The blood word 'PIG' on Sharon Tate's door, and the Helter Skelter clue detectives couldn't crack
The front door at 10050 Cielo Drive held a word written in blood: "PIG."
On the night of August 9, 1969, five people were murdered inside that Benedict Canyon house in Los Angeles.
The victims included actress Sharon Tate, who was eight and a half months pregnant.
Also killed were coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Folger's boyfriend, celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring, and a young man visiting the property's caretaker.
They were stabbed and shot.
The word "PIG" was written in blood on the front door.
The following night, August 10, 1969, supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary LaBianca were murdered in their Los Feliz home.
At that scene, the word "HEALTER SKELTER" — a misspelling of "Helter Skelter" — was carved or written on the walls and refrigerator, along with other phrases.
The crimes were discovered the following mornings by the victims' associates and family.
What do the words mean?
Who wrote them?
Why the misspelling?
The record does not establish the meaning of "PIG" or "HEALTER SKELTER" at this point.
They are documented crime-scene evidence.
Nothing more is certain yet.
TWO NIGHTS, TWO SCENES
The first scene was found in the morning.
Five people were dead at 10050 Cielo Drive, stabbed and shot.
The second scene came the next morning.
Leno LaBianca and Rosemary LaBianca were dead in their Los Feliz home.
Two nights. Two sets of bodies. Two addresses across Los Angeles.
The killers left a .22-caliber revolver, a knife, and a rope at the scenes.
They used a car driven by Linda Kasabian.
The Los Angeles Police Department took the case.
The lead detective, Lieutenant Earl Deemer, ran the investigation.
He had five bodies in Benedict Canyon and two more in Los Feliz.
He had blood on a door and words carved on a refrigerator.
He did not have a link between them.
The connection between the two sets of murders is not established at this point.
The investigation struggled to link them.
Why would two unrelated homes be attacked on consecutive nights?
Why would the killers write words in blood at one, and carve them at the other?
Why would anyone do this twice?
That would require evidence.
The victims' associates found the first bodies.
The LaBiancas' family found the second.
Each morning brought a new scene.
Each scene brought new questions.
The record shows the crimes.
The record does not show the connection.
THE CELLMATE'S CONFESSION
The breakthrough came months later, inside a jail cell.
Susan Atkins was jailed on unrelated charges.
She confided in her cellmate, Virginia Graham.
Graham listened.
Graham reported the confessions to authorities.
Atkins's statements linked the murders to Charles Manson and the Family.
The case suddenly had a direction.
It also had a problem of reliability.
Atkins was a suspect, and her words came secondhand.
Virginia Graham's account of those words was itself a witness account.
The truth of Atkins's confessions is not established.
It is a claim to be tested, not a fact on the record.
Then came Linda Kasabian.
She had been present during both nights of killing.
She drove the car.
She was granted immunity.
She became the prosecution's key witness.
Kasabian testified about Manson's instructions.
She testified about the events at both crime scenes.
She placed the accused inside the story, night by night.
Her testimony is also not established.
It is a witness account that will be tested in court.
The record shows she spoke.
The record does not show that everything she said was true.
Two women, two accounts, one case moving forward.
A door had cracked open.
What stood behind it would be decided by a jury, not by the telling.
THE TRIAL
The trial began in June 1970.
Manson, Watson, Atkins, and Krenwinkel were tried together for the Tate murders.
Van Houten was tried separately for the LaBianca murders.
The prosecution argued that Manson orchestrated the murders to trigger a race war he called "Helter Skelter."
Manson himself did not enter the homes or wield the weapons.
That, the prosecution said, was the point: he sent others to do the killing, so the war would begin without his hand on the blade.
Whether Manson actually intended to trigger a race war is not established.
It is the prosecution's argument, not a fact proven beyond dispute.
Linda Kasabian, granted immunity, testified for the prosecution about Manson's instructions and the events at both crime scenes.
The defendants' courtroom behavior marked the trial.
Manson attempted to testify; the record notes the disruptions without resolving them.
All five were convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy.
The jury sentenced each to death.
In 1972, the California Supreme Court abolished the death penalty.
Their sentences were commuted to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Kasabian was never charged.
The verdict was in.
The rationale behind it was contested.
Did Manson mean for "Helter Skelter" to happen, or did he mean something else entirely?
Did he send the Family out for blood, or did they act on their own?
Did the race war theory explain the blood on the door, or did it explain too much?
That would require evidence the record does not supply.
The trial gave the public a story: a cult, a leader, a prophecy, a massacre.
It gave the jury a conviction.
It left the why open.
AND THE STORY STILL ISN'T OVER
Charles Manson died in prison on November 19, 2017, at age 83.
Susan Atkins died in prison on September 24, 2009.
Patricia Krenwinkel remains in prison, denied parole multiple times.
Charles "Tex" Watson remains in prison, denied parole multiple times.
Leslie Van Houten was granted parole in 2023 and released after 53 years.
Linda Kasabian lived under a new identity and died in 2023.
The house at Cielo Drive was demolished in 1994.
The trial gave the public a story: a cult, a leader, a prophecy, a massacre.
It gave the jury a conviction.
It left the why open.
It still does.
The record does not establish the full truth of Manson's motive.
The record does not provide a definitive answer to the meaning of "PIG."
The record does not provide a definitive answer to the meaning of "HEALTER SKELTER."
They remain words on a door and a wall.
The killers are gone or still in prison.
The victims' families still attend parole hearings.
The questions remain open.
That would require evidence the case never produced.
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