had been bound with a towel. Freeing himself, Frykowski began struggling with Atkins, who stabbed at his legs with the knife with which she had been guarding him.^[2] As he fought his way toward and out the front door, onto the porch, Watson caught up with Frykowski and struck him over the head with the gun multiple times, stabbed him repeatedly, and shot him twice.^[2] Watson broke the gun's right grip in the process.

Around this time, Kasabian was drawn up from the driveway by "horrifying sounds." She arrived outside the door. In a vain effort to halt the massacre, she told Atkins falsely that someone was coming.^{[1]:258–269[2]}

Inside the house, Folger had escaped from Krenwinkel and fled out a bedroom door to the pool area.^{[1]:341–344, 356–361} Folger was pursued to the front lawn by Krenwinkel, who caught her, stabbed – and finally tackled – her to the ground. She was then dispatched by Watson, and they stabbed Folger 28 times.^{[1]:28–38[2]} As Frykowski struggled across the lawn, Watson murdered him with a final flurry of stabbing. Frykowski was stabbed a total of 51 times.^{[1]:28–38, 258–269[2]}

In the house, Tate pleaded to be allowed to live long enough to have her baby, and even offered herself as a hostage in an attempt to save the life of her unborn child, but her killers would have none of it, as either Atkins, Watson, or both killed Tate, who was stabbed 16 times.^[1]:28–38 Watson later wrote that Tate cried, "Mother ... mother ..." as she was being killed.^[2]

Earlier, as the four Family members were heading out from Spahn Ranch, Manson told the women to "leave a sign ... something witchy".^[2] Using the towel that had bound Frykowski's hands, Atkins wrote "pig" on the house's front door in Tate's blood. En route home, the killers changed out of bloody clothes, which were ditched in the hills along with their weapons.^{[1]:84–90, 176–184[2]}

Investigation

In initial confessions to cellmates of hers at Sybil Brand Institute, Atkins would say she killed Tate.^[1]:84–90 In later statements to her attorney, to prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, and before a grand jury, Atkins indicated Tate had been stabbed by Tex Watson.^{[1]:163–174, 176–184} In his 1978 autobiography, Watson said that he had stabbed Tate and that Atkins had never touched her.^[2] Since he was aware that the prosecutor, Bugliosi, and the jury that had tried the other Tate-LaBianca defendants were convinced Atkins had stabbed Tate, he falsely testified that he did not stab her.^[4]

References