The Hillside Strangler

From October 1977 to February 1978, the Hillside Strangler terrorized Los Angeles California. Raking up a body count of 10 women and girls, police knew there was more to this serial killer than what they were seeing. In fact, they would later come to discover that there was not 1, but 2 killers, working together. 

Kenneth Bianchi

Kenneth Bianchi was born on May 22, 1951 in Rochester, New York. His mother was a prostitute, and an alcoholic who gave him up for adoption just two weeks after he was born. He was adopted in August by Nicholas Bianchi and his wife, Frances Scioliono-Bianchi.

Frances adored her new baby. She doted on him, giving him everything he needed – but she was also worried. She took him to the doctor constantly, worried that something was wrong with him – yet doctors would find nothing.

As he got older, his mother grew more and more concerned, as he started developing behavioral problems. She described him as a “compulsive liar” and had difficulty controlling him. He began falling into an inattentive, trance-like state, where his eyes would roll back into his head. His mother, of course, took him to the doctor where, at age 5, he was diagnosed with petit mal seizures.

Unfortunately, he all suffered from an involuntary urination problem.

Bianchi was prone to fits of anger, and at the age of 10, his mother took him to a psychiatrist. After multiple visits, he was diagnosed with a passive-aggressive personality disorder.

Despite having an IQ of 116 (measured at age 11), he was an underachiever. His mother described him as lazy. Teachers claimed he was working well below his capacity, teachers who he failed to get along with. As a result, he had to switch schools – twice.

Bianchi’s father died suddenly and unexpectedly from pneumonia in 1964, yet he showed no signs of grief. His mother had to work to pay the bills while he attended high school – though she was known to keep him home for long periods of time. Despite all this, he did graduate from Gates-Chili High School in 1970 and even married his high school sweetheart.

The marriage didn’t last, however, and after a short eight months, she left, unwilling to be his possession. 

He went to college to study police science and psychology, but after only one semester he dropped out. He applied to join the police several times, but was rejected again and again. He took on several menial jobs before finally landing a job as a security guard at a jewelry store. Being a security guard had its perks, and he was able to steal numerous valuables, which he gave to his girlfriends, or prostitutes. 

Between 1971 and 1973, three young girls were kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and murdered in the Rochester area. Kenneth Bianchi was working a job as an ice cream vendor, which happened to be located near two of the murder scenes. He was instantly a suspect when his car turned out to be similar to a vehicle spotted near one of the abduction sites. These were the Alphabet murders, and he denied any and all allegations against him. That case remains unsolved.

Angelo Buono

Angelo Buono was born on October 5, 1934 in Rochester, New York. His family were first-generation Italian emigrants from San Buono. By the age of 5, his family was fractured when his parents divorced, leaving him and his sister in their mother’s care. In 1939 they moved to Glendale, in Los Angeles, California.

Buono had a terrible relationship with his mother. She would often go visit men and drag him with her, making him wait outside, leading him to call her a whore.

At 16, he had had enough, and dropped out of school. He began hanging out with gangs, and stealing cars. He was even arrested and found guilty of grand theft auto – leaving him locked up in youth custody. 

Angelo Buono developed quite the rap sheet, with crimes ranging from grand theft auto, assault, and rape.

In 1951, his aunt (on his mothers’ side) and uncle, Frances Scioliono-Bianchi and Nicholas Bianchi, adopted a baby boy – Kenneth Bianchi.

By 1976, Buono had gotten his life together, and despite having 8 children with three women, and having served time for car theft, he was visibly living on the straight and narrow.

He had his own company doing auto upholstery – and it is even believed he worked on one of Frank Sinatra’s cars. Buono was obsessed with cleanliness, even going so far as bleaching his house several times a week. He was even able to change the brakes on a car without getting dirty.

At the same time, in Rochester, New York, Bianchi had been fired from his job as a security guard. His mother, and his aunt, who happened to be sisters, decided it would be a good idea for him and his cousin, Angelo Buono, to move in together. Bianchi packed up and moved to Los Angeles.

Buono didn’t want to take him in, but agreed. In time, Bianchi was able to impress him with his fancy clothes, jewelry, and his ability to get any woman he wanted. He and Buono also had the same low opinion of women – and agreed they needed to be “put in their place.”

Bianchi tried to get a job with the LAPD, but was rejected. He resorted to lying to get employment, and even forged documents that showed he had graduated from Columbia University and had a degree in Psychiatry. A psychologist in Los Angeles actually hired him, and before long he was seeing patients.

In June 1976, he was finally able to join the LAPD reserves, as an unpaid volunteer. He had a desk job, and even got a girlfriend, whom he moved in with.

As he and his cousin built up a rapport, they decided to go into business together – as pimps. 

The Murders

They got two young women to work for them, who they put up as prostitutes. But that wasn’t enough to satisfy their own sexual cravings, and soon they were patrolling the streets looking for women. And they had the perfect ruse.

Buono happened to have an old Security badge that had belonged to his step-father. Using that, he and Bianchi posed as undercover police officers to get free sex and prostitutes. But even that didn’t hold their attention for long, and soon they were looking for even more excitement.

Buono came up with the idea of choking a woman to death while having an orgasm. Bianchi, who looked up to his cousin, was in. They fed off of each other, their madness growing. Psychologists call it Folie à deux, or madness of two.

Yolanda Washington

On the evening of October 17, 1977, Bianchi and Buono took a drive down Sunset Boulevard where they spotted 20-year-old Yolanda Washington. They posed as police and she got in the car. Bianchi strangled her to death in the back seat. Buono cleaned her body before they dumped it. She was discovered the next day at 6510 Forest Lawn Drive, Los Angeles – on a hillside near the Ventura Freeway. Detective Frank Salerno was called to the scene.

Yolanda had been raped. She had visible, albeit faint, marks around her neck, wrists, and ankles where a rope had been used. She left behind a 3-year-old son. 

Judith Miller

Two weeks later, on October 31, 1977 Bianchi and Buono were once again driving down Sunset Boulevard when they spotted 15-year-old Judith Miller near a hot dog stand. They lured her into their car, offering to pay her for sex. Once she was in the car, they pulled out their badges.

They took her to Buonos Auto Upholstery Shop at 703 E. Colorado Street in Glendale where they proceeded to rape her. To complete the act, they placed a ligature around her neck, and strangled her to death.

Judith’s body was discovered on November 1 at Alta Terrace Drive in La Crescenta, a neighborhood about 12 miles north of downtown Los Angeles. She lay naked, face up on a parkway, in the middle of the residential area. The homeowner who found her covered her body with a tarp to keep the neighborhood children from seeing her as they went to school. 

She had ligature marks on her neck, wrists, and ankles and  Detective Salerno found a small fiber on her eyelid and saved it for the forensic experts. The lack of drag marks clued him in that perhaps they were looking for more than 1 killer.

The coroner’s report described her as being “small and thin, weighing about 90 pounds and appearing to be about 16 years old.” She had been raped and sodomized.

Judith was a student at Hollywood High School and a runaway, who occasionally worked as a sex worker. 

Lissa Kastin

On November 5, 1977, Bianchi and Buono made a move for a different sort of victim. They spotted 21-year-old Lissa Kastin. Lissa was a waitress at the Healthfaire Restaurant near Hollywood & Vine. She was also a professional dancer for the all-female dance troupe The L.A. Knockers. She was not a runaway, a drug user, or a sex-worker.

Lissa lived just off Hollywood Boulevard and as she was walking home, Bianchi and Buono spotted her and used their police ruse to pick her up. Her body was discovered near Chevy Chase Drive in Glendale, near a country club. She had been raped, but not sodomized. Her cause of death was strangulation.

Detectives noticed the sizable guardrail between the road and the location of her body. This led credence to the idea that more than one killer was responsible.

Catharine Lorre Baker

That same month, the two men approached 24-year-old Catharine Lorre Baker, the daughter of actor Peter Lorre. They flashed their badges at her. Checking her identification, they found a photo of her, sitting on her father’s lap. Recognizing her father as the celebrity he was, they let her go. Killing her would attract too much attention. 

Catharine later reported that she didn’t even realize who the men were until they had been arrested. 

Evelyn Jane King

28-year-old Evelyn Jane King was an aspiring actress and model. Bianchi and Buono spotted her at a Hollywood bus bench. They picked her up and took her back to Buono’s Auto Upholstery Shop where they raped and strangled her. Her body wasn’t discovered until November 23. She lay decomposing in the bushes near the Los Feliz off-ramp of the Golden State Freeway. 

Due to the state of decomposition, it was impossible to determine if she had been raped or tortured, though there was no doubt she had been strangled. 

The death and discovery of Evelyn led the authorities to create a task force, composed of 30 officers from the LAPD, the Sheriff’s department, and the Glendale Police Department. Their killer now had a name – the Hillside Strangler.

Dolores Cepeda and Sonja Johnson

On November 13, 1977, 12-year-old Dolores Ann “Dolly” Cepeda and 14-year-old Sonja Marie Johnson had been shopping at the Eagle Rock Plaza on Colorado Boulevard. The last time they were seen was when they got off the bus at York Boulevard and N Avenue 46 as they approached a two-tone sedan, with two men inside.

Back at Buono’s Auto Upholstery Shop, the two girls were gagged and bound. Over the course of the next five days they would be raped repeatedly. In the end, they were both strangled. The men drove to what Buono referred to as the “Cow Patch” and threw their bodies down the hill. They landed in a trash heap near Dodger Stadium.

On November 20, a 9-year-old boy was treasure hunting in that very trash heap when he discovered their already decomposing bodies. 

Kristina Weckler

Kristina Weckler was a quiet honors student at the Art Center College of Design. She had actually met Bianchi before, as the two lived near each other. The men had gotten bolder by now, and this time they went straight to her apartment. They used their badges to lure her out of her home, telling her that her vehicle had been involved in an accident. 

This time they took her to Buono’s home where they proceeded to torture her. Instead of strangling her, they placed a bag over her head and stuck a gas pipe in it, suffocating her. She was placed on a hillside between Glendale and Eagle Rock.

Detective Bob Grogan of the Los Angeles Police Department arrived on the scene and noted the ligature marks on her wrists, ankles, and neck. When he turned her over, they found bruises on her breasts and blood oozed from her rectum. She had puncture marks on her arm, but the lack of needle tracks convinced them that she wasn’t a drug user.

Autopsy and toxicology revealed that she had been injected with Windex.

Lauren Wagner

Police were narrowing their search to the area where the women were being abducted. Somehow Bianchi and Buono picked up on this and drove further out. On November 28, 1977, they drove 25 miles away to the San Fernando Valley. There they spotted 18-year-old Lauren Rae Wagner, a business student, driving home. 

They followed her all the way to her home, where she parked across the street. They got out of their car and, with badges out, approached her and told her they had to take her in their car. She resisted, loudly. A neighbor heard her cry out, “You won’t get away with this!” and saw two men, one tall and young, the other older and shorter – with bushy hair.

The men took Lauren to Buono’s home where they gagged her and tied her up. This time they took their torture a step further. They took an electrical wire and stripped one end of it so the wires were exposed. Holding her hand open, they placed the wires in her palm and taped it there. Then they plugged it in.

The next morning Lauren’s parents discovered she hadn’t returned home. Her car was parked across the street and the door was ajar, and her keys were in the ignition. That’s when her father discovered that the woman who lived in the house where her car had been parked had seen the abduction. 

Lauren’s body was discovered in the hills around Los Angeles’ Mount Washington. She lay naked, ants crawling across her body. They found ligature marks on her neck, ankles, and wrists as well as burn marks on her hands. Also in her hands was a fiber stuck to the adhesive on her hand left from the tape.

Before police could notify the family, the media had already swarmed them.

Kimberly Martin

Knowing the police were out in force, Bianchi and Buono tried a different tactic. Bianchi found an empty apartment, on the same block he lived on. On December 13, 1977, instead of going out and picking someone up, he called an escort service.

17-year-old Kimberly Martin had joined the call girl agency, afraid of being on the streets while the Hillside Strangler was on the loose. The agency just happened to send her to the apartment where the killers were waiting. 

A struggle ensued, and Kimberly was struck in the head. They took her back to Buono’s Auto Upholstery Shop where they raped and strangled her. That night, her body was placed on the side of a hill overlooking the city of Los Angeles.

Speaking to the agency Kimberly worked for, they discovered that the call was placed from a Hollywood Public Library pay phone, and the apartment she had been sent to was vacant, and had been broken into.

The city of Los Angeles was in a panic. By now, the Hillside Strangler had claimed 10 lives and no one felt safe. Meanwhile, Bianchi was loving the attention they were getting. Headlines reading, “City Left In Fear Over ‘Hillside Strangler’” especially excited him.

He was still part of the LAPD reserves, and went on ride-alongs. Just 2 days after the murder of Kimberly Martin he went on a ride-along with a local sergeant. He was bold, asking questions about the killing, asking to see the dump site. He wanted to know what the police knew.

Bianchi was loving the attention so much, that he even told people that he “could be the Hillside Strangler.” He wasn’t taken seriously though – everyone knew he was a pathological liar. 

Cindy Hudspeth

Bianchi and Buono decided it was best to lay low for a couple of months, let the heat die down a little before they struck again.

On February 16, 1978, Cindy Lee Hudspeth walked into Buono’s Auto Upholstery Shop to discuss getting some upholstery work done on her car. When Bianchi entered the shop he saw her and knew she had to be next. The two men had a brief discussion, and before she knew what happened, she was being tied up, raped, tortured. 

The men strangled her before putting her into the trunk of her orange Datsun car. They drove it up to a higher area of Los Angeles before pushing the entire car off the Los Angeles Crest Highway.

The Downfall

All the fame and attention the two were getting was going to Bianchi’s head. He was excited, bragging, and his ride-alongs with police had Buono worried. Buono threw him out of the house.

Meanwhile, Bianchi’s girlfriend was having a baby, and he was now going to be a father. But things weren’t going well, and in May 1978, she packed up and left. She took the baby and moved to Bellingham, Washington. Unwilling to lose touch with his son, Bianchi followed and got a job as a security guard.

But Bianchi was not done killing, he couldn’t fight the urge and on January 11, 1979, he offered to pay university students, Diane Wilder and Karen Mandic, $100 to house-sit a property he was guarding. He lured them into the basement where he killed them both, placing a noose around their necks and strangling them to death. 

With their dead bodies before him, Bianchi masturbated one one, but not without difficulty.

The next day, Karen’s car was found by police, with both the girls bodies in the trunk, and Bianchi was identified as a suspect when his employer spoke with police.

Kenneth Bianchi was arrested, but claimed that he had not killed the women, it was his alternate personality – Steve Walker. Looking at his drivers license, police realized he was from California, and immediately contacted the LAPD.

When the police in California looked at his license, they noticed something interesting as well. In California, whenever you moved, you had to write your new address on the back of your license. Bianchi was diligent about this, and police noticed that one of his addresses was on the same street that Kristina Weckler lived on.

That connection was enough for the LAPD to name him as a suspect in the Hillside Strangler case. 

With Bianchi claiming an alternate personality, the courts had one of America’s leading criminal psychiatrists, Dr. Martin Orne, examine him. The goal was to discover whether Steve Walker was real, or if Bianchi was just making it up. Orne found that he was faking and when confronted, Bianchi started to talk.

Bianchi was ready to make a deal. He would plead guilty and testify against his cousin, Buono, in exchange for them not seeking the death penalty. They agreed.

In Glendale, police got a warrant and searched Angelo Buono’s Auto Upholstery Shop. What they found, or rather didn’t find, astounded them. There was nothing, not even a single fingerprint. What they did find was upholstery material. Material containing the same exact fibers that were found in Judith Miller’s eyelash.

Back at Buono’s home, police made another discovery. Inspecting the chair that Bianchi claimed their victims were tied to, they found another fiber. This one matched the fiber found on Lauren Wagner’s hand. 

The men were charged with the murders associated with the Hillside Strangler.

Being that he pleaded guilty, Bianchi didn’t face a trial and was found guilty on 7 counts of murder. He is currently serving a life sentence at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, Washington.

Angelo Buono faced a trial that lasted an astounding 2 years. Although Bianchi tried at every moment to sabotage the trial by constantly changing his mind, Buono was found guilty. During sentencing, Judge Ronald M. George stated, “I would not have the slightest reluctance to impose the death penalty in this case were it within my power to do so. Ironically, although these two defendants utilized almost every form of legalized execution against their victims, the defendants have escaped any form of capital punishment.”

While serving a life sentence at Calipatria State Prison, Angelo Buono suffered a heart attack and died on September 21, 2002.

Veronica Compton

In 1980, Kenneth Bianchi had started a relationship with Veronica Compton. Interestingly, while incarcerated, Bianchi smuggled a semen filled condom to her in the spine of a book. Her goal was to strangle a woman and make it appear that she had been raped by the Hillside Strangler. She failed and was imprisoned. She was released in 2003.

If the idea of Folie à deux fascinates you, then check out the story of Ursula and Sabina Eriksson, and perhaps the most famous case recorded.