SHARON TATE

In the summer of 1969, nine innocent people and an unborn baby lost their lives when they were brutally murdered in California by a religious cult named The Manson Family.  The murders were later to become known as the Tate-Labianca murders.  The leader, a small man named Charles Manson,

 had spent most of his life in and out of institutions and prisons and had many followers who believed he was Jesus Christ.  Among the people who lost their lives that summer was Sharon Tate and her unborn child, who was due to be born only two short weeks after he and his mother were murdered.  The Manson Family will always be known as a ferocious and evil cult who robbed so many people of their precious loved ones.  These innocent people were chosen by a madman to satisfy his lust for death and although the people convicted of these heinous crimes plead for their freedom, we have to think about the people they killed and how the time they have served will never be the punishment they deserve.

It was the early hours of August 9 1969 around 12.30 am when a car slowly rolled up to the gates of 10050 Cielo Drive in Beverly Hills carrying four occupants, they exited the car, one stayed behind to keep a lookout, Linda Kasabian,

   Tex Watson           Linda Kasabian         Sadie Atkins

Patricia Krenwinkel

the other three creeped over the gates, they were Charles 'Tex' Watson, Susan 'Sadie' Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkel. 

Once reaching the other side of the gate, they encountered a car, the car was being driven by 18 year old Steven Parent

 who was at the property visiting his friend, William Garretson, the groundskeeper who lived in the guest cottage.  Steven stopped at the gate to push the button that operated it as he rolled down his window, he was met by Tex, who told him to halt, he had a gun in one hand and a knife in the other.  "Please don't hurt me", begged Steven, "I won't say anything", Tex swung towards him slashing his arm which severed the tendons to his hand and wrist, he was then shot four times in the arm, chest and head.  Next the three intruders headed up towards the house belonging to Sharon and Roman, Tex slit the screen and got inside then went to the front door to let the two girls in. He walked into the living-room and wakened Voyteck who was asleep on the sofa,

 Tex kicked him in the head and told him "I'm the devil and I'm here to do the devil's business".  After telling Susan to tie Voyteck's hands with a towel, he ordered her to check if anyone else was in the house so she walked down the hall and stopped at Sharon's bedroom, she looked through the opening of the door and saw Sharon and Jay,

 Sharon was sitting on her bed with a pillow propped up behind her.  Susan then entered Abigail and Voyteck's bedroom with an upraised knife in her hand, she ordered her to go into the living-room and then repeated the order to a shocked Sharon and Jay, at the end of the hallway Sharon saw Voyteck tied up on the sofa and Abigail

 in the corner with another unknown girl dressed in black carrying a knife.  Tex grabbed Sharon by the forearm, half dragging her into the room, she was in a state of shock, Jay asked who he was and began to protest against the rough treatment of her.  Tex then grabbed the coil of the rope he had, threw it over the beam of the ceiling, approached Jay tying his hands in front of him, he looped the rope around Jay's neck then turning to Sharon he looped the other end of the rope around her neck and ordered them both to lie down on the floor, a terrified and shaken Sharon began to cry, "Shut up!", Tex screamed at her, "Let her sit down", pleaded Jay, "Can't you see she's pregnant?", Tex then fired the gun at Jay, it smashed through his left rib and punctured his left lung, he collapsed and Tex kicked him viciously in the face, Sharon and Abigail both screamed as Jay crawled across the floor moaning, Tex then stabbed him three times in the back, deep into his left lung, blinded by the kicks to his face, Jay tried to get up, but Tex began kicking him hard in the head and face, the sound of bones cracking echoed in the room and Jay died defending the woman he loved.  "What are you going to do with us?", asked Sharon, "You're all going to die!", laughed Tex.  Sharon and Abigail began to plead for their lives.  By now Voyteck had managed to untie his hands, Tex ordered Susan to kill him, but Voyteck grabbed her hair, she plunged the knife into his left leg, she stabbed him three times into his side and five times in his back and he still ran towards the door, Tex ran towards Voyteck and started to beat him on the head with the butt of the gun, after a dozen blows the walnut grip shattered into three pieces, Tex later said he heard the sound of bones cracking when he hit him and blood splattered against the walls, ceiling and floor.  Voyteck then began to run outside onto the lawn, Susan ran after him stabbing him in the back into his right lung, Tex now approached and began stabbing Voyteck.  Meanwhile, inside the house Abigail began running towards the back hallway, Patricia ran after her and Abigail, who was taller and stronger than her, pulled her by the hair and Patricia called out for Tex.  He ran over to the two women struggling, Abigail saw him and released her grip on Patricia, there was a moment of silence then Tex swung the knife across Abigail's stomach tearing a gaping wound from which her intestines spilled out and she fell to the floor.  Outside, Voyteck began crawling across the lawn, Tex, hearing his screams, jumped him and wrestled him to the ground, smashing his head with the gun, he watched Voyteck crawl, running towards the guesthouse, Tex shot him twice then began stabbing him.  Unbelievably, he kept going until he collapsed, Tex later said that he kept stabbing him until his hand, up to his wrist, disappeared in the mess, he then kicked his still body many times in the head and face.  Abigail by this time had got to her feet screaming into the night as she turned left at the pool, Patricia ran after her stabbing her repeatedly, the knife tearing at her flesh, Abigail looked into Patricia's eyes as she said : "Stop! Stop! I'm already dead!", Patricia later said she felt nothing.  Tex was thirty feet away from the women kicking Voyteck, he then approached Abigail and began stabbing her, he slashed her face leaving a deep wound from her left ear to the corner of her mouth, he then used the gun butt to crack her right eye orbit and her nose with force, she lay there under the pine tree gurgling.  Inside the house, Sharon sat on the sofa with Susan pleading for her life, Jay's lifeless body lay a few feet away, the walls, the carpet, the entryhall and the ceiling was covered in her friends' blood.  Susan had Sharon in a headlock, "Please don't kill me, please don't kill me", Sharon was hysterical, "I don't want to die, I want to live, I want to have my baby, I want to have my baby", Susan looked her straight in the eye and said, "Look bitch!  I don't care if you're going to have a baby, you're going to die and I don't feel a thing about it!", Sharon began crying hysterically.  Later Susan said Sharon was "out of her mind", she even tried to bargain with her killer, at one point saying they could take her with them to let her have her baby then they could kill her, in a final maternal action she even suggested that they take her baby with them so that it had a chance to live, but her pleas were ignored, Susan just smiled while Sharon cried uncontrollably.  Tex and Patricia entered the room, he ordered Susan to kill Sharon, she told him she couldn't, "My God", Patricia snapped, "If you're gonna kill her then do it!  Or take her with us so that she can have her baby!", Sharon was totally hysterical by this point, listening to her assailants discuss her fate, she was shaking uncontrollably.  Tex walked over to her, kneeled down in front of terrified Sharon and slashed her face, he later told his mother "how beautiful Sharon Tate had been right up to the time I cut her".  Sharon screamed as Tex gouged her left cheek, she threw her arms up in defence as Tex plunged the knife into her, they took turns in stabbing her, they stabbed through her bra into her heart severing her aorta, which is the main artery to the heart, she wrapped her arms around her stomach to protect her baby, she was stabbed in her back and legs, she lay moaning on the floor crying out for her mother while Susan stabbed her repeatedly.  Tex then ran around the living-room stabbing Jay, as he lay dead on the floor and then he stabbed Sharon eight times in her back, he then ran onto the lawn and stabbed the battered Voyteck seven more times, he ran over to Abigail's lifeless body  stabbing and kicking her.  It was now around 1.20 am, Tex told Susan to go inside and write something, she entered the silent living-room, she picked up a towel, she kneeled down in front of the sofa and touched Sharon's dying body with the towel, Susan claimed there were gurgling sounds like blood flowing out of heart into the body, she then went to the front door and kneeling in Voyteck's blood wrote the word "pig" on the door then the killers left the residence.  That terrible night of slaughter, the five victims suffered 7 gunshot wounds and 104 stab wounds, Sharon died from multiple stab wounds to her chest, back, arms and face penetrating her lungs, heart and liver causing massive haemorrhage, her baby boy died with her.  She was 26 years old.  Jay Sebring was 35 years old, Abigail Folger was 26 years old, Voyteck Frykowski was 32 years old and Steven Parent was 18 years old. 

The Manson family also killed Gary Hinman on July 25 1969, he was 34 years old.  Leno and Rosemary LaBianca on August 9 1969, he was 44 years old and she was 38 years old.  Donald "Shorty" Shea on August 25 1969, he was 36 years old.  And that was the end to the Manson family killing spree, but not their only crimes .....