Charles Manson and the people behind the Tate murders
Charles Manson founded the Manson Family and became notorious for orchestrating the Tate-LaBianca murders, while his followers carried out the killings. Across a two-day period, followers murdered actress Sharon Tate, her unborn child, and six others. Manson's subsequent prosecution included seven murder counts and a conspiracy count. The killings occurred in a wider series in which his followers murdered ten people around Los Angeles in 1969.
Before those crimes, Charles Manson had spent more than half his life in correctional institutions and was seeking a place on the fringes of the Los Angeles music industry. Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys introduced him to producer Terry Melcher. In 1968, the Beach Boys recorded Manson's song "Cease to Exist," retitled "Never Learn Not to Love," as a single's B-side without crediting him. His attempts to secure a contract through Melcher failed. Manson frequently talked about the Beatles and their self-titled album, interpreting lyrics in ways that later became central to the prosecution's explanation of his motives.
On the night of August 8, 1969, Watson took Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian to 10050 Cielo Drive. Watson later said Charles Manson had instructed him to kill everyone in the house, and Manson told the women to follow Watson's instructions. Inside that evening were Tate, celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, and Abigail Anne Folger, an heiress to the Folgers coffee fortune. Caretaker William Garretson and his friend Steven Earl Parent were also on the property. Roman Polanski was in Europe working on a film. Quincy Jones had planned to join Sebring that evening but changed his plans.
The group arrived just after midnight on August 9. Watson climbed a telephone pole and cut the home's phone line, then the group moved its car down the hill and walked back toward the house. Concern that the entrance gate might have an alarm or electrical protection led them to climb a brushy embankment beside it. Parent was driving out when Watson stopped and killed him. Watson subsequently entered through a window and admitted Atkins and Krenwinkel through the front door. He directed Kasabian to keep watch near the gate, separating her position from the attackers entering the house.
Watson directed the occupants into the living room, where he tied Tate and Sebring with a rope. Sebring protested the treatment of the pregnant Tate and was attacked. Folger handed over money from her purse, while Frykowski freed his bound hands and attempted to escape. Kasabian moved toward the house after hearing distressing sounds and told Atkins someone was coming in an effort to stop the killings. Folger fled toward the pool area but was pursued; Frykowski also reached the outside. Tate pleaded to survive long enough to give birth and offered herself as a hostage. None of the four house occupants survived.
The trial began on June 15, 1970, with Kasabian as the prosecution's main witness. She received immunity in exchange for testimony detailing the nights of the crimes because she had not participated in the killings. An earlier arrangement with Atkins, under which prosecutors would not seek the death penalty in exchange for grand jury testimony, ended when she repudiated that testimony. Van Houten faced two murder counts and one conspiracy count because she had participated only in the LaBianca killings. Judge William Keene initially permitted Manson to represent himself, then withdrew permission before trial because of his conduct. Charles Older replaced Keene.
Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi argued that Charles Manson intended to trigger an apocalyptic race war he called "Helter Skelter." Manson and others disputed that interpretation. On January 25, 1971, the jury returned guilty verdicts against the four defendants on all twenty-seven counts. During the subsequent penalty phase, Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten testified that the killings were copycat versions of the Gary Hinman murder, intended to draw suspicion away from Bobby Beausoleil. They attributed the plan to Kasabian rather than Manson. On March 29, it returned death verdicts against all four, and Older imposed those sentences on April 19.
Manson entered state prison on April 22, 1971. Later that year he was also convicted of first-degree murder for the deaths of musician Gary Hinman and Donald Shea. The California Supreme Court ruled the state's death penalty statute unconstitutional in 1972, and Manson was subsequently resentenced to life with the possibility of parole. His first parole hearing took place on November 16, 1978, at California Medical Facility in Vacaville, where his petition was rejected. He remained imprisoned for the rest of his life and died in 2017 from complications of colon cancer, ending decades of incarceration after the murder convictions.