Background
In the summer of 1969, Los Angeles was shaken by two nights of killings carried out by followers of Charles Manson, a group known as the Family. Manson had gathered a community of devoted young men and women around him in California.
The first target was the house at 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon, then rented by actress Sharon Tate and director Roman Polanski, who was in Europe working on a film at the time. The house had earlier been rented by music producer Terry Melcher, from whom Manson had hoped to receive help with a recording career.
What happened
On the night of 8–9 August 1969, Tex Watson, Susan Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkel entered the property while Linda Kasabian waited outside as a lookout. Sharon Tate, who was eight and a half months pregnant, hairstylist Jay Sebring, coffee heiress Abigail Folger and Wojciech Frykowski died there. In the grounds, 18-year-old Steven Parent, who had been visiting the caretaker, was also killed.
The following night, in the early hours of 10 August, the group went to 3301 Waverly Drive in Los Feliz, where supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary were killed. Over the following days the connection between the two attacks became a central question for investigators.
It was only in the following days that investigators understood the attacks were connected. At first the two crime scenes were handled as separate cases; the link was established through what group members told others in custody and the testimony gathered by prosecutors. The trial became one of the longest and most closely followed in Los Angeles history. For decades afterwards, relatives of the victims continued to speak at parole hearings about their loss.
It was only in the following days that investigators understood the attacks were connected. At first the two crime scenes were handled as separate cases; the link was established through what group members told others in custody and the testimony gathered by prosecutors. The trial became one of the longest and most closely followed in Los Angeles history. For decades afterwards, relatives of the victims continued to speak at parole hearings about their loss.
Investigation and trial
A key lead came when Susan Atkins described the events to fellow inmates in a jail; she later gave accounts to her attorney and a grand jury. Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi led the case for the state.
Manson, Atkins, Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten and Watson were convicted and originally sentenced to death. In 1972 the California Supreme Court's ruling in People v. Anderson struck down the state's death penalty statutes, and the sentences were converted to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. Van Houten's first conviction was overturned on appeal, and after a retrial she received a life sentence.
Where it stands today
Manson died in prison on 19 November 2017, aged 83, and Atkins died in custody in 2009. Van Houten was paroled in 2023, while Krenwinkel and Watson remain in prison after repeated parole denials.
The killings are often seen as a turning point at the end of the 1960s counterculture era and have been revisited many times in popular culture. At the centre of the case, though, are the people who died: Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, Steven Parent, and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.