According to PEOPLE.com, Debra Tate, sister of the late Hollywood star said she prayed for the soul of Charles Manson last night when the California Department of Corrections informed her that Manson died at Kern County hospital at 8:13 p.m.
Despite the gruesome nature of her sister’s death at the hands of Manson’s followers, who were mostly drug-addled miscreants, she said she never wished ill on any of the convicted killers.
In fact, when one of the killers, Susan Atkins, died of cancer in 2009, Debra prayed for her soul and vowed to do the same when the aging Manson passed away.
“My cross in my bedroom still has the flowers that I slipped into Jesus’s feet when Susan died,” she says. “I cried a tear and I asked for forgiveness on her soul. I’ll do the same thing when Charlie dies.”
The Manson Family, as his followers referred to themselves, slaughtered five people on the evening of August 8, 1969 at the home of Sharon Tate and her husband, Roman Polanski. Tate, who was nearly nine months pregnant at the time, was at home with coffee heiress Abigal Folger, celebrity hairdresser Jay Sebring, Polish movie director Voityck Frykowski, and Steven Parent who was a friend of the estate’s caretaker. Polanski was out of the country at the time of the killings. “Tex” Watson, Atkins, and Patricia Krenwinkel stormed into the house, high on drugs, and went on a murderous rampage that took the lives of everyone in the house.
Although it is unknown to this day who actually killed Tate, investigators say the actress pleaded to be allowed to live long enough to have her baby, who was due in just two weeks. She even offered herself as a hostage in an attempt to save the child’s life, but her killers showed no mercy. As she was being stabbed to death, the killers said she repeatedly cried, “Mother! Mother!”
The following night, a wealthy grocer, Leno LaBianca, and his wife Rosemary, were stabbed to death by Manson family members in their home across town.
Words such as “Pigs” and “Healter Skelter (sic) were scrawled in blood at both crime scenes.
The murderers went free for three months until a Manson follower who was jailed on an unrelated charge, told a cellmate about the Tate killings, which led to Manson’s arrest.As a result, five family members were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death; however, the state of California banned the death penalty in 1972. The killers were then given consecutive life sentences. Van Houton, Krenwinkel and Watson remain in prison.
Debra told PEOPLE she believes God will take care of Manson and his follower’s souls after they die, but spent much of the last 48 years fighting to keep them behind bars.
“These are sociopaths,” she says. “They’re no less violent today then they were then.”
As difficult as it might be to imagine how one can forgive someone for such a horrendous crime, it’s even more astonishing when this comes from the heart of a woman who has endured as much as suffering as Debra Tate has in her own life.
According to a GoFundMe page recently erected on Debra’s behalf by Jillian Barbieri, Debra Tate not only suffered through the unspeakable murder of her sister, but she was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. This diagnosis comes after losing her entire family in the course of the last few hears. In addition to Sharon’s death in 1969, when she was just 16 years old, she lost her sister Patty to breast cancer at 42, leaving behind three children. Her mother, Doris, was diagnosed with brain cancer and died six months later. Her father, a military man, died of congestive heart disease just after Patty died.
“I've known Deb for 20 years and she never complains about the cards life has dealt her,” Barbieri writes. “She is an amazing woman. She never asks for help. That's why I have to do this. She needs our help. “
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