Bartee Haile
Sharon Tate’s houseguest rubbed the sleep from his eyes on Aug. 9, 1969 and asked the tall intruder who he was and what he wanted. “I’m the devil,” answered Charles “Tex” Watson, “and I’m here to do the devil’s business.”
Charlie Manson sent the 23 year old Texan and three young women to an address in Bel Air, California with orders to “totally destroy everyone in that house, as gruesome as you can.” Dressed in black and armed with hunting knives, the quartet arrived at the gated estate around midnight. Only Watson carried a gun, a long-barrel .22 revolver.
The first to die was 18 year old Steven Parent. He had just slid behind the wheel of his car after visiting the groundskeeper, when Watson stuck the pistol through the driver’s side window and shot him four times.
Linda Kasabian stood watch outside, while Watson, Susan Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkel entered the house. They rounded up the occupants, herded them at knifepoint into the living room and bound them hand and foot .
The four terrified captives were Sharon Tate, 26, Dallas-born movie actress who was eight and a half months pregnant; Abigail Folger, 25, heir to the coffee fortune; Wojiciech Frykowski, Folger’s boyfriend and friend of Tate’s husband, Polish director Roman Polanski; and Jay Sebring, 35, jet-setting hairstylist and Tate’s former fiance.
When Sebring protested the home-invaders’ rough treatment of Tate, Watson shot him in the side and kicked him in the face until he stopped moving. Sebring attracted attention a moment later with a feeble attempt to crawl toward the open front door, and Watson finished him off with his knife laughing as he tore the helpless man to shreds.
Frykowski took advantage of the distraction to work his hands free. Watson yelled “Kill him!” to Atkins, but the much stronger man broke away and ran for the door. Two bullets from Watson followed by a frenzied knife attack stopped him on the porch.
Frykowski somehow got to his feet and staggered into the yard. Watson, who later recalled that his death throes reminded him of “a chicken with its head cut off,” caught up with him and drove the sharp blade repeatedly into his back, chest, arms and legs.
Folger, too, wound up on the lawn, where Watson was waiting with his knife.
Finally it was Sharon Tate’s turn. The pregnant woman begged for mercy and the life of her unborn baby, but Watson and Atkins killed them both.
Watson and the three Lizzie Bordens disappeared in the darkness leaving behind five dead bodies with a grand total of seven gunshot and 104 stab wounds.
Watson led a second murderous mission the next night. Businessman Leno LaBianca and wife Rosemary were slaughtered in their house once owned by Walt Disney.
Watson went home to Copeville, a Collin County hamlet northeast of Dallas, where everyone called him Charles. He had gone to high school just up the road at Farmersville, lettering all four years in football, basketball and track.
After graduation in 1964, Watson attended North Texas State in Denton. He dropped out of college in 1967 and worked as a baggage handler at Love Field before going to California in the spring of 1968.
On Nov. 30, 1969, Watson’s father and uncle drove him to McKinney, where he turned himself in to his cousin, the Collin County sheriff. Thinking the longer he stayed in Texas the better, he refused to waive extradition to the Sunshine State.
For ten months, the celebrated suspect enjoyed all the comforts of home in the county jail. He had his own television, radio, record player and cooler and was served home-cooked meals by his mother, who did his laundry as well.
Watson’s high-priced attorney, reportedly paid $100,000, eventually exhausted the legal options, and California lawmen came to claim the accused killer in September 1970.
In August 1971, a year and half after Manson, Atkins, Krenwinkle and Leslie Van Houten were sentenced to die for the Tate-LaBianca murders, Watson went on trial. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity despite having failed to convince a dozen psychiatrists that he was not in his right mind.
Star witness Linda Kasabian, who had turned state’s evidence, testified Manson told her, “Go with Tex and do what he tells you to do.” On the stand Watson disputed the damning statement and swore the women had been in charge. The jury saw right through the fairy tale and sent him to Death Row to be with his pals.
But a not-so-funny thing happened on the way to the gas chamber. Capital punishment was ruled unconstitutional in 1972, and the sentences of the Manson Family were commuted to life imprisonment.
Watson married in 1979 and fathered four children behind bars as a result of California’s conjugal-visit policy. He claimed to have found God in 1975 but confessed at a 1990 parole hearing that he did not feel the slightest remorse prior to 1987.
During his half century behind bars, Tex Watson has been denied parole 18 times. Now 79 years old, there is a good chance he will die there too.
Bartee welcomes your comments and questions at [email protected] or P.O. Box 130011, Spring, TX 77393.
