Linda Darlene Kasabian was born Linda Darlene Drouin on June 21, 1949, in Biddeford, Maine, and grew up in Milford, New Hampshire. She was the oldest child in a working-class family that struggled financially. Her father, Rosaire Drouin, was a construction worker of French-Canadian descent, and her mother, Joyce Taylor, was a homemaker raising several children and stepchildren. When Linda was still young, her parents’ marriage collapsed, and her father moved to Florida, leaving a void in her life. Her mother later admitted that Linda did not receive the emotional support she needed during adolescence. Friends and teachers described Linda as shy, intelligent, and idealistic, but she also seemed to mature too quickly under the strains at home.

As a teenager, Linda began clashing with her stepfather, whom she accused of mistreatment. She dropped out of high school at 16 and ran away, searching for belonging and spiritual meaning. That same year, she married her high school classmate Robert Peaslee, but the marriage ended almost immediately. She briefly lived in Miami with her father but again drifted apart from him. Later, she remarried Robert Kasabian, an Armenian American, and gave birth to her first child, Tanya, in 1968. The marriage turned rocky, and she moved back to New Hampshire with her daughter. Robert Kasabian eventually reached out to her from Los Angeles, inviting her to reunite with him. Hoping to repair their marriage and start fresh, she traveled to California, unaware this decision would draw her into the orbit of the Manson Family.

Through Robert’s acquaintance Charles “Blackbeard” Melton, Linda met Catherine Share, who spoke of a desert ranch commune where people shared love and prepared for an apocalyptic race war called “Helter Skelter.” Intrigued by the promise of community and spiritual meaning, she decided to see it for herself. She packed up her young daughter and joined Share on a trip to Spahn Ranch, where she encountered Charles Manson. Manson’s charisma and promises of acceptance captivated Linda, who had long felt discarded by those closest to her. On her first night there, she met Tex Watson, who persuaded her to steal money from Melton, an early sign of the group’s criminal undercurrent. Soon after, she became intimately involved with Manson, who seemed to understand her insecurities about her father and her longing for love. Within days, she was fully immersed in the Manson Family’s strange and violent world.

By the summer of 1969, Linda Kasabian was pregnant with her second child, estranged from her husband, and committed to the Family. Manson’s apocalyptic vision and Watson’s encouragement convinced her to participate in petty thefts and “creepy crawls,” where members broke into houses to steal and intimidate. But these crimes were only precursors to the violence that erupted in August 1969. On August 8, Manson instructed Linda to gather a knife, a change of clothes, and her license, and to follow Watson, Susan Atkins, and Patricia Krenwinkel. She drove the group to 10050 Cielo Drive, the home of director Roman Polanski and actress Sharon Tate. Outside the property, Linda saw Watson murder Steven Parent, a teenage visitor. Ordered to wait by the car, she listened in horror to the screams of the people inside as the others stabbed and shot Tate, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, and Parent.

Unable to bear it, she approached the house and locked eyes with Frykowski, his face covered in blood. She whispered, “Oh God, I am so sorry. Please make it stop,” before he collapsed. She tried to distract her companions by saying she heard people coming, but they ignored her. After the killings, she was so shaken she considered fleeing to get help but feared for her daughter’s safety at the ranch.

The following night, Linda was ordered to accompany another group—this time including Manson himself—to the LaBianca home. Although she knew murders would happen, she claimed she was too afraid to refuse. Inside, Watson, Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten killed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Linda again acted as driver and lookout. Unlike other Family members, she never physically attacked anyone but was nonetheless complicit in facilitating the crimes.

After the murders, Linda’s conscience tormented her. When law enforcement finally began connecting the Family to the crimes, she turned herself in to New Hampshire authorities in December 1969. She received immunity in exchange for her testimony. Chief prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi later said Linda’s detailed account was essential to securing the convictions of Manson, Watson, Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten. On the witness stand, she described the murders in graphic detail, at times breaking down in tears. Manson’s lawyer tried to discredit her by showing crime-scene photos; instead, her emotional reaction convinced the jury of her sincerity.

During the penalty phase, Family members tried to blame her as the instigator, claims that were eventually recanted by many of them. Over time, she became the trial’s most memorable figure, symbolizing both the Family’s hypnotic influence and the possibility of remorse.

After the trial, Linda retreated into private life, moving to New Hampshire and later Washington state. She changed her name, avoided the media, and lived in relative obscurity, though she remained a figure of fascination for decades. In later interviews, she expressed deep regret, saying she carried the guilt that no one else seemed to feel. Linda Kasabian died of natural causes in Tacoma, Washington, on January 21, 2023, at the age of 73.