Charles Manson didn’t order slaughter of Sharon Tate and friends claims author
HE’S been in jail for 45 years but New York author Daniel Simone now claims Charles Manson didn’t order the murders of Sharon Tate, her unborn son and four others on “the day the Sixties died”.
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IT was the night that killed hippie free love: “Many people I know in Los Angeles believe the 60s ended abruptly on August 9, 1969, at the exact moment when word of the murders on Cielo Drive travelled like brushfire through the community,” wrote social commentator Joan Didion.
Overnight on August 8, blonde actor Sharon Tate, her unborn son and four others had been slain at her rented bungalow in the hills of Bel Air.
Six weeks later petty criminal and drug-frenzied cult leader Charles Manson was charged with car theft at remote Barker Ranch in Death Valley. So began one of the most confronting murder trials in American history.
It would convict Manson, 35, of conspiring to murder Tate and her friends after a six-month trial in Los Angeles.
In January, 1971, Manson’s co-defendents Susan Atkins, 22, and Patricia Krenwinkel, 23, were also convicted on seven counts of first degree murder. Leslie Van Houten, 21, was convicted of two murders, and Charles “Tex” Watson, 26, of seven in October.
But yesterday New York journalist Daniel Simone released details of his near-completed book that challenges Manson’s conviction for the Tate murders, suggesting a good lawyer would have argued in a pre-trial motion that there was no proof Manson directed his followers to kill.
“He probably could have gotten the case dismissed based on the lack of evidence,” Simone said.
Manson’s defence lawyer, Irving Kanarek, last year explained he fought the case on legally admissible evidence, “and the amount of that was scant. His guilt was based on a few hearsay words, inadmissable in court, that he supposedly told this guy to do a number on the Tate residence,” Kanarek said.
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“No question he was legally innocent. And ... he was actually innocent. There was no evidence connecting him to those murders.”
The wife of film director Roman Polanski, Tate, 26, was 38 weeks pregnant when she was found tied up with her former fiance, hairstylist Jay Sebring, who had been staying at the Cielo Drive house. Police reported that both had nylon nooses around their necks.
Sebring’s head was covered with a black hood. Tate was stabbed 16 times in what police described as a “ritualistic” murder. Coffee heiress Abigail Folger, 25, and her boyfriend Voyteck Frykowski, 32, were found sprawled on the lawn outside. Both had been shot and stabbed.
Fifth victim Steve Parent, 18, was slumped in his car with multiple gunshot wounds. The killers then scrawled messages on the walls with the victims’ blood, including the word “pig” on the front door.
Tate, who made her acting debut in the Beverly Hillbillies television series, was buried on August 13, 1969. Her son, named Paul Richard after his grandfathers, lay in her arms.
“Newspapers, the magazines, the motion pictures got people all excited — Manson as the embodiment of human evil,” Kanarek said last year.
There was no evidence Manson was at Tate’s house with Atkins, Krenwinkel, Watson and lookout Linda Kasabian, given immunity for evidence about Manson’s “Family” cult, which included the only direct evidence tying Manson to the crime.
But Manson had been at Tate’s house on March 23, 1969, looking for music producer Terry Melcher, who he hoped would publish his music.
Tate’s guard reportedly ordered Manson to leave by “the back alley”, suggested as a motive for the later attack.
Life in prison
The Manson cult killers were sentenced to death, commuted to life in prison when California abolished the death penalty in 1972.
Terminally ill with brain cancer, Susan Atkins requested compassionate release in 2008, denied by the Californian parole board. She died in prison in 2009.
Patricia Krenwinkel has been repeatedly denied parole to become the longest-serving woman in the Californian prison system, next due for parole in 2018.
Leslie van Houten was denied parole for the 20th time in 2013 and is next due in 2018.
Charles Watson, who fathered four children on conjugal prison visits, was denied parole for the 14th time in 2011 and is next due for a hearing in 2016.
Charles Manson has said he prefers to remain in prison. He was denied parole for the 12th time in 2012 and is next eligible in 2027, when he will be 92.
Originally published as Charles Manson didn’t order slaughter of Sharon Tate and friends claims author
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