1934-
Mass Murderer

A Scene of Bloody Horror.

At about 8 A.M. on Saturday morning, 9 August 1969, housekeeper Winifred Chapman arrived at 10050 Cielo Drive, the rental residence of film director Roman Polanski in a fashionable Los Angeles neighborhood near Beverly Hills. What she found that morning aroused the horrified interest of the nation. Five people lay dead in and around the blood-spattered house. The victims included Polanski's young wife, actress Sharon Tate, who was eight-and-one-half-months pregnant; Jay Sebring, a noted hairstylist; Abigail Folger, daughter of the chairman of the board of A. J. Folger Coffee Company; Folger's Polish boyfriend, Voytek Frykowski; and Steven Parent, a young man who had stopped by to sell some clock radios. The victims had been beaten and stabbed dozens of times, and the word PIG was written in blood on the front door. There seemed to be no motive. No money or...