The Murder of Sharon Tate
by M.P. Pellicer | Noir Notebook
The summer of 1969 was scarred by a string of gruesome murders in the wealthy neighborhoods of Southern California. When authorities finally arrested members of the Manson Family, public attention fixated almost entirely on the killers—fueled largely by the fame of one victim: Sharon Tate.
On the night of August 8, 1969, actress Sharon Tate—eight-and-a-half months pregnant and only two weeks from delivery—was brutally murdered in her own home. Alongside her died celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Polish writer Wojciech Frykowski, and Steven Parent, an 18-year-old unlucky enough to visit the property’s caretaker at the wrong moment.
The killers spared no one. Tate, her unborn child, and her four guests were stabbed and shot repeatedly in a frenzied, ritualistic attack that left the house drenched in blood. Words scrawled in the victims’ own blood smeared the walls.
When police arrived the next morning, the scene they encountered was almost beyond comprehension: bodies sprawled across the living room and lawn, the stench of slaughter hanging heavy in the air, and the pregnant actress left lying in a pool of her own blood, a rope still looped around her neck and tied to a beam above.
The savagery was so extreme, so deliberate, that it shattered any sense of safety Hollywood had ever pretended to possess.
The Morning the Tate Murders Were Discovered
In the early morning hours of August 9, 1969, a Los Angeles newspaper delivery boy unknowingly became one of the first witnesses to the aftermath of one of America’s most infamous murder scenes.
As dawn began to break over Benedict Canyon, 16-year-old newspaper carrier Steve Shannen rode his bicycle up the steep cul-de-sac toward the gate at 10050 Cielo Drive. Something immediately caught his attention. The estate’s communication wires had been cut and now hung loosely over the gate.
Shannen looked farther down the driveway. A white Rambler Ambassador sat parked at a strange angle in the road. The yellow bug light mounted on the garage wall still glowed in the dim morning light. At that hour, nothing seemed terribly unusual. After a brief look around, he turned his bike and pedaled back down the hill.
A few hours later, another resident of the street, Seymour Kott at 10070 Cielo Drive, also noticed the severed wires and the light still burning near the garage.
Neither man yet realized that a brutal massacre had taken place during the night.
The Housekeeper Arrives
Just after 8:00 a.m., the Polanski household’s housekeeper, Winifred Chapman, stepped off a bus at the intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard and Canyon Drive near the entrance to Benedict Canyon Road. She had declined an invitation from Sharon Tate to stay at the house the night before.
Running late for work, Chapman considered taking a taxi the rest of the way. By chance, a friend spotted her at the stop and offered her a ride up the winding road to the estate.
When the car reached the gate at 10050 Cielo Drive, Chapman stepped out and watched the vehicle drive away. She walked toward the mailbox to retrieve the morning newspaper. As she reached the gate, she noticed the cut wires hanging across it.
At first, she assumed the power might be out.
But when she pressed the electronic gate control button, the metal gate swung open without a problem.
Chapman walked down the long driveway as the gate slowly closed behind her.
Three cars sat in the driveway. She immediately recognized Jay Sebring’s black Porsche. Parked beside it was Abigail Folger’s Pontiac Firebird.
But another vehicle stood farther down the drive — a white Rambler Ambassador sitting awkwardly in the middle of the road. Chapman had never seen that car before.
Inside the House
Chapman entered the house through the rear door, retrieving the spare key hidden on a rafter. Because of the house’s layout and the surrounding shrubs and split-rail fencing, she could not see the front lawn from where she entered.
She set her purse down in the kitchen and picked up the telephone.
The line was dead.
Wondering if anyone else had noticed the outage, Chapman walked through the dining room and into the entrance hall.
Then she stopped.
Blood covered the fieldstone floor.
Dark pools spread across the stone entryway. Blood streaked the walls. A trail of it ran across the cream-colored carpet of the living room.
The front door stood partially open.
Chapman stepped closer and looked outside. The porch was also stained with blood. Out on the lawn, halfway across the grass, she saw what looked like a body.
Realizing something unspeakable had happened, Chapman turned and ran.
Panic on Cielo Drive
She fled through the house the way she had come, grabbing her purse as she raced back up the driveway. As she approached the gate, she crossed to the left side to press the control button.
That was when she noticed another horrifying detail.
Inside the white Ambassador parked in the driveway sat a motionless figure.
There was a body in the car.
Chapman burst through the gate and sprinted to the neighboring home at 10070 Cielo Drive, pounding on the door and screaming.
When no one answered, she ran farther down the street toward another house, shouting at the top of her lungs:
“Murder! Death! Bodies! Blood!”
The First Police Response
Fifteen-year-old Jim Asin stood outside his home at 10090 Cielo Drive, waiting for his father to drive him to the West Los Angeles Police Station. He planned to volunteer at the front desk as part of the Boy Scouts’ Law Enforcement Explorer program.
When Chapman appeared screaming and frantic, Asin rushed inside to get his parents. They had already heard her cries and ran to the door themselves.
While they tried to calm the hysterical woman, Jim Asin called the police emergency number.
Los Angeles Police Officer Jerry De Rosa arrived soon afterward. Chapman struggled to explain what she had seen. Through tears and panic, she repeatedly described blood and bodies inside the Polanski residence.
Eventually she managed to show the officer how to open the electronic gate.
De Rosa retrieved his rifle from the patrol car and cautiously approached the white Rambler Ambassador.
Through the open driver’s window, he saw a young man slumped forward between the bucket seats.
The victim was Steven Parent. His plaid shirt and jeans were soaked with blood.
The Horrific Discovery
As De Rosa stepped back from the vehicle, another patrol unit arrived. Officer William Wisenhunt joined him, carrying a shotgun. The two officers searched the nearby cars and the garage but found nothing else.
A third officer, Robert Burbridge, soon arrived, and the three men slowly moved toward the house.
Two bodies lay on the lawn.
The first belonged to Wojciech “Voytek” Frykowski. He lay on his side with his head resting against his outstretched arm, his hand still clutching a patch of grass. His clothing was drenched in blood. Numerous stab wounds covered his neck and arms, and his face had been beaten so badly that it was barely recognizable.
Twenty-five feet away, beneath a pine tree, lay Abigail Folger. Her white nightgown had turned crimson from the dozens of stab wounds she had suffered.
The officers did not know whether the killers still remained inside the house.
With weapons drawn, two of them circled to the rear while the third stayed on the lawn.
They found an open window to the nursery and climbed inside.
Inside the Murder Scene
The officers moved cautiously through the house until they reached the entry hall.
There they saw another chilling detail.
On the white Dutch door near the entrance, someone had scrawled a single word in blood: “Pig.”
The living room showed signs of a violent struggle. Blood stained the carpet and the steamer trunks that had been knocked over during the attack.
Then the officers discovered Jay Sebring.
He lay curled on his side near the couch, his hands still bound. A rope had been wrapped tightly around his neck. A beige towel covered his face.
When officers lifted the towel, they saw the extent of the beating he had endured. His nose had been crushed, and severe swelling covered his forehead.
A length of rope extended from Sebring’s body up over a ceiling beam and then down to another victim.
Sharon Tate lay near the fireplace.
The eight-and-a-half-month pregnant actress rested on her side with her legs drawn toward her stomach. Her body bore multiple deep stab wounds to the chest and abdomen. Blood had pooled across the carpet beneath her.
The house had fallen completely silent.
Later, Officer De Rosa would describe the moment.
“It was very quiet,” he said. “The only thing I could hear was the sound of flies on the bodies.”