Warning: upsetting and graphic content ahead.
After midnight on Aug. 9, 1969, pregnant actress Sharon Tate, her unborn baby, and four others were murdered at Tate's home in Los Angeles. The three people who committed the murders were told to do so by cult-leader Charles Manson.
The story of the Manson Family cult is a main plot point in Quentin Tarantino's new film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, where Margot Robbie plays Sharon Tate.
Here are the most chilling facts about Manson, his cult, and their crimes:
1. Charles Manson wasn't given a name when he was born. His birth certificate said "No Name Maddox." Maddox was the surname of his 16-year-old mother.
2. His mother reportedly sold him to a woman in exchange for a pitcher of beer when he was a kid. His uncle had to track the woman down to find him.
3. Manson spent 20 years of his youth in and out of reform schools and prison. While in prison, he took a course where he studied "How to Win Friends and Influence People," by Dale Carnegie.
4. After he was released from prison he formed a sex cult of nearly 100 followers (mostly young women) that he called the "Family." Some were as young as 14.
5. The Family regularly dropped acid together and Manson convinced them he was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.
6. The Manson Family settled on an area of land called Spahn Ranch in Los Angeles that was owned by a blind man named George Spahn. Manson allegedly told his followers to have sex with Spahn so they could stay. Spahn was 80 at the time.
7. Charles Manson and the Family briefly lived with The Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson. They all played music, had group sex, and dropped acid together. Wilson even took everyone to the doctor when they contracted gonorrhea.
8. The Beach Boys recorded one of Manson's songs, but changed some of the lyrics and renamed it. It's on one of their albums, and Wilson is the only credited writer. Manson put a bullet on Wilson's bed to show that he was upset with the changes.
9. Manson was obsessed with The Beatles' White Album, and was convinced it had subliminal messaging about a race war that would eventually develop. Especially the song Helter Skelter.
10. When the race war didn't happen, Manson grew impatient and ordered some of his followers — Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Patricia Krenwinkel — to kickstart it by murdering everyone at 10050 Cielo Drive, AKA Sharon Tate's home.
11. When they arrived at the house, Watson woke up one of the guests by kicking him in the head. When he asked who Watson was, Watson replied, "I'm the devil, and I'm here to do the devil's business."
12. 26-year-old Sharon Tate, who was eight-and-a-half months pregnant, begged them to let her live long enough to have the baby and offered herself up as a hostage.
13. Tate was stabbed 16 times. Linda Kasabian, who was keeping watch, said she "saw a woman in a white dress and she had blood all over her and she was screaming and she was calling for her mom."
14. Manson allegedly told the three women to "leave a sign...something witchy" after they completed the murders. One of the women used Tate's blood to write "PIG" on her front door.
15. Tate's guests that night — hairstylist Jay Sebring, aspiring screenwriter Wojciech Frykowski, and his girlfriend Abigail Folger (the heiress to the Folger coffee fortune) — were murdered as well. Steven Parent, who was visiting the property's caretaker, was also killed.
16. Manson thought the murders were done too sloppily, so he drove around with his followers the next night in search of more victims. His followers then brutally murdered Leno and Rosemary LaBianca using forks and knives.
17. They used their blood to write "Healter Skelter" on the refrigerator and "Death to pigs" on the wall. "Rise" was also written.
18. In 2014 — while Charles Manson was still alive and in prison — he was engaged to a 25-year-old woman who allegedly wanted to marry him so that she could display his body in a glass cage after he died.
19. Manson died in prison in 2017 at the age of 83. Three of his followers who were involved in the Tate-LaBianca murders — Tex Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie van Houten — are still alive, serving a life sentence in prison.
