The night the murders ended the counterculture — and the fear that followed

The house at 10050 Cielo Drive sat at the end of a quiet lane in Benedict Canyon, the kind of place where the rich went to be left alone.

On the night of August 9, 1969, five people were murdered there.

Among the dead was actress Sharon Tate, eight and a half months pregnant.

The others were a coffee heiress, her boyfriend, a celebrity hairstylist, and a young man visiting the property's caretaker.

The morning light found them.

The crimes were discovered the following morning by the victims' associates and family members, who arrived to find a scene the newspapers would call unspeakable.

Nobody knew who had done it.

The identity of the killers was not yet known to the public.

All Los Angeles knew was that a peaceful Hollywood night had been shattered, and that the fear that followed was immediate.

The murders made no sense.

There was no robbery, no obvious motive, no witness who could name a face.

The public reaction was shock, then dread.

The murders were widely seen as marking the end of the 1960s counterculture era.

Not because the record proves it.

But because the moment demanded an explanation, and the era was the easiest one to blame.

What kind of people do this?

What kind of night ends like this?

What kind of city was this becoming?

Those questions had no answers yet.

That would require evidence.

THE SECOND NIGHT

The next night, August 10, supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary were murdered in their Los Feliz home.

The killings were committed by members of a group led by Charles Manson, who directed the attacks but did not participate in them.

The crimes were discovered the following mornings by the victims' associates and family members.

Tate's husband, director Roman Polanski, was in Europe at the time.

Not a second house in Benedict Canyon.

Not a second actress.

A supermarket executive and his wife, miles away, in Los Feliz.

The pattern broke before it could form.

The investigation initially focused on other leads, including drug deals and a possible connection to the murder of musician Gary Hinman, who had been killed weeks earlier by Manson followers.

Hinman had died in July.

The police asked whether the two nights were linked.

They asked whether the city was under attack.

They asked who would be next.

That would require evidence.

The exact motive for the murders is not yet established in the record at this point.

Two nights.

Ten dead.

The first scene had names the public knew.