Hillside Stranglers

Buono had been a successful auto upholsterer, his cousin Bianchi left his home in New York and moved to the west coast. They began their crime spree in 1977, after idle talk between the pair about how prostitutes that Buono brought home would hardly be missed if they disappeared. Idle talk led the pair into action and they raped and strangled their first victim on October 17th of that year.

Within a month of the first attack a further three women had been attacked. During the attacks they would pick up the women in their van and drive them back to Buono’s house where they were subjected to all manners of sexual assault before being strangled. The pair would then thoroughly clean the bodies before leaving them positioned on hillsides in the area of Los Angeles. This earned them the nickname of the Hillside Strangler, with the press speculating that it was the work of one lone assassin. 

After the discovery of the body of the tenth victim in February 1978 the murders suddenly stopped. The two cousins had fallen out with each other over some unrelated dispute and Bianchi moved to Washington. While in the city he applied for a job with the Bellingham Police, he did not get the job but became a security guard. He could not keep his murderous impulses under control and killed two college students. The thorough cleaning of evidence had been down to Buono, and Bianchi left tell tale signs as well as a witness seeing Bianchi with the two girls shortly before they were killed. He was soon arrested and this case was solved, he was set to face a possible death sentence when he confessed to being involved in the Hillside Strangler murders. In testifying against his cousin he avoided the death penalty in Washington.

During the trial of Buono his fiercely insisted he was innocent of all charges against him. There was no physical evidence linking the cases to him. Buono’s house was so clean they could not find fingerprints of even Buono inside the home. Over 400 witnesses testified against him and he was convicted and sentenced to life in Prison without the possibility of parole.

Angelo Buono died of a heart attack on September 21st 2002 at the age of 67. Kenneth Bianchi applied for parole in September 2005 but it was denied. He remains in prison and is not due for another parole hearing until 2025 by then if still alive he will be aged 74.