The devil's business

It was Saturday morning, August 9, 1969. Residents of Los Angeles woke to a darker world.

The news was appalling, terrifying, confused. That Sharon Tate and four others were dead was dreadful of course. But how they were slaughtered was the horror.

Roger E. Murdock, Chief LAPD: We have a weird homicide with two bodies inside, two bodies outside.  We don’t have anybody that we can talk to.

But Manson wasn't finished. That very night, at his headquarters on the old Spahn movie ranch, he assembled another raiding party. This time, he went along. Manson and six famliy members took a long meandering drive through Los Angeles. They stopped, apparently at random. 3301 Waverly Drive, Los Feliz. With Tex Watson, Manson broke in and tied up Leno Labianca, a 44- year old grocery chain owner, and his 38-year-old wife rosemary.

Then Manson went back to the car and before he drove away, ordered Leslie van Houten and Patricia "Pat" Krenwinkel into the Labianca home. 

Leslie Van Houten: Tex handed me a knife and he said, “'Do something.'" I went back in the bedroom and Mrs. LaBianca was laying on the floor on her stomach and I stabbed her numerous times in the back.

Patricia Krenwinkel:  I proceeded to get a fork and stab Mr. Labianca - who was dead, I assume, by the ti--on his stomach.  I wrote with his blood on the walls and refrigerator.

Here were the words she wrote: "Rise," "Death to pigs" and "Helter skelter." Then Watson carved the word "war" into Leno Labianca's stomach.

Leslie Van Houten: And, when we left, I believe that it was Tex who went into the refrigerator and got cheese and chocolate milk.  And we went and we hid in the bushes somewhere around the neighborhood. And then when the sun came up we hitchhiked back to the ranch.

And then it was Sunday morning.  And terror swept L.A. like a bad wind.

Bugliosi: It frightened-- LA. Particularly in-- in-- Belair, in Beverly Hills, the heart of the movie colony where the Tate murders-- happened.  Overnight  The sale of handguns and-- guard dogs rose dramatically.   

In the following days, as Sharon Tate and the six other victims were lowered into their graves, wild viral stories spread. 

Poisoned rumors about the victims - Sharon Tate and the others - how their Hollywood lifestyle might have precipitated the murders . That there'd been orgies, drugs, satanic rituals at the Polanski-Tate home. None of the rumors was true.  Just more pain for the heartbroken, as Sharon Tate's sister, Debra, remembers:

Debra Tate: I was just a couple of months shy of seventeen. And Sharon was my best friend.  The spin that the press and-- and Hollywood itself put on everything was absolutely horrific.

Video   Fight not over for Sharon Tate's sister Aug. 28: Debra Tate explains why she thinks justice has not yet been served for her sister, Sharon, an actress brutally murdered during the Mason cult killings in 1969. Dateline NBC

Keith Morrison: And rumors are flying.

Debra Tate: The rumors were unbearable, for my parents, especially.  I knew that the rumors of witchcraft and devil worship and all of that were absolutely unfounded.

Polanski's own career seemed to fuel the darkest stories.  His most recent hit was "Rosemary's Baby," about a woman who gives birth to the devil's child.  He'd made "fearless vampire killers" in which he'd appeared with Sharon Tate.

Gene Gutowski, Polanski spokesman: Sharon and all other three friends were rational people with no interest in mysticism or anything occult.

Gene Gutowski: It was a tragic thing impossible for any of us to understand, the victims were generally nice people, not hippies, cultists or anything peculiar as some media have tried to make them seem.

Polanski: There was a lot of blood, all over the place. Baby clothes and that's all.

And then, from Polanski himself, this:

Polanski: In my house were parties where people did smoke pot. Sharon not only didn't use drugs, she didn’t touch alcohol, she didn't smoke cigarettes.  Her greatest picture, she was doing was her pregnancy.

Was anyone safe?  It did not help that the police investigation crawled glacially down disappointing dead ends.

Pete Noyes: People were terrified. People in Hollywood were calling security companies.  Some were getting guards. I've been covering news in LA for 52 years and I-- I had never seen a reaction to a murder-- a group of murders like this. It was just unbelievable. 

The cops announced that -- in spite of shrieking similarities ... There was no connection between the Tate and Labianca slayings.

Pete Noyes: The cops were very slow to release details of what happened.

Keith Morrison: And they seemed to be going in the wrong direction--

Pete Noyes: They were going around in circles.

Not exactly law enforcement's finest hour. And, to make things worse they kept arresting and then releasing Charles Manson and his followers for other crimes: 

- On August 16, more than a hundred officers raided Spahn ranch and busted Manson and 25 others for car theft, burglary and weapons possession. But the search warrant had the wrong date and everyone walked.

- Less than a week later Manson was picked up for marijuana  possession.  And then, in short order, freed again.  He went back to Spahn ranch where he and several others murdered movie cowboy Shorty Shea.

Pete Noyes: All these murders happened very fast.  And then, they fled town.  They left.  Thought, well, they could find happiness in Death Valley.

And so they took the long, heat-seared drive northeast, through the baking floor of Death Valley, and up a steep walled canyon called Golar Wash.  But escaping the law was only the half of it.  There were reasons for coming here.

Now the family went to ground here in the desert, preparing for the end of the world as they knew it.  Building up their desert stockpile of cars and weapons and food. It was not the end of the world of course, but it was for the family.  An ending that was, simply, banal. In mid-October, some L.A. lawmen were just beginning, tenuously, to   connect Manson with the Tate and Labianca murders.

And just about that time, coincidence, really, the local sheriff raided Barker Ranch. Twenty-four family members were arrested. Not for the murders but on utterly unrelated charges ... Arson and car theft. Among those swooped up was Susan Atkins.

Reporter: How are you this morning Susan?

Susan: I'm perfect.

And back in L.A. County jail she couldn't stop talking. Telling first two cellmates, then a grand jury all about Charles Manson, the murders already committed, the murders still planned.

Video   Prosecutor receives death threats from Manson Aug. 28: Steve Kaye, the lead prosecutor in the murder trial for Charles Manson, says even though Manson has a following, he is a detestable person. Dateline NBC

Bugliosi: they were planning to go after people like Frank Sinatra and Liz Taylor.  Richard Burton.  Steve McQueen. Tom Jones.

And finally, nearly five months after the Tate and Labianca killings, the police were able to announce an arrest.

Edward Davis, LAPD Chief: They appeared to live together in what might be described as a commune. It perhaps could have some religious connotations connected with it depending on your frame of reference.

And now, in morbid fascination, the whole world watched the spectacle. Heard about the sickening crimes. And the depraved theories of the man who inspired them.

Reporter: Are you sane?

Manson: Sane, that's relative.

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