Sharon Tate and four others: Cielo Drive murder August 1969

On a hot August night in 1969, one of America's most notorious high-profile cases unfolded as Hollywood was shaken when actress Sharon Tate and four others were brutally murdered in her home at 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles, California.

After Tate murders: LaBiancas murdered in Los Feliz

While the Los Angeles police tried to comprehend the grotesque crime scene – with words written in blood on the walls and victims subjected to multiple stab wounds – the perpetrators, members of a sinister cult, were already on their way to commit new crimes. The following night, the same perpetrators struck again, murdering supermarket owner Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary in their home in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. This double family murder intensified fears that a serial killer or a group of murderers was at large.

Charles Manson and 'The Family': Cult's murders revealed

Behind these shocking acts of violence was not a lone perpetrator, but the infamous cult led by the charismatic and notoriously manipulative Charles Manson. His notorious group, known as the 'Manson Family,' consisted primarily of young, disillusioned individuals, many of whom were affected by substance abuse, who blindly followed Manson, believing him to be some kind of prophet.

From Maddox to cult leader: Manson's Cincinnati roots

To understand how a man with such a troubled background could exert the manipulation that led the Manson Family to commit these heinous murders, it is necessary to look closer at Charles Manson's own upbringing and past in the USA. Charles Milles Maddox, later known as Charles Manson, was born on November 12, 1934, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of 16-year-old Kathleen Maddox. His biological father was reportedly identified as a 'Colonel Scott,' a man with whom Kathleen Maddox had only a fleeting acquaintance.

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