Editing Charles Manson (section)

===Tate murders===
On the night of August 8, 1969, Watson took Atkins, Krenwinkel and [[Linda Kasabian]] to 10050 Cielo Drive. Watson later claimed that Manson had instructed him to go to the house and "totally destroy" everyone in it, and to do it "as gruesome as you can".{{sfn|Bugliosi|Gentry|1974|pp=463–468}}{{sfn|Watson|1978|p=67}} Manson told the women to do as Watson instructed them.{{sfn|Bugliosi|Gentry|1974|pp=176–184, 258–269}}

The occupants of the Cielo Drive house that evening were Tate, aged 26, who was 8{{fraction|1|2}} months pregnant; her friend and former lover 35-year-old [[Jay Sebring]], a noted celebrity hairstylist; Polanski's friend 32-year-old Wojciech Frykowski; and Frykowski's 25-year-old girlfriend Abigail Anne Folger, heiress to the [[Folgers]] coffee fortune and daughter of [[Peter Folger]].{{sfn|Bugliosi|Gentry|1974|pp=28–38}} Also present on the property were 19-year-old caretaker William Garretson and his friend, 18-year-old Steven Earl Parent. Polanski was in Europe working on a film. Music producer [[Quincy Jones]] was a friend of Sebring who had planned to join him that evening before changing his mind.<ref>{{cite magazine  |url=https://www.gq.com/story/quincy-jones-has-a-story |title=Quincy Jones Has a Story About That |magazine=[[GQ]] |access-date=October 18, 2022|last=Heath|first=Chris|date=January 29, 2018|url-status=live}}</ref>

Watson and the three women arrived at Cielo Drive just past midnight on August 9. Watson climbed a telephone pole near the entrance gate and cut the phone line to the house.{{sfn|Watson|1978|pp=67,69}} The group then backed their car to the bottom of the hill that led to the estate before walking back up to the house. Thinking that the gate might be electrified or equipped with an alarm, they climbed a brushy embankment to the right of the gate and entered the grounds.{{sfn|Bugliosi|Gentry|1974|pp=176–184}} 

Headlights approached the group from within the property, and Watson ordered the women to lie in the bushes. He stepped out and ordered the approaching driver, Parent, to halt. Watson leveled a [[.22 caliber]] [[revolver]] at Parent, who begged him not to hurt him, claiming that he would not say anything. Watson lunged at Parent with a knife, giving him a [[defensive wound|defensive slash wound]] on the palm of his hand that severed tendons and tore the boy's watch off his wrist, then shot him four times in the chest and abdomen, killing him in the front seat of his white 1965 [[AMC Ambassador]] coupe. Watson ordered the women to help push the car up the driveway.{{sfn|Bugliosi|Gentry|1974|pp=22–25}}{{sfn|Watson|1978|p=69}}

Watson next cut the screen of a window, then told Kasabian to keep watch down by the gate; she walked over to Parent's car and waited.{{sfn|Bugliosi|Gentry|1974|pp=258–269}}{{sfn|Bugliosi|Gentry|1974|pp=176–184}}{{sfn|Watson|1978|p=69}} Watson removed the screen, entered through the window and let Atkins and Krenwinkel in through the front door.{{sfn|Bugliosi|Gentry|1974|pp=176–184}} He whispered to Atkins and awoke Frykowski, who was sleeping on the living room couch. Watson kicked him in the head,{{sfn|Watson|1978|p=70}} and Frykowski asked him who he was and what he was doing there. Watson replied, "I'm the devil, and I'm here to do the devil's business."{{sfn|Bugliosi|Gentry|1974|pp=176–184}}{{sfn|Watson|1978|p=70}}

On Watson's direction, Atkins found the house's three other occupants with Krenwinkel's help{{sfn|Bugliosi|Gentry|1974|pp=176–184, 297–300}} and forced them to the living room. Watson began to tie Tate and Sebring together by their necks with a long nylon rope which he had brought, then slung it over one of the living room's ceiling beams. Sebring protested the rough treatment of the pregnant Tate, so Watson shot him. Folger was taken momentarily back to her bedroom for her purse, and she gave the murderers $70. Watson then stabbed Sebring seven times.{{sfn|Bugliosi|Gentry|1974|pp=28–38}}{{sfn|Watson|1978|pp=70-71}} Frykowski's hands had been bound with a towel, but he freed himself and began struggling with Atkins, who stabbed at his legs with a knife.{{sfn|Watson|1978|p=71}} He fought his way out the front door and onto the porch, but Watson caught up with him, struck him over the head with the gun multiple times, stabbed him repeatedly and shot him twice.{{sfn|Watson|1978|p=71}}

Kasabian had heard "horrifying sounds" and moved toward the house from her position in the driveway. She told Atkins that someone was coming in an attempt to stop the murders.{{sfn|Bugliosi|Gentry|1974|pp=258–269}}{{sfn|Watson|1978|p=71}} Inside the house, Folger escaped from Krenwinkel and fled out a bedroom door to the pool area.{{sfn|Bugliosi|Gentry|1974|pp=341–344, 356–361}} Krenwinkel pursued her and caught her on the front lawn, where she stabbed her and tackled her to the ground. Watson then helped kill her; her assailants stabbed her a total of twenty-eight times.{{sfn|Bugliosi|Gentry|1974|pp=28–38}}{{sfn|Watson|1978|p=71}} Frykowski struggled across the lawn, but Watson continued to stab him, killing him. Frykowski suffered fifty-one stab wounds, and had also been struck thirteen times in the head with the butt of Watson's gun, that bent the barrel and broke off one side of the gun grip, which was recovered at the scene.{{sfn|Bugliosi|Gentry|1974|pp=28–38, 258–269}}{{sfn|Watson|1978|p=71}}

In the house, Tate pleaded to be allowed to live long enough to give birth and offered herself as a hostage in an attempt to save the life of her unborn child. Instead both Atkins and Watson stabbed Tate sixteen times, killing her. The [[coroner's inquest]] found that Tate was still alive when she was hanged with the nylon rope, although the cause of her death was determined as a "[[massive hemorrhage]]",<ref>{{Cite news |last=Kneeland |first=Douglas E. |date=Aug 22, 1970 |title=Coroner details the Tate killing |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/08/22/archives/coroner-details-the-tate-killing-says-actress-was-stabbed-16-times.html |url-status=live |work=New York Times |pages=22}}</ref> while in Sebring's murder it was found that he was hanged lifeless.{{sfn|Bugliosi|Gentry|1974|pp=28–38}}

According to Watson, Manson had told the women to "leave a sign—something witchy".{{sfn|Watson|1978|p=68}} Atkins wrote "pig" on the front door in Tate's blood.{{sfn|Bugliosi|Gentry|1974|pp=84–90, 176–184}}{{sfn|Watson|1978|p=72}} Atkins claims she did this to copycat the Hinman murder scene to get Beausoleil out of jail, who was in custody for that murder.{{sfn|Bugliosi|Gentry|1974|pp=426–435}}