Sharon Tate and the Manson Murders
For years the public has been bombarded by books about the Manson family and their crimes, few of these books have even attempted to tell the stories of their victims. Greg King’s Sharon Tate and the Manson Murders is quite simply cut from a different cloth. Through interviews and research, King retells the brief life of Sharon Tate so well it hurts to turn the page knowing the eventual end. An essential book!
Book Description: In this biography of Sharon Tate, Greg King recreates the story of Tate’s career, her marriage to Polanski, and her relationships with Hollywood’s most famous names. King also brings to vivid life the complete account of the tate murders, describes the lengthy search for the killers. and includes previousl unpublished police and detective reports, trail transcripts and letters from Charles Manson to “squeaky Fromme.” More importantly, this is the first book to focus on the victims of the Manson murders. As such, it brings a fresh perspective to the murder story that created a media frenzy foreshadowing what occurs with alarming regularity today.
Pages: 368
Publisher: Barricade Books; First Edition ~1st Printing edition (May 1, 2000)
Outside of “Helter Skelter,” THIS is the book to read about those horrible crimes. I love the way King starts with Sharon, bringing the reader up to the night of her murder, and then starts with those freaks – bringing everything together into the ending we all know about.
He humanized Sharon in a way that few other people could.
Now I’m looking forward to the books about the “other” victims. I would love to know more about who they were.
I agree about the other victims. Very little has ever been mentioned regarding the other’s who suffered the same fate as Sharon. Aside from the fact that she was 8 months pregnant; the other victim’s lives were just as important to their loved ones.
The public needs to know that when the Manson killers went to Sharon Tate’s house that night, they thought that Terry Melcher might still be living there. Manson was told that Melcher & Candace Bergen had moved, but he thought they might be telling a lie so that he (Manson) would stop going by the house to talk to Melcher. It wasn’t until the day after the murders that he knew for sure that Melcher had moved. WHY didn’t Melcher and Candace Bergen warn Sharon Tate that some really hideous characters kept coming to the house bothering them? That might have kept Sharon and Roman from renting the house!
How does ” the public knowing” make any difference, what soever ?
Chas Gregory says:
The public needs to know that when the Manson killers went to Sharon Tate’s house that night, they thought that Terry Melcher might still be living there
One of the key phrases that came from Susan Atkins and Charles Watson was “the house where Terry Melcher used to live.”
Manson was told that Melcher & Candace Bergen had moved, but he thought they might be telling a lie so that he (Manson) would stop going by the house to talk to Melcher. It wasn’t until the day after the murders that he knew for sure that Melcher had moved
Rudi Altobelli testified that Manson had come to the guesthouse in March having been sent by the people in the main house. In conversation with Altobelli, it became clear Melcher no longer lived there.
Greg Jacobson testified that Manson stole a telescope from the outside of Melcher’s place in Malibu. Leslie Van Houten told Sergeant Mike McGann that she’d been to Melcher’s Malibu place {although he wasn’t in}.
Clearly it was known Melcher had moved.
Going on to the book, at first I didn’t think much of it. But on reflection, it is definitely a book worth reading, more for the Sharon Tate end than for the Charles Manson end. In fact, the book goes decidedly downhill once Manson enters the book. I found the first half interesting but not as I was reading it. It’s a book that has a lingering effect and stays with you even though you might be dismissing what you’re reading.
The part that Doris Tate played in Sharon becoming an actress was noteworthy, as was Roman Polanski’s honesty in declaring what a scoundrel he was before he and Sharon married ~ and that he had no intention of changing.
It adds a little something to the overall case and is strong in showing how the different classes and sets of young celebs and hippies came together in both London and LA to become ‘the beautiful people.’