Sharon Tate fought desperately to save baby as Charles Mason cult took her life (2024)

Actress Sharon Tate was eight and a half months pregnant when she was murdered by crazed members of Charles Manson's cult

Sharon Tate was just two weeks away from becoming a mother when she was murdered in the most brutal way imaginable by the Charles Manson 'Family'.

Aged just 26, the rising Hollywood actress was eight and a half months pregnant when she was slaughtered in her home on August 9, 1969, by crazed members of the infamous cult.

Tate - who would have turned 80 today - was relaxing with friends Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski and Abigal Folger after dinner when the Manson Family burst into the home she was renting with film director husband, Roman Polanski, who was away in Europe at the time.

Each of the murders was brutal - Jay was was shot after he tried to stop the gang attacking Sharon and then stabbed seven times.

Steven Parent, a friend of the house's caretaker, was shot and killed as The Family, minus Charles, burst into the home in Los Angeles.

He was just 18.

Frykowski was asleep on the sofa when The Family barged in and was kicked in the head by Tex Watson.

When Frykowski asked him what he was doing he chillingly replied, "I am the devil and I'm here to do the devil's business".

Watson then started to tie Sharon and Jay together with a rope round their necks and slung it over the beam in the living room.

Folger was ordered into the bedroom to get her purse and handed $70 over to The Family.

She managed to flee out of a bedroom door but was followed by Patricia Krenwinkel, who caught her and stabbed her.

But worse was to come for Folger, who was eventually stabbed 28 times by Watson and killed.

Frykowski's hands had been bound by a towel but he managed to free himself and started to struggle with killer Susan Atkins.

She kept stabbing at his legs but as he struggled out of the house, he was caught by Watson and hit over the head with a gun.

He was then stabbed multiple times, shot twice but still fought to escape the house.

Frykowski was eventually killed when he was stabbed 51 times.

Sharon herself was stabbed 16 times in the chest and strangled with a rope.

Her mutilated and broken body was found with the cord used in the killing still around her neck.

Tragically, her baby - due to be born within weeks - did not survive the horrific injuries suffered by his mother.

Meanwhile, Sharon was desperately not only fighting for her own life but also that of her unborn baby.

The star made the ultimate sacrifice to keep herself alive for long enough for her baby to be born.

She offered herself up as a hostage - but her pleas fell on deaf ears.

In a victim impact statement, her heartbroken mum Doris Tate revealed how her daughter urged her murderers to, "give me two weeks to have my baby and then you can kill me."

It's not clear if Watson or Atkins stabbed Tate and delivered the fatal blow.

But she was knifed 16 times and as she was being attacked she cried out "mother... mother".

Once the killers had butchered their victims, they used the bloody towel that had bound Wojciech's hands to write the word 'pig' on the front door of Sharon's home in blood.

Just a day after the Tate murder, The Family struck again.

Supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, were killed at their home in LA.

Officers did not link the two crime scenes.

Then, in December 1969, members of the Manson Family were arrested for a series of car thefts and while Atkins was in custody she told her fellow prisoners of the other crimes she had been involved in - including the murders.

The rest of the gang were arrested a few days later and their trial began on June 15, 1970.

Guilty verdicts were returned on 27 separate counts and all four were sentenced to death.

Atkins died of a brain tumour in 2008, having had her application for parole refused 18 times.

Charles Manson died of a heart attack on November 19, 2017. He was 83.

Sharon Tate was buried with her unborn son in her arms. He was named Paul, after his grandfather.