Episode 4: “Active Participation,” Overlooked, Deceitful Words: The LaBianca Murders

Authors:  Mel Hackney and Isabella Rosette In this episode of madness and murder, we looked into the LaBianca murders. Gave information about why the Manson Family Cult was doing these horrible things, what was going through Rosemary’s head that day, what makes this murder different, and how the crime was acted out. Instead of doing simple storytelling, while we give the facts of what truly happened we also take some time to reflect and give our own personal thoughts and opinions to prompted questions. The Manson Family cult carried out another murder on August 10, 1969, in the hopes of bringing about the race war “Helter Skelter”. The LaBianca murders are often shadowed by the Tate murders, as they were ordinary people instead of a commonly known name. However, something different happened in the LaBianca murders, Charles Manson actually played a part this time around as he felt there was not enough public panic the night before. Some sources do say that after the LaBiancas were killed there was more panic among the people, probably due to the fact they were not famous like the ones before. Showing that the person, now known to be multiple people, is not targeting specific people of status. Rumors of the time thought that the LaBianca’s had been sought out as a few months prior they were experiencing strange incidents of things going missing or being in a different place than originally left, however, there was no concrete evidence. Manson was one of the first to enter the house, helping Charles “Tex” Watson to restrain and convince the two that no harm would come to them, they were only being robbed. After Manson left the residence he ordered the two to be killed and insignia was written on the walls to help drive forward a racial motive so that the race war could begin. We gathered our information from the following sources. “Charles Manson and the Manson Family”, Crime Museum “The Charles Manson (Tate-LaBianca Murder) Trial”, Famous Trials “Leno and Rosemary LaBianca… (Victims)”, CharlesManson.com “Who Were the LaBiancas, and Why did the Manson Family Target Them?”, Brittany Du Bois, Oxygen True Crime “Leno and Rosemary LaBianca: The Couple Brutally Murdered by the Manson Family”, Kaleena Fraga, All That is Interesting “Charles Manson’s Race War, Explained” Michael Harriot, The Root