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Imagine standing in a hallway, holding your breath, while someone whispers that they are the devil. That is not a scene from a movie; it was the last thing Wojciech Frykowski heard before his life ended.
Let’s look closer at the air in Los Angeles during those final days of August in 1969. It was heavy with tension, thick with a sense of impending change that no one could quite name. But for a small group of people gathering under the direction of Charles Manson, that tension had a specific target. The Tate–LaBianca murders were not random acts of violence. They were calculated, orchestrated events carried out by members of the Manson Family cult on August ninth and tenth. Under the direct command of Tex Watson, this group set out to leave a mark that would echo through history, though perhaps not in the way their leader intended.
On the night of August eighth, just past midnight, four members of the Family drove from Spahn Ranch to Benedict Canyon. Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian arrived at 10050 Cielo Drive. This was the home Sharon Tate shared with her husband, Roman Polanski. They came with instructions to totally destroy everyone inside, to do it as gruesome as possible. Watson climbed a telephone pole near the main gate and cut the phone line. The house went dark, silent. They backed their car down the hill and walked back up, bypassing the gate by climbing a brushy embankment. They thought the gate might be electrified. They were wrong about the electricity, but right about the danger waiting inside.
heading": "The First Victim", "text": "Headlights approached from within the property. Watson ordered the women to hide in the bushes. He stepped out and stopped the driver. It was Steven Parent, an eighteen-year-old visiting the guest house caretaker. Parent begged him not to hurt him, promising he would say nothing. Watson did not listen. He lunged with a knife, slashing Parent’s hand and tearing off his watch, then shot him four times in the chest and abdomen. Parent died in the front seat of his white 1965 AMC Rambler. Watson turned off the ignition and pushed the car away from the gate. It was a cold, mechanical beginning to a night of chaos. The truth has a way of settling, but first, it rises like smoke.