In 1969, on the date of August 9th, one of the most infamous crimes in American history took place at 10050 Cielo Drive, Beverly Hills. The Manson Murders, committed by members of the Manson family, would see five people slaughtered at the property. This included an 8-month pregnant Sharon Tate, actress, and wife of film director Roman Polanski.
10050 Cielo Drive, home of Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate.
THE HISTORY OF 10050 CIELO DRIVE
The property at 10050 Cielo Drive was designed by renowned architect Robert Byrd in 1942 and completed in 1944. Sitting high above California’s Benedict Canyon, the 3,200 square-foot home and 2,000 square-foot guest house sat on a 3.3-acre plot.
Designed to look like a European cottage, it was first owned by the French actress Michele Morgan. She lived in the property until only 1945, before returning to France at the end of World War II.
French Actress Michele Morgan at the front door of 10050 Cielo Drive. The same door that would become infamous some 25 years later.
In 1946, American actress Lillian Gish lived in the property while filming Duel in the Sun. After that period the ownership of the property is pretty sketchy. However, it is known that music and film talent manager Rudolph Altobelli bought the house for $86,000 in the early 1960s and then rented the property out.
Celebrity residents over the next few years included Cary Grant, Henry Fonda, George Chakiris, the American rock band Paul Revere & the Raiders as well as a number of other famous faces.
In February 1969, the French-Polish film director Roman Polanski and his wife Sharon Tate began renting the home from Altobelli. Just six months later, while Roman Polanksi was working in Europe, Sharon, her unborn child, and four other people would be slaughtered in the house. The property would quickly become one of the most infamous murder scenes in the history of the USA.
Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski.
THE MANSON MURDERS
***Warning: This next section gets pretty graphic, scroll down to ‘The Convictions’ if you wish to avoid it***
On the night of August 8, 1969, movie actress Sharon Tate, who was eight and a half months pregnant, her friend Jay Sebring, Polanksi’s friend and aspiring screenwriter Wojciech Frykowski and his lover Abigail Folger, heiress to the Folger coffee fortune, were together at 10050 Cielo Drive.
The Manson murder victims: Wojciech Frykowski, Sharon Tate, Steven Parent, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger
Music producer Quincy Jones, who was a friend of Jay Sebring, had also planned to join them that evening. Steve McQueen had asked Quincy Jones and Jay Sebring to view a rough edit of his movie Bullitt earlier that day. After watching the movie, Sebring and Jones arranged to meet that evening at Sharon Tate’s house. However, Quincy Jones forgot about meeting up, which probably saved his life.
Unbeknown to those in the property, four members of the Manson family were on the way to commit one of the most horrific crimes in American history. Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Patricia Krenwinkel were instructed by Charles Manson to go to the property and “totally destroy everyone in it, as gruesome as you can”.
The Manson Family Murderers. Susan Atkins, Tex Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel and Linda Kasabian.
To understand why Manson wanted everyone killed at this particular address is quite the story in itself. The short version of events is that music producer, Terry Melcher, who at the time lived at 10050 Cielo Drive, gave the semi-talented musician Charles Manson an audition, but rejected him.
This sent Charles Manson down the road of psychotic revenge. However, by the time of the murders, Melcher and his partner, actress Candice Bergen, had moved out of the property.
The longer version of events is even more incredible, a number of books go into far more detail, Helter Skelter being one of them.
Back to the night of the murders…… When the group arrived at the property, Tex Watson, who had been at the property at least once before, climbed the telephone pole and cut the phone line.
The group, fearing the electric gate might be alarmed, climbed a bushy embankment to the right of it, entering the grounds. It was at this time the first murder took place. Steven Parent, an eighteen-year-old student, had been visiting William Garretson who lived in the property’s guest house.
After coming down the drive in his vehicle, Tex Watson leveled a .22-caliber revolver at him. Watson then stabbed him, slashing him across the hand as he tried to defend himself, before shooting him four times in the chest and abdomen.
The murder scene of 18-year-old Steve Parent.
After making their way to the property, Watson cut the screen on one of the properties windows. He then climbed through the window and proceeded to let in Krenwikel and Atkins through the front door.
As Watson whispered to Atkins, a sleeping Frykowski awoke on the living room couch; Watson kicked him in the head. When Frykowski asked him who he was and what he was doing there, Watson replied: “I’m the devil, and I’m here to do the devil’s business.”
The pool and garden area at 10050 Cielo Drive.
On Watson’s direction, Atkins found the house’s three other occupants and, with Krenwinkel’s help, forced them to the living room. Watson began to tie Tate and Sebring together by their necks with a rope he had brought and slung up over one of the living room’s ceiling beams.
Sebring’s protest of rough treatment of the pregnant Tate prompted Watson to shoot him. Folger was taken momentarily back to her bedroom for her purse, out of which she gave the intruders $70. After that, Watson stabbed the groaning Sebring seven times.
Frykowski’s hands had been bound with a towel. Freeing himself, Frykowski began struggling with Atkins, who stabbed at his legs with the knife with which she had been guarding him. As he fought his way toward and out the front door, Watson caught up with Frykowski and struck him over the head with the gun multiple times, stabbed him repeatedly, and shot him twice.
Fryowski was found in the garden, having been shot and stabbed a number of times.
Around this time, Kasabian was had been keeping a lookout, was drawn up from the driveway by “horrifying sounds”. When she got to the house, in a vain effort to halt the massacre, she falsely told Atkins that someone was coming.
Inside the house, Folger had escaped from Krenwinkel and fled out a bedroom door to the pool area. Folger was pursued to the front lawn by Krenwinkel, who caught her, stabbed her, and finally tackled her to the ground. She was then killed by Tex Watson, who stabbed her 28 times. As Frykowski struggled across the lawn, Watson murdered him with a final flurry of stabbings. Frykowski was stabbed a total of 51 times.
Inside the house, Tate pleaded to be allowed to live long enough to have her baby and offered herself as a hostage in an attempt to save the life of her unborn child. At this point, she was stabbed 16 times by either Atkins, Watson, or both of them.
The murder scene of Tate and Sebring.
Manson had told the women to “leave a sign … something witchy”. Using the towel that had bound Frykowski’s hands, Atkins wrote “PIG” on the house’s front door in the blood of Sharon Tate before leaving.
The door to the property, with ‘Pig’ written in the blood of Sharon Tate.
The body of actress Sharon Tate being removed from the house.
Roman Polanski visits the murder scene at 10050 Cielo Drive. He had been working in Europe at the time of the murders.
THE CONVICTIONS
Despite not actually taking part in the murders, Charles Manson was sentenced to death, when the state of California repealed the death penalty this was changed to life in prison. Manson died in prison in November 2017 at the age of 83.
Charles Manson when he was arrested in 1969, then again sometime before his death in 2017.
Tex Watson was sentenced to death, his sentence was also changed to life in prison when California repealed the death penalty. Now in his 70s, he remains in prison at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, California.
Tex Watson in 1969 and again far more recently. He is still in prison to this day.
Susan Atkins was sentenced to death, changed to life in prison when California repealed the death penalty. She died in prison from illness in September 2009, she was 61 years old.
Susan Atkins in 1969 and again before her death in 2009.
Patricia Krenwinkel was also sentenced to death, later changed to life in prison. Now in her 70s, she is currently incarcerated at the California Institution for Women in Chino, California.
Patricia Kernwinkel in 1969 and again more recently. She is still in prison to this day.
Linda Kasabian, who had waited in the car down the drive and tried in vain to stop the killings, agreed to testify against the Manson family in exchange for full immunity. She stood in the witness box for 18 days, her testimony was believed to be the key factor in charging Charles Manson.
She would later move to New Hampshire, hounded by the media she changed her name and moved west. In 2009 she did an interview with Larry King, wearing a disguise and low-lighting to hide her identity.
Linda Kasabian in a press conference after she had spent 18 days testifying.
10050 CIELO DRIVE AFTER THE MURDERS
Just three weeks after the murders, not put off by the gruesome scenes that had taken place there, owner Rudolph Altobelli moved into the property and would live there for the next 20 years. When talking about his home he was quoted as saying he felt “safe, secure, loved and beauty.” In 1989 he would eventually sell the property for $1.6 million.
The last resident of the property was Trent Reznor of the band Nine Inch Nails. He moved into the property in 1992 and set up a recording studio there called “Pig”. A reference to the Manson Murders in which one of the killers (Susan Atkins) wrote the words “Pig” on the front door in blood.
Trent Reznor, the lead vocalist of the group Nine Inch Nails, was the last person to live in the home.
However, Reznor would move out of the house in 1993 stating “there was too much history in that house for me to handle.” Reznor took the “Pig” front door with him when he moved out, installing it at Nothing Studios, his new recording studio/record label headquarters in New Orleans.
The ‘Pig’ door, now the entrance to Nothing Studios. The door has been painted, but still looks exactly the same as it did in 1969.
Whereas other murder properties, such as the Villisca Ax Murder House, still stand as a sort of shrine to the victims. The house at 10050 Cielo Drive was demolished in 1994. The new property looks very different from the house Sharon Tate was murdered in. The new, vast mansion that stands on the site was also given the new street address of ‘10066 Cielo Drive’ in an attempt to forget the awful murders that took place there.
10050 Cielo Drive being torn down.
THE HOUSE OVER THE YEARS
Over the years, 10050 Cielo Drive didn’t change much on the outside. However, with so many owners over the decades, the interior was constantly changing.
The living room of 10050 Cielo Drive in the 1940s. The property was owned by actress Michele Morgan at the time.
The 10050 Cielo Drive living room on the night of the murders in 1969.
The living room at 10050 Cielo Drive in the 1990’s. Notice the beams, one of which Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring were tied to, are still in place.
The living room after being turned into a music studio by Trent Reznor in 1992.
THE NEW HOUSE
After 10050 Cielo Drive was torn down in 1994, a new mansion was built on the site. The new property looks nothing like the property Sharon Tate was murdered in. The property was also given a new address, ‘10066 Cielo Drive’.
Villa Bella, the vast mansion that replaced the house Sharon Tate was murdered in.
An aerial view of the property shows just how big Villa Bella is compared to the original house.
The entrance to Villa Bella.
The current owner of the house is Jeff Franklin, a Hollywood producer known for producing shows such as Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper.