Tex Watson

Early life

Watson was born in Farmersville, Texas, on December 2, 1945, and grew up in nearby Copeville. He was the youngest of three children. Tex grew up apparently attending the Copeville Methodist Church. In high school he was an honor student and athlete, and worked as the editor on the school paper. In September 1964, Watson moved to Denton, Texas, to attend North Texas State University, where he joined a fraternity.

Tate murders

In January 1967 Watson began working at Braniff Airlines as a baggage handler. He used free airline tickets to travel, and visited a fraternity brother in Los Angeles; there he became interested in the psychedelic and music lifestyle of the late 1960s. Soon Watson met some women who were in the Manson Family, and then met Charlie Manson himself. Watson decided to join the Manson Family soon after meeting Manson.

On August 8, 1969 as a member of the Manson Family, Watson went with Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Patricia Krenwinkel to a large estate on Cielo Drive in Hollywood, leased by movie director Roman Polanski, and his wife, actress Sharon Tate. Polanski was in London, England working on a film on August 8th. At the home were Sharon Tate and her friends: hairdresser Jay Sebring, writer Wojciech Frykowski, and Folger's coffee heiress Abigail Folger.

Watson, who had been to the Cielo estate on at least one other occasion, climbed a telephone pole near the security gate, and cut the house phone line. The entire Manson group then climbed over the fence. When a car from the guest house approached, driven by an 18‑year‑old named Steven Parent, Watson ignored his pleas for mercy, and shot Parent five times in the chest and abdomen at point-blank range.

After pushing Parent's car further up the driveway and traversing the front lawn, Watson cut the screen of a window, and let Atkins and Krenwinkel in through the front door. Upon Watson's direction, Susan Atkins found the house's three other occupants, and with Krenwinkel brought them to the living room. Watson tied Tate and Sebring together at the neck with rope and slung it up over a beam. Sebring suddenly started to resist, and Watson shot him. After shooting Sebring and taking $70 from Folger's purse, Folger and Frykowski did bolt from the house, but they were chased outside, and after being stabbed further, died on the front lawn. Watson and his crime partners inflicted 28 stab wounds to Folger alone. Tate, Sebring and Frykowski all suffered numerous stab wounds. Sebring and Frykowski were also shot.

LaBianca murders

The next night, Charles Manson (who was displeased by their performance and pledged to show them "how to do it") drove six "Manson Family" members, Leslie Van Houten, Steve "Clem" Grogan and the four from the previous night into Los Angeles. In March 1968, Manson and other Family members had attended a party at the rented home of Harold True in Los Feliz, located at 3267 Waverly Drive. Manson did not want to kill True because he thought it could be traced back to him, so he settled for the house next door where Leno and Rosemary LaBianca lived. After driving their car up and down the street, and waiting, Manson and Watson got out of the car, disappeared walking up the driveway and entered the home together. According to Watson's book Will You Die For Me?, Manson held the occupants at gunpoint while Watson tied them up. Manson returned to the car to say he had tied up the house's occupants and sent Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten into the house. Patricia Krenwinkel and Van Houten took Rosemary LaBianca to her bedroom as Watson murdered Leno LaBianca in the den. Rosemary LaBianca was then murdered in her room, primarily by Krenwinkel and Watson, with additional (and possibly postmortem) wounds inflicted in her back by Van Houten. Both victims were stabbed numerous times and the word "WAR" was carved into Leno LaBianca's stomach; a fork was also left protruding from his stomach. Krenwinkel smeared phrases from or inspired by then recent Beatles lyrics such as "WAR", "Healter Skelter" (sic), "RISE", and "Death to Pigs" onto the walls and various surfaces in the victims' blood.

Conviction

On October 2, 1969, Watson fled the Spahn Ranch and headed back to his native state of Texas. On November 30, 1969, Watson was arrested in Texas for the Tate–LaBianca murders. He and his lawyers fought the extradition back to California for nine months. Upon extradition to California, Watson stopped eating, and began regressing to a catatonic state. He stopped talking and eating, losing 55 pounds. He was admitted to Atascadero State Hospital for a 90‑day evaluation period to determine if he was fit to stand trial. Watson stayed there until February 1971, when he was deemed able to stand trial.

On October 12, 1971, Watson was convicted of seven counts of first degree murder and one count conspiracy to commit murder. A week later, the same jury took only two and a half hours to determine that Watson was sane.

On October 21, 1971, Watson was sentenced to death. He arrived onto California's death row on Nov. 17, 1971. He escaped execution when the California Supreme Court's People v. Anderson decision resulted in the invalidation of all death sentences imposed in California prior to 1972. Watson was found guilty of the murders of seven people -- Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowshi, Steven Parent, Sharon Tate Polanski who was eight months pregnant, Jay Sebring, Leno LaBianca and Rosemary LaBianca -- and his seven counts were to be served concurrently. His minimum eligible parole date was November 26, 1976, but he has been denied parole 17 times since then including two stipulations; he was most recently given a five-year denial of parole at a board hearing on October 27, 2016. He remains incarcerated at Donovan State Prison in San Diego, California.

Incarceration

According to his prisoner outreach web site, Watson converted to Christianity in 1975. Will You Die For Me?, Watson's autobiography, as told to "Chaplain Ray" (Ray Hoekstra), was published in 1978. In 1979, he married Kristin Joan Svege. Through conjugal visits they were able to have four children (three boys, one girl), but those visits for life prisoners were banned in October 1996. After 24 years of marriage, Svege divorced Watson after meeting another man in 2003. Svege and Watson remain friends. He had become an ordained minister in 1981, and graduated from California Coast University in 2009 with a B.S. in Business Management.

In August 1982, a Southern California‑based group, Citizens for Truth, submitted some 80,000 petition signatures and several thousand letters opposing Watson's parole. The group received help from Doris Tate, the mother of victim Sharon Tate. The group was successful in convincing the California Board of Prison Terms to deny parole for Watson. In later years the group, along with Doris Tate, and her daughters, Patricia and Debra, submitted petitions with more than two million signatures.

In 2012, Watson disputed a request to release recordings of conversations with his attorney. The recordings became part of a bankruptcy proceeding involving the deceased attorney's law firm. Members of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said they believed the recordings might contain clues about unsolved murder cases involving the Manson family. Watson asked the presiding judge to allow police to listen to the tapes but not take possession of them. The LAPD did acquire the tapes, which allegedly contained Watson confessing to other murders, but reported that they did not contain any new information. In September 2014, Richard Pfeiffer, an attorney for Leslie Van Houten, said that he was considering subpoenaing the tapes to look for information that might help Van Houten in her next parole hearing.