00:00:08
- MALE NARRATOR:
November the 13th, 1977. Los Angeles, California. School girls Dolores and Sonja
were on their way home
00:00:18
from a day shopping, when two police officers
stopped them for questioning. But the so-called policemen
were in fact killers.
00:00:27
- GEOFFREY: They fell victim
to two men who knew no compassion,
no remorse, no empathy.
00:00:35
It is beyond depraved. - NARRATOR: 14-year-old Sonja
and 12-year-old Dolores were abducted,
held captive for five days,
00:00:45
repeatedly raped,
then strangled. Their killers
were two cousins-- Angelo Buono
and Kenneth Bianchi.
00:00:54
- You got the smooth-talking,
sharp, glib Bianchi, and then you got the street con,
wise, smart predator in Buono.
00:01:05
That's a pretty dangerous
combination. - NARRATOR: The partners in
crime went on a killing spree,
00:01:11
murdering ten young women
in just four months. Many were dumped on hillsides
across LA,
00:01:18
lending the killers'
infamous name: the Hillside Stranglers. - DR. YARDLEY: These two
were not gonna stop
00:01:24
until they were caught. This had a really
devastating effect on the lives of women
in Los Angeles.
00:01:31
- NARRATOR: The deadly duo
terrorized the streets of LA whilst masquerading
as police officers.
00:01:38
They raped and tortured
victims as young as 12 during their sickening
rampage, making Angelo Buono
and Kenneth Bianchi,
00:01:48
two of the world's
most evil killers. - ♪ ♪♪ - NARRATOR: December 14th, 1977. Los Angeles, California.
00:02:19
On a deserted hillside
overlooking the city, 17-year-old Kimberly Martin
was found dead
00:02:25
by two paper boys
doing their morning rounds. Her killers had posed
her body in a provocative manner.
00:02:34
- They dropped her naked body
on the hills in Alessandro Drive,
pointing at the City Hall.
00:02:39
I think that was
a deliberate placement to kinda piss everybody off,
you know? Now, the media kind of went
crazy about this,
00:02:48
that's where the name
Hillside Strangler came from. - NARRATOR: Kimberly was
the ninth victim of the killers
00:02:54
in barely two months. It became one of the biggest
news stories of the year, spreading panic
throughout the city.
00:03:02
- JUDGE NASH: It created
a whole lot of fear, particularly amongst women, who were actually afraid
to go out at night,
00:03:10
and there was some indication
from some of the investigation that whoever was perpetrating
these crimes
00:03:17
may have been impersonating
a police officer. Women were concerned that
if they were approached
00:03:25
by police officers,
should they stop or should they just keep moving? It was really a terrorizing
period of time.
00:03:33
- NARRATOR: In response,
firearms sales went through the roof,
and the women of LA
00:03:38
made preparations
to defend themselves. - Women were taking physical
defense lessons, buying guns,
00:03:46
getting stuff to prevent
themselves on the street, keep from being assaulted. They're reading about it
every day,
00:03:53
it's on television every day. That's a lot of panic
out there in the street, and you could sense it
in the street, you really could.
00:04:00
- GEOFFREY: I think that gave
Bianchi and Buono pleasure. I think they took
an absolute delight
00:04:07
in the fact that they had
taken a whole community by the throat, literally... and strangled the life
out of it.
00:04:16
- NARRATOR: The story
of these two killers begins in Rochester, New York. Angelo Buono was the eldest
of the adoptive cousins,
00:04:25
and was born
on October 5th, 1934. He and his sister were born
into an Italian-American family.
00:04:34
At the age of 5,
his parents divorced, and in 1939, his mother took
her 2 children west,
00:04:41
to Glendale, in Los Angeles. - GEOFFREY: You could say
that Buono was a troubled child.
00:04:47
He had a very strange
relationship with his mother, whom he, uh, constantly
accused of being a whore.
00:04:54
- DR. YARDLEY: Now,
he doesn't speak very highly of his mother at all. His mother would go
and visit men
00:04:59
and he would have
to wait outside. So, here's an individual
who's got very fixed ideas
00:05:03
about who women are
and how they should behave and what's acceptable
for women and what isn't.
00:05:09
And I think that feeds into
the rationale behind the future offending. - NARRATOR: At the age of 16,
00:05:15
Buono dropped
out of high school and turned to crime. - DR. YARDLEY: As a teenager,
Buono was somebody
00:05:21
who regularly broke the rules, he would steal things,
he would joyride in cars, he would hang around with gangs.
00:05:30
This is somebody who just
did not think the rules applied to him,
and when you look at
00:05:34
who his role models are,
they were criminals. So he's starting off
on a very dangerous path.
00:05:41
- NARRATOR: Whilst Buono
was serving time in youth custody
for stealing cars in 1951,
00:05:47
his adoptive cousin,
Kenneth Alessio Bianchi, was born on the 22nd of May. He, too, had a troubled
start in life.
00:05:56
- GEOFFREY: Kenneth Bianchi,
born--funnily enough--- also in Rochester, New York,
just like Buono.
00:06:02
But Bianchi's mother
was a sex worker, and he was very swiftly
put out for adoption,
00:06:08
as a three-month-old infant. And he was adopted
by Buono's mother's sister. - DR. YARDLEY: He's adopted
by Frances and Nicholas.
00:06:19
Now, Frances absolutely
doted on him, but she took this
to an absolute extreme, and she had this paranoia
that there was something wrong
00:06:29
with Kenneth, and she took him
to see the doctor on multiple occasions where
it turned out to be
00:06:33
absolutely nothing wrong
with him. And I think this kind
of smothering can be just as damaging as neglect.
00:06:42
There was something quite
toxic going on here. - NARRATOR: Soon,
the young Bianchi started
00:06:47
showing worrying signs
of behavior. - He was described
by his adoptive mother as a compulsive liar
from a very, very early age.
00:06:56
He was difficult to control. And then his father dies
when he's a teenager. So the male role model
is removed,
00:07:04
and he is...to some extent,
left...swinging in the breeze. - NARRATOR:
Despite being just 14,
00:07:12
Bianchi's mother had big plans
for the son she'd sheltered. At the funeral, she made
Bianchi wear his father's shoes.
00:07:20
They were far too big
and he walked clumsily, but they were a symbol
of who he had become:
00:07:26
the man of the house. - DR. YARDLEY: They were
an Italian Catholic family with some very rigid ideas
about family,
00:07:35
and about the role of men
and the role of women. So, we're seeing some quite
strong values coming through
00:07:41
in his childhood,
and they're values that he draws on in an incredibly
dysfunctional way.
00:07:47
- His mother recognized that
he had a lot of psychiatric issues and problems, and she wouldn't let him
date girls.
00:07:55
She watched over him
very, very closely. - NARRATOR: Bianchi graduated
high school and, aged 18,
00:08:03
married his sweetheart, Brenda. But his insecurities about
her forging her own career
00:08:09
as a nurse caused tension
in the marriage. - GEOFFREY: Bianchi saw women
as something to be possessed,
00:08:18
they could be his and his alone. The marriage to Brenda
fell apart very quickly,
00:08:25
he was only 18. He accused her of being
unfaithful, it played to his sense
that any woman,
00:08:33
he had to possess,
he had to control completely. - NARRATOR: After just a few
months, the couple divorced.
00:08:40
Bianchi then planned
a respectable career in the police. In 1970, he enrolled
in college
00:08:47
to study police science
and psychology. - He was absolutely obsessed
with becoming a police officer.
00:08:55
He applied to join the police
several times and failed at doing that. This was a fixation
for him throughout his life.
00:09:03
I think failing was
one of the factors in the background
of who he became. He wants that legitimate
control,
00:09:10
he wants that
legitimate power. And if he can't get it
legitimately, he's gonna get it
by some other means.
00:09:17
- NARRATOR: After failing
to get his dream job as a police officer, Bianchi found work
as a security guard.
00:09:24
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles,
his cousin, Buono, was a career car thief. By this point in 1970,
00:09:32
the 36-year-old had been
married and divorced twice, and fathered 8 children
by 3 different women.
00:09:40
- BOB: A lot of women said
that he had a very sexual, strong feeling about him, but it was a scary,
frightening kind of thing,
00:09:47
it was kind of a predator
kind of a thing. And he had been through
a whole lot of women.
00:09:53
He was very sexually active, and he was proud
of that reputation. - GEOFFREY:
Buono's attitude to women
00:10:01
and to the women he married...
was abusive, there could be no doubt
about that. And each of them described
his abusiveness,
00:10:11
his drama,
threatened with a gun, persistently kicked,
brutalized. - BOB: He was
very aggressive sexually,
00:10:18
even with young, young girls. - GEOFFREY: There was something
in Buono which saw women
00:10:23
as objects,
a man who saw women as... something of his right. - NARRATOR: Before long,
the two maternal cousins
00:10:31
who barely knew each other would discover they shared
the same intense loathing of women.
00:10:37
Buono and Bianchi would
move in together and become partners in crime. Soon, this dangerous team
would be heading on a path
00:10:47
towards murder. By 1975, 41-year-old
Angelo Buono had served 3 short prison terms
for stealing cars.
00:11:00
He also had a long,
dark history of domestic abuse-- raping and beating
former wives and girlfriends.
00:11:09
But now, it seemed,
Buono wanted to settle on the straight and narrow. - GEOFFREY: Although he wasn't
particularly well-educated,
00:11:18
he was quite smart, he was capable
of running a business-- indeed, he started his own
business in auto upholstery.
00:11:26
- BOB:
He was very successful. Matter of fact, the rumor is
that he did one of Frank Sinatra's cars.
00:11:32
He also considered himself
a mafia kind of guy. - NARRATOR: At home
and at work,
00:11:38
Buono was meticulous
to the extreme. - DR. YARDLEY: Buono was
obsessed with cleanliness,
00:11:44
he would bleach his house
several times a week, he was able to change
the brakes on a car
00:11:49
without getting dirty. Um, when you see people who are
obsessed with cleanliness,
00:11:53
it's about feeling that
everything is within your control. - NARRATOR: Meanwhile,
over 2500 miles away,
00:12:00
in Rochester, New York,
Buono's cousin, Ken Bianchi, had been fired from his job
as a security guard
00:12:08
for stealing jewelry
at the department store where he was working. In January 1976,
00:12:15
Bianchi's family came up
with a plan to temper the wayward
24-year-old. - DR. YARDLEY: Their mothers
are sisters,
00:12:23
and they think it's a good idea
for these two to live together. And I think it is part
of those--those kind of
00:12:28
Italian, Mediterranean
family values, you know, that if you're part of a family,
then you're always welcome,
00:12:35
you should always
look out for one another. - BOB: Buono was doing the
family a favor taking him in.
00:12:41
This is something he didn't
really wanna do. This is a guy who lives alone, and to take in a boarder
was something that, you know,
00:12:48
he wasn't happy with. - JUDGE NASH: Bianchi apparently
looked up to Angelo Buono,
00:12:54
his older cousin, kind of admired the--
the tough guy image that he projected. - NARRATOR: Once again,
Bianchi tried for a career
00:13:04
in the police,
this time with the LAPD. But once again,
he failed his exams. In the end, Bianchi resorted to
lies to get a respectable job.
00:13:17
- BOB: He had phony
certificates made up, showing that he was a graduate
of Columbia University
00:13:23
and had a degree in psychiatry and he was actually
a psychologist. A psychologist in Los Angeles
actually hired this guy,
00:13:33
and he was seeing his patients. He had a gift of really selling
himself, and he did.
00:13:42
He was a sociopath, and he was a pathological liar. - NARRATOR: In June 1976,
Bianchi finally made it
00:13:52
into the LAPD Reserves
as an unpaid volunteer. He also found himself
a desk job to pay the bills,
00:14:00
and at work he met a new
girlfriend, who he moved in with. By now, the cousins had
a real rapport.
00:14:08
Bianchi looked up
to the older Buono, and was only too quick
to get involved when he suggested they
establish themselves as pimps.
00:14:18
- GEOFFREY: He and Buono set up
what only could be described as an agency for prostitutes.
00:14:23
They target two young women,
whom they set up to work for them to make
them money as sex workers.
00:14:33
- BOB: It was a marriage
made in hell. I mean, here you got a sexual
predator and a sociopath.
00:14:41
Bianchi wants to be like
his cousin, Angelo. He looks up to him, he's older,
he was excited.
00:14:48
That is a recipe for madness. - NARRATOR:
But pimping prostitutes wasn't enough for them.
00:14:55
To satisfy their own
sexual cravings, they prowled the streets
using a tactic inspired
00:15:02
by an infamous criminal
from the 1940s. - DR. YARDLEY: When Buono
was an adolescent,
00:15:08
he very much looked up
to career criminals, and one particular criminal, a
serial rapist called Chessman--
00:15:15
who he became
very interested in-- had actually used a police ruse
in order to target his victims.
00:15:23
I think Buono saw something
there that lodged in his mind, and that would later come out
in his offending.
00:15:29
- BOB: Angelo Buono
had a security badge that belonged to his stepfather, and they used that to portray
themselves
00:15:36
as undercover police officers. They started using the badge to
get free sex from prostitutes.
00:15:43
They liked the fact
that they could get girls back to their house and have
them have sex with them,
00:15:48
then play a badge on 'em
and tell 'em that, "Hey, don't tell
anybody we did this,
00:15:53
or you'll be in trouble." - NARRATOR: But the excitement
in duping women for free casual sex
soon wore off.
00:16:01
Buono and Bianchi wanted
to up the stakes, to indulge a depraved desire. - BOB: They both agreed,
"Why don't we try choking
00:16:11
"somebody to death while
we're having an orgasm? That would be something
I'd like to do."
00:16:17
That was Buono's thing. And of course,
whatever Buono said, Bianchi went along with.
00:16:23
- GEOFFREY: It's what
the psychologists call foliata, one adds depth to the other.
00:16:29
One eggs the other one on. One is the sorcerer and
the other one is the apprentice,
00:16:34
and then, suddenly,
they become partners in crime. - NARRATOR: At 11 p.m.
on the 17th of October, 1977,
00:16:43
Buono and Bianchi were cruising
down one of Hollywood's most famous streets,
Sunset Boulevard.
00:16:49
They had their fake police
badges at the ready. - BOB: Bianchi had a four-door
sedan that could resemble
00:16:57
a police car at night. It had no siren or lights,
but it had the same color-- dark blue and a white top.
00:17:04
They used that car in all
the stops and pullovers that they made. - NARRATOR: Here, they spotted
19-year-old Yolanda Washington.
00:17:12
- DR. YARDLEY: She was a mom, she was struggling
to make ends meet, she became involved in sex work,
00:17:17
and they picked her up claiming
to be police officers. - BOB: Got her in the car
00:17:24
under the pretense
of who they were, and Bianchi strangled her
in the back seat.
00:17:31
And that's where it started. - NARRATOR: They dumped
Yolanda's body on Forest Lawn Drive,
not far from Glendale.
00:17:40
She was discovered early
the next morning. - She had a three-year-old
child, and she's treated
as a piece of garbage.
00:17:49
- BOB: From there,
it just kinda accelerated. They started discussing
what they were going to do.
00:17:55
"Let's take 'em
back to the house, "if we take 'em back
to the house, then we can play
games with them."
00:18:01
And that's exactly
what they did. - NARRATOR:
Barely 2 weeks later, on the night of
the 30th of October,
00:18:09
Buono
and police reservist Bianchi were roaming the streets
once again. As they stalked
Sunset Boulevard,
00:18:16
a young girl caught their eye. - Judy Miller was picked up
on Sunset Boulevard, near a hot dog stand.
00:18:25
- DR. YARDLEY:
Judy was 15 years old, so, a few years younger
than Yolanda Washington,
00:18:31
and she's been described
as a runaway, but she's a child,
she's incredibly vulnerable,
00:18:36
and I think they
recognize that and they prey upon
that vulnerability again. - NARRATOR: The killers lured
Judy into their car
00:18:45
under the pretense
of hiring her for sex. Once inside, they pulled out
their fake badges.
00:18:51
She was trapped,
and this time, Buono and Bianchi had even more sinister plans. - They took her to Buono's
auto upholstery shop,
00:19:01
where she was...
systematically raped. - DR. YARDLEY: This change
in offending is really
00:19:09
significant for me because,
when you're taking your victims to somewhere that's private,
00:19:14
an environment over which
you have control, this suggests that you wanna
escalate your offending,
00:19:19
you wanna spend more time
with your victims, you want to harm them more. - NARRATOR: Using a ligature
placed around her neck,
00:19:27
they strangled 15-year-old Judy. Then, the killer cousins
dumped her naked body in bushes
00:19:33
off a quiet residential street in the neighborhood
of La Crescenta. When she was found the next day,
00:19:40
detectives noted the lack
of drag marks on her body. - BOB: That gave us a kind
of an indication
00:19:48
that they might've been
two guys, because... if you have a dead body
and you're lugging it around,
00:19:53
you wanna put it--place here
and place there, it's very difficult,
and if you do that,
00:19:58
you usually have, like,
marks on the body if you're dragging the heels. But she was placed in an area,
00:20:04
and that's where
her body was found. - There was a fiber on her
eyelid that was visible, uh,
00:20:10
and obviously she was
blindfolded, which left the fiber. - NARRATOR: But despite
the police's hunch
00:20:18
that there might be two killers
working together, there was little else left
at the crime scene
00:20:23
in the way of clues to help
them identify the murderers. Buono and Bianchi felt
unstoppable.
00:20:31
And on the 5th of November, they decided to target
a different type of victim. - GEOFFREY: Now, you have
a complete change of pace.
00:20:40
It wasn't only directed
at sex workers. Lissa Kastin was a perfectly
ordinary, outright girl, 21.
00:20:49
She was a dancer,
quite a good career, with her extraordinary group
called the LA Knockers.
00:20:55
- JUDGE NASH: Lissa Kastin
was walking to her apartment, and police ruse was used
with her,
00:21:02
she was brought back
to Buono's shop, you know, raped and murdered, and her body was found
in the bushes
00:21:09
off a street in Glendale. - NARRATOR: Now,
Buono and Bianchi had killed three young women.
00:21:16
They were reveling
in their success and growing in confidence. They were getting
into their stride.
00:21:24
- BOB: They were discussing--
according to Kenneth Bianchi-- they would sit down,
"What do you wanna do tonight?"
00:21:29
"Let's try Hollywood again, let's pick up another
whore in Hollywood." They took them to Buono's
upholstery shop
00:21:37
and sexually assaulted them, strangled them,
took their nude body and threw them in the hillside
along the city of Los Angeles.
00:21:47
It was a game. - NARRATOR:
The rampage continued. Just 4 days later,
on the 9th of November,
00:21:55
28-year-old actress and model,
Jane King, was stopped
at a Hollywood bus bench. She was taken
to Buono's workshop,
00:22:03
where she was raped,
strangled, then dumped next to the freeway
in Glendale. The killer cousins
had claimed four victims
00:22:13
in nearly as many weeks. - It was the most extraordinary
spree. And I think one of the things
that made them, in the end,
00:22:23
terrify Los Angeles,
there was no pattern. They literally,
like lightning strikes,
00:22:30
they had an appetite, and that appetite
knew no bounds. - NARRATOR: But Buono
and Bianchi's killing spree
00:22:39
had barely just begun, and soon, they'd become
the talk of Tinsel Town. On Sunday the 13th of November,
00:22:48
they set their sights
on 2 children: Sonja Johnson
and Dolores Cepeda were spotted
00:22:55
getting on a bus after
a Sunday afternoon shopping. - They get off the bus,
almost certainly,
00:23:03
they're impressionable,
they're 12 or 14, 2 men stop them, they say
they're police officers,
00:23:08
they get them into the car,
they take them back to Buono's. I mean,
it is unimaginable.
00:23:14
- NARRATOR: This time,
the victims were imprisoned and held captive
in Buono's home.
00:23:19
The two schoolgirls
were gagged and bound then repeatedly raped
over five days. - GEOFFREY: What they
must have subjected them to,
00:23:29
and what those girls
must have felt, is literally horrifying. Depravity is too good
a word for it.
00:23:35
It is utter depravity. - NARRATOR: At the end
of their torture, the two children were strangled.
00:23:42
The killers dumped
their bodies four miles from Buono's home, on a hillside near
the famous LA Dodgers stadium.
00:23:51
- It's a street that Buono
referred to and-- since he'd grown up
in the area--as The Cow Patch,
00:23:57
and apparently, their bodies
were just thrown down the hill. - It is behavior of the most...
disgraceful.
00:24:08
Because it's inhuman. It is animalistic. - NARRATOR: Despite raping
and killing six women and girls
00:24:16
in barely a month, Bianchi and Buono were left
wanting for more. - They're varying their
offending at this point in time,
00:24:25
and offenders will do this
because they will get bored. They will want to mix
things up.
00:24:29
They will wanna make
things interesting. - NARRATOR: Their victims
were no longer just randomly
00:24:34
picked off the streets. On the 20th of November, two days after
their last killing,
00:24:40
Bianchi called at the home
of 20-year-old art student Kristina Weckler. - BOB: Kristina Weckler
had met Kenny Bianchi,
00:24:50
they lived near each other. He succeeded in getting her
out of her apartment on the ruse that he was now
LA police officer,
00:24:57
and her car was involved
in an accident. Why the poor girl went,
I don't know. But that was it,
they abducted her,
00:25:05
took her back to Buono's house. - NARRATOR:
Once at Buono's home, the killers had devised a new
sickening act of torture
00:25:13
for their seventh victim. - GEOFFREY: They use a more
elaborate method of killing her.
00:25:19
Not simple manual strangulation. But they put a plastic bag
over her head and put a gas pipe into it,
and effectively suffocate her.
00:25:32
- NARRATOR: The killers also
injected Kristina's arms and neck with air
and cleaning solutions
00:25:38
to try and induce
a fatal embolism. - There was a mark on her neck
where they put cleaning fluid
00:25:46
in her neck with a syringe. - DR. YARDLEY: This is
incredibly sadistic, it's incredibly drawn out.
00:25:52
It's an escalation
in their offending. They're enjoying the process
of watching their victims die,
00:25:58
of having that ultimate
power and control over their life and death. And this is something
that's only going to get worse.
00:26:06
- NARRATOR: Then, they dumped
Kristina's body on another remote hillside
in Highland Park,
00:26:11
several miles
from Buono's Glendale home. - BOB: It was a Sunday,
I was notified at home.
00:26:19
They said, "We got a dead
girl out here, and it's definitely
a murder victim." So, I went out, did my
usual crime scene investigation,
00:26:28
and I noted the ligature
marks on her hands and on the ankles. - NARRATOR: Detectives also
noticed that the bodies
00:26:36
continued to be placed and not dragged to each
location. They were still convinced
that they had
00:26:43
more than one killer
on the loose. - We had put
a lot of uniformed policemen in the area of Northeast
Los Angeles,
00:26:53
looking for two suspects,
or one suspect as a serial murderer. So we were focusing
in the area
00:27:01
where the girls were
originally abducted. I think that information
got out somehow to the media.
00:27:07
So, what did Bianchi
and Buono do? They drove all the way out
to the Valley to look for the next victim
25 miles away.
00:27:16
- NARRATOR:
On the 28th of November, 8 days after
their last killing, Bianchi and Buono were
cruising the streets
00:27:23
of the San Fernando Valley. They spotted 18-year-old
business student Lauren Wagner
00:27:29
driving home. - BOB: They, uh, followed her. And she parked right across
the street from where she lived.
00:27:36
They stopped her, pretended they
were police officers, and said they would have
to take her in a car,
00:27:42
and she resisted,
she kind of--vocally resisted. And they got her in the car,
and took her to Buono's house.
00:27:52
- NARRATOR: Lauren was bound
to a chair and gagged in Buono's home. This time, the cousins
thought they'd experiment
00:27:59
with a different
type of torture. - JUDGE NASH: They took wires,
plugged them into the wall,
00:28:05
kind of pulled the wires
apart and taped the wire to the girl's hand,
and then plugged it in
00:28:13
to electrocute her. There were burn marks
in her hands from the wires. - NARRATOR: Lauren's body
was dumped, once again,
00:28:22
on one of the city's hillsides. Her parents had noticed
their daughter's absence
00:28:28
and were concerned when
they found her abandoned car with the keys left
in the ignition.
00:28:34
- And this was something
that was out of the ordinary, she wouldn't normally do that,
so immediately they knew
00:28:39
that something was wrong,
they knew something was amiss, so they contacted the local
police department.
00:28:45
- NARRATOR: She was discovered
the next day, on the 29th of November. - Her body was found, once
again, on the side of a hill,
00:28:53
on a little street
in the Glendale LA area. And she was lying there,
naked as the others,
00:29:00
with ants crawling
all over her body. - Upon seeing her,
we knew right away that she and Kristina Weckler
were killed by the same people.
00:29:11
Both had very similar
ligature marks on the body, around the neck and one on
each wrist
00:29:18
and one on each ankle. We began referring to that
as five-point ligatures. - NARRATOR: Forensic
investigators also found
00:29:27
a small fiber stuck
to the adhesive left by the tape that had been used to attach
the electrical wires
00:29:34
to Lauren's hand. Detective Bob Grogan
went to her parents' home to break the devastating
news about their daughter,
00:29:43
but word of an eighth
strangling victim had got out,
which meant the LA press were already one step ahead.
00:29:51
- On the street where the
Wagners lived was all the media in Los Angeles trying to
interview Mr. and Mrs. Wagner.
00:29:58
I hadn't even notified them, and they're running around
with their microphones, looking for an interview.
00:30:03
And I ordered
the uniformed police to move 'em up the street
and get 'em out of there.
00:30:07
They turned this into a circus,
and this is far from a circus. - NARRATOR: The press now had
a name for the serial murderer:
00:30:16
the Hillside Strangler. But a neighbor had some
important information for police, which confirmed
their earlier suspicions.
00:30:26
- BOB: She came out and saw
two guys putting a girl in a car. That was the first time
we actually had visible proof
00:30:34
that there were two suspects. Couldn't identify them,
but two were seen. - NARRATOR: With the killings
making daily news in LA,
00:30:44
the police were now under
pressure to step up their investigation. - BOB: After the murder
of Lauren Wagner,
00:30:51
the detectives,
we got together and said, "We got a serial murderer, we got a big problem.
Big problem."
00:30:58
The chief wanted a task force,
the media wanted a task force, so we got a task force,
we got a hundred policemen.
00:31:06
- NARRATOR: But Buono
and Bianchi were already planning their next killing,
and another change of tactic.
00:31:13
- They enjoyed the feelings
of power and control that killing gave them, um, but they didn't wanna go
to the effort of going out,
00:31:20
they wanted to make it
easier for themselves. And going out actually was
quite a risky thing
00:31:25
at this time,
'cause this was a ruse that they'd used several times, so it was a combination
of awareness of risk
00:31:31
and laziness on their part. - GEOFFREY: Bianchi
has found a flat-- another apartment
in the block he lives in,
00:31:38
which is vacant. - NARRATOR:
On December the 13th, Bianchi called an escort service
posing as a client.
00:31:47
Seventeen-year-old
Kimberly Martin was sent to the empty apartment. - BOB: As soon as the door
was open, she knew
00:31:54
she had made a mistake. Buono and Bianchi were there
and a struggle broke out. - DR. YARDLEY: She had quite
a severe head injury,
00:32:01
almost as if she'd been
bashed against a wall. So, what I see in this case
is an individual who knew
00:32:06
they were in danger and actually
fought tooth and nail for their life,
and I think that's testament
00:32:11
to the strength of character
of this individual. - NARRATOR: Buono and Bianchi
took Kimberly back
00:32:17
to Buono's workshop. After raping and strangling her, the killers planned
a final act to taunt the city.
00:32:26
- Her body was deposited
on the side of a hill, kinda overlooking
the city of Los Angeles,
00:32:33
and her body was kind of
displayed like this, and...she actually came
to symbolize
00:32:41
the Hillside Strangler. Where she was thrown was
kind of a way for these guys to thumb their nose
at the world.
00:32:51
- And the media jumped on that, "Oh, the Hillside Strangler
strikes again," so--it was a panic situation
in the city of LA,
00:32:57
no question about it. - NARRATOR:
The Hillside Stranglers had now claimed nine
innocent lives.
00:33:04
Buono and Bianchi sat back
and relished how their murders had become one of the biggest
news stories ever in LA.
00:33:13
The Los Angeles
Police Department were now under pressure to catch
the killers before they struck again.
00:33:23
- NARRATOR: By December 1977,
the Hillside Stranglers had claimed nine
innocent lives.
00:33:29
Buono and Bianchi
sat back and relished how their murders had become
one of the biggest
00:33:35
news stories ever in LA. The Los Angeles Police
Department were now under pressure to catch
the killers
00:33:43
before they struck again. - GEOFFREY: It created
an utter panic. If you were young, and a young
woman in Los Angeles
00:33:52
at that time, I think you would
be frightened-- anybody would have been. - NARRATOR: Bianchi was
reveling with the headlines
00:33:59
his murders were generating. Still a member
of the LAPD Reserves, he went on ride-alongs
with the police
00:34:07
and was on patrol
with a local sergeant just two days after
Kimberly Martin's killing.
00:34:14
- DR. YARDLEY: He was asking
questions about this murder and he was wanting to see
the dumpsite.
00:34:19
So, he was trying to find out
what the police knew, essentially, is trying
to get some information.
00:34:25
- BOB: And the sergeant said,
"Hey, I work uniform, I don't know anything
about that."
00:34:30
So he was brazen enough
to come out and make
that kind of a statement. He told many people, "I could
be the Hillside Strangler."
00:34:39
It didn't bother him,
but you gotta remember, you're dealing with
a pathological liar,
00:34:42
so he could say anything
at any given moment. - NARRATOR: The two murderers
decided to lay low
00:34:48
for the next two months. But on
the 16th of February, 1978, they couldn't resist
20-year-old Cindy Lee Hudspeth.
00:34:58
- BOB: She walked into
Buono's shop to get upholstery work
on her car. Big mistake.
00:35:05
The predator of predators
she's talking to and doesn't know this. Next thing you know,
she's victim ten.
00:35:12
- They put her body
in the trunk of her Datsun--
her orange Datsun car. And they drive it
to a higher area of Los Angeles.
00:35:22
- The car with her body
in it was pushed off of Los Angeles Crest Highway,
where she was found.
00:35:29
- NARRATOR: But soon,
cracks began to show between the deadly duo. The status that Bianchi
was enjoying as a serial killer
00:35:37
seemed to be going
to the younger cousin's head. - Kenny Bianchi has got
to the point where
00:35:43
he's kinda got Buono worried 'cause he's bragging
about these murders now. "Hey I went on ride-along
with the police department."
00:35:51
Buono couldn't believe that. So there was a falling out. Buono threw him
out of the house,
00:35:57
says, "Out, I don't wanna
see you ever again." - NARRATOR: The two killers finally went their
separate ways.
00:36:04
That same month,
Bianchi settled down to become a father when his girlfriend
gave birth to their son.
00:36:12
- GEOFFREY: Now you have one of
those wonderful contradictions. You have a superficially
doting father,
00:36:18
who has evil intent, who presents--to use
the contemporary phrase-- as an upright member
of the community,
00:36:27
and yet is anything but. - NARRATOR: In May 1978, Bianchi's girlfriend left him
and moved to Bellingham
00:36:36
in Washington State. Desperate to stay with his son,
Bianchi followed, and found a job
as a security guard.
00:36:45
- We've had this epidemic
of killing, and it stops. But the trouble is,
Bianchi can't stop.
00:36:52
It has just become too...
addictive. - NARRATOR:
On the 11th of January 1979, Bianchi offered to pay
2 university students--
00:37:03
22-year-old Karen Mandic
and 27-year-old Diane Wilder-- $100 to house-sit
one of the properties
00:37:11
that he was guarding. - It's unclear exactly how
Bianchi forced these two down the stairs
into the basement.
00:37:21
But there's no doubt
that he did. He also put the noose
around their necks and then strangled them.
00:37:28
- BOB: Kills the two girls,
and he does it on his own. He does it poorly. He masturbated
on one of the victims.
00:37:37
And he couldn't get it on,
couldn't function. He's now acting alone. He doesn't have
the street-smart, con-wise
00:37:44
Angelo Buono as a partner. - NARRATOR: Next day,
on the 12th of January, Karen's car was found nearby
by the police with their bodies
00:37:54
hidden in the trunk. Bianchi's employer
revealed his whereabouts, and he was arrested.
00:38:01
- DR. YARDLEY: He claims that
the killing wasn't done by him, but done by his second
personality--Steve Walker.
00:38:08
So he's claiming that
he has another individual in his head who is telling him
to do particular things.
00:38:15
- NARRATOR: When the police
in Bellingham realized their suspect had
a Californian driver's license,
00:38:20
they contacted the LAPD. Detectives there noticed
something interesting on Bianchi's driver's license.
00:38:29
- BOB: Whenever you moved
in California, you had to write on the back
of your driver's license
00:38:33
your new address. Bianchi diligently did that, he put his address
when he moved,
00:38:39
which was on the same street
that Kristina Weckler lived on. That's a pretty strong
connection,
00:38:46
you got a guy who just killed
two girls in Bellingham who used to live next door
to a girl in Los Angeles
00:38:50
who got killed? That in itself
is a strong connection. Doesn't prove anything,
but it makes it worthwhile
00:38:58
to go talk to that guy. Now, there's a lot of things
happening at that time. Bianchi is claiming
to be a dual personality,
00:39:08
and he's decided that
"This is gonna be my defense." - NARRATOR: So one of America's
leading criminal psychiatrists
00:39:15
was sent to test Bianchi's
alter ego, Steve, who allegedly appeared
when he was under hypnosis.
00:39:23
- BOB: Dr. Martin Orne
examined Kenneth Bianchi and had some techniques
and tricks that he used,
00:39:30
and came to us and says,
"The guy is a complete fraud." - NARRATOR: Now Bianchi's lies
had been exposed,
00:39:36
he turned on his
partner in crime. - BOB: He says there's
another person with him
00:39:42
on the murders,
and it's his cousin Angelo. And it's the first we've
heard of Angelo.
00:39:48
- DR. YARDLEY: This is
incredibly revealing, because there's no sense
of loyalty whatsoever here.
00:39:52
He's got what he wanted
out of Buono, so he just cast him aside
and places the blame
00:39:57
squarely on him. - BOB: In order to get him
to give us enough information so we can go down
and arrest Mr. Buono,
00:40:06
we have to make a deal. The deal is that he won't
get the death penalty in the state of Washington,
00:40:12
and that he would testify
truthfully in Los Angeles in the trial, if and when
we have a trial.
00:40:19
- NARRATOR: With Buono now
in the frame, forensic teams searched
his home and workshop.
00:40:25
Astonishingly,
they could not find a single fingerprint because
of his obsessive cleanliness.
00:40:32
However, they did find
some evidence. They discovered the white
polyester fiber on Judy Miller's eyelid
matched upholstery material
00:40:41
in Buono's workshop. They also found forensic
evidence which placed another victim at his home.
00:40:49
- BOB: In the chair
in the living room, where we've
learned from Bianchi where the victims were
originally placed,
00:40:55
a fiber was found
down inside the chair, and that fiber was connected
to a fiber that was found
00:41:03
in Lauren Wagner's fingers. That's pretty positive
evidence that this girl was in Buono's house.
00:41:11
- And that fiber evidence
was extremely important evidence in this case. - NARRATOR: As Bianchi
had already pleaded guilty
00:41:20
to seven counts of murder
as part of his deal, he did not face trial. His cousin, Angelo Buono,
appeared in court
00:41:28
on November the 16th, 1981. At the time, it was the longest
trial in US criminal history,
00:41:36
with Michael Nash,
the deputy attorney general, prosecuting. - JUDGE NASH: The jury
selection alone
00:41:43
took almost four months. And then, on top of that,
Kenneth Bianchi was on the witness stand
for about six months.
00:41:50
The problem was that
he changed his mind about everything. He did everything possible
to sabotage that case
00:41:59
against Angelo Buono. - NARRATOR:
But the ploy failed. After a mammoth trial
lasting more than 2 years,
00:42:07
in November 1983, Angelo Buono was found guilty
on 9 counts of murder. He was acquitted
on the tenth count--
00:42:17
that of Yolanda Washington-- as it was accepted
that he had been driving the car
00:42:23
while Bianchi strangled her
in the back. Both cousins were later
sentenced to life in prison.
00:42:31
- JUDGE NASH: Someone said,
"So, how come you're not celebrating?" And I said, "You have all
these dead girls,
00:42:39
"they had family and friends
who are forever scarred by all this,
this is tragedy."
00:42:46
- NARRATOR: But the brutal
killers could no longer haunt the streets of LA. - GEOFFREY:
In September 2002,
00:42:52
Buono dies at the age of 67...
in jail. And Bianchi remained in jail
in Washington State.
00:43:01
- JUDGE NASH: They're not
the first serial killers, and they're not the last. But they were two of
the worst human beings
00:43:09
who've ever walked
the face of the Earth. - They are among
the most horrifying killers
00:43:17
you could encounter,
because the rape, torture, and in the end killing
of utterly innocent young women
00:43:25
for nothing but their own
pleasure, and their own gratification is unimaginably evil.
00:43:32
- NARRATOR: The two cousins
reigned terror over the city of Los Angeles, they strangled and raped
ten females in just four months,
00:43:40
including four girls. They electrocuted and gassed
some of their victims, and relished watching
their slow, painful deaths.
00:43:51
That makes Angelo Buono
and Kenneth Bianchi two of the world's
most evil killers.
00:43:58
- ♪ ♪♪ - [swishing sounds]