Sharon Tate was only 26 years old when she, along with her unborn child, three of her friends, and a stranger with bad timing were murdered. Tate, a Golden Globe-nominated actress most known for her role in Valley of The Dolls, was also the wife of French-Polish film director Roman Polanski. On August 9, 1969, Tate, who was eight-and-a half. Jan 11, 2018 The other “family” members found three other occupants in the house, including actress Sharon Tate, hairstylist Jay Sebring, and Abigail Folger, heiress to Folger coffee. The family members stabbed Tate and Sebring to death, leaving a bloody mess throughout the living room.
The actress Sharon Tate first made news as the star of movies like The Fearless Vampire Killers, which TIME mocked as “blood on the soapsuds” fare. But her name went down in history—and she became both the subject of a Mad Men conspiracy theory and a major character, played by Margot Robbie, in the Quentin Tarantino movie Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood—for a different reason: as the victim of one of the grisliest murders imaginable.
- The Chilling True Story of Sharon Tate's Death and the Manson Murders. The actress was just 26 and about to become a new mom when she died. By Blake Bakkila. Jul 30, 2019 Silver.
- Sharon Tate, an actress best known for 1967's Valley of the Dolls, was almost nine months pregnant when she was killed by Charles Manson's followers. 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the.
Shortly after Tate’s body was discovered on Aug. 9, 1969, TIME reported that five bodies had been found at the home of director Roman Polanski—who wasn’t there at the time—and that the count included Polanski’s pregnant wife, Tate, “clad in a bikini nightgown.” A cord around her neck joined her body to another victim’s, and they appeared to have been “stabbed or shot” to death.
“The brutality of the killings shocked even homicide-squad detectives,” TIME noted. Shocked Hollywood denizens began to hire extra body guards. Their terror only increased when the full extent of the horrific scene came to light.
It turns out the crime was “far bloodier and grimmer” than the police had initially admitted, TIME reported in the following week’s issue. Even decades later, the description is not for the faint. Tate and the victim to which she was tied, Jay Sebring, had been repeatedly slashed. Bullets filled the ceilings and blood covered the floors. Tate’s sleepwear was skimpier than first acknowledged, and “[one] of Miss Tate’s breasts had been cut off, apparently as a result of indiscriminate slashing,” TIME added. “She was nine months pregnant, and there was an X cut on her stomach.”
Autopsy Sharon Tate Unborn Baby
In fact, however, the coroner’s testimony at the murder trial would make clear that she received multiple chest wounds, including around the breast, but it was not “cut off” and her stomach was not carved. In later decades, experts on the case would single out this part of TIME’s coverage as particularly exaggerated.
Rumors swirled, first about a caretaker for the property and then about the “sex, drug and witchcraft cults” that had some reported ties to the “offbeat” Hollywood crowd of which Tate and Polanski were part. Within days, two more bodies turned up at a “carbon copy” crime scene, thought to be the work of a copycat killer. By the end of the year, however, the rumors coalesced into a real case. Los Angeles police were able to pin the crimes on “a mystical, semi-religious hippie drug-and-murder cult led by a bearded, demonic Mahdi able to dispatch his zombie-like followers.” That cult leader was Charles Manson.
Though Tate has since regained some of the fame she once had in her own right—as the subject of a Mad Men conspiracy theory that failed to pan out, for example—her name and Manson’s would forever be linked.
Sharon Tate Crime Scene Autopsy
Read the first story from 1969, here in the TIME Vault: “Nothing but Bodies”
Correction: Nov. 8, 2018
The original version of this article mistakenly failed to acknowledge errors made in the original TIME reporting on the murder of Sharon Tate. Though Tate’s death was attributed to stabbing, a coroner testified that she was hanged as well; though early reports indicated otherwise, the rope found around her neck did serve that purpose. In addition, the magazine’s Aug. 22, 1969, description of the crime scene mischaracterized Tate’s wounds and her state of undress; she was wearing bikini-style sleepwear, the slashings did not result in the full removal of one of her breasts, and crime scene photos do not show evidence of the deliberate carving of an “X” on her stomach.
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EDIT POSTThe Cielo Drive murders, also known as the “Manson Family Murders,” were some of the most notorious and shocking killings to have ever occurred. Although it’s been over 40 years since the grotesque incident happened, the memory of the victims still linger in the hearts of many, and the people responsible for taking their lives will likely forever be remembered as vicious monsters.
According to court documents, on August 8-9, 1969, four members of the hippie cult known as the “Manson Family” broke into the former home of film director, Roman Polanski, and his wife, Sharon Tate. Tate was 9 months pregnant at the time, and was hosting a get together with friends at the Los Angeles home, located at 10050 Cielo Drive.
The family members, identified as Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Tex Watson, scaled an embankment by the fence of the upscale home, and snuck in through the back area of the house. Watson climbed a telephone pole and cut the wires to ensure no one in the home would be able to call for help.
Watson instructed the other members to hide in the bushes as he stepped out to stop Stephen Parent, a man visiting the property caretaker, who happened to be driving by at the wrong time. Watson stabbed Parent before shooting him several times with a 22-caliber revolver. The gunshots killed Parent, and Watson left him lying on the ground as the members made their way inside the home.
Watson cut open a screen on one of the windows in the home, then ordered Kasabian to wait outside and act as their lookout. The other members crept inside the home, where Watson found screenwriter Wojciech Frykowski sleeping on the couch. He woke him up, kicked him in the head and told the screenwriter, “I’m the devil, and I’m here to do the devil’s business.”
The other “family” members found three other occupants in the house, including actress Sharon Tate, hairstylist Jay Sebring, and Abigail Folger, heiress to Folger coffee. The family members stabbed Tate and Sebring to death, leaving a bloody mess throughout the living room. The victims reportedly begged for mercy but the Manson family members were in a psychotic frenzy and any pleadings for mercy fell on deaf ears.
Frykowski attempted to flee, but Watson caught him and shot him numerous times before stabbing him repeatedly. Around the same time, Folger managed to escape the home, but Krenwinkel and Watson caught up to her in the lawn area and stabbed her numerous times.
On December 1, 1969, after an intense investigation, LAPD issued warrants for Watson, Krenwinkel, and Kasabian for the Cielo Drive murders. Atkins and Manson were later charged. Four of the five defendants received life in prison. Kasabian, who didn’t participate in the killings, was put into a witness protection program after testifying against the other defendants.
Watkins and Krenwinkel are serving out their life sentences. In 2009, Atkins passed away from natural causes at the Central California Women’s facility in Chowchilla. In 2017, Manson passed away, also from natural causes, at a California hospital near Corcoran State Prison, where he was serving his sentence.
[Feature Photo: Police Handout]