The Tate murders were a mass murder conducted by members of Charles Manson’s “Manson Family” cult. The murders took place on August 8–9, 1969, in Los Angeles. On the night of August 8, a small group of Manson Family members, including Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Charles (“Tex”) Watson, drove to the house where film director Roman Polanski lived with his wife, actress Sharon Tate. Kasabian acted as a lookout while Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Watson broke into the house and brutally murdered five people: Tate, who was eight months pregnant; coffee heiress Abigail Folger; Polish writer Wojciech Frykowski; celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring; and Steven Parent, a friend of the property’s caretaker. (Polanski was in Europe.) Although he ordered the mass murder, Manson himself was not present at the scene of the crime.
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