The horrific true story behind the 1969 Manson Family murders that changed America forever

His father abandoned the family before his birth, and his 16-year-old mother struggled to raise him; at one point, she sold him for a jug of beer.

He began committing petty crimes when he was 12 and spent years in and out of reform schools where he was the victim of sexual assault attacks and also victimized others.

Sources: CNN, Vox

Soon after, he married and moved to Los Angeles with his new wife, seeking fame and fortune.

But just a few years later, in 1957, Manson was sent to prison for violating the terms of his probation. Manson would spend the next ten years in and out of prison for petty crimes and probation violations.

In 1967, divorced and ready for a change, Manson moved to San Francisco, then the center of the counterculture movement.

Source: CNN

He was able to blend into the burgeoning hippie scene and began to exercise his ability to manipulate and control people.

Sources: CNN, Vulture, New York Times

Together, they returned to Los Angeles so Manson could chase his Hollywood dreams.

Source: Vox

Manson, who had previously worked as a pimp, was an expert at controlling the women.

Source: Vox

Lake's parents were hippies who encouraged their daughter to take drugs and have sex. She didn't participate in the murders but would serve as a key witness in the trial.

Lake would later argue that the counterculture movement allowed for widespread abuse of women and girls.

Source: Vox

In 1967 or 1968, he met a music teacher named Gary Hinman, who introduced him to Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson.

It was a fortuitous meeting: Wilson let Manson and the Family live in his house on Sunset Boulevard — and also lent him hundreds of thousands of dollars to record an album — in exchange for sex with the Manson girls.

Sources: CNN, Vox

Manson traded sex with his followers to the owner for free rent.

Source: Vox

But after completing some initial recordings, Melcher chose not to sign Manson.

At the time, Melcher lived with his girlfriend in a luxury home at 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon. Manson visited him there several times before Melcher moved out.

Source: CNN

The song, called "Cease to Exist," eventually morphed to the Beach Boys B-side "Never Learn Not To Love."

Though Manson had initially been thrilled to have the band record the song, he found the end product markedly different from his initial track and was miffed that he hadn't been given a songwriting credit.

Source: Vox

And, although he knew Melcher had moved out, the Cielo Drive house remained in Manson's mind a symbol of Hollywood and the life he'd been denied. In May, the cracks began to appear when Manson shot a drug dealer named Bernard Crowe over a disputed payment.

Source: Vox

Source: CNN

Manson also showed up with a sword and almost cut off Hinman's ear. After two days, Hinman was killed by Beausoleil. The family attempted to frame the black power group, the Black Panthers, for the crime by writing "Political Piggie" in blood on the wall.

Manson was an avowed racist and believed that a coming race war — which he referred to as "Helter Skelter" (from the Beatles song of the same name) — was on the horizon. In framing the Black Panthers for Hinman's murder, he was hoping to move it along.

Sources: CNN, NY Daily News, Vox

Manson panicked, terrified that Beausoleil would implicate him in the crime (and the earlier murder of Crowe), and wanted to deflect attention away from the deaths.

So, two days later, Manson ordered four of his most loyal followers — Susan Atkins, Charles "Tex" Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian — to murder anyone in Polanski's house.

On that night, heiress Abigail Folger, hair stylist Jay Sebring, writer Wojciech Frykowski, Steven Parent, and Sharon Tate were killed.

Sources: Vox, Business Insider

On her last day alive, she ate lunch by the pool with a friend, spoke to her husband on the phone, and napped.

Source: Washington Post

Sources: People, Washington Post

But Manson wasn't impressed. He complained the murder was "sloppy."

Source: Vox

He accompanied Charles "Tex" Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten to the house of supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary, where the Manson Family members bound and murdered them.

Manson ordered the group to "leave something witchy" at the crime scene, so they wrote "helter skelter" on the house in blood.

Sources: CNN, Vox

But the arrest wasn't for murder — they were suspected of stealing a car.

Sources: CNN, NY Daily News

A month later, Atkins told a fellow inmate at the Sybil Brand Institute for Women, where she was incarcerated, that she killed Sharon Tate.

Source: CNN

Watson, Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten were also charged related to the murders.

Six months later, in June 1970, the trial began.

Linda Kasabian, who had served as the lookout for the group, became the prosecution's chief witness in exchange for immunity.

Source: Business Insider

Manson changed his appearance, carving an "x" into his forehead. The girls ended up doing the same.

Later, he turned the "x" into a swastika.

Source: Business Insider

Source: Business Insider

Four of the killers, including Manson, got the death penalty, but the following year, California abolished the death penalty. Their sentences were commuted to life in prison.

Source: CNN

During his sentence, he was denied parole 12 times, accrued 108 disciplinary violations, and never showed any remorse for the murders.

Susan Atkins died in prison in 2009. Patricia Krenwinkel is in prison and will later be up for parole. In June 2019, Leslie Van Houten was denied parole but later released in July 2023. Charles "Tex" Watson will be eligible for parole in 2026.

Source: CNN

Correction: February 20, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated that the resident of the Cielo Drive house. It was rented by Terry Melcher, not Gary Hinman. It also previously misstated who was meant to be in the Polanski house. Steve McQueen was not meant to be there. It also misidentified one of the locations where the Manson Family wrote "pig" in blood. It was Tate and Polanski's house, not the LaBiancas' house. This article has been updated to include recent and accurate information.