Who Were the Manson Family’s Victims? Remembering the 9 People Killed in 1969

Charles Manson and his “family” of followers killed at least 9 people during a heinous murder spree that caused terror across the city of Los Angeles.

The Manson family cult, which was primarily comprised of young women, committed the unspeakable crimes over four nights in the summer of 1969. Manson orchestrated the killings — which he dubbed “Helter Skelter,” after The Beatles song — in an effort to incite a race war.

The first murder occurred on July 27 when Manson allegedly ordered his follower Bobby Beausoleil to stab musician Gary Hinman to death, according to Rolling Stone. Two weeks later, actress Sharon Tate — the pregnant wife of director Roman Polanski — was slain at the couple’s Beverly Hills home on Aug. 9, as were Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski and Steven Parent.

The next evening, Manson went out with his followers and targeted the Los Feliz home of grocery mogul Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, though the cult leader was reportedly not present for the killings. Later that same month, on Aug. 26, Manson masterminded the murder of a ninth person, Donald “Shorty” Shea, at Spahn Ranch, the Chatsworth-area commune where the Manson family resided.

Manson was convicted in 1971 and was serving nine life sentences in California’s Corcoran State Prison at the time of his death. Manson died at age 83 from complications related to metastatic colon cancer on Nov. 19, 2017.

Now, the Manson family murders are being re-examined in the Netflix documentary, Chaos: The Manson Murders, out on March 7.

Here’s everything to know about the Manson family’s victims.

Who was Charles Manson?

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1934, Charles Manson was the cult leader of the Manson family.

After nearly two decades of reform schools and prison stints, Manson moved to San Francisco in March 1967, according to The New York Times. There, he began recruiting members to form his family, whom he later moved down to Spahn Ranch.

With a following, Manson orchestrated killings in the name of “Helter Skelter” in an attempt to start a race war.

The Manson family consisted of mostly young, disenfranchised women who called him “God,” “Jesus” and “Satan,” per the Associated Press.

When did the Manson family’s murders begin?

The Manson family first killed Gary Hinman on July 27, 1969, and his murder was considered the template for the ones that followed.

Hinman, 34, was a music teacher who introduced Manson to Beach Boys band member Dennis Wilson. (The family lived with the musician for a few months.)

Hinman was stabbed to death at his home in Topanga, Calif. The phrase “political piggy” was found scrawled on the wall in blood, according to the Los Angeles Times.

A week later, Beausoleil was arrested on Aug. 6, 1969, after he was found asleep in Hinman’s stolen car.

What was the Tate-LaBianca murder spree?

In August 1969, the Manson family killed seven people over two nights in L.A.

On one of those evenings, on Aug. 9, Manson followers Atkins, Charles D. “Tex” Watson and Patricia Krenwinkel entered the Beverly Hills home of actress Sharon Tate and her husband, director Roman Polanski, while Linda Kasabian stayed in the car as a lookout, per CBS News.

Manson commanded his followers to kill everyone in the home. According to Atkins’ 1971 court testimony, per The New York Times, the killers ordered Tate, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger and Wojciech Frykowski into the living room of the house, where Watson shot Sebring, then tied Sebring and Tate’s necks together with a rope.

Atkins stabbed Tate repeatedly. Frykowski and Folger managed to escape, but the killers caught up with them, stabbing them to death and leaving their bodies on the lawn. A fifth victim, Steven Parent, was visiting the home’s caretaker, William Garretson, and was shot while trying to drive away.

The killers used the victims’ blood to write messages on the walls of the home, including Atkins’ spelling out “PIG” on the white front door in Tate’s blood.

The next night, Manson joined his group of followers, who included Watson, Atkins, Krenwinkel, Kasabian, Van Houten and Steve “Clem” Crogan. After several hours in the car, they settled on a Los Feliz neighborhood home owned by grocery store executive Leno LaBianca, with Kasabian later testifying that Manson left before the murders took place.

Watson, Krenwinkel and Van Houten were accused of murdering LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary. The word “war” was found carved into LaBianca’s stomach, which had an ivory-handled carving fork protruding from it, and the phrase “death to pigs” was found scrawled across the living room in the couple’s blood.

Manson’s youngest follower, Dianne Lake, told PEOPLE in 2019 that she remembered Watson coming back to the ranch she was hiding at in Death Valley — she believed she was there to escape the impending race wars — and carrying a news article about Tate’s murder.

“He shows me the newspaper and he slaps it, and he says, ‘I did this. Charlie told me to,’ ” she said, adding that as the other girls started appearing at the ranch, they “told me their participation in the murders.”

Who were the victims at the Tate home?

The highest-profile victim of the Manson family murder spree was Sharon Tate, 26, a rapidly rising star expecting her first child with husband Roman Polanski.

Tate was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1968 for her portrayal of Jennifer in Valley of the Dolls. She was 8 ½ months pregnant when she was brutally murdered in her Benedict Canyon home on Aug. 9, 1969.

Hours earlier on the evening of Aug. 8, Tate had gone out with a group of friends — Sebring, Folger and Frykowski — to her favorite L.A. restaurant, El Coyote Cafe.

Sebring, 35, was Tate’s ex-boyfriend and a hair stylist whose clients included actor Warren Beatty. Meanwhile, Frykowski, 32, was a friend of Polanski’s and a guest at the couple’s house.

Folger, 25, was the heir to the Folgers coffee fortune and had connections to both men — she was dating Frykowski and investing in Sebring’s salons, according to the L.A. Times.

Parent was only 18 and visiting Garretson, the caretaker, at the Cielo Drive guest house.

Who were the victims in the LaBianca murders?

The evening after the Tate murders, Manson followers Watson, Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten entered the Los Feliz home of wealthy grocery chain owner Leno LaBianca, killing him and his wife, Rosemary LaBianca. Leno was 44, while Rosemary was 38.

Leno’s daughter, Louise LaBianca, was 13 and living in Newport Beach, Calif., with her mother, Leno’s first wife, at the time of the murders. She wrote in Los Angeles Magazine in 2024 that news reports told her “the Manson family had randomly targeted wealthy or famous individuals in order to gain worldwide attention.”

“Our family was not known; had no fame or celebrity attached; and not particularly wealthy by comparison to others living in the Los Feliz area. Why did they single us out? I never could understand,” she wrote.

Louise described her stepmother, Rosemary, as “a beautiful soul who had been in the LaBianca family for nearly 10 years.”

“We spent holidays and summer vacations together every year,” she wrote. “Dad was a proud father who took his responsibilities seriously and provided all of us with many privileged experiences.”

What was the Manson family’s last known murder?

Before Manson’s arrest, the cult leader ordered a ninth killing of ranch hand Donald “Shorty” Shea.

Shea, 35, was reportedly killed by Manson followers Watson, Steven “Clem” Grogan and Bruce M. Davis at Spahn Ranch — a previous filming location for Western movies outside of Chatsworth, Calif. — where the family lived.

It was believed that Shea was killed because the Manson clan thought he was a police informant, according to the L.A. Times.

Were any of the Manson family members convicted?

After a seven-month trial in 1970, Manson, Atkins, Krenwinkel and Van Houten were found guilty in January 1971 of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

Manson was sentenced to death but was spared execution after the death penalty was abolished in California. He was serving nine life sentences when he died at age 83 in November 2017.

Kasabian, the lookout during the murder spree, was the key witness in the 1970 Manson family trial. She was granted immunity by prosecutors for her testimony, which led to the conviction of Manson and several of his accomplices.

Atkins was denied parole 13 times before dying in prison at age 61 from brain cancer on Sept. 24, 2009, CNN reported, while Van Houten served 53 years in prison before being released from prison on July 11, 2023.

Watson was found guilty of murder in a separate trial, The Washington Post reported, and is serving life in prison. In 1970, Beausoleil was convicted of first-degree murder in the killing of Hinman and has repeatedly been denied parole.