The front door of the home where actress Sharon Tate was murdered in 1969 has been auctioned off for $127,000.
The door was sold by Julien’s Auctions in California and was predicted to be sold for around $2,000-$4,000, but after a bidding war between 40 buyers, the highest bid was placed and sold for a huge amount more.
The door was taken off before the house, which belonged to Ms Tate and her husband, film director Roman Polanski, was demolished. The house was located on Cielo Drive in Beverley Hills, California where Ms Tate was brutally murdered by members of the Charles Manson cult.
One of the Manson family members, Susan Atkins, wrote “Pig” on the front door in Ms Tate’s blood after her murder.
It was saved by Nine Inch Nails’ lead vocalist Trent Reznor, who recorded an album in the house in 1992. He took it to his New Orleans recording studio and attached it to the front, but left it behind in 2004, for the next owners to discover. It was eventually purchased by a man named Christopher Moore in 2017 before finding itself at Julien’s Auctions.
It is currently unknown who the winning bidder is.
The door has been sold of for $127,000 after passing through many hands— (Julien’s Auctions)
“Tragically taken that night were Tate and her unborn son, her ex-fiance and celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring, Folger coffee heiress Abigail Folger and her boyfriend Wojciech Frykowski, and 18-year-old Steven Parent, with the door serving as an exit point for Frykowski who was discovered on the front lawn,” the door auction listing states.
Tate, who was pregnant at the time, was living in the house for almost eight months before she was murdered on 8 August 1969.
Sharon Tate was killed in her house by the Charles Manson cult in 1969— (Screen Archives/Getty Images)
She was killed along with five friends who she was entertaining for the night. All but one of them had received numerous stab wounds, with Ms Tate being stabbed 16 times and then hung by her neck in the living room.
In January 1971, five members of the Charles Manson cult were found guilty of the murders and sentenced to death, although the sentence was overturned in 1972 and they were given life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Police outside the home of Tate and her husband, film director Roman Polanski, following her murder— (Popperfoto via Getty Images)
Leslie Van Houten, a Charles Manson follower and a murderer of Rosemary and Leo LaBianca, the day after Tate was killed, was released from prison in July this year.
Debra Tate, Sharon Tate’s surviving sister, tried to block her release, writing in a petition, “We do NOT want this murderer who was convicted by two separate juries of her peers to be released into society.”
