Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more!
Who Were the Manson Family Murder Victims? The Tragic Killings, Explained
At the direction of the charismatic cult leader, Charles Manson's followers took the lives of nine people during the bloody summer of 1969.
For more than half a century, Charles Manson’s name continues to live in infamy after some of his followers went on a savage killing spree in the summer of 1969, sending shockwaves through the nation and abruptly ending the free love movement.
But the victims who lost their lives that bloody summer have received far less attention. The cult, often referred to as the Manson Family, has been linked to nine violent murders, carried out over several weeks. The victims, whether it was a former stuntman-turned-ranch-hand, a grocery owner, or rising Hollywood star, couldn’t have been more different from one another. Their only common link was having the bad fortune to have to crossed paths with the charismatic cult leader or his followers as they carried out their reign of terror.
A new Peacock special, Making Manson, premiering November 19, dives deeper into the crimes and includes never-before-heard conversations with the cult leader himself. Before the special premiere, learn more about the Manson Family victims.
Who is Gary Hinman?
While many associate Manson and his followers with the murders of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others killed at her Los Angeles home on Aug. 9, 1969, the violence actually began weeks earlier with the death of music teacher Gary Hinman.
Hinman, who once played piano at Carnegie Hall, made the fatal mistake of befriending members of Manson’s cult before his death.
“He just got in with the wrong crowd,” Charlotte Hood told People of her “eclectic” cousin. “He befriended Manson. He was a very generous soul, and he just got in with the wrong crowd.”
The connection proved deadly for Hinman after Manson followers Bobby Beausoleil, Mary Brunner, and Susan Atkins went to Hinman’s Topanga Canyon home in late July 1969. To this day, the exact reason for the visit remains in dispute. While authorities alleged the trio wanted to rob Hinman, Beausoleil told Rolling Stone Hinman had sold him a bad batch of drugs, which he in turn sold to a biker gang. When the gang got angry and demanded their money back, Beausoleil said he went to get a refund from Hinman.
Whatever the motivation, Hinman had no money to give. Beausoleil roughed him up a bit before someone in the group called Manson himself. Manson arrived at the home a short time later and slashed Hinman in the face with a samurai sword, cutting a large gash in his face.
Beausoleil told the TV special Inside the Manson Cult: The Lost Tapes that Manson told him he’d attacked Hinman to show Beausoleil “how to be a man.” Manson then left the home, leaving his followers to clean up the mess.
They kept Hinman captive for days, even trying to sew the wound up with dental floss, before Beausoleil stabbed his friend and onetime roommate to death, believing he had no other choice.
“I felt trapped,” he told Rolling Stone of the murder. “It was animal desperation.”
In an attempt to pin the murder on the Black Panthers, the group used Hinman’s blood to write “Political Piggy” on the wall along with a panther paw.
A California Highway Patrolman found Beausoleil sleeping in Hinman’s car along the highway on Aug. 6, 1969 and arrested him. A bloody knife was found in the station wagon, according to a report from the San Luis Obispo Tribune.
In the days that followed, some believe Manson followers were trying to create “copycat” murders while attacking Tate and her friends, along with Leno and Rosemary LaBianca the following night, in an attempt to free Beausoleil and make authorities believe Hinman’s real killer was still on the loose.
Who is Sharon Tate?
Actress Sharon Tate had the world at her fingertips, when she was savagely murdered on Aug. 9, 1969 in her home along Cielo Drive. Tate was married to popular director Roman Polanski and her own career was just taking off after appearing in the cult classic The Valley of the Dolls. Tate was also on the verge of motherhood and was eight and a half months pregnant at the time of the slaying.
Her life was cut short after Charles “Tex” Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, Atkins, and Linda Kasabian (who served as a lookout and didn’t participate in the violence) broke into her Hollywood home and attacked her and her friends. Tate was stabbed to death and hung from the rafters of the home while she was still alive, after unsuccessfully pleading with the killers for the life of her unborn child.
“Sharon Tate’s death was as brutal a murder as I think I can imagine,” Steven Kay, a former prosecutor in the Manson trial, told producers of Oxygen’s special Manson: The Women.
Who is Jay Sebring?
Celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring also lost his life that night. Sebring and Tate had once dated, but remained close friends after she left the Birmingham, Alabama native for Polanski, according to AL.com.
Sebring, who once fought in the Korean War, moved to Los Angeles after leaving the Navy and opened his own high-end salon. The hairstylist had a reputation as a notorious ladies man and was even rumored to be the inspiration for Warren Beatty’s character in the 1975 movie Shampoo, Vogue once reported. He also played a critical role in revolutionizing men’s haircare and his celebrity client list included big names like Beatty, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Frank Sinatra, and Sammy Davis Jr.
"He was the creator of men's hair design, or men's hair styling, today," his nephew Anthony DiMaria told ABC News.
On the night of the murders, it’s thought that Sebring tried to save Tate and her unborn baby. He was shot, repeatedly stabbed, and kicked in the face after he tried to step in front of Tate to shield her from the violence, according to AL.com.
Who is Abigail Folger?
Daughter of Peter Folger, the chairman of the Folger Coffee Company, coffee heiress Abigail Folger grew up as a high society debutante. After earning an art history degree at Harvard, she spent time in New York, where she met her Polish boyfriend, Wojciech “Voytek” Frykowski, before moving to California, where she volunteered as a social worker.
Folger and had been housesitting for Tate and Polanski in the months leading up to the murders and were still staying at the home in August of 1969.
On the night of the murders, Abigail was said to be reading in a guest bedroom. She was able to escape the house after the violence began, but was tackled in the front yard and stabbed 28 times, San Diego station KNSD reported.
Who is Wojciech “Voytek” Frykowski?
Aspiring screenwriter Wojciech “Voytek” Frykowski was once a schoolmate in Poland of Polanski’s and stayed close with the director in the years that followed, according to All That’s Interesting. He could be known to have an “explosive attitude” that got more out of control when drugs and alcohol were added into the mix.
“Beneath his tough exterior Wojciech was good-natured, softhearted to the point of sentimentality, and utterly loyal,” Polanski once wrote about his friend, according to the outlet.
After struggling to make it as an actor, Frykowski decided to pursue screenwriting and moved to America, where he met Abigail.
He had been sleeping on the couch on the night of the killings, when he was suddenly awakened by the intruders. After asking Watson what he was doing inside the home, Watson allegedly replied, “I’m the devil, and I’m here to do the devil’s business.”
Frykowski was shot twice, bludgeoned, and stabbed 51 times.
Who is Steven Parent?
Teenager Steven Parent just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The recent high school graduate had gone to the Tate property earlier that night to visit the estate’s young caretaker William Garretson to try to sell him a clock radio, according to The Los Angeles Times.
Parent, who had planned to attend college in the fall, was leaving the property, when Watson confronted him at the property’s front gate and shot him to death in his car, according to the Associated Press.
His sister Janet Parent told The Los Angeles Times that his death destroyed the family.
“My mom died very young of cancer—she died of a broken heart,” she said. “She never was the same.”
Who is Leno LaBianca?
The night after the Tate murders, Manson was allegedly unhappy about the sloppiness of the murders and went out with his followers to target another couple seemingly at random, according to CNN.
Although Manson didn’t participate in the killings, his followers Watson, Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten went inside and viciously murdered Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.
Leno was a corporate executive of State Wholesale Grocery Company, according to Manson: The Women, and lived a typical life by most standards. His daughter, Lousie LaBianca, described him in a 2024 profile in Los Angeles Magazine, as a “proud father” with a “loving smile.”
Leno and his wife, Rosemary, were tied up in their home and stabbed to death. The word “War” was carved into Leno’s abdomen and the victims’ blood was used to write “Death to Pigs” on the wall and “Healter [sic] Skelter” on their refrigerator.
Who is Rosemary LaBianca?
Leno’s wife, Rosemary, also died in the violence. Former Los Angeles County Prosecutor Stephen Kay told Manson: The Women that Rosemary had been working as a waitress when she met and fell in love with Leno years earlier. Louise described her stepmother as someone who had a “beautiful soul.”
On the night of her brutal murder, Rosemary was forced to listen to her husband being killed in the other room and then was stabbed 42 times herself.
"Eight of the stab wounds would've been fatal in and of themselves," Kay said in the docuseries. "Seven of the eight fatal stab wounds were in Rosemary's back. One of the stab wounds ... severed her spinal cord."
In a shocking twist of fate, decades after her grisly death, Rosemary’s granddaughter Ariana Wolk was also savagely killed in her Colorado home.
Who is Donald “Shorty” Shea?
The last known murder connected to Manson was that of stuntman, aspiring actor, and ranch hand Donald “Shorty” Shea, who disappeared in late August 1969.
Shea — who was in reality was more than 6 feet tall and weighed over 200 pounds — worked as a ranch hand caring for the horses on Spahn Ranch, where Manson and his followers lived for some time.
Manson secured the living arrangement after befriending the ranch’s elderly owner George Spahn. However, by the summer of 1969 Spahn had sold a portion of the property to Frank Retz, according to court records filed in California.
Retz was planning to purchase the remainder of the land that summer, but he didn’t want Manson or his followers on the property any longer. Retz later testified that he hired Shea to stand as guard on the property, but the ranch hand disappeared shortly after.
He was last seen by Ruby Pearl, another worker on the ranch, who would testify to seeing a car drive up “real suddenly” next to Shea as she was pulling away from the property. She saw Manson, Watson, Steve “Clem” Grogan, and Bruce Davis all get out of the car and surround Shea.
According to Manson’s followers, Manson believed Shea didn’t want him on the property and also thought he may have been the one to inform police about some of the group’s illegal activities.
Manson follower Barbara Hoyt took the stand to testify that she heard Manson bragging about killing Shea the next day.
“Charlie said that they had killed Shorty. Uh, they cut him in nine pieces,” she testified, according to the court records, adding that the group had hit him in the head with a pipe and then stabbed him to death.
Manson, Grogan, and Davis were all later convicted of the murder. Watson was also suspected of being involved, but was never charged in connection with that crime.
In 1977, Grogan led police to the location of Shea’s body. His cooperation later led to his parole in 1985.
Learn more about the crimes when the three-part docuseries Making Manson premieres November 19 on Peacock.
