Helter Skelter

Born “no name Maddox” on November 12, 1934, in Cincinnati, Ohio, Manson would go on to spend half of his life in reformatories and prisons. The crimes he was known to commit before 1969 were largely property based, and his last prison sentence was for theft, forgery, and violating the Mann act. He was at least partially illiterate. He was a failed musician; in the professional opinion of a music expert cited by Bugliosi, Manson was “a moderately talented amateur” (289). On paper, Manson’s early biography doesn’t seem to point toward a criminal mastermind, yet his command over his followers was unmistakable, his charisma so powerful even Bugliosi admitted being swayed by it. The portrait Bugliosi paints of the man at the heart of the case is not of an ordinary criminal but of a monstrous narcissist and manipulator of broken people. It required narrative art to link these murders back to Manson, and Bugliosi may not have pulled it off if Manson and his followers had not implicated themselves in that narrative as it was being recited, playing their roles to the hilt. Manson’s name rings out as a modern-day bogeyman, one of the most famous murderers in history.

Tate, born in 1943, was only 27 when the Manson killers murdered her. In life, she was noted for her beauty, vivacious personality, and seriousness of purpose as an actor at the start of her career. She had starred in only a few roles on television and the movies, most notably in Valley of the Dolls (1968) and The Fearless Vampire Killers (released posthumously in 1969). She was married to the prominent director of the latter film, Roman Polanski, who was himself well-known for his fickleness and abusive behavior toward women. Tate was eight-and-a-half months pregnant when she was murdered. Her death set off a minor panic among other celebrities, sending Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow into hiding, and compelling actress Connie Stevens to admit that the killings “scared the daylights out of everyone” (74). 

Three of Tate’s friends were murdered along with her at 10050 Cielo Drive: Folger, Frykowski, and Sebring. Folger was one of the inheritors of the Folger coffee fortune and worked as a social worker. Quiet and studious, she was reported to have been reading a book in the bedroom when the spree began. She was found on the lawn of the property with multiple stab wounds.

Frykowski was born in 1936 in Poland. He was a childhood friend of Roman Polanski and a prominent part of the director’s entourage. Myth surrounded his background, such as the story that, in Poland, “he had once taken on, and rendered inoperative, two members of the secret police” (60). Nevertheless, he was also known as a person who partially lived off of Polanski, a person with “grand plans” that never came through. Forensic evidence shows that he put up the greatest fight against the murderers, having been “shot twice, struck over the head thirteen times with a blunt object, and stabbed fifty-one times” (61).

Sebring was born Thomas John Kummer in Detroit, Michigan, in 1933. He was a popular member of the Hollywood community. Formerly a Navy barber, he made his name as a hairstylist for men, crafting the signature 1960s look of actors like Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, and George Peppard. Sebring was once romantically tied to Tate and remained fanatically devoted to her after their separation. He had been shot twice, stabbed, and hung by the neck along with Tate.

Parent was the first to die at Cielo Drive, though he had no connection to Tate or her friends. The unlucky 18-year-old was an acquaintance of William Garretson, the caretaker at the address. Parent had stopped by around midnight to see if Garrettson wanted to buy a clock radio. Parent was on his way to leave when the killers approached his car, stabbed him through the hand as he attempted to defend himself, and then shot him four times. He was found dead in his white Rambler automobile. One of the mysteries of the case is how William Garretson, 19, alone in a guest house away from the main house, could have been unaware of everything that was going on that night.

Leno and Rosemary LaBianca could not have been farther from the hippie milieu of the Manson Family or of the jet-setting members of Tate’s entourage. Leno LaBianca, 44, owned a small chain of grocery stores. Rosemary (38), ran a high-end clothing store. They were an upper-middle-class couple with grown children. They also happened to live next to a house that invited many strangers over for late-night parties. Nearly a year before August 9, 1969, Manson attended one of these parties and noticed the straitlaced couple living next door. The LaBiancas were subject to the same sadistic deaths as those at the Cielo Drive house. Their blood was similarly used to write on the walls. Leno was found with a fork and knife sticking out of his body.