Hillside Strangler
The Hillside Stranglers | |
---|---|
Born | Bianchi: May 22, 1951 Buono: October 5, 1934 |
Died | Buono: September 21, 2002 (aged 67) |
Conviction(s) | Murder |
Criminal penalty | Life imprisonment (without parole) (Buono) Life imprisonment (Bianchi) |
Details | |
Victims | 10 killed as a duo, 2 by Bianchi alone |
Span of crimes | October 16, 1977 – February 16, 1978 |
Country | United States |
Date apprehended | Bianchi: January 12, 1979 Buono: October 22, 1979 |
The Hillside Strangler, later the Hillside Stranglers, is the media epithet for one, later discovered to be two, American
One unusual twist to the investigation was the arrival in L.A. of a psychic from
The Hillside Strangler murders began with the deaths of two prostitutes who were found strangled and dumped naked on hillsides northeast of Los Angeles in October and early November 1977. It was not until the deaths of five young women who were not prostitutes, but girls who had been abducted from middle-class neighborhoods, that the media attention and subsequent "Hillside Strangler"
There were two more deaths in December and February before the murders abruptly stopped. An extensive investigation proved fruitless until the arrest of Bianchi in January 1979 for the murder of two more young women in Washington and the subsequent linking of his past to the Strangler case.
The most expensive trial in the history of the California legal system at that time followed, with Bianchi and Buono eventually being found guilty of those crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Background
In January 1976,
Encouraged by Spears' escape, Hannan ran away from Bianchi and Buono a short time later. With their
Murders
Yolanda Washington
Yolanda Washington happened to mention to Buono that she always worked on a certain stretch of
Judith Miller
On November 1, 1977, police were called to Alta Terrace Drive in La Crescenta,[9] a neighborhood 12 miles north of downtown Los Angeles, where the body of a teenage girl was found naked, face up on a parkway in a middle-class residential area. The homeowner had covered her with a tarp in the early morning hours to prevent the neighborhood children from viewing her on their way to school.[8] Ligature marks were on her neck, wrists and ankles, indicating to police she was bound and strangled. The body had been dumped, indicating she was killed elsewhere.[8]
Detective Salerno also found a small piece of light-colored fluff on her eyelid and saved it for the
Miller was last seen alive on Halloween, October 31, 1977, talking to a man driving a large, two-toned sedan on Sunset Boulevard next to Carney's. The stranglers had told her they were ‘undercover’ police officers, handcuffed her, and took her to Buono's Auto Upholstery Shop at 703 E. Colorado St. in Glendale, where she was murdered.
Lissa Kastin
Five days later, on November 6, 1977, the nude body of another woman was discovered near the Chevy Chase Country Club in Glendale. Like Miller, her body bore five-point (neck, wrists, and ankles) ligature marks, and showed signs of having been strangled and brutally raped, but not sodomized.[8] The woman was identified as 21-year-old waitress Elissa Teresa "Lissa" Kastin, who was last seen leaving the restaurant where she worked the night before her body was discovered.[10]
In addition to working full-time, Kastin was also a professional dancer in the all-female dance troupe The L.A. Knockers and (unlike the previous two victims) was not a prostitute, drug user or runaway. The stranglers followed Kastin after she was seen driving home from work, pulled her over on the street she lived on, presented a fake ‘police badge’, and told her that they were detectives. They then handcuffed her and told her they needed to take her in for questioning.[10]
Aborted abduction of Catharine Lorre Baker
At some point in early November 1977,[11] the two men approached 24-year-old Catharine Lorre Baker, the daughter of actor Peter Lorre — famous for his role as a serial killer in Fritz Lang's film M — with the intent of abducting and killing her. However, when Lorre produced not only her driver's license when requested, but also a picture of her sitting on her father's lap as a child, the two let her go without incident, fearing the murder of a celebrity's child would attract an unusually high amount of police and press attention.[12]
Lorre did not realize who the men were until they were arrested, at which point she recalled that two men flashing L.A. police badges had approached her in the past.[13]
Dolores Cepeda and Sonja Johnson
On Sunday, November 13, 1977, two girls, 12-year-old Dolores Ann "Dolly" Cepeda and 14-year-old Sonja Marie Johnson,[14] boarded an RTD bus in front of the Eagle Rock Plaza on Colorado Boulevard and headed home. The last time they were seen was getting off the bus on York Boulevard and North Avenue 46, and approaching a two-tone sedan that reportedly had two men inside. Their two corpses were discovered by a 9-year-old boy who was treasure-hunting in a trash heap on a hillside near Dodger Stadium on November 20, 1977.[15] Both of the girls' bodies had already begun to decompose. It was determined that they had been strangled and raped.[10]
Kristina Weckler
Earlier that same day, November 20, 1977, hikers found the naked body of 20-year-old Kristina Weckler, a quiet, unassuming honors student at the
Evelyn Jane King
On November 23, 1977, the badly decomposed body of 28-year-old Evelyn Jane King, an aspiring actress who had gone missing on November 9, was discovered in bushes
Lauren Wagner
On November 29, 1977, police found the body of 18-year-old Lauren Rae Wagner, a business student who lived with her parents in the San Fernando Valley,[10] in the hills around Los Angeles's Mount Washington. She had ligature marks on her neck, ankles, and wrists. There were also burn marks on her hands indicating she was tortured.[18] Lauren's parents had expected her to come home before midnight, and the next morning, when they found her car parked across the street with the door ajar, her father questioned the neighbors.[18]
He found that the woman who lived in the house where Lauren's car had been parked saw her abduction. This woman stated that she saw two men: one was tall and young, the other one was older and shorter with bushy hair.[18] She also stated that she heard Wagner cry out "You won't get away with this!" during her abduction.[18]
Kimberly Martin
On December 14, 1977, the naked body of 17-year-old prostitute Kimberly Diane Martin, which also showed signs of torture, was found on a deserted lot near Los Angeles City Hall. Martin had previously joined a call girl agency because she feared exposing herself on the streets with the Strangler on the loose. The killers happened to place a call to her agency from a Hollywood Public Library pay phone, and she was the call girl who was dispatched. When the police investigated the apartment she had been dispatched to, they found it vacant and broken into.[19]
Cindy Hudspeth
The body of the final Hillside Strangler victim was discovered in Los Angeles on February 17, 1978, when a helicopter pilot spotted an orange Datsun abandoned midway down a cliff on the Angeles Crest Highway.[10] Police responded to the scene and discovered the nude body of the car's owner, 20-year-old Cindy Lee Hudspeth — a student and part-time waitress — in the trunk. Her corpse again showed ligature marks, and she had been raped and tortured. She had been strangled and her body placed in the trunk of her car, which was then pushed off the cliff.[19]
Hudspeth's murder had initially been unplanned. Bianchi had arrived at Buono's upholstery shop at closing time on February 16 to discover Hudspeth in the company of Buono, discussing upholstery work she wished him to perform on her car. The two men had a private discussion, opting to make her their next victim.[20]
Investigation and trial
In January 1979, after an intense investigation, police charged Bianchi and Buono with the crimes. Bianchi had fled to Bellingham, Washington, where he was soon arrested by Bellingham Police Department for raping and murdering two women he had lured to a home for a house-sitting job. Bianchi attempted to set up an insanity defense, claiming that he had dissociative identity disorder and that a personality separate from himself committed the murders. Court psychologists, notably Dr. Martin Orne, observed Bianchi and found that he was faking, so Bianchi agreed to plead guilty and testify against Buono in exchange for leniency.
At the conclusion of Buono's trial in 1983,
Veronica Compton
In 1980, Bianchi began a relationship with Veronica Compton. During his trial, she testified for the defense. While incarcerated, Bianchi had smuggled a semen filled condom to her in the spine of a book to use to make it look like a rape/murder committed by the Hillside Strangler. She was later convicted and imprisoned for attempting to strangle a woman she had lured to a motel in an attempt to have authorities believe that the Hillside Strangler was still on the loose and the wrong man was imprisoned. She was released in 2003.
Media
Film adaptations
Year | Title | Cast | Notes | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
as Angelo Buono | as Kenneth Bianchi | also starring | |||
1989 | The Case of the Hillside Stranglers | Dennis Farina | Billy Zane | Richard Crenna as Police Sergeant Bob Grogan | Made for television; based on Two of a Kind: The Hillside Stranglers by Darcy O'Brien |
2001 | The Hillside Stranglers | Ron Gilbert | Jeff Marchelletta | Made for television; also known as Supersleuth | |
2004 | The Hillside Strangler | Nicholas Turturro | C. Thomas Howell | Marisol Padilla Sánchez as Christina Chavez (based on Veronica Compton) | |
2006 | Rampage: The Hillside Strangler Murders | Tomas Arana | Clifton Collins Jr. | Brittany Daniel as a psychiatrist | Direct-to-video |
See also
References
- ^ "How the Hillside Strangler case helped make L.A. 'serial killer capital of America'". Los Angeles Times. 2022-08-03. Retrieved 2023-04-25.
- ^ Buono and Bianchi, the Hillside Stranglers by Marilyn Bardsley
- ^ "'Hillside Strangler' dies in prison". cnn.com. Archived from the original on January 16, 2007.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ ISBN 0-425-19640-2.
- ^ Bardsley, Marilyn. "The Rampage Begins". Crime Library. Archived from the original on February 9, 2015.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ "After he murders two Bellingham women, police arrest serial killer Kenneth A. Bianchi on January 12, 1979". historylink.org.
- ^ a b c Bardsley, Marilyn. "Killing Cousins". Crime Library. Archived from the original on February 10, 2015.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ a b c d e f Bardsley, Marilyn. "Early Victims". Crime Library. Archived from the original on February 10, 2015.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ISBN 978-0-453-00499-2p. 24
- ^ ISBN 0-425-19640-2.
- ^ "Peter Lorre's Daughter was Near-victim of Hillside Strangler". Lakeland Ledger. November 17, 1979. Retrieved September 11, 2016.
- ^ Edwards, Elisabeth (June 10, 2022). "'Casablanca' Star Peter Lorre Saved His Daughter from the Hillside Strangler". The Vintage News. Retrieved April 1, 2023.
- ISBN 0-425-19640-2.
- ^ Guiltenane, Christian (February 22, 2022). "Who Was the Hillside Strangler and Who Were all the Victims?". Entertainment Daily. Retrieved May 7, 2023.
- ^ a b c d Bardsley, Marilyn. "Two Killers". Crime Library. Archived from the original on February 10, 2015.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ Bardsley, Marilyn. "The 'Hillside Strangler'". Crime Library. Archived from the original on February 10, 2015.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ISBN 978-0-453-00499-2p. 52
- ^ a b c d Bardsley, Marilyn. "A Witness". Crime Library. Archived from the original on February 10, 2015.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ a b Bardsley, Marilyn. "Three More". Crime Library. Archived from the original on February 10, 2015.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ISBN 978-0-453-00499-2p. 143
- ^ Bachmann, Patrick (Writer/Producer) (1997). The Hillside Stranglers (television production). A&E Television. Retrieved June 14, 2020.
- ^ King, Gary C. "The Hillside Strangler: Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi." Investigation Discovery. 2. Retrieved on January 10, 2010.
Cited works and further reading
- Hall, Allan (1994). The Power and the Evil. Leicester: Blitz Editions. pp. 11–14. ISBN 1-856-05208-7.
- Lane, Brian; Gregg, Wilfred (1995) [1992]. The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. New York City: Berkley Book. pp. 50–52. ISBN 978-0-425-15213-3.
- O'Brien, Darcy (1985). Two of a Kind. Virginia: Nal Books. ISBN 978-0-453-00499-2.
- Wynn, Douglas (1995). On Trial for Murder. London: Pan Books. pp. 30–33. ISBN 0-330-33947-8.
External links
- "'Hillside Strangler' dies in prison", CNN, September 22, 2002
- Crime Library's story on the Hillside Stranglers