Prime Crime: Solved Murders - Party Fouls: Murder on Cielo Drive

Episode Date: August 18, 2021

In August 1969, eight-and-a-half-months-pregnant actress Sharon Tate was on top of the world, living the Hollywood dream. That is, until it turned into the bloodiest kind of Hollywood nightmare. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this murder case, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes graphic discussions of violence and murder that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. It was a quiet August night up in Benedict Canyon, high above the shimmering heat of Los Angeles. Tim Ireland was tired, but he had to stay up. He promised his fellow counselors that he'd be on call all night in case. any of the girls on the camp out got scared. So he tried to stay alert by focusing on the echoy, pleasant sounds of the canyon.

The bugs, the trees, the occasional blessed breeze, the sound of records wafting softly from the surrounding houses, even though it was well past midnight. But this was where the movie stars lived. It was 1969, and a weekend. You'd best believe they partied throughout the night. You could almost hear the ice rattling in their cocktail shakers. But then Tim heard something else,

something that made him jump to his feet like a jack in the box, long, harrowing seconds of screams. Tim ran to check on the girls. They were all fine, but someone out there wasn't. He woke his supervisor who gave him permission to drive around the area and see if anyone needed help. Tim wasn't the only one that heard something strange in the wee hours of August 9th, 1969. A terrible crime had shattered the civilized revelry of Benedict Canyon's Friday Suarez.

And when morning light flooded through the quiet trees in the large windows of 10050 Cielo Drive, there was more than wine spilled on the carpet. There was blood. Welcome to Solved Murders, True Crime Mysteries, a Spotify original from Parcast. I'm your host Carter Roy. And I'm your host, Wendy McKenzie. Every Wednesday, we step into the world of true crime's most fascinating murder cases and tell the tale of how real-life detectives close the case.

You can find episodes of Solved Murders and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free exclusively on Spotify. This is the third installment of our four part. special party fowls, where we peer inside parties that went terribly wrong. We're following police as they investigate some of history's most frightening party murders and try to figure out what turns a celebration into a violent altercation. Today we're exploring the August 9th, 1969 killing of eight-and-a-half-month pregnant actress Sharon Tate and her four house guests. The tale took over every tabloid in the nation instantly, but if the story of the sordid crime scene traveled quickly,

the investigation was a more halting affair. We have all that and more coming up. Stay with us. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th. The powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 6th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th.

Tickets on sale now at Yamava Theater.com, only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in? Must be 21 to enter. A little after 8 in the morning on August 9, 1969, Winifred Chapman arrived at the gates of 10050 CLO Drive. There had been delays on her morning bus ride, so she felt a bit frazzled, but she collected herself as she prepared to enter work. It was just another day of cleaning for Miss Sharon Tate and her glamorous friends, Winifred told herself, nothing special. No use getting upset about being a few minutes late.

Except just then, something quite different threw Winifred off. There was a wire dangling over the gate to the driveway, a telephone wire maybe. She wondered if perhaps there could be a problem with the power or the phones. She staled herself for whatever drama lay ahead of her and walked through the gate. There were a few cars parked around. Winifred noted these without much thought as she turned off the drive towards the back of the house, avoiding the front lawn entirely. There were often several cars in the driveway with so many people in the house.

Sharon had two long-term house guests staying with her all summer. Her husband, Roman Polansky's friend, Vojek-Frikowski, and Vojcheque's girlfriend, the coffee heiress Abigail Folger. Plus, Sharon often had get-togethers with overnight guests, too. When a fridge shook her head as she unlocked the kitchen door, these Hollywood party people lived a different kind of life. But her life wasn't all about cocktails and dancing. She picked up the phone to check if it was working,

and just as she'd feared, the line was dead. Something was up with a power. With a weary sigh, she made her way towards the living room to look for Sharon and inquire about the problem. She didn't, however, make it into the room. She stopped in her tracks when she got to the doorway. She'd never seen so much blood. It was splattered on the rug,

on the walls across every part of the living room she could see. And the front door was ajar. Blood was pooled on the flagstones outside, too. But that wasn't the worst part. Beyond the blood, out there on the lawn, laid a body. By 833, a hysterical Winifred found a neighbor to call the police. Officer Jerry Joe DeRosa was the first to respond to the call. What he found at 10050 would stay with him for the rest of his life.

The body Winifred spotted on the lawn was actually two bodies. One belonged to a man in his 30s, the other was a woman in her late 20s. They were both covered in blood from dozens of stab wounds. It was a brutal, tragic sight. But that wasn't all. There was another body out front, too. He was slumped over the wheel in one of the cars on the driveway. He'd been shot, no visible stab wounds.

A small blessing, but he looks so young. more than a teenager. Unfortunately, the worst was yet to come. De Rosa entered the front door of the house. The word pig was scrawled across it in blood, and then inside, lying by the couch, were two more bodies. He counted in his head, victims number four and five.

One of these corpses was male. He was short, and his face was covered by a bloody towel. In fact, his entire body. body appeared to be soaked in blood. There was also a rope around his neck, like a noose. One end of the rope was tied into another noose and circled around the neck of the body beside him. This one was a woman in her 20s. She was smeared with blood, too, but she was still recognizable to anyone who kept up with the tabloids. Sharon Tate, the glamorous young starlet well on her way to the Hollywood Big Leagues. Her blonde hair was ever.

everywhere, and her beautiful face was ghostly pale. But most harrowing of all were her legs, tucked up around her pregnant belly in a fetal position, as if even in death she'd wanted to protect the baby who was just weeks from arrival. But she hadn't. She'd been as helpless as a baby herself in the face of whatever brutal killer

had interrupted last night's party. Beneath those curled knees, her belly was covered. in stab wounds. DeRoso wasn't a homicide detective. He was a patrolman. But in the face of this awful carnage, he immediately began to wonder what had been the cause.

He put it this way years later. A lot of things go through your mind. You're kind of thinking, what happened? Was this some kind of a party that went bad? Was this some kind of a drug deal that went bad? This kind of thinking colored the case as two more patrolmen arrived at the scene.

The bodies were identified with the help of Winifred and some neighbors. In addition to Sharon Tate, there was her best friend and ex-fiancee, celebrity hairstylist, Jay Sebring. The two bodies on the lawn were Tate's houseguests, Vojik Frakowski and Abigail Fulger. Hollywood people, and they like their drugs. But the teenager in the car seemed the odd man out of this Hollywood crew. Eventually, the police gathered that he'd been visiting the caretaker in the small back house. They leapt at that fact. The caretaker had to have some answers about what really happened here if he was still alive.

The three officers headed cautiously for the caretaker's cottage, about 100 yards from the main house, where, through the window, they saw a young man. He was maybe 19, lying on the couch, a Weimariner by his side. alive. The three policemen raised their guns and headed for the front door. Freeze! What's going on? What's the matter? Get on the floor!

What's the matter? I haven't done anything! Call off this damn dog and tell us your name! And then we'll decide whether you've done something or not. Shh! It's okay. I'm Gerritson. William Gerritson. I live here. I'm the caretaker. I swear I didn't do anything. Well, if you didn't do anything, you should have. You should have heard what was happening!

What was happening? Heard what was happening? What happened? I've just been here in the house. I was up all night, listening to records and writing some letters. I can show you if you let me up. We're not interested in your letters, kid. If you've been here all night awake for Christ's sake,

then all I want from you is an explanation how you failed to hear five murders. Brutal murders. Four of them less than a hundred feet away. No. Speechless, eh? Right, of course. You're under arrest for murder. You have the right.

to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in court. There are conflicting reports of how roughly Gairson was treated by police, and when exactly he was read his Miranda rights. But DeRosen, the other two patrolmen who first arrived at the scene, were convinced. There was no way he'd been oblivious to the murder if he was, as he said, not just home, but awake. Plus, he had that barky dog. Surely the dog would have heard something and alerted Gerritsen. In fact, De Rosa was so anxious to get the suspect out of that house and down to a police station

that when he got to the front gate of the property and noticed there was some blood on the button to open it, instead of pausing to figure out if it was a print and if he could preserve it, he just pushed his own finger right onto the splotch of blood. Unfortunately, that was just the first piece of evidence to be lost. As De Rosa was taking Gerritsen down to the... the station, homicide detectives were finally arriving at the scene. And so were reporters.

They'd picked up police radio reports of five deaths up in the canyon and were clamoring outside the gate. More and more police cars passed through. More and more officers tracked into the grizzly scene. And as they did, they got to work analyzing the scene and collecting evidence, but they also destroyed evidence. In the chaos of the increasingly crowded property, blood from the porch was trekked into the house. A pair of horn-rimmed glasses were moved from the living room floor to a desk. Several bits of gun grips started in the front doorway

but ended up in the main living room, and those are just the things that were eventually flagged as changes. No one admitted to interfering with the crime scene. Everyone was in agreement that the interference was accidental. But no one could deny it was happening. Which put the investigation into a very awkward place. Detectives found no viable leads at the sight of the bloodbath. Then things got worse.

For all his suspicious proximity to the crime, Gerritson couldn't be attached to the murder. He had no discernible motive. There was no evidence on him or in his house, and he passed a polygraph. He couldn't be charged. Detectives appeared widely in agreement with De Rosa's first impression of the crime scene, that this was some kind of party or drug deal gone wrong,

but they had no proof, no leads, and no idea where to go next. When another grisly murder occurred the next night across town in the Silver Lake area, detectives only felt more lost. This murder was at the home of supermarket executive Lino Labyanka and his wife Rosemary. It had similarities to the Tate case. Both Lino and Rosemary were covered in stab wounds. And just like at 10050 Cello Drive,

messages were written across the walls in blood, including the strange phrase, Helter Skelter, apparently taken from a Beatles song, although misspelled. But the victims in the two cases were so different. At the Tate residents, Hollywood Bigwigs, at the La Bianca residence's ordinary Los Angelinos. Plus, police were convinced that the Tate murders were drug-related, a party crime.

And what could drugs have to do with a supermarket executive and his wife? So on August 12th, the LAPD announced to the press, the La Bianca murders were a copycat crime. Just something else to muddy the waters of the Tate investigation. The two crimes were given two separate investigative. teams. It was a non-discovery, and neither investigation made much progress in the next month. But that wasn't about to stop the papers from covering the brutal crimes. This was the biggest, most sensational news Hollywood had gotten in ages. The starlet, the coffee heiress, the pregnancy,

the blood. It couldn't be more headline-worthy. So the papers published what they did have and regurgitated the grisly, tragic details of the crime again and again. The stories for all their lack of new information were effective. Los Angeles was gripped with terror and curiosity. But meanwhile, 250 miles away in Death Valley, no one was thinking about Sharon Tate. Not until an arson investigation turned up blood. Coming up, several unlikely investigators help break the case. Massive spiders, fierce crocodiles, violent kangaroos.

With all of the dangers lurking within Australia, one species remains feared above the rest. Humans. Hi listeners, it's Alistair from Parkast, and I'm hosting a new Spotify original called Crime Down Under. Every Sunday on Spotify, take a trip to the oldest continent for some of the most shocking true crime cases in modern history. Featuring a compilation of episodes from shows across Parkast Network, crying down under exposes the vicious serial killers, mysterious disappearances, and terrifying crime families whose stories still stop Aussies dead in their tracks. From the beaches and deserts to the cities and suburbs, the land down under may be vast,

but the horrors are hiding around every corner. Catch a new episode of Crime Down Under every Sunday. Listen free only on Spotify. And now back to our story. It was mid-September 1969 in Death Valley, so it was hot. Dick Powell was preparing himself to sweat as he said. started his shift at the Wild Rose Ranger Station, a part of what is now Death Valley. When he got a radio alert that the park's maintenance crew had some heavy machinery on fire,

he knew his day was about to get hotter still. They'd left the Michigan loader down by a dry lake bed, an area called racetrack Playa. They'd gone out there in the first place because someone had been carving out a new road in the park, not a welcome intrusion. So they'd used the Michigan loader to remove it and then left the machine there blocking the would-be track. Heaven only knew why it was on fire, but it was time to find out. Dick, glad you're here. We got a real problem. Someone cut the fuel line.

Well, I'll be damned. So not just an engine overheating. You think it could have been a arson? Looks like it. We got an empty gas can on the ground, too, and some tire tracks. Somebody was here and up to no good. Why in the world? I'd guess it's got to be whoever was building that road we were clearing. You're right. No one else would care about an earth mover out here.

We'll just have to find him then. An unauthorized road is one thing. Arson, we can't stand for that. With that, the hunt was on. First, Dick and his fellow rangers searched the park and turned up several other indications that someone was used. choosing it as a personal playground. There was a car crashed into a tree and abandoned.

Campsites littered with trash. Multiple stolen cars and dune buggies parked in the brush, as if this was some kind of parking lot. Dick was furious. Working out in Death Valley could be quiet and lonely, but that was how it was supposed to be. He took pride in his work and the wild landscape he'd been assigned to protect. Someone was messing with the park, and he would not rest until he found them.

Some other rangers and a few local highway patrolmen joined in on the search team. They scoured thousands of square miles of desert. They questioned everyone from park visitors to locals to miners in the area, and after a few weeks, they started to hone in on their culprits. There was a kind of hippy commune or cult up at Barclays. a ranger ranch, a rambling run-down old property on the edge of Death Valley. The women seemed to walk around naked, and the male leader of the group always seemed to be preaching strange, racist sermons. He talked about an impending race war, and seemed to think

once it was over, he'd be running things. More relevant to the Rangers and Patrolmen, however, were reports that the group came down to the park to camp and drive wildly through the sand on their dune buggies. plus reports that they were selling drugs to the teenagers in town. Dick and his colleagues didn't need much convincing. These had to be their arsonists, and by early October 1969, they were also convinced. They had enough to arrest them.

The sight was just as the reports had whispered, full of naked young women and a few men scattered amongst them. They were easy to arrest, 16 of them on the 10th, then 10 more on the 12th, and they were easy to charge with auto theft, vandalism, and arson. The evidence was everywhere, all over Barker Ranch. They were all hauled down to independence, the seat of Inyo County.

The eerie quiet of the desert surrounded the group. But inside the car was anything but quiet. The leader of the so-called family, one Charles Manson started giving one of his rumored sermons. Yeah, you black people, they're the problem. There's a raceboard brewing, and I'm telling you, they're going to come and kill us all. All of us, huh? All of us white people.

Yeah, yeah, you first, though. You cops, you watch how man they're coming. I'm not too worried about it. If you knew what was good for you, you believe me. You heard of those murders up in Los Angeles. White people kill my black people, I'm telling you. That's what's happening now. It's starting.

Oh, if you only knew, you'd let me out of the car now, you'd let me free and you let me run. The officers looked at each other baffled. There was no way they were going to free this crazed racist. And in fact, things were about to get worse for this group of hippies, or family as they called themselves, specifically for one of the women, 21-year-old Susan Atkins. Police got a tip that Atkins wasn't just a thief or an arsonist. She'd been involved with a murder. The murder in question was that of musician Gary Hinman. Police already had one man in custody for the crime, a Bobby Bousselae, a known associate of the Manson family. But when they questioned Atkins about the tip,

she implicated herself too. With that, Atkins was transferred to the Sybil Brand Institute, a more secure prison back in Los Angeles. If Los Angeles was the site of a more secure prison, however, its citizens were not feeling secure at all. The Tate and La Bianca investigation still hadn't made any progress, and the city was on edge. Detectives were desperate in looking for any leads.

wherever it came from, whoever handed it to them. Which is why they followed up on a tip from Susan Atkins' new Los Angeles cellmate in late November, 1969. We'll call her Laura Schwinn for privacy. This is the story she told them. It all started when they brought her in. I thought she was just some ditsy little girl, into drugs, that type. She was always singing. Seemed harmless enough if a little...

Out of her head, you know, which is why I struck up a conversation. So, what are you in for, kid? Possession? Oh, no way. 187, murder. Gary Hinman, that musician. Wow, I gotta say, you don't look like a killer. How old are you even?

You'll probably get off. Oh, I know I will. The police are too stupid to prove it, even though it's true. Wow. Some serious stuff you got into, huh? Oh, you don't know serious. You want to know serious? I'm not really sure, kid.

Do I? You know about those murders up in Benedict Canyon? Yes. Well, you know who did it, don't you? No. You're looking at her. Now, at first, I wasn't sure if she was telling the truth, you know. So I decided to do some investigating.

And believe it or not, she was more than happy to talk. As if she was just waiting to be asked, proud, you know. Some people do get like that with their crimes. She just wanted to share. And some of the things she told me, Lord, I hate to even repeat them. But repeat them, Laura did, while the police listened in astonishment.

There was the information about her collaborators. A little band of people. called family members who were clearly not blood relations, and about their leader, Charles Manson, who seemed to be Atkins' God, the one who taught her to kill. She'd apparently described the grisly details of the crime, too, where she'd found Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring in a bedroom, how they'd thought they were being robbed and followed her into the living room, helpless. She'd even told Laura how Sharon Tate had begged for her life.

and her babies and how she had responded. Look, bitch, I don't care about you. I don't care if you're going to have a baby. You had better be ready. You're going to die, and I don't feel anything about it. With that, Atkins stabbed the starlit right in her pregnant belly again and again and again. And then tasted her blood. The police were suddenly elated.

It seemed all too convenient that a 21-year-old girl arrested out in Death Valley for arson had spilled all the secrets of the case voluntarily, even if she was suspected of murder too. But the details she'd apparently shared with Laura were so vivid. If this was imagination run wild or cell block brags taken to an extreme, well, you had to give the girl some credit. Of course, they knew this wasn't enough to convince. evict Atkins or anyone. First of all, Laura wasn't the most reliable witness. She was a career criminal, not a violent one, but not the ideal person to put on a stand. But at least they

finally had something to go on, some names to check out. And if they could get Atkins to talk to them, they knew they could close the case. Coming up, the LAPD closes in. Now, back to the story. On Thursday, November 6th, 1969, Susan Atkins made a stark confession to her cellmate. She committed the Tate murders. The cellmate, who were calling Laura Schwinn for privacy, was convinced that the confession was true. She could see it in the gleeful, remorseless look on Atkins' face. In the matter-of-fact way, she stood with her hands on her hips as she detailed her own brutality. And in the crazed way she promised Laura, you have to love someone to kill them. So about a week after the confession, Laura went to a counselor with a shocking announcement.

I have to talk to you. I have information regarding who killed Sharon Tate. Around the same time, Atkins also confessed to another inmate, Ronnie Howard, who also decided this crime was too heinous to keep quiet. When investigators listened to these two women, they felt relief. They hadn't found a single viable lead in the case. They'd lost evidence. They'd arrested the wrong man.

The papers were dogging their every footstep and dragging them for their lack of progress on a high-profile, abhorrent crime. At this point, they'd been bumbling around looking for their next clue for almost two months. But finally, they had a lead. And the more they talk to Laura and Ronnie, the better the lead seemed. Specifically, some of the things Atkins had told her fellow jailbirds weren't in the papers. Facts about the exact positions of the bodies. The kinds of stab wounds.

The specific way the rope was placed around Sharon and J.C. brings necks and then thrown over the rafters. And Atkins had told Ronnie about the La Bianca murders too, saying she'd been there as well, and detailing the way Helter Skelter had been written across the refrigerator in blood. Again, not in the papers. Perhaps the La Bianca killing wasn't a copycat murder. Even more importantly, it seemed clear this girl knew too much to be lying. Still, cell block confessions weren't enough to convict on. They needed more evidence.

And ideally for Susan Atkins to confess to them. Michael McGahn, a Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective, was assigned the crucial job. Gritting his teeth and determined to make this work, he went down to the Sybil Brand Institute and settled in for an hours-long tape-recorded interview with Miss Susan Atkins herself. Who else was there that night? Why should I tell you? If you cooperate with us, we can help you. You mean you can get me immunity?

Not immunity, no, not after what you did, Susan. And we already have plenty of leads based on what your cellmates have told us. We can follow up on all that. You'll be looking at the death penalty. But maybe we can make sure you don't get that. As long as you tell us the entire truth about what happened, no holding back. I don't know. They're my family.

And anyway, I'm not scared of death. They're your family, huh? Well, if you don't talk about them, I'll bet you one of them will talk about you. Ultimately, Atkins cooperated with the investigation in exchange for avoiding the death penalty. Her testimony led the investigation straight to several other members of the so-called Manson family she'd been arrested with. Tex Watson, Patricia Crenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian. They'd all been there the night of the murder. Casabian had kept watch

while the other three slaughtered their prey. But there was another figure Atkins led police to as well. Charles Manson. He hadn't been there on the night of the murders, but he had ordered it all. The arrests were quick, but getting together a case would be slower and more difficult. So far, the evidence was mostly hearsay,

or circumstantial. Deputy District Attorney Vincent Boliosi knew that. But he wasn't going to let it stop him. He'd later explain his attitude this way. When I get on a case, the first thing I determine is if the person is guilty. If I believe the person is guilty, I know that I can find the evidence, not manufacture it, find it. If I think a person is guilty, something comes over me. When I started looking at the police reports and saw it, I saw it.

the kind of person Manson was, I realized it was only a matter of time before I'd come up with enough evidence. Bulliosi was right. Slowly but surely, physical evidence was found to pair with Atkins' testimony, like the wirecutters used to cut

the Tate telephone wires, which were found at Barker Ranch. Then, Atkins' testimony came under question for accuracy, so her deal with the prosecution fell apart. She would be eligible for the death penalty. But Linda Kasabian, who'd kept watch during the murders without actively participating, agreed to turn witness instead, in exchange for legal immunity. Together, the two women's

testimonies finally gave investigators and the wrapped Los Angeles papers a clearer picture of what happened that quiet August night up in Benedict Canyon. It all started because of Manson's race war. He was frustrated that black Americans hadn't started killing white Americans yet. So he told his family that they had to get the carnage started. He was convinced that if they killed some white people and pretended that it was black people who'd done it, all of society would spontaneously fall apart. And, of course, ultimately, he'd become the leader of the survivors.

He assigned four of his followers to get the job started, Susan Atkins, Tex Watson, Patricia Crenwinkel, and Linda Casabian. Tex would be in charge, as the man Menson felt he was the most trustworthy. Then he laid out the plan. First the address, 1-0-50 CLO Drive, and then the specific instructions. Kill everyone in the house. Totally destroy him. Make it as gruesome as he can. Don't forget, leave a sign something witchy,

something that Black Panthers would say, pigs, pigs that type of drivel. Make sure they know what to blame. So late the night of August 8, 1969, the four assassins drove up Benedict Canyon. They arrived at 10050 Cello Drive just after midnight on August 9th. Watson hopped out of the car, scrambled up a telephone pole near the gate and cut the line. Now no one inside would be able to call for help.

Which meant it was time to enter the property. All four family members scrambled over a hedge next to the gate, ready to head up to the house when they saw headlights coming down the drive. Watson, his voice tight and urgent, ordered the women to hide. He, meanwhile, stepped out into the middle of the driveway, blocking the oncoming car. The driver stopped. Watson walked up to him and pulled the gun.

The driver let out a thin, high, teenage squeak. This was Stephen Parent, the young friend who'd been visiting William Gerritson, the caretaker at 10050 CLO Drive. He begged Watson not to hurt him. He promised he'd do whatever he wanted, keep quiet, anything. But Watson didn't listen. He slashed the teen's hand with a knife and then shot. him in the chest and the stomach four times. Parents slumped over dead, the first victim of the night.

Watson beckoned the women out of the brush and ordered them to push the car up the drive. Once it was closer to the house, Watson told Kasabian to stay beside it while the rest of them went inside for the bulk of the slaughter. She'd keep watched for the rest of the night. Meanwhile, Watson and the other women approached the house. There were a few lights on inside, but it was quiet, no music playing. If there had been a party tonight, it was over. Watson cut a slit in a screen window, then removed the screen, and climbed into the house. He slunk quietly through the dark living room to the front door, which he opened for Atkins and Crenwinkel. Just then, they noticed Vojek-Frakowski, who was sleeping on the couch.

He woke up as Watson approached him, and Watson kicked him in their house. head. I'm the devil, and I'm here to do the devil's business. Then he told the women to gather everyone in the house in the living room. He wanted to deal with them all together, so they could see each other suffer. The girls did, as Watson asked. Sebring, Tate, and Folger thought they were being robbed at first and tried to cooperate. But once they gathered in the living room, it became clear that was.

wasn't the intent. Watson tied Sebring and Tate together by the necks with a rope he'd brought along. When Sebring started to protest, Watson shot him and stabbed him repeatedly. Frikowski tried to run for the door and made it out onto the porch, where Watson hit his head with a gun butt, and then stabbed him and shot him. Twice. Fulger also made a run for it and got to the front lawn, but then Krenwinkle caught up with her and stabbed her again and again. Watson came outside to participate in that bit of carnage, too. Then there was Sharon Tate herself, who begged for mercy. Not for her, but for her baby. They could take her as a hostage, do whatever they wanted to her, anything. She'd do anything,

as long as they let her live long enough to have her baby. But there was no mercy for Sharon or her unborn child. Atkins and Watkins stabbed her again and again. Atkins later said she wanted to cut the baby out of Sharon, not to save it, but to make the crime scene even more gruesome and tragic, as if there was a lack. But by now, thanks to the screams and the gunshots, the murderers were getting nervous. It was time to get out. They sped away into the wee hours of August 9th, leaving Winifred Chapman to discover the scene a few hours later. Appallingly, the killing wasn't over yet.

When police failed to conclude that the murderers were black Americans starting a race war, Manson decided he had to help them along a bit further, so he had his family members kill more people, the La Bianca's over in Silver Lake. Helter Skelter, the message they had tried to write on the refrigerator, was the name Manson had given his race war. Believe it or not, the police still didn't get the message. Perhaps Manson would have ordered further slaughters, too,

if his family hadn't come under fire for car theft and fled to Death Valley soon after. When the Tate-Law-Bionca case finally came to trial in June 1970, the apparent lack of remorse amongst the killers significantly helped the prosecution's case against them. Their obvious, evident devotion to Charles Manson, helped the case against him. And on March 29, 1971, the decision was handed down.

Susan Atkins, Tex Watson, Patricia Crenwinkel, and Charles Manson were all sentenced to death. Those sentences were commuted to life sentences about a year later, when California abolished the death penalty. But the indictment against this crime remains just as resounding. To this day, it fascinates the public. As recently as 2019, Quentin Tarantino wrote and directed a film based on the tragedies. He called it Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The name is apt, not just because of the location of the crimes, or even because of Sharon Tate's identity as a starlet and the wife of a prominent filmmaker.

And not even because of the media circus that followed the crime at every turn, turning a celebrity murder into a blockbuster news item. Charles Manson may have claimed that the murders were an attempt to jumpstart his race war, but the specific house he chose to target had a particular significance for him. Before Sharon Tate and Roman Polansky lived at 1-050 Cello Drive, Terry Melcher was renting the house, the son of Doris Day and a record producer, Melcher was a quintessential Hollywood insider, and in June of 1969,

After toying with the idea of giving Manson a record deal, Terry informed the would-be musician that it wasn't going to happen. Just like that, Manson's dreams of Hollywood stardom were over, crushed at a house on C-Ello Drive. Surely that disappointment played a role in his bloodlust, and in the brutal crimes he sent his followers to commit. Like so many others, Charles Manson couldn't get an invite to the Hollywood party. So, he crashed the party. And then he did his best to obliterate it. Thanks again for

tuning in to Solved Murders. We'll be back next Wednesday with the last installment of our party foul special, in which a drug-fueled sex party in rural Georgia meets its own bloodthirsty party crashers. You can find all episodes of Solved Murders and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. We'll see you next time. If we live till next time. Solved Murders, True Crime Mysteries is a Spotify original from Parcast. It is executive produced by Max Cutler.

Sound designed by Michael Langsner with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Trent Williamson, Carly, Madden, and Freddie Beckley. This episode of Solved Murders was written by Nora Battelle, with writing assistance by Giles Hofsef, Facte. Checking by Amber Hurley and research by Mickey Taylor. The amazing cast of voice actors includes Tom Bauer, Drew Lawn, Ellie Schiff, Laura Faye Smith, and Jen Wong. Solved Murder stars Wendy McKenzie and Carter Roy.

Hi there, it's Alastair from Parkast. You may have heard of the Somerton Man, Azaria Chamberlain, or the Wonder Beach murders. But do you know the whole terrifying truth? Be sure to check out my new series, Crime Down Under, where we travel to the land Down Under to explore the most shocking true crime cases in Australian history. Follow the Spotify original from Parkast, Crime Down Under, and catch a new episode every Sunday, free and only on Spotify.