Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
So, due to the graphic nature of this story, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes depictions of murder, violence, and substance use. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. In 1966, John Lennon discussed the changing landscape of religion with a reporter from the London Standard. To make his point, he quipped that his band, The Beatles, was "more popular than Jesus now."
Whether that was true or not, they'd achieved a cult-like fandom. The kind seen today among K-pop fans and Swifties. The kind most aspiring rock stars only dream of. In 1969, the Beatles hadn't toured in three years, but their devoted fans remained, spinning records on repeat. Chief among them? Charles Manson.
He had his own cult following. And to them, he wasn't just more popular than Jesus. He was Jesus. And when Jesus told the Manson family that the Beatles were signaling them to commit murder, they listened. I'm Vanessa Richardson, and this is Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast. You can find us here every Monday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at Serial Killers Podcast. Stay with us.
Okay, so true story, I was scared to try tampons because I didn't know if they'd be able to protect like pads. Took me a few tries, but once inserted properly, tampons shouldn't hurt. If you feel it, it's not in far enough. Believe me, it changed my life. Like pads, tampons offer up to 100% leak-free protection, whether you're on the go or chilling at home. Now I do and wear whatever I want on my period, thanks to the freedom and flexibility I get with adding Tampax to my routine. Learn more at Tampax.com.
Hey y'all, Marci Martin here with a little Tampax story. One time I went on vacation in the Bahamas with some friends and of course I got my period.
I didn't want anything to stop me from living my best life on my trip. So I was like, why not be brave and try Tampax? Before that, I really just thought tampons were for adults, and I definitely thought they'd be uncomfortable. Guess what, y'all? They really aren't. It might take a few tries, but once it's in right, you shouldn't feel it, which is great. For a better way to period, just add Tampax.
This episode is brought to you by Oli. Back to school means food changes, early breakfasts, school lunches, after school snacks, and let's not even talk about dinner. Oli's here to help you cover all the wellness spaces from daily multivitamins to belly balancing probiotics. Oli's got your fam covered. Buy three and get one free with code bundle24 at O-L-L-Y dot com. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Before we get into this story, amongst the many sources we used, we found Jeff Gwynn's book, Manson, The Life and Times of Charles Manson, extremely helpful to our research. The audiobook edition is available for Spotify Premium subscribers in our audiobook catalog, so you can check it out after listening to this episode.
Leading up to the Grammys, we're going back to cover a different kind of history-making musician, Charles Manson. Today, we'll cover the Tate and LaBianca murders, the music references Manson's followers left at the crime scenes, and how Charles Manson blamed all the murders on the Beatles. If you're listening on Spotify and you want to skip ahead to anything specific, the chapters are linked in our show notes.
When we left off in July 1969, Charles Manson had just ordered a fellow aspiring musician, Bobby Beausoleil, to kill their drug dealer, Gary Hinman. Manson told Beausoleil to make it look like the murder was committed by the Black Panthers. Manson hoped the ensuing chaos would spark the race war that would signal the end times and leave him as the leader of the remaining people on Earth.
But that didn't go according to Manson's plan. After the murder, Bobby Beausoleil fled to San Francisco, driving a car he'd stolen from Hinman. But the car broke down. When highway patrols stopped to help, they realized that an APB had been issued for the stolen car.
Then, the officers discovered the knife Beausoleil had used to stab Hinman. Later, they matched his fingerprints to the thumbprint left in Gary Hinman's house. The officers arrested Bobby Beausoleil, and he was charged with murder. The Black Panthers were never even suspected.
When word of Beausoleil's arrest hit Spahn Ranch, Manson went into panic mode. He'd always liked Beausoleil. Manson thought Beausoleil wasn't particularly bright and generally went along with whatever Manson said. Perfect qualities in a follower. But now Manson worried Beausoleil would confess. He might even name Manson as a co-conspirator in Gary Hinman's murder. Over the next two days, Manson grew increasingly agitated.
It wasn't just about Beausoleil's arrest. Manson was also upset that Hinman's murder hadn't made more of an impact. He'd hoped the murder would kickstart a race war. But so far, they'd failed to bring about the events Manson heard prophesied in the Beatles' White Album. Helter Skelter needed to happen, and soon.
To usher it in, Manson wanted to stage an even more brutal murder. One so shocking it would make headlines around the country. As a bonus, it might help Bobby Beausoleil. The family thought that if more murders were committed while Beausoleil was in custody, it would prove that the police had arrested the wrong man. Even though, to be clear, they'd arrested the right man. Ignoring logic, Manson told his family that they had to get the carnage started.
On the night of August 8th, 1969, Manson took family member Charles Tex Watson aside and told him what needed to be done. A year earlier, when Manson was cozying up to every music industry contact that would tolerate him, he'd pursued a relationship with music producer Terry Melcher.
At the time, Melcher lived in a secluded house on Cielo Drive. Even though Melcher had moved out of the house months before, Manson knew the people who lived there now were also rich and famous, the kind of high-profile people whose death would make national news. Talking to Watson, Manson made his plan rather explicit: "Kill everyone in the place. Totally destroy them. Make it as gruesome as you can.
He assigned Watson three other followers to help him: Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian. Tex would be in charge of them. As the man, Manson felt he was the most trustworthy. He didn't tell the women the plan, just giving Susan the instruction to "do something witchy." They likely thought they were going on a creepy-crawly, a break-in with no theft. Tex would reveal the truth after they arrived.
Most of what we know about what comes next comes from members of the Manson family themselves. So it's important we take it with a grain of salt.
Just after midnight on August 9th, 1969, the foursome drove into Benedict Canyon. Susan and Tex were high on meth, having snorted it before they left. Earlier that day, Tex had also dropped acid and taken some mescaline, so he might have been feeling the effects of multiple drugs in his system as they reached Cielo Drive. The home was set back from the road, but they could see the warm lamplight from the living room coming through the trees.
Tex hopped out of the car and cut the telephone line to the house with wire cutters. Then he motioned for Linda, Patricia, and Susan to follow him. They got out of the car, unsure of what they were doing at the house. Linda didn't question why Tex had a rope and a gun on him. They walked to the back of the property, scaled a fence, and crept through the trees and bushes that filled the yard.
But they stopped short at bright headlights coming up the long driveway. Someone was leaving the house. After Terry Melcher moved out, 35-year-old director Roman Polanski and his wife, 25-year-old actress Sharon Tate, rented the house. That night, Polanski was away, filming a movie in Europe. But Tate, pregnant and just two weeks from her due date, had stayed behind in Los Angeles.
To keep her company, she'd temporarily moved in Wojtek Frykowski, a longtime friend of Polanski's, and his girlfriend Abigail Folger. That August night, they had a visitor: Sharon's close friend and hairstylist, Jay Sebring. In addition to the main house, the property also had a smaller guest cottage. The property caretaker, William Gerritsen, lived in the cottage. That night, he had a friend over: Steve Parent.
Parent was just leaving the property around 12:15 a.m. on August 9th. It was his headlights the Manson family saw coming down the drive. Tex motioned for the girls to get down as he stepped onto the driveway and waved down the car. Then Tex revealed his gun. Steve Parent naturally freaked out. "Please, please don't hurt me. I'm your friend. I won't tell."
Tex ignored him. He sliced Parent's arm with a knife and then shot him four times. Parent slumped over in the front seat, dead. Linda was stunned, but she had no time to process. Tex forced her to steal the driver's wallet. Her hands shook as she reached into the dead man's pocket. Then Tex told her to go to the back of the house and act as a lookout while he, Susan, and Patricia made their way to the front of the house.
When the trio reappeared in the backyard, they each brandished knives. Linda watched in horror as Tex cut a long, slow slit into the screen door. Still in shock, she stayed in the backyard as the others disappeared inside. I have to warn you that what we're going to be talking about in the next few minutes includes graphic descriptions of violence.
In the living room, Tex, Susan, and Patricia found Wojtek Frykowski asleep on the couch. Frykowski woke up and asked them what they wanted. Tex replied, "I'm the devil, and I'm here to do the devil's business." Then he kicked Frykowski in the head. Tex told the women to check the rest of the house.
They found Abigail Folger, Sharon Tate, and Jay Sebring in the bedrooms. Brandishing their knives, they ordered everyone to the living room, demanding they huddle in the center. Then he took a rope and looped it around all four of their necks, throwing the end over a beam running across the ceiling. He pulled on the rope until it was taut, binding the captives together.
Tate, Folger, Sebring, and Frykowski stayed silent and cooperated, hoping that the three lunatics would rob them and go away. But that hope quickly faded when Tex bellowed, "You're all going to die."
Sharon Tate let out a blood-curdling scream that Linda could hear in the backyard. In the chaos, Tex let the rope slacken, and the four captives freed themselves and tried to scatter. As the Manson family chased them down and rounded them up again, Sharon Tate started to cry. Jay shouted, "'Can't you see that she's pregnant?' As soon as Jay spoke, Tex shot him in the abdomen."
Then, Tex demanded all the money the hostages had. Folger revealed that she had about $70 in her purse. Tate explained that she didn't have any money in the house, but she could get some. Knowing that Manson would be upset if they returned to Spahn Ranch without any cash, Tex grew angry. Hearing Jay Sebring groaning on the floor, Tex whirled on him and stabbed him until he died.
When Tate and Folger screamed in horror, Wojtek Frykowski awoke from his stupor and struggled to untie his own hands. Susan Atkins leapt at him and stabbed his legs. Tex turned the gun on him and began to shoot. But he somehow managed to break free and limped outside. Linda Kasabian was still outside, keeping lookout. She saw Frykowski stumble onto the lawn.
When they'd set out that evening, Linda thought they were going on another creepy crawling mission, not a murder spree. As soon as she saw Tex shoot Steve Parent, she'd entered a state of shock. Now, facing the man she was supposed to kill, she couldn't move.
After a few seconds, Frykowski limped past Linda and collapsed in the yard. Seconds later, Tex came running out of the sliding glass door, jumped on Frykowski, and stabbed him again and again. Finally, Linda found her voice. She shouted, "Please make it stop! People are coming!" But nobody was coming. And Tex did not stop. He stabbed Frykowski 51 times.
Meanwhile, Abigail Folger had escaped into the side yard with Patricia hot on her trail. Patricia caught up to Abigail and climbed on top of her and stabbed her. Across the yard, Linda heard Abigail shrieking in pain and Patricia screaming in fury. In shock, Linda ran away from the crime scene and climbed over the property's fence to the car and waited.
Meanwhile, Tex caught up with Patricia as she stood over Abigail Folger. He pointed Patricia towards the guest cottage and told her to look inside and kill anyone there. Patricia seemed shaken after stabbing Folger, and she only pretended to check the guest cottage, telling Tex that the house was empty. If the caretaker, William Gerritsen, was awake, he didn't give any sign to reveal himself.
Tex, meanwhile, continued stabbing Abigail Folger. Later, he claimed she told him, "I give up. You've got me." Eventually, the murderers turned back into the house to pregnant Sharon Tate.
Tate begged them to spare her. She pleaded with them to kidnap her and keep her alive just long enough to deliver her baby. Susan replied, "I don't care about you. I don't care if you're gonna have a baby. You had better be ready. You're going to die, and I don't feel anything about it." With that, Susan and Tex stabbed the starlet multiple times, including right in her pregnant belly.
As Tate lay dying, she cried out for her mom. Then, to make the scene more gruesome, Tex, Susan, and Patricia wrapped a rope around her neck and strung her up by the ceiling beam. She died from her stab wounds. When she was dead, Susan soaked a towel in her blood and wrote the word "pig" on the front door. This was likely a reference to the song "Piggies" from the Beatles' White Album.
With their mission accomplished, Tex, Susan, and Patricia joined Linda at the car. As they tore off their bloody clothes, Tex told Linda to drive. He was furious she hadn't participated in the murders. Meanwhile, Patricia complained that her hand hurt. She worried she'd injured it while stabbing through Abigail Folger's bones. When they finally pulled back up to Spahn Ranch, Manson came out to greet them.
He asked if any of them had any remorse, and without hesitation, each of them responded, "No."
Not fully satisfied, Manson drove to the house himself and made small adjustments. He tried to make the crime scene as bizarre and shocking as possible. He placed a towel over Jay Sebring's head. He draped an American flag on a couch next to Sharon Tate's body. He moved a pair of glasses to the living room. When he was finished, he drove back to Spahn Ranch and went to bed.
But the next morning, Manson was still unsatisfied with the crimes. Sure, the gruesome and bizarre murders had made national news, but none of the reports blamed the deaths on the Black Panthers. Nor did they link the deaths to Gary Hinman's murder. The Tate murders wouldn't clear Bobby Beausoleil's name, nor would they begin Helter Skelter.
For Manson, there was only one way forward: more murder. And this time, he wouldn't simply issue orders from the ranch. He intended to oversee the killings himself.
The day after his followers murdered five people, Charles Manson wanted more. He approached Linda Kasabian and told her she would be driving them into town again that night. He was going with them this time. He was going to show them how to make a clean kill. No one had told Manson that Linda ran away during the previous night's murders, and she was too afraid to object when Manson selected her for a second journey.
Manson also selected 19-year-old Leslie Van Houten and 18-year-old Steve "Clem" Grogan. The group dressed in dark clothes and gathered their knives. Then they set out into the night. At this point, there was no denying what was going to happen. And yet Manson's family went along with it. Even after murdering so many people in the past few weeks, they still sought Manson's approval. They still followed his orders.
Though it has been debated, if they were simply following orders, how guilty were they?
The controversial 1961 Milgram experiment studied this very question. In the experiment, participants were instructed to deliver varied levels of electrical shocks to another subject at the instruction of a man in a white doctor's coat holding a clipboard. In truth, the shocks were a ruse. No one in the study was harmed. But with each shock, the subject reacted as if they were truly being electrocuted. At first, the shocks were light.
But the subject in the driver's seat had the choice to continue following the researcher's directions and make the shocks increasingly more painful, causing the subject to scream in agony. When the participant delivering the shocks questioned whether or not to keep going, the man in the white coat said, "Please continue." So they kept going. Every single participant allowed themselves to be pushed far beyond a reasonable breaking point before saying no.
65% of participants delivered the maximum voltage of shocks. Milgram wrote in his paper titled "The Perils of Obedience": "Stark authority was pitted against the subject's strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and with the subject's ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not."
The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation. To the Manson women, Manson was the ultimate authority. They'd follow him to the ends of the earth.
On the night of August 10th, 1969, they followed him to Los Feliz. Manson directed them through LA's East Side and told them to turn onto Waverly Drive. The family members knew this street. Phil Kaufman had invited them to parties here at Harold True's house. Kaufman was the up-and-coming music manager who'd recorded Manson's music the year before.
Manson might have turned his attention away from music, but his time trying to break into the industry had introduced him to LA's wealthier neighborhoods. He saw Waverly Drive as a place where important people lived, just like Cielo Drive. So he figured, if any of the residents died, it'd be newsworthy.
Everyone waited in the car while Manson hopped the fence and snuck into the house. He entered through an unlocked back door. He made Tex go inside with him. Inside, they found Lino and Rosemary LaBianca.
They were the owners of a successful grocery store chain and boutique, respectively. The LaBiancas were a well-liked, upper-middle-class couple. They had no connections to Manson or the family. They weren't famous. If they were anything, they were unlucky. That night, Lino was asleep on the couch.
When he awoke to the noise, Charles Manson ordered Tex to tie the man's hands behind his back with some leather ropes he'd brought from the ranch. Manson went into the bedroom, brought out Rosemary and sat her next to her husband. Then he walked outside, pocketing Rosemary's wallet on the way. Manson retrieved Patricia and Leslie from the car, sending them in. He told Tex, "Make sure everybody does something."
As they went inside, Manson hopped into the driver's seat, greeting Linda, Clem, and Susan. He started the car and drove to Denny's. Inside the LaBianca house, slaughter ensued.
Tex put a pillowcase over Lino LaBianca's head and wrapped a lamp cord around the man's neck and mouth. He instructed Patricia and Leslie to take Rosemary into the bedroom and do the same thing to her. When they were out of sight, Tex stabbed Lino with a bayonet.
From the bedroom, Rosemary screamed, "What are you doing to my husband?" She tried to run to Lino, but the lamp cords wrapped around her neck were still plugged into the wall. As Rosemary strained against the cords, Patricia stabbed her with a kitchen knife. Then Tex came in with his bayonet. When Rosemary was dead, Tex returned to the living room and stabbed Lino a few more times.
Once he was sure Lino was dead, Tex instructed Leslie to stab Rosemary's body, following Manson's command that everyone participate. In total, Leslie and Tex stabbed Rosemary LaBianca 41 times. Patricia and Tex left Lino with more than a dozen stab wounds, and a carving fork lodged into his abdomen.
This was likely a reference to the Beatles' song "Piggies," which includes the lyric: "You can see them out for dinner with their piggy wives, clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon." Perhaps to nail the music reference, the killers used Lino's blood to write "Death to Pigs" on the wall. Then they carved the word "war" into his stomach and used his blood to paint the word "rise" on the walls.
According to Greg Jacobson, the talent agent who explored a Manson family documentary, Manson often repeated the word "rise," especially in connection with the Beatles' song "Blackbird." The song's chorus includes the phrase, "You were only waiting for the moment to arise." Manson read it as a message telling Black people to rise against their white oppressors. So "rise" was both a Beatles reference and a red herring in his race war plot.
The final nod was left in the kitchen, on the refrigerator door, Patricia wrote "Helter Skelter," though she spelled it wrong. The killers must have been feeling cocky because instead of fleeing the scene, they took their time showering and eating the LaBiancas' food before hitchhiking back to Spahn Ranch. As Tex, Pat, and Leslie followed Manson's orders, Manson and the rest of the women, Linda, Clem, and Susan, arrived at Denny's.
There, Manson told Linda to leave Rosemary's wallet in the restaurant bathroom. His plan was for a black woman to find the wallet, steal the credit cards inside, and then be blamed for the LaBiancas' murders. Then they sat down at the restaurant, but instead of ordering pancakes, Manson asked his followers who else they might kill.
Manson recalled Linda telling him about a Lebanese-American actor named Saladin Nader, whom she'd met while panhandling. Linda had gone back to the actor's home in Venice to have sex. Manson asked if Linda remembered the building where the actor lived. Linda said yes, but when Manson handed her a knife and told her she was going to find Nader and slit his throat, Linda balked.
The bloody events of the previous night had sickened her, and she did not want to be a part of more violence. She said, "Charlie, I'm not you. I can't kill anybody." Manson ignored her. He needed as many high-profile deaths as possible to ignite Helter Skelter. He dropped the family members off in front of the actor's apartment. He gave Linda a knife and told her to slit the man's throat.
Then Manson drove away, back to Spahn Ranch. They climbed the building's staircase. Susan and Clem were close behind her. She walked past her old friend's apartment to the next door down. She knocked.
An older man answered the door, looking as if he'd just woke up. Linda said, "'Excuse me,' and left the man alone. She told Susan and Clem it must have been the wrong apartment, and she couldn't remember where he lived. So the three hitchhiked back to Spahn Ranch. Linda's lie saved Nader's life. All she could hope for now was that Helter Skelter would come before Manson ordered her to kill again."
When the news of the LaBianca murders broke, LA was thrown into a frenzy. Charles Manson was sure this was the beginning of helter-skelter. He waited for news of riots in the streets. But after a full day, he was left disappointed. There were no riots, no race wars, and the police were on to the Manson family. Within weeks, they raided Spahn Ranch. But they weren't investigating murder.
They were investigating car thefts, and the Manson family didn't face consequences. They got off on a technicality. Still, it was enough to spook Manson.
He thought it might be a signal that someone was spilling family secrets. He blamed Donald "Shorty" Shea, an employee of the ranch owner. Shorty didn't care for the family's presence at the ranch, and he often advised his boss to kick them out. Given his animosity towards Manson, Shorty made a convenient scapegoat.
Some night in late August, about two weeks after the Tate and LaBianca murders, Manson and two followers took Shorty Shay out into the desert and killed him. The latest murder didn't quell Manson's paranoia. He moved the family to the place they'd been preparing at Barker Ranch in Death Valley. He told them it was time to find "the pit."
The "pit" was a recurring theme of Manson's sermons. For the family, it was a safe place in which they could hide during the race war. Then they'd emerge and rule the world. When they reached the desert, Manson sent the family on daily excursions to find the pit. Each night, when they returned from a day of searching, exhausted, they would gather around a fire, take hits of acid, and listen to Manson preaching about Helter Skelter and their new life.
Though, at this point, their life looked the same. Barker Ranch was a rustic, bare-bones set of cabins in the middle of nowhere, certainly no improvement from Spahn Ranch. They were still broke, using drugs, and resorting to petty crime to make ends meet. The locals easily figured out that the wave of petty theft was connected to the cult that had moved in down the road, and reported them to police.
With tensions rising and no sign of the mystical pit, members started peeling off from the cult, including Tex Watson, who went back to Texas. But the true nail in the coffin came in early October 1969. One of the Manson women, Kitty Lutzinger, had been asking why Bobby Beausoleil was in police custody. Kitty cared because she was pregnant with Beausoleil's baby.
Susan told Kitty about how they'd tortured and killed Gary Hinman that summer. She looked proud as she recounted the murder, even laughing. And it was that terrifying pride that pushed Kitty over the edge. On October 9th, 1969, Kitty and another woman fled Barker Ranch and went straight to the police.
The next day, October 10th, the Park Service, Highway Patrol, and Inyo County Sheriff's Department raided Barker Ranch. Authorities made 10 arrests, but they did not locate Charles Manson. By chance, he was visiting L.A. It was a miracle for him.
When the authorities came back a few days later, the ranch appeared abandoned. But as California Highway Patrolman James Purcell made a sweep inside the house, he found a lit candle flickering on the table, and he knew that someone must be home.
Purcell searched the bathroom. Right before his eyes, the door of a small cabinet by the sink swung open and Charles Manson emerged. Purcell said, if you make one false move, I'll blow your head off. To which Manson replied, hi. Manson was arrested and brought to a jail in Inyo County, along with the rest of the family. Once serious interrogations began, everything unraveled.
Susan Atkins confessed to Gary Hinman's murder, then bragged to her fellow inmates about the Tate-LaBianca murders. Linda Kasabian quickly agreed to testify against the family in exchange for immunity. And thanks to fingerprints lifted from the scene, Leslie Van Houten, Tex Watson, and Patricia Krenwinkel were charged with the LaBianca and Tate murders. What followed was nothing short of a media circus.
In March 1970, the Manson family members who weren't going to trial produced and released an album to raise money for Manson's defense. That same month, Phil Kaufman finally released the album he'd helped Manson produce in the summer of 1968, titled Lie, the Love and Terror Cult.
Charles Manson finally had what he wanted. His music was for sale, and he was world famous. It was just the small problem of the pending murder trials. They began on July 24th, 1970. As four of the Manson family women walked into court one of the days, they sang in unison, seemingly still under Manson's control.
From the jump, it was clear Manson and his followers had committed the murders. Susan Atkins and Linda Kasabian had revealed everything. But Susan's testimony was unusual. She didn't seem to realize that she was incriminating Manson. She saw her testimony as an opportunity to proselytize about Manson's godlike powers. She was seemingly still under his influence. So were his other followers.
At one point during the trial, Manson managed to sneak something sharp into his jail cell. He carved a small X in his forehead, just above his eyebrows. Then he arranged for a family member to pass out a written statement outside the courthouse. It read,
After he did this, some of the family women appeared at the courthouse with X's gouged into their foreheads.
Still, the trial moved forward, though Manson lost the privilege of acting as his own attorney. He denied all responsibility, telling the court, These children that come at you with knives, they are your children. You taught them. I didn't teach them. I just tried to help them stand up.
As Rolling Stone detailed years later in a 2019 article, Manson told the court he blamed society and he blamed musicians, saying, "Is it a conspiracy that the music is telling the youth to rise up against the establishment because the establishment is rapidly destroying things?"
It is not my conspiracy. It is not my music. I hear what it relates. It says rise. It says kill. Why blame it on me? I didn't write the music. It's the Beatles, the music they're putting out. These kids listen to this music and pick up the message. It's subliminal.
Never mind the fact that Charles Manson was the one telling his followers exactly what these messages in the music were and how to find them. He made enough of a case that during deliberations, the jury requested a record player and the White Album. This way they could decipher any hidden messages for themselves.
The jury listened closely, and one week later, they convicted Manson and his followers of murder. It was clear to them, the messages of evil didn't come from the Beatles. They came from Charles Manson. That April, Charles Manson, Patricia Krenwinkel, Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, and Leslie Van Houten were all sentenced to death.
When California briefly overturned the state's death penalty before restoring it, their sentences were commuted to life in prison. In 2023, Leslie Van Houten was released on parole after being denied more than 20 times. Linda Kasabian served no time because of her plea deal, but went into hiding until she died in February 2023.
Bobby Beausoleil is still in prison for Gary Hinman's murder. He's been denied parole 19 times. But even with most members behind bars, the Manson family continues to cause pain. Manson girl Lynette Fromey was uninvolved with the murders, but made headlines in 1975 for attempting to assassinate President Gerald Ford. She said she did it to impress Manson.
Meanwhile, dark associations still haunt the Beatles. In the Beatles anthology, Paul McCartney said, "It was frightening because you don't write songs for those reasons." In the same book, George Harrison said he was deeply upset to be associated with Manson. It was even worse for Ringo Starr, who knew Sharon Tate personally.
And before he died, John Lennon denounced the murders, saying it was the worst possible version of fans drawing meanings from lyrics that were never there. Out of respect for the victims, the Beatles refused to play the song "Helter Skelter" live. Though in 2004, Paul McCartney did play it as a solo act, perhaps in an attempt to reclaim it. After all, it was only ever supposed to be about a slide.
Charles Manson spent the rest of his life trying and failing to get parole. He died in prison in 2017. As of 2023, his songs have racked up millions of listens on music streaming platforms. Thanks for listening to Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast. We release new episodes every Monday.
Keep up with us on Instagram at Serial Killers Podcast and TikTok at Serial Killers Podcast. Have a story to share? Email us at SerialKillerStories at Spotify.com. Stay safe out there.
Serial Killers is a Spotify podcast. This episode was written and researched by Christina Pammies, Aaron Lan, Nora Battelle, Brian Petras, Mickey Taylor, and Maggie Admire. Story edited by Maggie Admire, fact-checking by Laurie Siegel, and sound design by Sam Baer. Our head of programming is Julian Boirot, our head of production is Nick Johnson, and Spencer Howard is our post-production supervisor. I'm your host, Vanessa Richardson.
♪