In December 1968, 17-year-old Marina Habe returned home from college for Christmas break. A night out with friends at one of Hollywood’s most famous clubs should have been nothing more than a fun evening.
Instead, Marina vanished just steps from her front door.
What happened next would become one of Hollywood’s haunting unsolved mysteries, with questions that linger more than half a century later.
WEST HOLLYWOOD
“.... That was Hollywood nights, in those Hollywood hills. It was looking so right, It was giving him chills. In those big city nights, in those high rolling hills, above all the lights, with a passion that kills...”
The Troubadour in West Hollywood was the place to be seen in the ‘60s. You could drop in and see Bob Dylan simply stand up and walk on stage, or watch the Byrds play “Tambourine Man” for the first time. Joni Mitchell and Neil Young and James Taylor and Buffalo Springsteen and Gordon Lightfoot were all debuting. There were young comedians on stage named Richard Pryor and Steve Martin.
When 17 year old Marina Habe came back home for Christmas break from the University of Hawaii in 1968, she excitedly drove out to meet some friends and see the show, which on this night featured comedian Larry Hankin. She was a well-to-do daughter of an accomplished novelist and a B-list actress. At 4:30 p.m. on December 29, she left her home and drove to Sunset Boulevard in Brentwood to pick up her longtime friend, John Hornburg. The pair had dinner, then arrived at the Troubadour around 8:30 p.m., meeting a pair of other couples.
By 11:30 p.m., Habe and Hornburg were back at his house. She left there around 3:15 a.m. the following morning and drove back to her home, arriving at 3:30 a.m. That is when her mother said she heard noises outside her house, looked out the window, and saw Marina pull into the driveway. She told police she then watched a black sedan with two people inside pull up beside Marina’s car. When the sedan car pulled away, Marina was nowhere to be found. She had been taken in front of her own home.
Because of her family’s wealth, police at first believed Marina had been kidnapped, and they waited for a ransom demand. But none ever came. Then two days later, as the calendar flipped to 1969, Marina’s fully clothed body was found in the brush of Hollywood Hills, just four miles from her home, her throat cut. She had been stabbed six times. She had also been punched in the face several times. There was no evidence of rape or robbery. Her purse with cash was nearby. There was no trace of DNA at the scene.
Police believed that more than one person was involved in Marina’s murder. And the public was soon believing something else; Charles Manson was about to headline the news. His murder spree swept not just through Los Angeles, but the entire country, and West Hollywood residents lived not just in fear, but wondered if all homicides, like Marina Habe’s, were somehow related to the Manson family. To make matters worse, John Hornburg and the Manson family both lived on Sunset Boulevard. Meanwhile, the Habe family lived next to Whiskey a Go Go, a dance club the Manson group frequented. And Marina had once dated a friend of the Manson group.
Los Angeles police then released a bombshell, speculating that Habe may have been killed with the same long bladed knives used to kill Sharon Tate and six others. More than 25 police officers worked the case. Then nothing.
Marina Habe is buried in the same cemetery as Sharon Tate.
Behind California’s sunshine and Hollywood glamour, some very dark stories are waiting to be told.
Marina Habe’s murder is just one of the chilling cases explored in California: Surf, Sand & Murder.
From Hollywood’s famous streets to quiet California communities, discover the crimes, mysteries, and secrets that reveal a very different side of the Golden State.