Cult leader Charles Manson warned there would be ‘atrocious murders’ with victims ‘chopped to pieces’ months before he sent his disciples on a two-day killing spree, a new documentary reveals.
Former Manson Family member Paul Watkins recalls how Manson told him that ‘one day that up in the mountains of Bel Air and in Beverly Hills… there would be atrocious murders, that there would be blood splattered over everything.
‘That people would be chopped to pieces and cut up with knives and there would be things written on the walls in blood.’
Three months later, in August 1969, Manson dispatched a hand-picked group of followers to murder pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others at her Beverly Hills home, leaving the word ‘pig’ written in blood. The murders, which would be followed by two more, remain among the most notorious in US history.
The interview with Watkins, who testified against Manson in his 1970 trial, airs tonight in ITV documentary Manson: Lost Tapes, alongside recently unearthed footage taken inside the cult’s California commune.
The unseen clips, which were ‘lost’ for more than 40 years, show followers cavorting naked, women brandishing knives and guns – and features first-hand accounts from those who were willing to kill for Manson without question.
Tapes unearthed in California after four decades reveal the chilling control American cult leader Charles Manson had over his followers. Piuctured: A scene from one of the unearthed tapes aired in the ITV documentary tonight
Charles Manson, pictured left in 1969 when he ordered the murder of seven people, died aged 83. He famously carved a swastika into his forehead while in prison and is pictured, right, serving his sentence in 2014
Cult member Watkins recalled: ‘All the guys had to get over all their homosexual things by doing everything that you could possibly think of doing with guys’. Pictured: Two cult members share a passionate moment in the footage
Former cult member Paul Watkins, in Hendrickson’s footage, explains the attitude was of free love – with Manson the main attraction, especially for the girls. Pictured: Cult members showcasing the liberal approach to sex in the lost tapes
The footage was discovered after British producer Simon Andreae traced the whereabouts of filmmaker Robert Hendrickson, who had been given exclusive access to the Manson cult 50 years ago.
The first programme tells the story of how Charles Manson, fresh out of prison after serving seven years, drew his young followers in with the promise of drugs and free love.
Watkins, who joined the Family in 1968, tells how Manson encouraged to engage in depraved sexual acts – including some captured in the ‘lost tapes’.
‘He [Manson] said the whole universe is one great big f***,’ Watkins recalls. ‘Everything. He said it was everything… That’s all they [the women] ever did, was try to get Charlie to make love to them.’
He continues: ‘All the guys had to get over all their homosexual things by doing everything that you could possibly think of doing with guys.
As the original footage shows, at the ranches where the members lived, they existed on a diet of sex, scavenged food from dumpsters, and drugs
Catherine Share, nicknamed ‘Gypsy’, looks back on her experiences taking LSD administered by Manson and being inside the cult
Dianne Lake, nicknamed ‘Snake’ in the cult. Dianne tells how she joined when she was just 14 and explains that many of the other youngsters had come from difficult family backgrounds. Pictured: Dianne as a teen (left) and speaking in the documentary (right)
‘All the girls had to do everything they could possibly think of doing with girls. And any kind of combination that you could possibly think of.’
Like many followers, Watkins was told Manson was an incarnation of Jesus Christ.
Another Manson Family Member, Dianne Lake, adds: ‘We did kind of think of ourselves as his disciples.’
Manson built his commune – a ramshackle outpost in the California desert – on the principle of ‘free love’.
Victims: (top row left to right) Voytech Frykowski, Sharon Tate, Stephen Parent, (middle row left to right) Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Gary Hinman, (bottom row left to right) Leno LaBianca, Rosemary LaBianca, Donald Shea who were all murdered by the Manson cult
As the original footage shows, at the ranches where the members lived, they existed on a diet of sex, scavenged food from dumpsters, and drugs.
Sharon Tate was pregnant when she was murdered in the home she shared with Roman Polanski by followers of Manson
But it became apparent Manson had a darker side.
Dianne, who was nicknamed ‘Snake’ and was raped and beaten by the ‘Family’ as a teenager, recalls one occasion when the leader brutally sexually assaulting her after she approached him for sex.
‘It was more than just a rejection, he abused me, he hurt me. It was like, “Don’t you dare ask me for sex”.’
Speaking in the original footage, Watkins talks about the cult in an almost hypnotised state: ‘It’d be more like fear is what they were experiencing. Charlie said that fear was love.
‘Charlie said that fear, love and awareness were the same thing. The more fear you had, the more awareness you had, the more love you had.’
Ahead of the horrific events of August 1969, Manson was described as becoming increasingly paranoid, and devised a plan for what he believed would be a race war, named after the Beatles song Helter Skelter.
The men and women in the cult had already received some training in using weapons.
Manson and three of his followers, Susan Atkins (left), Patricia Krenwinkle (centre) and Leslie Van Houten (right) were involved in the murder of the seven victims
Manson (pictured following his arrest after the 1969 killing spree) went on to spend four decades behind bars until his death in 2017
Home of the ‘Family’: It was an isolated run down ranch 20 miles north of Los Angeles where they would plan killings, freebase on drugs and have sex with each other
Former Family member Catherine Share, nicknamed ‘Gypsy’, explains: ‘He taught us to hold a knife so it was, like, part of our fist, and that’s how you do it with a shiv in prison.
‘How to flick it open… We put oil on it and flicked it open like a switchblade. And it was going to be our forever survival tool.’
Meanwhile footage from inside the commune shows Sandra Good, known as ‘Sandy’ or ‘Blue’, who was not involved in the LA murders, holding a gun as she explains the the ‘Family’s’ attitude towards murder.
Manson (pictured in footage from the lost tapes), who was not actually present but ordered the killings, applied for parole in 2012 but was denied release and was not eligible to apply again until 2027 – but he died in 2017
Speaking in the original footage, Watkins (right) is seen talking about the cult in an almost hypnotised state: ‘It’d be more like fear is what they were experiencing. Charlie said that fear was love’. Pictured left: Catherine Share
Ahead of the horrific events of August 1969, Manson was described as becoming increasingly paranoid, and devised a plan for what he believed would be a race war, named after the Beatles song Helter Skelter – which was written in blood on the fridge at Sharon Tate’s home (seen)
‘Whatever’s necessary to do, you do it. When somebody needs to be killed, there’s no wrong, you do it,’ she says.
‘And you move on and you kill whoever gets in your way. This is us. If we were unarmed we would chew their necks off, anything, claw their eyes out.
‘And they know it… Whatever people have been asking for, we’ll give it to ’em’.
In August 1969 three of his followers, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkle and Leslie Van Houten, killed seven people: pregnant actress Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, Steven Parent and Jay Sebring in two separate incidents.
Manson, Atkins, Krenwinkle and Van Houten were all sentenced to death in April 1971. The sentences were later reduced to life in prison.
Manson died in prison in 2017 aged 83.
WHO WAS SHARON TATE?
Sharon Tate was an the American actress and model who rose to fame in the 60s, appearing in several small-screen productions and starring in a several fashion magazine campaigns before making her film debut in Barrabas in 1961.
Her most noteworthy role was as Jennifer North in the 1967 cult classic Valley Of The Dolls, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination.
After starring in The Fearless Vampire Killers in 1967, she married director and co-star Roman Polanski in August 1968.
Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski in 1968
She was just two weeks away from giving birth to the couple’s son when she was butchered by members of the Manson Family at Polanski’s Southern California home in 1969.
Four friends were slaughtered alongside her at Polanski’s home in Benedict Canyon: Hollywood hairstylist, Jay Sebring, an ex-lover of Tate’s, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, a Polish actor and writer, and Steven Parent, who had been visiting the caretaker.
On that fateful summer night, Polanski was in London scouting locations for the Day of the Dolphin when he got the call that his wife was stabbed to death 16 times in one of the most vicious and brutal murders in the history of Los Angeles.
Media frenzy directly followed the murders, with speculation that perhaps it had been part of a satanic ritual.
Polanski posed for photographs in the home, next to where the word ‘PIG’ was written in blood, saying he hoped the graphic images would help shock people into coming forward with information.
About a month later members of the Manson ‘Family’ were arrested on suspicion of involvement in an unrelated murder, which lead investigators to a breakthrough on the Tate case as well.
The suspects told police they had killed Tate and her friends not because of who they were, but because of the home they were in, which had belonged to a previous acquaintance of Manson.
Reporting by Megan Sheets
Manson died of a heart attack at the age of 83 in 2017.
Manson: The Lost Tapes starts on ITV at 9pm Thursday [September 27]
WHO WAS CHARLES MANSON AND ‘THE FAMILY’ AND HOW MANY PEOPLE DID THEY MURDER?
Charles Manson, the convicted mass murderer and cult leader who died at the age of 83 in 2017, orchestrated the gruesome murders of seven people in August 1969 in California by his devoted followers.
He had been behind bars for more than four decades, since 1969, after he ordered members of his cult – which he dubbed ‘the family’ – to go on a murderous two-day rampage.
Three of his followers, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkle and Leslie Van Houten, killed seven people: pregnant actress Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, Steven Parent and Jay Sebring.
He had ordered his family members to slaughter Tate, who was eight-and-a-half months pregnant, and three of her friends at her home above Beverly Hills.
Manson, who was not actually present but ordered the killings, applied for parole in 2012 but was denied release and was not eligible to apply again until 2027 – but died in 2017
Sharon Tate’s sister Debra told People she never wished ill of any of the convicted killers. She said: ‘Each one of these people and myself now have are spirits or our wills are slightly entangled.’
Stephen Parent was a fifth unfortunate victim that night. He had driven to the property to see if caretaker William Garreston wanted to buy his AM/FM Clock radio, and had stayed on for a beer at the guest house. He was shot multiple times when he wound down the window at the electric gate as he left.
The following night the Family butchered small business owners Leno and Rosemary La Bianca, in their home in Los Angeles.
Charles Manson was the evil mastermind behind some of the most chillingly ferocious, macabre killing sprees in modern history
The murders were carried out in upscale, mostly white neighborhoods of Los Angeles in order to blame the crimes on African Americans, in the hope of sparking what he termed a ‘Helter Skelter’ race war.
Manson was also later convicted of the slayings of musician Gary Hinman and stuntman Donald ‘Shorty’ Shea.
During the trial he was convicted of leading a cult in which disaffected young people living in a commune followed his orders and were ultimately turned into killers.
Sharon Tate’s sister Debra told People she never wished ill of any of the convicted killers. She said: ‘Each one of these people and myself now have are spirits or our wills are slightly entangled.’
Manson, Atkins, Krenwinkle and Van Houten were convicted of murder and initially sentenced to death for the killings.
Manson, who was not actually present but ordered the killings, applied for parole in 2012 but was denied release and was not eligible to apply again until 2027.
The cult leader continued his life of crime behind bars after being locked up, with more than 100 infractions during his time in prison, for charges including assault, making voodoo dolls and hiding a hot air balloon order catalogue in his cell.