On the night of August 8, 1969, the Tate - LaBianca murders started.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Thu Aug 8, 2019: Fifty years today, August 8, 1969: the Tate - LaBianca murders started

The murders started the same day that this happened, but many hours later due to the difference in time zones:

Thu Aug 8, 2019: Happy 50th anniversary, this picture:

That is also seen here:

Sun Aug 8, 2021: At 11:35 a.m. on August 8, 1969, this picture was taken:

A few days earlier:

Thu Aug 1, 2019: July 31, 1969, fifty years ago yesterday: Gary Allen Hinman is found murdered in Topanga Canyon

Mary Brunner



Mary Brunner in a 1968 mugshot

Born: Mary Theresa Brunner, December 17, 1943 (age 77); Eau Claire, Wisconsin
Criminal status: Paroled in 1977
Children: Valentine Michael Manson (son with Charles Manson)
Parent(s): George and Elsie Brunner
Criminal charge: Armed Robbery, Credit Card Theft, Indecent Exposure
Penalty: Incarcerated at the California Institution for Women

Mary Theresa Brunner (born December 17, 1943) is a former member of the "Manson Family" who was present during the 1969 murder of Gary Hinman, a California musician and Ph.D. candidate. She was arrested for numerous offenses, including credit card theft and armed robbery, and she served a prison sentence at the California Institution for Women.

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Meeting Charles Manson

Brunner was born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin to George and Elsie Brunner. She moved to California upon graduating from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1965 and took a job as library assistant at University of California, Berkeley. She met 33-year-old career criminal Charles Manson who had been released from Terminal Island prison several weeks earlier. She let him stay at her apartment and the two became lovers after several weeks. She was thus the first person whom Manson recruited into his "Family". She quit her job and the two began to drift around California in a van meeting other young women.

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The Hinman murder

Bobby Beausoleil left Spahn Ranch on July 25, 1969 accompanied by Brunner and Susan Atkins to visit Gary Allen Hinman in Topanga Canyon. Hinman had been friendly with the Family and had often allowed members to stay at his home. Both Beausoleil and Brunner had previously lived with him for short periods of time and Brunner was close friends with him. Beausoleil had a knife and a 9 mm Radom pistol that he had borrowed from Family member Bruce Davis.

After two friends of Hinman contacted the police, Hinman was found by Malibu deputy Paul Piet murdered in his home on July 31, 1969. His face had been deeply slashed on the left side and he had two stab wounds in his chest. His house had been ransacked, and "Political Piggy" and a paw print (intended to be symbolic of the Black Panther Party) were drawn on the wall in his blood. His Volkswagen van and Fiat station wagon were missing. The California Highway Patrol found Beausoleil asleep in the back of Hinman's Fiat on August 5 near San Luis Obispo, California. He had a sheath knife attached to his belt. Beausoleil was arrested and charged with the murder of Gary Allen Hinman.

Brunner and Family member Sandra Good were arrested in San Fernando, California on August 8 at a Sears store for purchasing items with a stolen credit card. Brunner had signed for her purchases with the alias "Mary Vitasek" and the two women fled the store when a cashier became suspicious. The store manager followed them, and the police found them in possession of numerous stolen credit cards and fake identification cards. They were charged with violating Section 459 (burglary) and 484e (grand theft by fraudulent use of credit card) of the California Penal Code and booked into the Sybil Brand Institute Reception Center later that evening.

On the night of August 9, Family members Charles "Tex" Watson, Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Patricia Krenwinkel went to 10050 Cielo Drive and murdered pregnant actress Sharon Tate and her guests Wojciech Frykowski, Jay Sebring, and Abigail Folger, as well as 18-year-old Steven Parent who was visiting William Garretson, who was house-sitting in the guesthouse normally occupied by Tate's landlord.

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Hawthorne shootout

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Brunner disappeared from the public eye after being paroled in 1977.

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Tate murders

Location: 10050 Cielo Drive, Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Coordinates: 34°05′38″N 118°25′57″W
Date: August 8–9, 1969
Deaths: 5 adults and 1 unborn child
Perpetrators: Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Charles "Tex" Watson

The Tate murders were a mass murder, conducted by members of the Manson Family on August 8–9, 1969, of five people. Four members of the Manson Family invaded the rented home of married celebrity couple, actress Sharon Tate and director Roman Polanski at 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles. They murdered Tate, who was eight and a half months pregnant, along with three friends who were visiting at the time, and an 18-year-old visitor, who was slain as he was departing the home. Polanski was not present on the night of the murders, as he was working on a film in Europe.

The murders were carried out by Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, and Patricia Krenwinkel, under the direction of Charles Manson. Watson drove Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian from Spahn Ranch to the residence on Cielo Drive. Manson, a would-be musician, had previously attempted to enter into a recording contract with record producer Terry Melcher, who was a previous renter (from May 1966 to January 1969) of the house along with musician Mark Lindsay and Melcher's then-girlfriend, actress Candice Bergen. Melcher had snubbed Manson, leaving him disgruntled.

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Charles Manson

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1968–1971: Cult formation, murders, and trial

See also: Manson Family



1969 mug shot

Once discharged from prison, Manson began attracting a group of followers, mostly young women, from around California. They were later dubbed the "Manson Family". The group was involved in the murder of Gary Hinman in July 1969, then gained national notoriety after the murder of actress Sharon Tate and four others in her home on August 8 and 9, 1969, and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca the next day. Tex Watson and three other members of the Family executed the Tate-LaBianca murders, acting under Manson's specific instructions. Family members were also responsible for other assaults, thefts, crimes, and the attempted assassination of United States President Gerald Ford in Sacramento by Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme.

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[calimary]

1. Lordy I remember that.

I remember feeling pretty spooked by it.

[lastlib]

2. When I think about the Manson murders....

I think about the lines from Hotel California:

"And still their voices are calling from far away....
And in the Master's chambers, they gathered for their feast,
They stabbed it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast."

[SergeStorms]

3. Those were weird times.

It definitely put the brakes on the "peace and love" 60s. Paranoia gripped southern California like a clenched fist.

I'd just returned to New York after bumming around California for a couple of years. It was kinda' freaky, thinking I might have run across some of them in my time out west.

I was glad to be home.

[leftyladyfrommo]

4. Boy do I remember all of that.

It was just such an awful crime that was followed by a total courthouse circus.