translated from Spanish: 50 years after the Manson Family murders, the mystery remains

Los Angeles– 50 years after the crimes committed by Charles Manson and his youth entourage that horrified the city of Los Angeles, California, many unknowns
remain around the murders. One of the murders perpetrated by the “Manson Family” that caused the greatest shock was that of actress Sharon Tate, wife of director Roman Polanski, who was also pregnant and in the company of friendships when the massacre occurred.

Actress Sharon Tate with her husband, director Roman Polanski. Photo: AFP

Something changed forever the early morning of August 9, 1969, when actress Sharon Tate, her future son, and four other people were brutally murdered by a group of fanatics under a criminal involved in the role of hippie leader , Charles Manson.A black chapter that continues to pique interest today, such as that of the filmmaker Quentin Tarantino in his new film “Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood,” which recaptures this era to build its fiction, or that of Netflix’s “Mindhunter” series, which will premiere a second season centered on Manson.That weekend fifty years ago four young people entered 10050 Sky Drive to meet a mandate: Killing everyone in the house where film director Roman Polanski lived with his pregnant wife

Members of the Manson Family at the time of his arrest. 

The filmmaker was absent, but Tate and his four companions at that evening were not as fortunate. The next day another massacre by the same group, known as “The Family”, against Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, also neighbors of the city of Los Angeles (California, USA). The orders came from Manson, a 35-year-old man who believed he was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and the devil in the same person.

Charles Manson, intellectual author of the multiple murders. Photo: AP

That series of events terrified the heart of Hollywood, and the entire American society and the rest of the world, which was left speechless by the details of the extreme cruelty of the slaughter. Tate was stabbed 16 and hung from a rope with his stylist, Jey Sebrin. The housekeeper was shot dead in his car and the other victims appeared in the garden. On the walls of the house had been painted with the words “pig” or “Helter Skelter” (Song of The Beatles) that the killers made with the blood of the victims. The explanation for all the infamous delirium and its dramatic ending was found in the drugs and excesses of those years of counterculture, rampant hedonism and psychotropic substance abuse.

The hippie movement was booming when the murders were perpetrated. Photo: AP

The desires for love and peace, the revolutionary airs and the free and innocent spirit of the hippie movement found a bloody end, which half a century later continues to cause a combination of repulsion and morbidity around the figure of Manson.The leader of the criminal group, who died in 2017 at the age of 83, went from being a counterculture guru of the 1960s to one of the most famous criminals of the 20th century. A symbol of the end of a movement that ended up minceish in rejection and decay. Manson’s figure still illuminates different readings: The great criminal who took advantage of young candides for his misdeeds, the racist leader of an apocalyptic sect, the killer of Sharon Tate, the architect of the great trauma to California hedonism or the reflection of the mis-turned into a “pop” phenomenon. His record reflects that before he disguised himself as a hippie, he was a rapist and was also the victim of sexual abuse, as well as shopand car shop.

Photo: AFP

He landed in California in 1967 in the middle of the summer of love, where there was a catharsis of sexual and spiritual experimentation that seduced boys from all over the country and took advantage of the vulnerability of some to lead a group of followers, especially women , blinded by their mystical sermons and attracted by of sex and drugs. In addition, his “pop” side was lashed out thanks to his friendship with Dennis Wilson, drummer of The Beach Boys and his links with musicians such as Neil Young.Despite his contacts, Manson’s dream of becoming a musician was always frustrated because no one agreed to edit his songs. His obsession with popular culture led him to regard the four members of The Beatles as the four angels of the apocalypse to the point of believing that there were murky messages in their lyrics.

Photo: AP

He believed he found in the Song “Helter Skelter” of the Liverpool band, the omen of the apocalypse coming by an alleged black-and-white racial war that led to the beginning of their crime series. With information from EFE.



Original source in Spanish