YouTubeAbigail Folger was the heiress to a massive coffee fortune.Abigail Folger had a charmed life: She was an heiress to the Folgers Coffee fortune who was dating Polish actor and screenwriter Wojciech Frykowski and spending the summer of 1969 at the Beverly Hills home of Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate. Tragically, it was this time in Los Angeles that led to Folgers violent end. On August 9, 1969, four members of the Manson Family cult broke into Tates house and brutally slaughtered everyone inside. Folger was stabbed 28 times while trying to escape, and the police found her mutilated body crumpled in the yard the next morning. The murder of a prominent heiress at the hands of the crazed followers of Charles Manson would surely have been enough to fill the front pages of newspapers across the country for weeks on its own. However, such was the fame of the other victims that Folgers name was merely a footnote in the reports.This is Abigail Folgers full story, from her auspicious beginnings to her fateful final days at 10050 Cielo Drive.The Early Life Of Coffee Heiress Abigail FolgerAbigail Anne Folger was born on August 11, 1943, to Ines Mejia and Peter Folger, the chairman of the Folger Coffee Company. She was raised in the San Francisco area, where she took piano lessons and was presented as a high-society debutante in 1961. Find a GraveAbigail Folger was murdered just two days before her 26th birthday.After graduating from Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Folger went on to earn a masters degree in art history from Harvard. She secured a job at an art museum in California in 1967, but she soon moved to New York City to work for a magazine publisher and later a bookstore.It was in New York that she met Wojciech Frykowski in early 1968. He had recently arrived in the U.S. from Poland, where hed tried to break into the filmmaking industry after befriending Roman Polanski. Folger and Frykowski quickly hit it off, and they decided to move to Los Angeles together just a few months into their relationship. Back in the Golden State, Folger started volunteering with the welfare department, helping impoverished children, and supporting civil rights causes. Frykowski, hoping to make some more connections in Hollywood, briefly worked as a set constructor. In the spring of 1969, Polanski asked Frykowski to housesit for a few months while he and Tate were in Europe working on separate films. He readily agreed, and he and Abigail Folger moved into 10050 Cielo Drive that April.YouTubeAbigail Folger and Wojciech Frykowski were staying at the Los Angeles home of Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate at the time of the murders.Over the summer, the couples relationship began to break down. They were both using drugs and arguing frequently potentially about Folgers money. In Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders, prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi wrote, Friends of Abigail Folger told the police that Frykowski had introduced her to drugs so as to keep her under his control According to the police report: He had no means of support and lived off Folgers fortune.'Folgers therapist thought that she was finally making plans to leave Frykowski. But she would never get the chance.Abigail Folgers Vicious Murder At The Hands Of The Manson FamilySharon Tate returned to Los Angeles in late July 1969. She was eight months pregnant, and she asked Folger and Frykowski to continue staying with her until Roman Polanski returned from London the following month. On August 8, the three of them met celebrity hair stylist Jay Sebring at a Mexican restaurant for dinner before returning to Tates house. Tate and Sebring stayed up chatting while Frykowski fell asleep on the couch. Folger spoke with her mother on the phone around 10 p.m. and then went to her bedroom to read.Just after midnight, Folger glanced up to see a woman passing by her open door. She assumed the stranger had been invited over by Tate or Sebring, so she smiled and waved before turning her attention back to her book. In reality, the woman was Susan Atkins, a member of the Manson Family cult. She had sneaked into the house alongside Tex Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian and the four of them were on a mission to kill everyone inside.Bettmann/Getty ImagesLeft to right: Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten, who was involved in the LaBianca murders the night after Abigail Folgers death.Its still unclear why exactly the Manson Family targeted 10050 Cielo Drive. Prosecutors later claimed that Charles Manson had wanted to start a race war. Others believe that Manson chose the home because it had previously been rented by Terry Melcher, a producer who once rejected Mansons music. Perhaps the cult leader didnt realize that Melcher no longer lived there. Perhaps he didnt care.Regardless, the Manson Family arrived at Tates house in the early morning hours of August 9, 1969, with a taste for blood. Frykowski was startled awake by Tex Watson kicking him in the head and telling him, Im the Devil, and Im here to do the Devils business.Meanwhile, Atkins returned to Abigail Folgers room and ordered her into the living room. Once Folger, Frykowski, Sebring, and Tate were all together, the intruders tried to tie them up, but chaos erupted. Watson shot Sebring, Frykowski broke free, and Folger tried to escape down a hallway.She made it onto the lawn before Patricia Krenwinkel caught up with her and tackled her to the ground. Tex Watson soon joined her, and the two cult members stabbed Folger 28 times. A New York Times article from 1970 described Folgers stab wounds: Four to the face, one in the left ear, five in the neck, six in the chest, two in the stomach, two in the back, one in the right arm, one in the right shoulder, one in the left arm, two on the left thigh, one on the right hand, and two on the wrist.Police HandoutAbigail Folger was stabbed to death in Sharon Tates yard.Dr. Thomas Noguchi, the Los Angeles County coroner who examined the bodies of the victims of the Manson murders, stated that there were five or six stab wounds that should be considered fatal stab wounds.Folger reportedly begged for her life as Krenwinkel and Watson attacked her, screaming, I give up, youve got me, and, Im already dead. The killers left her corpse sprawled on the grass, where Polanski and Tates maid, Winifred Chapman, spotted it when she arrived for work around 9:15 a.m.The police raced to the scene, but by then, Abigail Folger was long gone.Tracking Down The Manson Family MurderersInvestigators arrived to find that 10050 Cielo Drive had been turned into a human slaughterhouse. Steven Parent, an 18-year-old who had been driving away after visiting the propertys caretaker when the Manson Family arrived, was slumped over in the front seat of his car with four bullet wounds in his torso. The word PIG was scrawled on the front door in Sharon Tates blood. The actress had been stabbed 16 times and hanged with a nylon rope with Sebring tied to the other end. On the lawn, Abigail Folger was lying where shed fallen. Her nightgown was so soaked in blood that it was hard to tell that it had once been white. Frykowskis body was about 50 feet away. Hed been stabbed 51 times and beaten in the head with the butt of a gun. An investigator on the scene told Los Angeles Magazine in 2009, In the space of 10 minutes I saw all five bodies. Id worked homicide for five years and seen a lot of violence. This was the worst.It would be months before the police were finally able to catch the perpetrators, who had gone on to kill another couple, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, the night after the murders at 10050 Cielo Drive.Bettmann/Contributor/Getty ImagesCharles Manson leaves the courtroom in December 1969.Finally, that October, officers raided Spahn Ranch, the Manson Familys headquarters. Several cult members were arrested for auto theft and possession of stolen property, including Susan Atkins, who later bragged to one of her cellmates about her involvement in the Tate murders. The women, in turn, informed the police, securing the conviction and imprisonment of both the culprits who carried out the slayings and Charles Manson himself.As for Abigail Folger, her body was returned to San Francisco following the coroners examination, and her funeral was held on August 13, 1969. She had been killed just two days before her 26th birthday. In another world, her name would only be associated with Folgers coffee but it is now forever entwined with the grisly Manson Family murders.After reading about the tragic fate of Abigail Folger, learn about Manson Family member and would-be presidential assassin Squeaky Fromme. Then, check out the sordid true story of the haunted Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles.The post Abigail Folger, The Heir To Folgers Coffee Who Was Brutally Murdered By The Manson Family appeared first on All That's Interesting.