"The Complete Hillside Strangler"

 






















BIANCHI,  Kenneth Alessio         
BUONO,  Angelo Jr.   

Serial killer,  Kidnapping - Rape - Torture

Number of victims: 12

Murders: 1977 - 1979

Arrested: January 13, 1979

Born: May 22, 1951

Victims profile: Yolanda Washington, 19 / Judith Ann Miller, 15 / Lissa Kastin, 21 / Jane King, 28 / Delores Cepeda, 12 / Sonja Johnson, 14 / Kristin Weckler, 20 / Lauren Wagner, 18 / Kimberely Martin, 17 / Cindy Lee Hudspeth, 20 / Karen Mandic, 22, and Diane Wilder, 27

Methods: Strangulation (Bianchi and Buono experimented with other methods of killing, such as lethal injection, electric shock, and carbon monoxide poisoning)

Location: California/Washington, USA

Status: Sentenced to life in prison in California and Washington

Current Status:

Kenneth A. Bianchi,

Inmate  #266961

Washington State Penitentiary,

1313 North 13th Avenue
Walla Walla, WA 99362.

The Victims

Kenneth Alessio Bianchi (born May 22, 1951) is an American serial killer. Bianchi and his cousin Angelo Buono, Jr., together are known as the Hillside Stranglers. He is serving a term of life imprisonment in Washington. Bianchi is also a suspect in the Alphabet murders, three unsolved murders in his home city of Rochester.

BIANCHI Early life

Bianchi was born in Rochester, New York, to a prostitute who gave him up for adoption two weeks after he was born. He was adopted at three months by Frances Scioliono and her husband Nicholas Bianchi in Rochester.

Bianchi was deeply troubled from a young age, and his adoptive mother described him as being "a compulsive liar who had risen from the cradle dissembling". He often worried her with his penchant for trance-like daydreams. Despite having above-average intelligence, he was an underachiever who was quick to lose his temper. He was diagnosed with petit mal seizures when he was five years old and passive-aggressive disorder when he was 10. After Nicholas' death from pneumonia in 1964, Frances had to work while her son attended high school.

Shortly after Bianchi graduated from Gates-Chili High School in 1971, he married his high school sweetheart; the union ended after eight months. Supposedly, she left him without an explanation. As an adult, he dropped out of college after one semester, and drifted through a series of menial jobs, finally ending up as a security guard at a jewelry store. This gave him a great opportunity to steal valuables, which he often gave to girlfriends or prostitutes to buy their loyalty. Because of many petty thefts, Bianchi was constantly on the move.

He moved to Los Angeles in 1977, and started spending time with his older cousin Angelo Buono, who was impressed with Bianchi's fancy clothes, jewelry, and stories of getting any women he wanted and "putting them in their place". Before long, they worked together as pimps, and, by late 1977, had escalated to murder. They had raped and murdered 10 women by the time they were arrested in early 1979.

Murders

Bianchi and Buono would usually cruise around Los Angeles in Buono's car and use fake badges to persuade girls that they were undercover cops. Their victims were women and girls aged 12 to 28 from various walks of life. They would then order the girls into Buono's "unmarked police car" and drive them home to torture and murder them.

    Yolanda Washington, age 19 – October 17, 1977

    Judith Ann Miller, age 15 – October 31, 1977

    Lissa Kastin, age 21 – November 6, 1977

    Jane King, age 28 – November 10, 1977

    Delores Cepeda, age 12 – November 13, 1977

    Sonja Johnson, age 14 – November 13, 1977

    Kristin Weckler, age 20 – November 20, 1977

    Lauren Wagner, age 18 – November 29, 1977

    Kimberely Martin, age 17 – December 9, 1977

    Cindy Lee Hudspeth, age 20 – February 16, 1978

Both men would sexually abuse their victims before strangling them. They experimented with other methods of killing, such as lethal injection, electric shock, and carbon monoxide poisoning. 

Even while committing the murders, Bianchi applied for a job with the Los Angeles Police Department and had even been taken for several rides with police officers while they were searching for the Hillside Strangler.

One night, shortly after they botched their would-be eleventh murder, Bianchi revealed to Buono he had attended LAPD police ride alongs, and that he was currently being questioned about the strangler case. After hearing this, Buono erupted in a fit of rage. An argument ensued at one point during which Buono threatened to kill Bianchi if he did not flee to Bellingham, Washington. In May 1978 he did flee to Bellingham, joining his girlfriend and son currently living there.

On January 11, 1979, Bianchi lured two female students into a house he was guarding. The women were 22-year-old Karen Mandic and 27-year-old Diane Wilder, and were students at Western Washington University. He forced the first student down the stairs in front of him and then strangled her. He murdered the second young girl in a similar fashion. Without help from his partner, he left many clues and police apprehended him the next day. A California driver's license and a routine background check linked him to the addresses of two Hillside Strangler victims.

Following his arrest, Bianchi admitted he and Buono, in 1977, while posing as police officers, stopped a young female by the name of Catharine Lorre with intentions of abducting and killing her. But after learning she was the daughter of actor Peter Lorre, they let her go. Only after he was arrested did Catharine learn of the true identity of the men whom she encountered.

The Trial

At his trial, Bianchi pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, claiming that another personality, one "Steve Walker", had committed the crimes. Bianchi even convinced a few expert psychiatrists that he indeed suffered from multiple personality disorder, but investigators brought in their own psychiatrists, mainly the psychiatrist Martin Orne. When Orne mentioned to Bianchi that in genuine cases of the disorder, there tend to be three or more personalities, Bianchi promptly created another alias, "Billy". 

Eventually, investigators discovered that the very name "Steven Walker" came from a student whose identity Bianchi had previously attempted to steal for the purpose of fraudulently practicing psychology. Police also found a small library of books in Bianchi's home on topics of modern psychology, further indicating his ability to fake the disorder.

Once his claims were subjected to this scrutiny, Bianchi eventually admitted that he had been faking the disorder. To acquire leniency, he agreed to testify against Buono. However, in actually giving his testimony, Bianchi made every effort to be as uncooperative and self-contradictory as possible, apparently hoping to avoid being the ultimate cause of Buono being convicted. In the end, Bianchi's efforts were unsuccessful, as Buono was in fact convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

In 1980, Bianchi began a relationship with Veronica Compton, a woman he met while in prison. During his trial, she testified for the defense, telling the jury a false, vague tale about the crimes in an attempt to exculpate Bianchi and also admitting to wanting to buy a mortuary with another convicted murderer for the purpose of necrophilia. 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. Bianchi had given her some smuggled semen to use to make it look like a rape/murder committed by the Hillside Strangler.

Bianchi is serving his sentence at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, Washington.

Kenneth Bianchi was denied parole on Wednesday, August 18, 2010 by a state board in Sacramento (according to Los Angeles County district attorney's office spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons). He will be eligible to apply for parole again in 2025.

BUONO Early life

Angelo Buono, Jr. (October 5, 1934 – September 21, 2002) was an American serial killer. Buono and his cousin Kenneth Bianchi together are known as the Hillside Stranglers.

Buono was born in Rochester, New York to first generation Italian-American emigrants from San Buono, Italy. In the time leading up to the killings, Buono had already developed a long criminal history, ranging from failure to pay child support and grand theft auto to assault and rape. In 1975, when Buono was 41, he met Kenneth Bianchi.

A self-described "ladies' man", Buono persuaded his younger cousin to join him in prostituting 2 women, holding them as virtual prisoners. In late 1977, the pair began killing other women as well, claiming 10 documented victims by the time they were arrested in early 1979. Angelo Buono was also said to have made women refer to him as "The Italian Stallion", this has been reported on several television shows, including the Investigation Discovery show "Deranged" and A&E Television Network's "Biography", and on truTv's Crime Library website.

The Trial

The legal case against Buono was based largely upon Bianchi's testimony. The case's original prosecutors from Los Angeles County District Attorney John Van de Kamp's office moved to dismiss all charges against Buono and set him free.

The presiding judge, Ronald M. George (future Chief Justice of California), denied the motion to dismiss. He refused to release Buono, and he reassigned the case to California Attorney General George Deukmejian's office.

Buono's trial would become the longest in American legal history, lasting from November 1981 until November 1983. The trial lasted so long that Deukmejian was elected Governor and Van de Kamp was elected to succeed Deukmejian as Attorney General, so the Van de Kamp-led Attorney General's office won the case that the Van de Kamp-led District Attorney's office had declared unwinnable. During the trial, Bianchi, in exchange for a lighter sentence, testified against Buono. The jury convicted Buono on nine counts of murder.

The jury sentenced Buono to life imprisonment, with George commenting that he felt a death sentence would have been the appropriate punishment.

Prison sentence and death

In 1986, Buono married Christine Kizuka, a mother of three and a supervisor at the California State Employment Development Department.

Buono was found dead on September 21, 2002 at Calipatria State Prison. Buono, who was alone in his cell at the time of his death, died of a heart attack.

After his death

In 2007, Buono's grandson, Christopher Buono, committed suicide shortly after shooting his grandmother, Mary Castillo, in the head. Castillo was at one time married to Angelo Buono, and had five children with him, including Chris' father.

In the 1989 film The Case of the Hillside Stranglers, Buono was portrayed by actor Dennis Farina. In the 2004 film The Hillside Strangler, Buono was portrayed by actor Nicholas Turturro.

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The Hillside Strangler is the media epithet for two men, Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, cousins, who were convicted of kidnapping, raping, torturing, and killing girls and women ranging in age from 12 to 28 years old during a four-month period from late 1977 to early 1978. They committed their crimes in the hills above Los Angeles, California.

The Murders

The first victim of the Hillside Strangler was a Hollywood prostitute, Yolanda Washington, whose body was found near the Forest Lawn Cemetery on October 18, 1977. The corpse was cleaned and faint marks were visible around the neck, wrists, and ankles where a rope had been used. It was discovered that the victim had been raped.

On November 1, 1977, police were called to a La Crescenta, Los Angeles, California neighborhood, north east of downtown Los Angeles, where the body of a teenage girl was found naked, face up on a parkway in a residential area. The then homeowner covered her with a tarp to protect the neighborhood children from viewing her on their way to school. Bruises on her neck indicated strangulation. The body had been dumped, indicating she was killed elsewhere. The girl was eventually identified as Judith Lynn Miller, a runaway prostitute who was barely 15 years old. This event caused the homeowner to relocate his family out of state for their protection. The coroner's report further detailed her being bound much like the first victim, Yolanda Washington.

Five days later, on November 6, 1977, the nude body of another woman was discovered near the Chevy Chase Country Club. Similar to Judith Lynn Miller, she had been strangled with a ligature. The woman was identified as 21-year-old Lissa Teresa Kastin, a waitress, and was last seen leaving work the night before she was discovered. Whereas some of the other victims were prostitutes, Lissa Kastin was a characteristically "good girl" who had also worked part time for her father's real estate and construction business. A ballet student, she was saving money to continue her training and hoped to become a professional dancer.

Two girls, Dolores Cepeda, 12, and Sonja Johnson,14 boarded a school bus and headed home on November 13, 1977, The last time they were seen was getting off this bus and approaching a car. Inside the car were reportedly two men. A young boy, cleaning up a trash-strewn hillside near Dodger Stadium found two bodies, six days later, November 20. Both girls had been strangled and raped, and were identified as Cepeda and Johnson.

Later that same day, November 20, 1977, hikers found the nude, sexually assaulted body of Kristina Weckler, 20, on a hillside near Glendale. Unlike previous victims, there were signs of torture, indicated by oozing injection marks.

On November 23, 1977, the badly decomposed body of Jane King, 28, an actress, was found near an off ramp of the Golden State freeway. She had gone missing around November 9. With the continued discovery of bodies in hilly areas, a task force was formed to catch the predator, dubbed the "Hillside Strangler."

On November 29, 1977, police found the body of Lauren Wagner, 18. She also had been strangled with a ligature. There were also burn marks on her hands indicating she was tortured. The law enforcement task force — Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and Glendale Police Department — began to assume that more than one person was responsible for the murders, even though the media continued to use the singular, Hillside Strangler.

On December 13, 1977, police found the body of 17-year-old prostitute Kimberly Martin on a hillside.

The final victim in Los Angeles was discovered on February 16, 1978, when a helicopter spotted an orange Datsun abandoned off a cliff in the Angeles Crest area. Police responded to the scene and found the body of the car's owner, 20-year-old Cindy Hudspeth, in the trunk.

Some time in 1977, the two men gave a ride to Catharine Lorre with the intent of killing her as well. However, when they discovered that Catharine was the daughter of Hungarian actor Peter Lorre, famous for his role as a child murderer in Fritz Lang's masterpiece film M, they let her go without incident. She didn't realize who the men were until they were arrested.

The Trial

After intensive investigation, police charged cousins Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, Jr. with the crimes. Bianchi had fled to Washington where he was soon arrested 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 he had a personality disorder, and a separate personality from himself committed the murders. Court psychologists, notably Dr. Martin Orne, observed Bianchi and found that he was faking the illness, so Bianchi agreed to plead guilty and testify against Buono in exchange for leniency.

At the conclusion of Buono's trial in 1983, presiding judge Ronald M. George, who would later become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of California, said he would impose the death penalty without a second thought if the jury had allowed it.

Bianchi is serving a life sentence in the Washington State Penitentiary of the Washington State Department of Corrections in Walla Walla, Washington. Buono died of a heart attack on September 21, 2002, in Calipatria State Prison of the California Department of Corrections, where he was serving a life sentence.

Veronica Compton

In 1980, Bianchi began a relationship with Veronica Compton. During his trial, she testified for the defense. 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. Bianchi had given her some smuggled semen to use to make it look like a rape/murder committed by the Hillside Strangler. She was released in 2003.

She claims that she is no longer in contact with Bianchi, however, sources indicate that suck a claim is false.

-Birdy