Restless Souls

Sharon Tate was a promising young actress who received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in "Valley of the Dolls"; the beautiful wife of famous film director Roman Polanski; an expectant mother eight and a half months pregnant at the time of her murder; and a loving daughter and sister. Her brutal slaying and the homicides of her friends that same night are still etched in the public consciousness more than four decades later. What few people know however is: the dramatic role Sharon's father, a retired army intelligence officer, played in finding and prosecuting his daughter's killers; the heartbreak he endured cleaning his daughters blood from the floorboards of the home she was renting at the time of the murders to avoid what was clearly a callous lawsuit for damages; the threats and menace that extended beyond prison walls, haunting members of even the next generation of the victims' families; the radically different choices each family member made to cope with the realities of this tragedy; the ways the Tates processed and dealt with the rising cult status of the Manson family members in our culture's music, movies, and literature. The fortitude of Sharon's mother who fought the corrections system so victims' loved ones could make an 'impact statement' at the parole hearings of these criminals; the brushes with danger she faced staring down these murderers in person as she repeatedly appeared at their hearings and insured their extended incarceration; the harm she risked when she and other victim's families met with convicted felons to help further their understanding of the long-term effects of their actions; the rage Sharon's father had to suppress when he came face-to-face alone with her killer in a holding room during a parole hearing. Sharon's mother Doris, father Paul, and sister Patti, each in their turn, attempted to write memoirs about their ordeal before passing, as they thought is was important to share their side of the story with the world. Now intimate family members, Alisa Statman, who was Patti's domestic partner and the guardian of her children, and Brie Tate, Sharon's niece, recount the Tate family truths for us here in this rare glimpse at the post-trauma survival of a family.