Who Killed Sharon Tate? How The Manson Murders Went Down

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Left: Sharon Tate circa 1968. Right: Charles 'Tex' Watson, one of the Manson Family members involved in Tate's murder. Sources: Silver Screen Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images; Wikimedia Commons

The Tate-LaBianca murders, which claimed the lives of Sharon Tate and six others, are a gruesome crime inextricably linked to Charles Manson and the end of the 1960s. In the early hours of August 9, 1969, Tate, the pregnant wife of director Roman Polanski, and her friends became the victims of the Manson Family, a cult lead by the depraved and desperate Manson.

The murders were the product of a strange Hollywood ecosystem where wannabe bad boys palled around with legitimate psychopaths in order to gain credibility. Tate’s death has been dramatized and sensationalized time and time again in everything from TV shows to the 2019 release Once Upon A Time ... In Hollywood by director Quentin Tarantino. But the story of who actually killed Sharon Tate has more detail and intricacies than can be contained in one film.