Charles Manson - Unauthorized

by John E. Derossett

  As it turned out, Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring and Sharon Tate were the occupants of the house that night. Tate was 8 ½ months pregnant. Roman Polanski was in London working on a film project.

  When the group arrived at the property, Watson parked at the bottom of the driveway and told the girls to wait there for him. He then went to the telephone pole and climbed it so that he could cut the phone lines to the house. After cutting the lines, he returned to the car for the girls. When they approached the gate to the property, they were concerned that the gate was electrified, so they climbed the small hill to the right of the gate and jumped down into the yard.

  As they started walking toward the house, they saw headlights coming up the driveway from the caretakers house behind the Tate-Polanski residence. Watson told the girls to hide, while he approached the car, signaling for the driver to stop. As it happened, the driver was a young man, just 18-years old, named Steve Parent. Parent was the friend of the caretaker living in the house behind the Tate-Polanski residence. Parent begged Watson not to hurt him, but Watson slashed at the young man with a knife causing defensive wounds on the palms of Parent’s hands. Watson then pulled a long-barreled .22 caliber revolver from his waistband and shot Parent four times in the chest and abdomen, killing him. The four then proceeded to the house. Watson sent the girls in different directions, trying to locate a way to get into the house. Kasabian returned first, saying that she could find no way in. She was hoping that the group would abort the “mission”.

  Watson has been in the house before however and knew the layout. He then cut a screen with his knife and gained access to the house through a window. He then went to the front door and let Atkins and Van Houten in. Kasabian was visibly upset and Watson sent her to the gate to keep watch. She then went over to the area where Parent’s car was located. Inside the house, there was a man asleep on the couch, and when Watson spoke, he woke up. This turned out to be Frykowski. Frykowski asked Watson who he was, and what he was doing there. Watson replied “I’m the devil and I’m here to do the Devil’s work. He instructed Atkins and Van Houten to gather everyone in the house up and bring them to the front room, which they did.

  Once everyone was gathered into the front room, Watson began tying Sebring and Tate together by the neck with a rope he had brought. He then looped the rope over a beam that was crossing the room. Sebring had already protested once up to this point about Sharon Tate being pregnant. When he protested the second time, Watson shot him through the chest with the revolver.

  Krenwinkel had then taken Abigail Folger back into her bedroom, where the latter removed $70.00 from her purse, giving it to Krenwinkel. As they were returning to the front room, Sebring began groaning and Watson stabbed him seven times with his knife. The group had tied Frykowski’s hands together using a towel. He worked his hands free of the bonds and began struggling with Atkins. Atkins was stabbing at Frykowski furiously, cutting his legs in several places as Frykowski fought his way to the front door. As Frykowski made it out onto the front porch, Watson came to Atkins’ assistance and bludgeoned Frykowski several times with the butt of the gun. He hit him so hard, that one of the handle covers broke off of the gun. Watson then stabbed Frykowski repeatedly with the knife and finally shot him twice with the gun.

  By this time, Kasabian came running to the house, stating that she had heard horrifying screams coming from inside the house. She said that she could not tell whether the screams were male or female, but that they were “just horrible!” In an effort to stop the carnage, Kasabain yelled to Atkins to “make them Stop!” and that she heard someone coming. Atkins said, “It’s too late to stop now!” By this time, Folger had gotten away from Krenwinkel and ran out the back of the house to the pool area. Krenwinkel then chased her around the house to the front yard where she tackled her and stabbed her repeatedly with her knife. Meanwhile, Watson finished off Frykowski in a rage, stabbing him numerous times with the knife.

  At some point, Atkins had gotten Kasabian’s knife from her because she had lost hers. Kasabian gave it to her and Atkins returned to the house. After catching up with Folger, Krenwinkel began to stab her repeatedly. Folger suffered a total of 28 stab wounds given to her from both Watson and Krenwinkel. She died not far from Frykowski, who himself suffered a total of 51 stab wounds.

  Back inside the house, Tate was pleading with Atkins to allow her to live long enough to have her baby. She would give herself as hostage she said, until the baby was born and then they could do what they wanted with her. According to Atkins, she said to Tate “I have no sympathy for you bitch!” Atkins then proceeded to stab Tate a total of 16 times with the knife she got from Kasabian. In her own words, she enjoyed killing Tate, and even considered for a moment cutting the baby out of Sharon and keeping it, but she decided not to in the end because she was afraid that other Family members would object.

  In the aftermath of the murders, Susan Atkins dipped a towel in the blood of Sharon Tate and wrote “pig” on the front door. While they were on their way back to the ranch, the group changed out of their bloody clothes and threw them over the hillside with the weapons used to commit the murders.

  All in all, the bloody scene was overkill. The ferocity of the murders tells the story of just how evil the members of the family are because the victims were stabbed/shot many more times than was necessary to kill each of them.

  “I have X-ed myself from your world”

  - Charles Manson

  Abigail Folger on the front lawn of the Tate-Polanski House

  Bodies on the Front Lawn

  Front door with PIG written in Tate’s blood

  Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring in the living room

  Sharon Tate

  Steve Parent

  leno and rosemary labianca

  Leno and Rosemary LaBianca

  The next victims the family set their sights upon were Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. They did not actually target the couple. Their murders were completely random, and could in fact have turned out to be anyone at all. That was one of the things that made everyone in Los Angeles as afraid as they were at the time. According to Bugliosi, people began buying firearms, guard dogs and installing security systems in homes that otherwise weren’t worried about such things. People simply did not know who was going to be the next victims of these heinous crimes.

  The day after the murders at the Tate-Polanski house, Manson took another group out in the evening on a “mission”. Watson had complained that the murders of the night before were too messy. Manson instructed Watson not to terrify the people this time and that things would go much more smoothly. “It was the fear,” Manson said, “that made things get so messy”.

  A group of Family members, including Charles Manson got into the car that fateful night of August 10, 1969. This time the group consisted of Tex Watson, Linda Kasabian, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, in addition, Leslie Van Houten and Steve “Clem” Grogan joined the group as well on this trip. They drove around the streets of Los Angeles for a while looking for potential victims. Just to point out the complete randomness of the crime, they initially stopped at a church in Pasadena, California with the intention of murdering everyone that they found within the building. However, it was late and the church was locked up, prompting the family to look further.

  A number of potential victims were scouted, but because they saw pictures of kids on the walls, they opted not to kill the occupants because they “liked” the kids. The group was in no hurry, and had no fear of being caught lurking around. They were already quite skilled at being quiet on excursions such as this.

  They had made a number of excursions into people’s homes that they called “creepy crawls”. During these “creepy crawls”, they would enter occupied houses, and set the furniture in crazy ways, and just move things around in general while the occupants of the house slept. This way, when the people living in the houses woke up, they would find the house in disarray and be left wondering how it happened.
They would also take anything of value that they could sell and they stole any cash that they found. They would then leave the residence without harming any of the occupants. This proved to give them the experience that they needed to gain access to houses when they began their murder spree.

  The group eventually ended up on Waverly Drive and Manson settled for this area to be the location of their next murders. Manson had previous ties to the street because he had once attended a party at 3267, a home occupied by Harold True. Manson did not want to murder True however, because he was afraid that the killings would then be linked back to him. He chose instead, the next house down which was 3301 Waverly Drive. As it happened, this was the house belonging to Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.

  The Labianca’s had just returned home from a trip to Lake Isabella with Rosemary’s daughter Suzan. They had gone to the lake in order to go pickup Rosemary’s son, Frank who had been vacationing with a friend of his for the past week. When they got there however, the boy was having such a good time with his friend that the LaBianca’s decided to allow him to stay and come home with his friend’s family the next day.

  The couple arrived back in Los Angeles around 1:00 a.m. and dropped Suzan off at her apartment at Los Feliz. They then stopped at a newsstand to buy a paper and a racing form. Leno had spoken briefly with the newsstand owner about the Tate murders and then headed home. As it happened, the newsstand owner, John Fokianos would be the last person to see the LaBianca’s while they were still alive, aside from the killers, of course.

  When they arrived at their house, Rosemary went to the bedroom to prepare for bed, while Leno sat down in the living room to look through the paper and racing form. He then fell asleep in the living, and while sleeping, the family made their way into the LaBianca home. Manson found Leno sleeping in the living room and woke him up. He then quickly began tying Leno up, telling him as he did so that this was a robbery, and that as long as he cooperated, he would not be harmed.

  Manson then went into the bedroom where he found Rosemary asleep on the bed. He allowed her to put a dress on over her nightgown, and then brought her out into the living room with Leno. Once again, he assured the couple that they would not be harmed; he said that the group was there strictly to rob them, and then they would leave. Much of what is known about the LaBianca murders is from the mouth of Patricia Krenwinkel, who throughout the entire ordeal, seemed to relish the crimes the family was committing, as did Susan Atkins. Manson then went through the house and collected all of the cash that he could find. When he returned to the living room, he told Watson to take Rosemary back into the bedroom. Watson did as Manson asked him to do. Once he had her back there, he placed a pillow case over her head and then wrapped the cord of a lamp tightly around her neck and gagged her with it. He then told her to be quiet and to stay in the room.

  Watson then went back out into the living room and Manson left the residence, sending Van Houten and Krenwinkel in to assist Watson, telling them to do whatever Tex told them to do. He then got into the car left with Linda Kasabian driving, Susan Atkins and Steve Grogan.

  Meanwhile, back in the house, Watson began stabbing Leno LaBianca repeatedly. The only time he stopped was when Leno screamed “Stop stabbing me!” Rosemary then became alarmed and started screaming because her husband was screaming. Watson then used a chrome-plated bayonet to stab Leno, with the first wound going into his neck. By the time he was dead, Leno will have suffered multiple stab wounds, with the final one being into his groin with a meat fork. Like the Tate-Polanski murders, the killers continued stabbing even after their victims were already dead.

  Watson then carved the word “war” into Leno’s stomach. In later interviews, Susan Atkins said that Patricia Krenwinkel had told her that she was the one that carved the word into LaBianca’s stomach. Krenwinkel later countered Atkins’ claim in a newspaper interview and said that Watson was the one who actually did that. The idea, once again, was to direct suspicion away from anyone else, and point it directly to the Black Panthers. Krenwinkel admitted to being the one to stab Leno with the meat fork and she said that she was also the one to stab him in the throat with the steak knife, which she had left embedded in his throat. Once Leno was dead, Watson went back into the bedroom where Krenwinkel and Van Houten were with Rosemary LaBianca.

  He found them stabbing Rosemary with a knife from the LaBianca kitchen. Rosemary fought off her attackers, but the resistance was futile. Watson then told Van Houten to take the knife from Krenwinkel and stab the woman as well. Manson’s instructions to Watson before he left the house was that everyone there had to be involved in the murders and “get their hands dirty”. Van Houten went on to stab Rosemary LaBianca a total of 16 times in the back and buttocks, in addition to the stab wounds that had already been inflicted by Krenwinkel.

  Once the group was finished murdering the couple, they took the time to take showers and clean themselves up. They also helped themselves to something to eat from the LaBianca kitchen before hitchhiking back to Spahn Ranch. Included in the food that they ate, was watermelon. They then left the watermelon rinds in the kitchen sink for authorities to find so that they would think that the killers were black people.

  Before actually leaving the house, they took a few minutes to write “Rise”, “Death to Pigs” and “Healter Skelter” on the refrigerator. (Helter Skelter is intentionally misspelled here, to indicate the actual way it was written on the refrigerator).

  As Watson, Krenwinkel and Van Houten were killing the LaBianca’s, Manson told Linda Kasabian to drive to the address of an actor that she had met previously. Manson considered this man to be another “political piggy”, and wanted to kill him as well as the LaBianca’s, hoping to pull off a double-crime that night. When they arrived at the address, he told the remaining three to get out of the car and go take care of business. He then drove back to the ranch to await the return of the two groups so that he could hear their reports.

  The trio entered the building and walked up to an apartment door. Kasabian hesitated, trying to figure out a way to get out of her current situation. She then knocked on an apartment door. When the occupant answered the door she said “I’m sorry. I must have the wrong apartment.” She then told Grogan and Atkins that the actor must have moved. Grogan then said that they should head back to the ranch. As they were leaving the building, Susan Atkins stopped in the stairwell, squatted down and defecated on the steps, marking the end of the murderous night.

  In a rare interview with Linda Kasabian, she related this story to the interviewer, saying that she had intentionally knocked on the wrong door in order to prevent any further killing.

  Leno LaBianca Crime Scene

  Leno LaBianca - Fork protruding from his stomach

  Leno LaBianca – Knife in his throat

  Rosemary LaBianca

  Rosemary LaBianca – Second View

  After the crimes

  Hindsight of course is 20/20. Looking back in time, and even making allowances for the fact that this happened in the late 60’s, and given the fact that forensic police sciences were not what they are today, the LAPD still left a great deal to be desired when investigating the murders. Clues were literally slapping them in the face, but one obstinate investigator refused to listen to the team on the LaBianca murders and decided that the cases were separate. This, despite the fact that there were so many similarities such as the writing on the walls in blood, and the similarities of the crimes themselves such as stabbing, etc. He maintained for quite some time, that the murders at the Tate-Polanski residence were drug related and that the LaBianca murders were nothing more than copycat crimes. The FBI even became involved for a brief time as they did some checking for the LAPD, looking into the drug angle that Lt. Robert Helder insisted was there.

  The news of the Tate-Polanski murders hit the airwaves on August 9, 1969 when the housekeeper, Winifred Chapman, came to work and found the bodies inside the home. Upon seeing the bodies lying on the floor, she became hysterical an
d ran from the house screaming. She then made her way to a neighbor’s house in order to get help.

  Lt. Robert Helder, LAPD

  The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was investigating the Gary Hinman murder. When they heard about the deaths of Sharon Tate and the others in her home, they contacted the Los Angeles Police Department and told them of the similarities between the two crimes. This would mark the first known indication that there were similarities in the way that the murders were committed.

  You will recall that Susan Atkins had written on the wall in Hinman’s blood after they killed him. This is one of the things that the sheriff’s department pointed out to LAPD. The LAPD however, had already set its mind on the murders at the Tate house being a result of a drug deal gone bad, and blatantly ignored the information given to them by the sheriff’s department. They not only ignored the writing, but the other similarities of the crimes as well. To this writer, this was clearly a case of law enforcement wanting to make the murders out to be about Hollywood actors who were into drugs and were subsequently killed over them, instead of at least taking a look at the similarities before actually ruling them out. Even the earliest police departments would take a hard look at anything that looked even remotely close to being the same.