Original subtitles

Movies are extremely compelling expressions,

not only of stories,

not only of drama,

but of the zeitgeist.

They reflect back to us who we are

politically,

socially,

religiously.

There are certain themes whose moments,

whose time have arrived.

And the Satanic themes that appeared in "Rosemary's Baby"

just seemed perfectly in step with the tenor of the times.

In 1968,

everything was kind of changing culturally.

The Vietnam war was really at its worst,

so there was a massive youth movement to stop the war.

A lot of people, including the government,

feared that this revolution was actually gonna happen

in the United States,

fueled by the youth of America.

It was a violent, turbulent time.

Male This is a CBS News Special Report.

The death of Dr. Martin Luther King Junior.

In 1968,

there was the Martin Luther King assassination.

There was the Robert Kennedy assassination.

I always say horror films reflect the times we live,

"Rosemary's Baby" came out

at a pivotal moment in history.

The world was really changing,

and horror films changed with it.

"Rosemary's Baby" was a milestone movie.

Not too many mainstream Hollywood films, even now,

would deal with a story of a young woman,

raped and impregnated by the devil.

I think it's one of the greatest horror movies

ever made for the very simple reason

that it presents the adversary...

as us!

Not someone who transforms under a full moon,

comes out only at night.

But the adversary is my slightly wacky,

eccentric, nosy, if likable, neighbors.

And I think that's the movie's genius.

- That's one of the twists.

- This is for you, from Roman and me.

- It gave people a different idea of what Satanists are.

- It's lovely.

- As a child growing up,

just emerging as a Satanist when I was 12-years-old,

when I heard for the first time from someone else's lips

besides mine, "Hail Satan,"

- Hail, Satan! - Hail, Satan!

- Satan is his father!

- It was inspiring. It was strengthening.

If you're not a Satanist,

and you're not rooting for the Satanists,

I suppose it might be a different perception.

- Oh God!

Polanski was in many ways a bellwether of his times.

He, too, observed that traditional hierarchies

were being upended.

There was fascination with witchcraft,

and questions of the afterlife.

And of course, with Anton Lavey's founding

of the Church of Satan,

there was a question about whether adversarial forces

represented a legitimate

spiritual or ethical path for people.

So, suddenly doors to the infinite were thrown open.

And that was part of the counterculture.

- There was definitely a synergy

between the Church of Satan and "Rosemary's Baby."

As far as "Rosemary's Baby" actually being cursed,

As far as somebody dying

or tragedy happening attached to the film itself,

there is an idea

that if you make a wicked film,

a dark film,

then you're opening yourself

up to forces outside yourself

that could influence your life in a negative way.

"Rosemary's Baby" is considered cursed,

partly because of its proximity and time

to the murder of Polanski's wife,

Sharon Tate,

and her housemates.

Polanski met Sharon Tate in London

in swinging 1967.

Sharon Tate was obviously ambitious.

- I feel a little top-heavy.

- You are a little top-heavy.

What's your ultimate ambition?

- I want to remain as much myself as possible,

you know, and just do what really excites me,

and interests me.

She was also smart enough to see

that Polanski was a man with a future.

Roman's absolutely a genius.

And he was a hard-luck guy.

He's a brilliant director,

and he had a lot of hard luck in his life

and I'm sure that leaves its mark,

but only a psychiatrist would know that.

My name is Julian Wasser.

I'm a photo-documentarian.

I'm a photojournalist.

I started when I was 11,

I put a police radio in my father's car.

I would steal his car and go out,

shoot horrible crime scenes.

What makes a good crime photograph?

- Blood. Someone burned alive, something like that.

A suicidal-like, Talbert Street Bridge,

where the person lands on the concrete

and they're smashed to pieces.

Anything horrible.

And how did that transition into

photographing celebrities?

Well, in L.A., what else is there

except celebrities? That's what sells.

That's what everybody in the world wants to see.

Marilyn Monroe,

Marlon Brando,

people like that.

I worked on the set of "Rosemary's Baby."

Anything Roman Polanski touched was a big, big deal.

You had uh, Mia Farrow in that,

I think she was married to Sinatra then.

and Bob Evans,

another charismatic guy who was involved.

So it was a big deal,

I-I felt very privileged

to be able to work on that set.

And there's Mia Farrow in the background

with a knife on the floor,

and then Bud Fraker, the camera guy on the right,

he's since passed on.

This was in 1968. It was a long time ago.

"Rosemary's Baby" was written by Ira Levin,

a self-professed New York atheist.

And Levin asked himself the question one day,

what would it be like

if I took a scene from everyday life,

a young woman becoming pregnant,

and made it into a kind of a nightmare?

- Dr. Hill? Congratulations.

- Really?

You're also seeing this horror

of women at that time period.

When you watch that movie, there's always an older man

guiding her by the back of her arm.

She's always being told to ignore her instincts,

to always just sort of mold

to whatever these men want from her,

and she's really absorbing that.

That was the story for women for so many generations

that they didn't have any other choice

but to mold within that world, or perish.

It's saying something about her,

but it's also equally subversive

in that she's going against her own Catholic faith

to raise this satanic child.

One important aspect that defines "Rosemary's Baby"

is William Castle's involvement.

My dad was the nicest, kindest,

most compassionate man,

who just happened to love to scare the Hell outta people.

He was a well- respected director/producer.

- Do you believe in ghosts?

You know, but most of his films, you know, he was,

he was the gimmick guy.

I mean, I loved "Homicidal,"

where there was a clock that came up

right at the climax of the film.

So if you were too frightened to stay,

you could leave, and get your money back.

He had a film called "House on Haunted Hill,"

and something called "Emergo,"

a skeleton flew across the theatre,

to everybody's screams of delight.

- It was William Castle who produced that film,

and he bought "Rosemary's Baby,"

and I was not overjoyed when he did.

So my dad definitely wanted to direct

"Rosemary's Baby" when he bought the property.

And he brought the book to Robert Evans over at Paramount,

but it was within the week, I think,

that they said, no,

we're gonna have this young, hot new director,

Roman Polanski, direct it.

And my father was really upset.

He still was gonna produce this, but...

his shot at directing an "A" film

was taken away from him.

- I remember the day when he called,

and said that he had decided not to direct it himself.

He was getting Roman Polanski, and was I terribly unhappy?

So I said no, I think I can get over that. So--

And I remember Roman coming over the house,

and my Dad saw Roman's fantastic talent,

and thought, okay, let's do this.

We have four main characters

in "Rosemary's Baby."

In the leading spot is Mia Farrow,

and John Cassavetes is playing her husband.

Roman is a craftsman.

The best, and I trusted him.

All the way.

There is a long-standing rumor that Anton Lavey,

the founder of the Church of Satan

was a technical advisor to the film,

or played the role of Satan himself in the movie.

Anton Lavey got involved for authenticity

and advice.

- Hail, Satan.

- Hail, Satan.

- Anton had talked about Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra

having friction on this set,

he talked about John Cassavetes

and Polanski having some friction

because they both wanted to direct.

The exterior filming of "Rosemary's Baby"

was obviously filmed in New York City,

but the interiors were all built

on the Paramount Studios lot.

Interesting, Paramount Studios is actually...

former cemetery property.

"Hollywood Memorial Park," right behind it,

used to be twice as big as it is.

This wall that you see on to our right,

This is the wall of the cemetery.

in the early nineteen-teens,

Hollywood Cemetery was actually

literally cut in half, and sold.

And on the other half, a movie studio was built.

Where this traffic light is,

is where Hollywood Cemetery ends,

and where Paramount Studios begins.

I have no doubt that there are remains

underneath Paramount Studio.

So the studio itself is fairly,

I think I can say with confidence, haunted.

I don't know if "Rosemary's Baby"

is the most cursed film.

And I don't know if there's such a thing as a "cursed set,"

but I wouldn't bet my life on it.

After the film was made,

bad stuff started to happen.

With "Rosemary's Baby,"

all of these terrible things that took place

in the actors, and actresses and producers' lives

happened after the film's release.

The Krzysztof Komeda story is a key one for me.

Krzysztof Komeda was a prolific jazz musician.

He'd had about 60 film soundtracks already

under his belt before he started working with Polanski.

He'd worked on other films with Polanski

like "Cul-de-Sac," and "Knife in the Water."

"Rosemary's Lullaby" at the opening credits of the film

is one of the most iconic pieces of Music

in terms of horror films that we have.

So, according to Polanski,

after the film in December '68,

he was drinking with Komeda

and another guy called Hlasko, who was a writer.

And those two got involved in a bit of rough and tumble,

and Komeda fell and hit his head.

That's one version of events.

Another story says he was in a car accident in L.A..

What we do know as fact is that he developed a hematoma

on the brain and fell into a coma,

and sadly died three months later.

Now there's a dark reflection on that in the film.

Obviously, Rosemary's friend, Hutch.

- Hutch, this is Roman Castevet.

He is targeted by a coven of witches.

He develops a mystery illness and falls into a coma,

and dies three months later.

- Hutch is dead.

Just like Komeda.

In the spiritual world,

there's a thing which is known as a "God wink."

When you have a coincidence which is a good coincidence,

The idea is that's God winking at you

to let you know that you're on the right path.

I think there were certain dark coincidences

such as Komeda's death

and Hutch's death in the film,

which is kind of like a devil wink,

for want of a better phrase.

It's kind of like the devil himself saying

that you're not on the right track.

Right after the film premiered,

my Dad had to go in for major, major surgery.

His kidney stopped working,

and he was convinced he saw the reflection of the devil

in the surgeon's knife.

But that's only part of it.

When the Catholic Church gave it a C rating

and condemned it.

When he got hate mail

saying that he was gonna rot in Hell.

He went into a depression.

He's used to making kind of fun horror films, you know,

and all of the sudden, he thought,

what did I bring into this world?

The night before I gave labor to my second child,

I dreamt that I was Rosemary. - Really?

- Which is not a real pleasant thing to dream

right before you're about to go and give birth to a baby.

Yeah.

And it has affected how I wanna protect my children,

and how one child I wasn't able to protect.

I had one child who died of cancer.

Was that the curse? I don't know.

And my sister died very young

of a heart and kidney issue.

Was that the curse? I don't know.

And my mother had Alzheimer's at a very young age,

and lived with Alzheimer's for 20 years.

Was that the curse? I don't know.

The events of "Rosemary's Baby"

take place in 1966,

which was the very year Anton Lavey

founded the Church of Satan.

Of course, in one of the famous scenes from "Rosemary's Baby,"

Rosemary is seated in the waiting room

of her obstetrician

and picks up a copy of Time Magazine,

which famously has on its cover the question,

"Is God Dead?"

The Western world experienced an occult revival

by the late 60s with the Woodstock Generation.

It's like people that are nowhere are coming here

because there's people that they think are somewhere.

So everybody is like, really looking for you know,

for some kind of answer. Where there isn't one.

It's just like, people are very lost, I think.

- The intersection of the hippie movement

and the occult movement makes a lot of sense to me.

Because I think they're hand-in-hand in terms

of the type of ideas that they were exploring.

You know, with the hippie movement you have like,

this sort of, return to the land idealism.

it's going back to these sort of paganistic

religious systems.

I think that the obsession with witchcraft

and the occult during the 1960s and 1970s

originated in England in 1951,

when there was the reversal of the Witchcraft Act,

which had been put in place in 1735,

and that did not allow anyone to openly practice witchcraft.

So when that was lifted,

you've got this whole kind of explosion

of everybody wanting to explore this topic,

because they previously weren't allowed to.

You have these kind of mind-altering drugs

that are also playing a factor

in this great awakening

that was occurring in the culture.

People who really started using LSD recreationally

would kind of have um,

religious experiences, and hallucinations.

- Help me!

Some of them explored all kinds

of mystical religions,

and some people became interested in Satanism.

There were rumors that Sharon Tate dabbled in Satanism.

If she did,

I think it was more out of curiosity and fun,

but there were other people

who had gotten serious about it.

I'm trying to think if there were any famous people

who ever admitted it,

Sammy Davis Jr. identified,

and called himself a Satanist.

He understood that Satanism

was an advocate for minority positions

in a lot of ways.

That was a period in Sammy's life

that he later wrote about

and was very public about.

But what's truly weird

is that Sammy Davis Jr's memoir,

"Yes, I Can,"

can be seen very prominently

on screen at least twice,

once when Rosemary is snuggling up with the book,

Then another time when Guy is tucking away

a book on witches that Rosemary had been given,

and we see the spine of Sammy Davis' book,

very prominently featured.

As a man whose life was impacted by evil,

Polanski, he has to be seen as an artist

who, at that time,

was trying to expose us

to questions of evil in ourselves.

When we talk about having a tough childhood,

it's hard to compare to what actually happened to Polanski.

Polanski's mother, Bula,

was taken to Auschwitz,

and she happened to have been four months pregnant

at the time,

which was significant because of course,

one of the first things that happened on arrival

at these terrible places was an inspection

as to whether or not you were fit for work.

Tragically, she was exterminated.

Polanski's father was also arrested.

He eventually ended up in terrible circumstances

having to work at the Mauthausen camps,

what was called the "staircase of death,"

which involved carrying these huge slabs of rock

up and down rough stone steps.

And if you fell, you were basically left to die.

Polanski's father survived two years

of this nightmarish ordeal,

and eventually was liberated by the Americans

in the spring of 1945,

and reunited with his child.

By this stage, Roman Polanski already had seen

more real horror and bloodshed in his life

than most of us would care to see

in our entire lives.

And that was just the beginning.

The year after the film came out,

one of the most impactful moments of my young life

was driving up to San Francisco.

We pulled over to the curb,

and my dad saw a newspaper stand and read the headline

that Sharon Tate had had been murdered,

and her baby had been murdered.

And they turned the car around, and we drove right back.

Well, I got up, and I heard a lot of sirens.

I called the police department and I said,

what's going on in west L.A.?

And they told me there was an incident on Cielo Drive.

And I got dressed and went right up there.

This incredible true crime case

is like nothing else.

It involves rock stars and movie stars.

If you didn't know it was a true crime,

you would think it's a movie.

My name's Scott Michaels,

and this is Dearly Departed Tours.

And welcome back to 1969.

I put together the "Helter Skelter Tour"

probably about 13 years ago.

Three weeks prior to the Tate-LaBianca murders,

the first man walked on the moon.

A couple of weeks prior to that,

Judy Garland died in London.

Her funeral in New York kicked off the Stonewall Riots,

and the Gay Rights Movement went into full swing.

Myself, I'm obsessed with the year 1969.

"Incense and Peppermints," "White Rabbit,"

Jefferson Airplane.

You got the peace sign, you got mushrooms.

On the very day of the murders, August 8th,

just a few hours before the Tate murders in Beverly Hills,

the Beatles took that iconic Abbey Road

album cover photograph, which I think is fascinating,

because they figure into this case.

This is important to me, the addresses of Cielo Drive,

and the LaBianca's house on Waverly Drive,

because I spent so much of my time in my life

researching them, and I wanted to commemorate them.

Cielo drive is still a tourist attraction.

Although the house has been gone since 1993,

and a new house has been put in its place.

Roman and Sharon moved into the house

in February of '69.

It was a rental.

And by the end of March,

both of them had gone to Europe to do separate projects.

Roman went to London to work on the script

and pre-production for "Day of the Dolphin,"

which was a film he planned to direct, but he never did.

- Va-go-now-mei-nah-her-pas!

- Yes!

- And while they were gone,

Roman had Abigail Folger and Wojciech

kind of take care of the house.

Cielo Drive is in the middle

of Benedict Canyon, basically.

This tragic boulevard

that makes its way from the Sunset Strip,

all the way over to the San Fernando Valley.

Benedict Canyon is located on...

I think this is official,

like, like a Native American

burial ground.

And I believe somehow, some way,

something terrible was wished upon the place,

because there are too many things that happened

in Benedict Canyon for it to be a coincidence.

Well, starting from the very base of Benedict Canyon

is the Beverly Hills Hotel, where Peter Finch...

- I'm as mad as Hell,

and I'm not gonna take this anymore!

- the Australian actor died of a heart attack in the lobby,

winning the first posthumous Academy Award.

- Peter Finch, in "Network."

- A little bit further up is where Richard Dreyfus

was nearly killed in a car crash.

Across the street from where a musician named Charo lives.

Her husband killed himself in the alley behind their house.

A Benedict Canyon address.

A little bit further up was where Elizabeth Montgomery

from "Bewitched" lived and died,

across the street from John Ritter's house.

John Riter didn't die in Benedict Canyon,

but he lived there at the time.

A little bit further up, Susan Berman was murdered

in Benedict Canyon,

the Durst murders that they made the documentary about.

About five doors down, George Reeves, "Superman,"

died of a speeding bullet to the head.

A little bit further up,

there was a woman by the name of Yvette Vickers.

She was a B-movie star, she was in "Sunset Boulevard,"

she was in "The Attack of the 50 Foot Woman."

She died in her home. She wasn't found for months.

A little bit further up,

Paul Bern and Jean Harlow's house.

Paul Bern killed himself in that house.

Jay Sebring moves into that house.

Rudolph Valentino lived across the way from the Tate murders,

and then Doris Duke, the tobacco heiress,

died in that same house under very mysterious circumstances.

Her butler inherited something like $500 billion.

He bought a house in Benedict, and died a couple months later.

There's so many stories about Benedict Canyon,

but it all goes up to Cielo Drive,

where the Tate murders happen.

That seems to be the awful notorious crown jewel

of Benedict Canyon.

I couldn't believe that these souls could do that.

We are a family!

Men and Kill every white mother,

every white babe.

I just was in shock.

I couldn't believe Tex could do that.

Susan, and Patty.

I remember Tex slapped the newspaper,

and the headline read something like,

"Tate-LaBianca Murders."

And he slaps that, and he says,

"I did this. Charlie told me to."

My name is Dianne Lake,

former member of the Manson family,

formerly known as "Snake."

I was 14,

when I got introduced to Charlie and the girls,

they opened their arms to me,

and I felt wanted, and I felt loved there.

But I think that what happened

was that he had this experience

of being crucified on acid.

And I think he started to believe that he was a Messiah,

that's when it really started to turn was,

you know, maybe nine months in,

when we got to Spahn Ranch.

He'd been always talking about this race war.

That's when he started getting enamored with the White Album,

and that the Beatles were sending him a message.

Then this black/white race war became Helter Skelter.

This race war was like an apocalypse.

You know, a lot of people were gonna die.

We, as a family, were going to be preserved.

Charlie wanted us to have babies for creation,

and that we would help repopulate the earth.

It seems--

it's kind of crazy to talk about, but...

you know, um,

but that, you know, looking back,

that's really, that was--

that was what he wanted to do.

There's an obvious link from Charles Manson

to "Rosemary's Baby."

The Dakota building was used as the outside

of the Bramford, as we know.

John Lennon had an apartment in the Dakota.

And then you say, okay, well...

the large bulk of the White Album was written in India,

during a retreat.

And at that retreat was Mia Farrow.

Mia Farrow, who was friends with Sharon Tate,

and Roman, hung out with the Beatles,

went to India with her sister,

songs were named after them,

verses in classic Beatles songs refer to Mia and her sister.

You mentioned the White Album,

and John Lennon, and what's eerie

is that in the scene where Rosemary is in the taxicab

and she's got that like, occult book

that she gets from the bookstore,

in the background, there's always this white Beetle

that's like, trailing her.

There's a white VW Beetle

that's throughout the film, actually.

You always see it parked out front of the building.

A lot of what the film is dealing with

is what's hidden in plain sight.

- The Dakota building is the outside of the Bramford,

and that's where the writer of those songs

would eventually be murdered.

My gosh, the Dakota,

where "Rosemary's Baby" was filmed,

and John Lennon was murdered right in front of it.

News John Lennon gave his autograph to the gunman

six hours before the senseless shooting,

in the entrance to his New York apartment building.

That's sinister.

If you look at the scene

where the woman jumps out of a window

in "Rosemary's Baby" and you know, commits suicide,

Get back.

- It's the exact spot where John Lennon was shot.

And it's very eerie,

because you're thinking about the White Album,

and you're thinking about Helter Skelter.

Then we say, okay, so Charles Manson,

who plays a big part in the curse of "Rosemary's Baby,"

He said he was inspired by songs on the White Album,

and nine months after the White Album's release,

Charles Manson and the Manson family

murdered Sharon Tate.

You can find a connection between anything,

if you look hard enough,

but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's not true.

If we take a look, for example, Victoria Vetri,

she's one of the key players in the curse

of "Rosemary's Baby."

So she only has a bit part in "Rosemary's Baby."

She plays Terry,

who is taken in by the Castevets

before she eventually allegedly

throws herself out of a window.

So, Victoria Vetri,

she does also go by the alias of Angela Dorian.

After "Rosemary's Baby,"

she became very close friends with Sharon Tate.

After the Manson murders,

Victoria then went into a dark paranoia.

She doesn't want to go out at night.

She becomes quite reclusive.

My name is Victoria Vetri,

and I was born in Hollyweird.

I mean, Hollywood.

I did a lot of films and TV shows.

I still get residuals.

I enjoy being an actress and entertaining people,

and I love to move. I love to move!

There's all these films that I look at

and I'm in shock, I'm going,

oh my God, I never even got a chance to see them.

And I'm going, wow, that was me,

you know, when I was younger.

I'm happy, though.

I'm living with someone that I really care for right now.

- My name's Mark Melvin,

And I'm a friend of Victoria Vetri.

You are Victoria's... - Play toy.

- Bravo, bravo!

- Yeah.

Back in the '60s, she really had a booming career

in Hollywood going on.

It's been so long since I looked back

at some of these things.

Maybe I should see them again so I can remember them,

I mean, as I'm getting older,

my-I'm losing part of my brains.

No, I'm just kidding.

Do you remember working with Mia Farrow?

- Vaguely, yeah, I think so.

I mean, I'm trying to remember what film we--

what we did together.

- My name is Terry Ginoffrio. - Nice to meet you.

I'm Rosemary Woodhouse.

And that's me, with the dark wig on.

and I'm washing clothes back there.

- Did you have to rehearse this scene at all,

or did you just uh... - No.

We just went through with it.

I enjoyed working with her too.

What was her name again?

- Mia Farrow. - Mia Farrow, yes.

Excellent, beautiful actress, too.

- It's kind of an interesting story, the way we met,

basically, through the pink car that Playboy--

- Oh yeah! - gave her in 1968

for being Playmate of the Year.

- I was Playmate of the Year,

and I had no clothes on.

- I ended up buying that car in 2010,

and I was excited, I was gonna meet the Playmate of the Year.

And then three months afterwards,

I heard that she had shot her husband.

- I was, I was a bad girl.

- Don't do that again. - Never.

- Especially not me. - Oh, I would never hurt you.

You know that.

I only hurt myself.

Well, he's alive. - He survived, yeah.

- Thank God, but I'm trying to remember all this.

Oh my gosh, I don't even know what--

- That's because of your memory.

- Well, my memory's coming and going sometimes.

Just...

So...

My name is Bruce Rathgeb.

Victoria was a waitress between acting jobs, I guess.

And I was a chef.

So that's how we met,

and kinda had a chemistry right off,

We were flirtin' with each other.

We had a great 20 years together.

The last five, Baby, you almost killed me.

Oh, Bruce Rathgeb. Oh dear.

Victoria Rathgeb, eww!

I was in a band, and she'd be saying,

there was girls at your rehearsal, and this and that.

I'm saying, no, no, you know.

I don't like to talk negative about people that I--

you know, once you are married and living with them,

and they wanna keep you in their order.

I find out that he's cheating on me?

Uh-uh! Later.

And I said, "I'm not gonna fight."

And here she comes with the gun.

I said, you're gonna shoot me, really, for-for what?

And I saw her aiming the gun, and I couldn't watch.

So I turned my back, and...

pop, she shot me in the back.

It went through my lung,

and I guess they went to operate,

the bullet was a 1/4-inch from my heart

so they left it in me.

It's still in me now, traveling around somewhere.

At one point, my doctor x-rayed me,

and it was in my right shoulder.

So, yeah, it's crazy.

I loved her.

And I still love her.

She spent eight years in prison.

- Was it eight years? Oh my God.

- And she's been on parole for three years now,

and it's scheduled to end in one month.

- I'm trying to remember what the Hell got me in prison,

to be honest, I'm--

- She doesn't-I don't think she really remembers

the incident so much.

- I don't, it's really weird.

- I think she remembers that she was in prison.

Maybe she doesn't want to remember.

Well, I think I wonder why she really shot me.

She had the gun when I met her.

Um, it was a Walther PPK 9mm.

A very good gun.

- Walther PPK. 7.65 mil,

with a delivery like a brick through a plate glass window.

- She got it as protection, uh...

because of the Manson murders.

She had the gun all those years,

and then ended up shooting me,

instead of Charlie.

- So, "Rosemary's Baby" was 1968.

The Manson murders happened in '69, a year later,

but Victoria was invited to be up there at the house,

and stayed home for whatever reason.

But uh, she was quite surprised to wake up the next morning

to find out everybody that had gone up

to the house that night was now dead.

Male In a scene described by one investigator

as reminiscent of a weird religious rite,

five persons, including actress Sharon Tate,

were found dead at the home of Ms. Tate

and her husband, screen director, Roman Polanski.

The house that had known a number of movie star tenants,

suddenly became a scene more tragic than any horror movie.

- We have a weird homicide.

We're trying to piece the thing together

with what small amount of physical evidence we have,

and anything that I tell you at this point

would be mere speculation,

and I'm not gonna speculate.

Male Los Angeles police are saying little

at this time about possible progress on solving the murders

of actress Sharon Tate, and four others.

When Polanski in his shocked state

arrived back in L.A.,

he saw the police investigation is going nowhere.

As a result, he started to undertake some of his own

uh, unofficial detective work.

He suspected everybody.

Roman called my dad to his bungalow,

and Dad came home, and he said,

he made me write the word "pig" over and over again.

And Dad never understood

why Roman asked him to do that.

And he had my father's handwriting analyzed

to see if it matched the "pig"

that was written on the walls.

I was shocked.

Tommy Thompson, the entertainment editor of Life,

was a friend of Roman's.

And Roman said, I need a photographer to go up

to the house to photograph it for clues,

for this psychic, Peter Hurkos.

He was a psychic to the stars,

whatever that means.

Clues for the psychic to then analyze your photos?

- Exactly, look at my photos and get psychic vibrations,

and find out who the murderer was.

Male Why were you called in on this case?

A lot of people are somewhat skeptical of mystics

and clairvoyants, and psychics.

- I have proved it enough,

and I'll take any test what scientists may impose.

And I like skeptic people, I approve it.

I wanna understand how Roman

can put this trust in the psychic?

- Because it's Hollywood, man!

"Psychic!"

We went up there,

and Roman was already there.

And I asked him, what am I gonna do?

And he told me,

just photograph everything I'm looking at,

which I did.

I mean, one of the pictures is iconic.

It's of Roman sitting on a chair

in front of the-the open door to his house,

with the word "pig" written in blood

that Julian took.

Here's a psychic solving the crime.

I don't know what he's looking for.

The blood was so thick, it was like Jell-o

in the living room,

and the smell is horrible.

Like a slaughterhouse.

That's what it smelled like.

The psychic was kind of a con artist.

Julian took Polaroids while he was doing his shooting.

Hurkos sold the pictures to one of the tabloids.

The Polaroids, the psychic took

to sell to the Hollywood Citizen News.

Another Hollywood move, what else is he gonna do?

When we were in the desert running,

the girls told me specifically

their part in the murderers.

When Susan was killing Sharon,

or helping kill her,

And Sharon was begging for the life of her baby,

Susan told me that she thought about...

cutting the baby out, and say--rescuing the baby.

What stuck with me even more than the details,

and the details were pretty bad,

was the way in which they told it.

They told it, they were almost gleeful

about what they had done for Charlie.

- We wanna take the children to the desert.

Your children.

There's no reason why your children should die,

they'll go to the-we'll take 'em to the desert.

If you give 'em to us.

I am not aware of the family

Talking about "Rosemary's Baby," Polanski,

but I can see how people

could compare and contrast

"Rosemary's Baby,"

and this woman giving birth to a child

that was all engineered by a family

for this baby then to become the child of the devil.

The only time he reacted,

when he was looking at pictures of Sharon in the bedroom,

and he started crying,

that was the only time I saw him react.

Did he ever tell you to stop?

- No, but man, I'm telling you, I felt that.

- You felt like stopping?

- I-I felt very bad about this whole scene.

I didn't want to be around there.

I felt like I was a graverobber, it was awful.

But you know, what do you do?

You-you're working.

And then the uh,

shot of the nightstand in their bedroom,

and there's this wedding photo of Sharon and Roman,

and the princess phone

with black LAPD fingerprint powder all over it.

That one shot just sums up the whole thing.

People often ask,

how would you describe evil?

And they will always say, Adolf Hitler.

And they will always say Charles Manson.

And I think it's fascinating

that Polanski's family were killed in a concentration camp,

It's a direct result of Adolf Hitler.

And his wife and friends were murdered

as a direct result of Charles Manson.

That's wild.

That-there is something there that I can't explain.

There were people out there who believed

that what happened to Sharon and to Roman

was karmic retribution for kind of exploiting

the dark side, with "Rosemary's Baby."

They were actually implying

that it was the victim's own bad behavior

that caused their murders.

Jack Nicholson, who was friends with Sharon and Roman,

said that Sharon had the unfortunate circumstance

of being murdered twice.

Once by her actual killers,

and the next time by the press.

Now, Cielo is right across the way here.

I-I think that's it. - It's the street?

- I think. I think, yeah. That's it.

There's a sign here. Yeah, there, see?

- Okay, that's Cielo. - Yeah, that's it.

Yeah, all this is new.

Yeah, when I came here,

there was several police cars here,

and there was a-a telephone coming--a line man

at the top of that pole repairing the cut wire.

I still didn't even know what happened.

You want the overlook shot here, turn right.

Yeah, there's the-where the Polanski house was.

It was a tiny little red shingle place.

Now you got that.

This thing's probably five times bigger.

This is L.A. excess,

to the nth degree.

At the end of the filming of "Rosemary's Baby,"

Mia Farrow bought my father

a beautiful humidor where you keep cigars in.

On the top of the cover was a 14-karat-gold devil,

with ruby eyes.

And it said, "To Bill. Love, Mia."

And it ended up in a storage unit.

And my husband was in the storage unit and he called me,

and he said, what do I do with that?

I'm like, you do nothing.

You just leave it in that storage unit.

I didn't want anything to do with it,

because it represented bad luck.

And even though we might not completely believe in it,

we were too afraid not to.