The pregnant actress was stabbed 16 times to ensure her death
Sharon Tate
The incident took place on August 8, 1969. As the affluent neighborhoods of Los Feliz and Benedict Canyon in Los Angeles were sinking into the quiet of the night, one of the most horrific and brutal murders in US history took place.
Hollywood’s rising star Sharon Tate and her husband Roman Polanski, an Oscar nominated director, were expecting their first child. Tate was eight and a half months pregnant. She and four of her friends were brutally murdered that night.
But the most tragic and shocking aspect was that Sharon Tate or her friends had no personal enmity with the killers. They simply happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and became victims of the revenge of a failed musician.
The secluded and luxurious bungalow at 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles originally belonged to renowned American music producer Terry Melcher. Charles Manson was a disturbed man desperately trying to establish himself in the music industry at the time. He met Terry Melcher because he wanted to become a successful musician. However, after listening to his demo tracks, Melcher rejected his proposal for an album.
Manson could not accept the rejection. His anger toward Melcher continued to intensify. Later, when Melcher moved out of the house, filmmaker Roman Polanski and his pregnant wife Sharon Tate rented it. But the address on Cielo Drive had already become fixed in Manson’s mind as a symbol of Hollywood’s elite.
On the night of the incident, Roman Polanski was in Europe working on a film. Eight and a half months pregnant Sharon Tate returned to the Cielo Drive house after spending the evening with three friends. They were renowned hairstylist Jay Sebring, Hollywood screenwriter Wojciech Frykowski and Abigail Folger, a wealthy heir to the coffee fortune.
Just after midnight, four members of Charles Manson’s blind following known as the ‘Manson Family’ entered the house after cutting the electricity and telephone lines. They were Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Linda Kasabian. An 18-year-old young man named Steven Parent who was at the gate of the house was shot and killed first.
The killers then held everyone inside the house captive and began a prolonged brutal rampage. When Jay Sebring protested, he was shot and stabbed. Frykowski and Folger tried to escape into the yard to save their lives. The killers chased them and stabbed them 51 times and 28 times respectively before killing them.
Finally, 26-year-old pregnant Sharon Tate begged the killers for the life of her unborn child, Paul Richard. But the killers brutally stabbed her 16 times. Before leaving, they used Sharon Tate’s blood to write the word ‘Pig’ in large letters on the front door.
The next morning, housekeeper Winifred Chapman arrived for work. She saw the blood-soaked bodies and fled screaming in terror. As news of the killings spread, unprecedented fear gripped Hollywood. Police initially failed to determine who had carried out the brutal murders.
Before the fear could subside, Manson’s group followed his orders and brutally killed supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary LaBianca at their own home the following night. They left the words ‘Helter Skelter’ written in blood on the wall. The phrase was taken from the lyrics of a Beatles song.
As police struggled to understand the motives behind the two separate murders, Susan Atkins, a member of the Manson Family who had been arrested in another case, boasted to her fellow inmates in prison and gave a detailed account of Sharon Tate’s murder. When the inmates informed police, Manson’s brutal empire was uncovered.
After a lengthy trial in 1971, Charles Manson, Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten were sentenced to death for first degree murder. However, California temporarily abolished the death penalty in 1972. Their sentences were therefore commuted to life imprisonment. Charles Manson died in prison in 2017 at the age of 83 while receiving medical treatment.
According to Hollywood historians, that single night on August 8, 1969 permanently killed the ideals of peace and love associated with America’s 1960s ‘hippie’ era. At its center was the extreme jealousy of a failed singer who could not become a star himself and instead wrote his twisted name in the blood of an innocent pregnant star and her friends.
Source: NDTV (Adapted)
