Notes • August 9, 2025by johnataylor on TwosTragic Fact: The Tate–LaBianca murders were a series of murders perpetrated by members of the Manson Family during August 9–10, 1969, in Los Angeles, California, United States, under the direction of Tex Watson and Charles Manson. The perpetrators killed five people on the night of August 8–9: pregnant actress Sharon Tate and her companions Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger and Wojciech Frykowski, along with Steven Parent. The following evening, the Family murdered supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, at their home in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. The Tate–LaBianca murders "profoundly shook America's perception of itself" and "effectively sounded the death knell of '60s counterculture". In her 1979 essay collection The White Album, Joan Didion, who knew Tate and lived close to the site of the murders, wrote: "Many people I know believe that the Sixties ended abruptly on August 9, 1969…”