True Crime: The Hillside Stranglers

Los Angeles Under Terror

BETWEEN OCTOBER 1977 AND FEBRUARY 1978, the bodies of ten women and girls were found on hillsides throughout the Los Angeles area. They had been sexually assaulted, strangled, and in some cases tortured. Their bodies were posed: left in visible locations, sometimes staged as if asleep. The killer or killers seemed to want the bodies found. The LAPD had no suspects and no clear picture of who they were looking for.

The press named the unknown killer the Hillside Strangler. The singular was wrong. There were two of them, and that mistake, and the specific dynamic between the two men, is central to understanding how the crimes happened and why they stopped.

The Two Men

Kenneth Bianchi was 26 years old when the killings began. He had grown up in Rochester, New York, the adopted son of Frances Bianchi, a working-class woman who struggled with his behavior from childhood. He was a habitual liar, described by teachers and psychologists who evaluated him as a teenager as showing antisocial tendencies, a manipulative personality, and a persistent pattern of deception. He moved around, unable to hold jobs for long, claiming professional credentials he didn't have. He told women he was a psychologist. He presented himself as stable, caring, and trustworthy. He was none of these things.

Angelo Buono was Bianchi's cousin, twelve years older, and a dominant, aggressive personality. Buono ran an auto upholstery shop in Glendale. He had a history of violence toward women, multiple marriages, and several children. Women who knew him described him as controlling and frightening. He had a capacity for violence that was apparent to people around him, yet he operated in his community for years without serious legal consequence.

Bianchi moved to Los Angeles in 1976 to live near Buono. The older man's influence over the younger one was significant. Criminal profilers and investigators who later studied the case concluded that Bianchi, while capable of serious harm alone, might not have committed these specific crimes without Buono's initiation and direction. Together they were more dangerous than either would have been separately.

How They Found Their Victims

Buono and Bianchi used a direct and devastating method: they impersonated police officers. They had fake badges. They would approach women, often young women working as prostitutes or in vulnerable circumstances, and tell them they were under arrest. The women got into their car believing they were being taken to a police station. Instead, they were taken to Buono's house in Glendale.

The use of false authority is a documented predator strategy. People, especially those who are already in precarious circumstances and may fear the real police, often comply with apparent authority figures even when something feels wrong. Bianchi, who was personable and could present as professional and calm, was particularly effective at the initial approach.

Once at Buono's house, victims were bound, sexually assaulted, and killed. Most were strangled manually or with a ligature. The manner of death and the sexual violence were consistent across all ten victims, establishing a clear pattern that investigators could recognize even as the specific circumstances of each killing varied.

The Victims

The youngest victim was Dolores Cepeda, 12 years old. The oldest was Kristina Weckler, 20. The ten women and girls killed between October 1977 and February 1978 were Yolanda Washington, Judith Lynn Miller, Dolores Cepeda, Sonja Johnson, Kristina Weckler, Jane King, Lauren Wagner, Kimberly Martin, Cindy Hudspeth, and Lissa Kastin. They came from different backgrounds and were found in different parts of the Los Angeles area, which initially made it difficult for investigators to establish that they were dealing with a single series of murders.

The LAPD created a task force. Tips poured in. None led anywhere useful. The killings stopped in February 1978 as suddenly as they had started. For nearly a year, the case went nowhere.

The Break in Washington

The case broke because Bianchi moved to Bellingham, Washington. In January 1979, two college students, Karen Mandic and Diane Wilder, were found dead in a house in Bellingham. Bianchi had told them he was a security guard with access to a house that needed watching, and offered them a job. They were found strangled in the same manner as the Los Angeles victims.

Bianchi was quickly identified as a suspect. Physical evidence placed him at the scene. Bellingham police contacted the LAPD, which recognized the similarities immediately. Bianchi was arrested in January 1979.

What followed was one of the most scrutinized psychiatric evaluations in American legal history. Bianchi claimed multiple personality disorder, presenting a supposed alternate personality named "Steve Walker" who, Bianchi claimed, was responsible for the murders. He had apparently prepared for this defense by researching personality disorders and studying how to perform the symptoms convincingly.

Several psychiatrists were initially taken in. Then a psychiatrist named Martin Orne, an expert in hypnosis and psychological manipulation, was brought in specifically because law enforcement suspected malingering. Orne told Bianchi that genuine cases of multiple personality disorder typically involved more than two personalities. Bianchi promptly produced a third. Orne concluded he was faking. Other experts, including a neurologist and a psychologist brought in by the prosecution, agreed. The multiple personality defense collapsed.

Buono's Trial

Bianchi agreed to testify against Buono in exchange for a plea deal: two life sentences in Washington state rather than the death penalty. The Buono trial was one of the longest and most complicated in California history, lasting from November 1981 to October 1983. The prosecution's case nearly fell apart when Bianchi proved an unreliable witness, changing his story at various points and at one point recanting his testimony entirely before being pressured to return to it.

The prosecution overcame the witness problems with physical evidence and the testimony of witnesses who had encountered Buono and Bianchi together. Buono was convicted on nine of the ten murders (not convicted on the Yolanda Washington killing due to insufficient evidence connecting him specifically). He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on each count.

Buono died in prison in 2002 of a heart attack, at age 67. Bianchi remains imprisoned in Washington state.

What the Case Revealed

The Hillside Strangler case entered the public record as one of the first major investigations to wrestle seriously with the question of whether serial killers could successfully fake mental illness to avoid conviction. The debate over Bianchi's multiple personality claims helped shape how courts and forensic psychiatrists approach such defenses. It made investigators and prosecutors more sophisticated about the possibility of malingering in high-stakes cases.

The case also exposed how long two men who were known to their communities, who had families and jobs and neighbors, could carry out extreme violence without detection. Buono had customers who came to his shop every week. Bianchi had a girlfriend and a son. Neither appeared, to casual observation, to be what they were. The gap between how people appear and what they do is something every serial killer case raises. The Hillside Stranglers raised it in a city that still talks about those months of fear.