Chaos: 7 Things You Didn’t Know About Charles Manson’s Murderous Cult

Commentary on the Sharon Tate crime scene:

This is a review of Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties.

———————————————-

Hollywood is a weird place. It is that way now, and it was that way in 1969. For a few celebrities, heirs, and socialites, it ended up costing them a violent and agonizing death.

We have all heard the Manson murders involved elements of manipulation and brainwashing, but this expose proved that mainstream narratives are not always all they are cracked up to be. 

Let’s get into the menacing bloodbath that was the Sharon Tate crime scene, and how Charles Manson engineered its execution. 

The Manson Cult Slays a Movie Star

Decades later, the Sharon Tate crime scene remains the stuff of legend, with movies starring Margot Robbie and Hillary Duff depicting her life and death.

It takes one look to see that Sharon was one ultra-spicy meatball — gorgeous and abundantly sexy.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Sharon Tate (@sharontatefile)

Tate was a bona fide stunner with riveting looks and a juicy figure; she was also eight months pregnant at the time she got killed.

So, what sealed the steamy starlet’s tragic fate?

The Manson crew knew people in Hollywood.

Beginning on August 8, 1969, they went on a two-night rampage, killing Tate, her baby, and several friends of the Tate entourage.

The gruesome details of the Sharon Tate crime scene are disturbing and grotesque. But you will see that everything about this story is bizarre, including Sharon’s social circle.

Her husband is now a convicted predator on the run, by the way. More on this later…

The perpetrators on the first night were Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Patricia Krenwinkel — members of “the family” that were acting on Manson’s orders.

Tex Watson was the first to enter the house. He encountered Frykowski sleeping on the couch. When Frykowski woke up and asked what he was doing, Watson responded, “I’m the devil, and I’m here to do the devil’s business.”

Steven Parent, a teenager who was visiting the property’s caretaker, was killed on the front lawn before the perpetrators broke into the house and carried out the massacre.

In the house were Abigail Folger, heiress to the Folger’s coffee empire, and her boyfriend Wojciech Frykowski, an aspiring screenwriter. Jay Sebring, Tate’s former lover and a high-profile hairstylist, was also present.

They were all killed with a combination of gunshots, stab wounds, and blunt force trauma.

The Sharon Tate crime scene was not the Manson family’s last act though.

1. The Sadistic Psychopaths Committed Another Slaughter the Next Night

Lesson # 1 — Learn how to watch for people with malicious intent.

Manson was a degenerate exhibitionist.

As detailed in the book, he was prone to disturbing displays of debased behavior, such as “doing things” to young girls and “going down” on boys in front of the family.

Manson was not satisfied with the family’s execution on the first night. He did not like the fact that the victims were able to fight back; and he wanted to show them how to murder properly, free of all inhibition.

The four from the previous night, plus Manson, Leslie Van Houten, and Clem Grogan, decided on a house at 3301 Waverly Drive in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, where they had been to a party across the street the year before.

This time the house belonged to supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary.

They stabbed their victims until they were dead, only this time with a bayonet and a kitchen knife.

They carved “war” into Leno’s stomach and wrote “Rise” and “Death to pigs” on the walls and “Healter [sic] Skelter” in blood on the refrigerator door.

Sergeant Stanley Klorman stated that he had never seen anything like the Sharon Tate crime scene in his entire career.

Police at the crime scene described a blood-spattered, battlefield-esque scene that appeared to be a ritualistic killing. One of the officers said the bodies looked like manikins drenched in red paint.

2. How Drugs, Sex, Fame, and Money Established the Manson Cult

Lesson # 2 — Be careful what you wish for and especially who you trust.

Manson bombed recruits with heroic dosages of drugs, love, and sex.

Many followers were impressionable young women and girls who believed his claims that he was a manifestation of Jesus and his prophecies of an impending race war. They were usually ugly girls who were runaways.

The family believed time was a construct of the mind and that each person was God and the devil at the same time. They held elaborate weekly orgies and prescribed sex at least four times a day. They took massive amounts of LSD. And they thought killing was an act of love because it “made the victim one with God.”

They even believed their cult was prophesied in the Book of Revelation and planned to survive the impending race war in a bunker, then grow the family to 144,000. 

3. Manson Dreamed of Fortune and Fame, But His Music Sucked and He Smelled Like Shit

Lesson # 3—Choose your friends wisely, based on character and quality. Never for talent or connections. 

Charles Manson was once an aspiring musician and songwriter. He met and worked with members of the Beach Boys and even wrote a song that appeared on the Beach Boys album 20/20. The song was titled Cease to Exist and later changed to Never Learn Not to Love.

Manson’s link to the Beach Boys came from Dennis Wilson — the band’s drummer.

Wilson took a liking to Manson and even let the family stay at his house in exchange for constant access to Manson’s harem of young girls. He would later introduce him to record producer Terry Melcher, who lived at the house at 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon.

His only audition went down the drain when his rancid stench and creepy demeanor repulsed recording engineer Steve Despar to the point of refusing to be alone with him.

Despar recalls Manson and his group of drugged-up underage girls showing up smelling so foul that members of management ended up installing a sanitary bathroom seat in the studio.

When things went awry, Manson gave up on his musical dreams and instead focused his attention on serial murder and igniting a race war.

As fate would have it, the house on 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon would be turned into the most horrific bloodbath in Hollywood history.

Terry Melcher, the record executive who had declined to sign Manson, no longer lived there though. And the reason Manson chose this house is still cause for speculation.

4. Manson Spent 75% Of His Life in Prison

Lesson # 4 — Your habits and thought patterns determine your outcomes. 

Manson’s mother, Kathleen Maddox, was incarcerated for grand larceny when he was just five years old. He wouldn’t see her again until he was 9.

Then Charles became acquainted with prison life himself.

He had already begun to display signs of narcissistic personality disorder in the first grade when he convinced a group of girls to beat up a boy who had been “mean” to him.

When the principal asked him why he did what he did, he responded, “The girls did what they wanted to do.”

By the age of 13, Manson had graduated to violent robberies and, as a result, was sent to a reform school. While there, he fell victim to sexual abuse by other prisoners and eventually became a predator himself.

In one instance, he was caught sodomizing another boy while holding a knife to his throat.

For the better part of the next decade and a half, Manson bounced in and out of reformatory schools and prison, stealing from grocery stores and jacking cars between stints.

5. Manson Was a Pimp, a Carjacker, and a Scammer Before Forming His Cult

Lesson # 5 — people change and improve, but those who do are extremely rare.

In 1955, his carjacking habit earned him a stint in federal prison. He did a three-year term at Terminal Island in San Pedro, California.

Upon release in 1958, Manson assembled a stable of prostitutes and took up the pimp life.

Manson got arrested again that same year, this time for forging a government check in the amount of $37.50. And this got him another 10-year prison sentence.

But Manson’s lover at the time convinced the judge to suspend the sentence on the count that they were going to get married. Strangely, he complied and set Manson free.

Manson continued to roam free until they caught him leaving the country with another prostitute.

His 10-year prison sentence was reinstated, and Manson was locked up once again. He wouldn’t be free until the age of 32.

By his early 30s, he had spent more than half of his life in reformatory schools and prison.

6. Manson Seemed to Have Astounding Luck with Law Enforcement

Lesson # 6 — one who constantly gets away with unethical behavior is almost certainly a snitch or a traitor.

Manson taunted police about the number of weapons the family had access to; he even went as far as to say he had followers aiming rifles at the officers as they spoke.  

On another occasion, a police officer found three loaded clips that had fallen out of Manson’s dune buggy on the highway. 

Authorities had an informant who observed that every room in the Manson family ranch contained firearms.

If all that wasn’t enough, a search warrant stated that law enforcement had been watching Manson and the family vigilantly in the days and weeks before the Tate and La Bianca Massacres; they went as far as to fly over Spahn Ranch, the cult’s main property. 

Manson, who was a federal parolee, walked free after having been caught with stolen cars, stolen credit cards, and weapons. On another occasion, he was caught with an underage girl just after they had sex. 

They never violated him for any of these offenses, and it took police months to link the Tate and Labianca murders back to Manson and his cult.

7. Sharon Tate Was Rolling Rich and Famous, But Her Inner Circle Was Shady 

Lesson # 7 — Compromising your values for temporary gain will come at a cost.

Sharon Tate was engaged to Jay Sebring, a high-profile hair stylist, before falling in love with her future husband, film director Roman Polanski.

While Polanski was not impressed with Sharon’s acting, he was dazzled by her looks. He pursued her vigorously, finally persuading her to hang out one afternoon.

They dropped acid on their first date, had sex, and fell in love.

She promptly broke it off with Sebring. Polanski let her know from early on that he was a man who required multiple sexual partners, and she agreed to not pressure him to change.

When she told him she was pregnant, he was not pleased.

He encouraged Sharon to get an abortion. When she declined, he responded by having an affair with her close friend.

Polanski allegedly treated Sharon like trash during the months leading up to her untimely death. He taunted her lack of talent and called her a “dumb hag”.

Less than ten years after the brutal murder of his wife, Polanski would be charged with drugging an underage girl and “doing bad things to her”.

It wasn’t just Polanski that was a deranged Hollywood weirdo. The investigation into Sharon Tate’s murder revealed unsavory details about her and her friends’ lifestyles.

For starters, various sex tapes were found at the crime scene. There was one starring Sharon and her husband, but there was another showing Sharon having sex with two other men. And there were also videos of Roman having sex with other women.

During interrogation, Sharon’s friends Sebring and Frykowski were said to be strung out on cocaine, alcohol, and mescaline. On one occasion, the two drugged another man and took turns anally raping him.

They had used Sharon’s drugs to do so.

Fame, Cults, and Serial Killers: Lessons from the Sick and Twisted Sharon Tate Crime Scene

So, there you have it.

The story of the Charles Manson cult and Sharon Tate crime scene is what can happen when you intertwine ambition, fame, and money with narcissistic personalities.

Some people want what they want and will not take no for an answer. Many compromise on their values to achieve success. Still others choose the route of deception and manipulation.

It is a Hollywood story, but the tactics of manipulation are present in every part of society. Our decisions are impacted daily by the lure of sex, money, and success.

When left unchecked, these passions can open us up to many forms of manipulation. They can also suck the energy out of us and keep us chasing mirages.