Tri-City Herald file photo Sharon Tate, 16, was a student at Columbia High School in Richland when she was chosen Miss Richland during the 1959 Atomic Frontier Days, as well as Miss Autorama of 19581959. She abdicated two weeks later when her father, Maj. Paul J. Tate, was assigned to Italy after his tour at Camp Hanford. She went on to start a promising film career, which included a leading role in "Valley of the Dolls," before she was murdered by the followers of Charles Manson in 1969.
RICHLAND — Forty-eight years ago, Charles Manson’s troubled followers savagely killed a one-time Richland beauty queen turned Hollywood actress.
But the sister of Sharon Tate couldn’t help but cry late Sunday on hearing the news of the cult leader’s death in prison at the age of 83.
“I said a prayer, shed a tear, stuck a flower under my cross in my bedroom and emailed Roman (Polanski),” Debra Tate told the New York Daily News.
Prison officials said Manson died of natural causes.
Debra Tate, the only surviving Tate family member, has fought for years for justice for her sister.
Sharon Tate was 8 1/2 months pregnant when Manson sent four of his followers to kill everyone at her Los Angeles-area home.
Tate, 26, was the last to die, begging for the life of her unborn child, her sister said on The Tate Family Legacy website. Polanski, her husband, was in London at the time.
She was stabbed to death and her blood was used to write the word “Pig” on the front door of the mansion.
Ten years before her murder, Sharon Tate was 16 and attending Columbia High in Richland when she was chosen Miss Richland during the 1959 Atomic Frontier Days. She also had been named Miss Autorama of 1958-59.
She had to give up her crown two weeks later when her father, Maj. Paul J. Tate, was assigned to Italy after a tour at Camp Hanford.
She later went to Hollywood for a promising film career, including a leading role in “Valley of the Dolls,” and married film director Polanski.
Manson’s followers killed seven people in the summer of 1969 in an attempt to spark a race war he called “Helter Skelter.”
Her sister has fought ever since to keep Manson and his believers locked up. Just last year, she took to Change.org to drum up support for keeping Leslie Van Houten in prison.
Still, Debra Tate says she has been able to come to terms with Manson’s imprisonment.
“I’ve processed through all of my hate for him. Hate isn’t health. It won’t bring my sister back,” she told the Daily News. “One could say I’ve forgiven him, but there’s a difference between forgiving and forgetting.”
Van Houten, herself a former homecoming princess and the youngest member of Manson’s cult “family,” was recommended for parole in September. California Gov. Jerry Brown — for the second time in less than a year — must decide whether to approve or deny her release.
Three others involved in the two-night killing spree have been denied parole repeatedly, and a fourth died in prison in 2009.
“People are saying that this should be some kind of relief, but oddly enough, it really isn’t,” Debra Tate said in a phone interview with ABC News.
“While Charlie may be gone, it’s the ones that are still alive that perpetrated everything, and it was up to their imaginations for what brutal things were going to be done. In an odd way, I see them as much more dangerous individuals.”
She added that the surviving killers “are still brutal monsters capable of committing heinous crimes” and should stay in prison until they die.
Michele Hanisee, president of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys for Los Angeles County, reacted to the death by quoting the late Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor who put Manson behind bars: “Manson was an evil, sophisticated con man with twisted and warped moral values.”
“Today, Manson’s victims are the ones who should be remembered and mourned on the occasion of his death,” Hanisee added.
The other victims of the Aug. 9, 1969, murders were: Jay Sebring, 35, a Hollywood hairdresser and Tate’s former boyfriend; Voytek Frykowski, 32, a friend of Polanski’s staying at the mansion; Abigail Folger, 25, heir to the coffee fortune; and Steven Parent, 18, who was visiting the guest house on the estate.
The next night, Rosemary and Leno LaBianca, who owned a chain of Los Angeles grocery stores, were stabbed to death. Manson had chosen their home, then left the killings to his followers.
