"THE HILLSIDE STRANGLERS: TWO COUSINS, TEN VICTIMS & THE TERROR THAT GRIPPED LOS ANGELES - PART 1"

0:03 Calarogus Shark media. Good morning, I'm Reed Carter. Saturday, January tenth, twenty twenty six. October eighteenth, nineteen seventy seven, Los Angeles, California. A jogger running near the Ventura Freeway spots something in the brush on a hillside, calls police. Officers respond find the naked body of a young woman, strangled, raped, cleaned of evidence, dumped like garbage. Her name was Yolanda Washington, nineteen years old, the first victim of what would become one of the most terrifying killing sprees in Los Angeles history. Over the next four months, nine more women and girls would be found the same way, naked, strangled, dumped on hillsides across the city. Ligature marks on their necks, wrists and ankles, evidence of rape and torture, bodies scrubbed clean.

1:00 The media called him the Hillside Strangler, singular one killer terrorizing the city of Angels But there were two cousins, Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono. One was twenty six, charming, baby faced, the other was forty four, rough, intimidating. Together, they posed as undercover police officers, flashed fake badges, ordered women into their car told them it was an unmarked vehicle. They were under arrest. Once inside, the women were handcuffed, driven to Bueno's Auto upholstery shop in Glendale, taken inside, and then the real horror began. Between October nineteen seventy seven and February nineteen seventy eight, these two men raped, tortured, and murdered ten women and girls, ages twelve to twenty eight, prostitutes, students, waitresses, aspiring actresses. A twelve year old and her fourteen year old best friend abducted while getting off a school bus.

1:57 Los Angeles was paralyzed with fear, stopped going out after dark. Nightclubs saw business plummet. Young women cut their hair short and dyed it blonde, hoping to avoid fitting the victim profile. Parents kept daughters home. The city held its breath every time a body was found, and then suddenly the murders stopped. February nineteen seventy eight, no more bodies, no arrests, no answers. The Hillside strangler vanished for eleven months, nothing. The task force kept working, the city kept waiting, and Kenneth Bianki moved to Washington State. I'm reed, Carter. This is celebrity trials today. The Hillside Stranglers, How two cousins terrorized Los Angeles, The ten victims whose names deserved to be remembered, and the killing that almost happened to Peter Laura's daughter, Part one of two. Let's start with the killers, because under standing who they were explains how this happened. Angelo Anthony Buono Junior born October fifth, nineteen thirty four, in Rochester, New York. Parents were Italian immigrants from Sicily, divorced when Angelo was young. He blamed his mother, called her a whore, idolized rapist Carol Chessman. As a teenager, boasted to friends about raping and sodomizing girls. Dropped out of school at sixteen, sent to reformatory, escaped, married five times, fathered at least

3:30 eight children, abused every wife, beat them, raped them, forced them into prostitution. One wife later testified he'd hold a gun to her head during sex. By nineteen seventy seven, Buono was forty four years old running an auto upholstery shop at seven oh three East Colorado Street in Glendale. Successful business, good reputation with customers. Nobody knew what happened inside that shop after hours now Kenneth Alessio Bianchi born May twenty second, nineteen fifty one, also in Rochester. His biological mother was a seventeen year old prostitute who gave him up for adoption two weeks after birth. Adopted by Nicholas and Francis Bianki, an Italian American couple, their only child, Kenny was the opposite of Angelo in appearance, baby faced, soft spoken, charming, but underneath pathological liar, petty thief diagnosed with Pettitt mal seizures as a child, developed violent sexual fantasies involving bondage. During adolescence, he desperately wanted to be a cop, applied to police departments repeatedly rejected every time something about him set off alarms, so he became a security guard instead, close enough to feel important, not close enough to have real power. In January nineteen seventy six, Bianki left Rochester and moved to Los Angeles to live with his older cousin Angelo. They hadn't been close growing up, but Kenny admired at Angelo saw him as sophisticated, successful,

5:04 a man who knew how to get women and put them in their place. Angelo taught Kenny everything, how to manipulate women, how to control them, how to hurt them without getting caught. They started as pimps, found two teenage runaways, Sabrahannon and Becky Spears, and forced them into prostitution. Made money off their bodies, but that wasn't enough for Angelo. He wanted more. The idea came from a simple observation. Prostitutes disappeared all the time. Nobody really looked for them, nobody really cared. What if they just took one who would miss her idle Speculation turned into planning. Planning turned into action. October seventeenth, nineteen seventy seven, the cousins spotted Yolanda Washington on the streets of Hollywood, nineteen years old, working as a prostitute. They approached in their car, flashed fake police badges, told her she was under arrest. Yolanda got in. What choice did she have? Resisting arrest would only make things worse. Better to go quietly sorted out at the station. But they didn't take her to a station.

6:17 They took her to Angelo's upholstery shop, and there, behind locked doors, they raped her, strangled her, cleaned her body of evidence, drove to a hillside near the Ventura Freeway, dumped her naked corpse in the brush. The next morning she was found. Police investigated another dead prostitute in Los Angeles. Tragic, but not unusual. No suspects, no leads, case went cold. The cousins had gotten away with murder, and they'd liked it. Here's the pattern that makes serial killers escalate. Success breeds confidence, confidence breeds carelessness. But before carelessness catches up with them, confidence drives them to kill again, and again and again.

7:06 Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono were just getting started. Two weeks after Yolanda Washington. They struck again. October thirty first, nineteen seventy seven, Halloween Knight. Judith Lynn Miller, fifteen years old, a runaway, had been surviving on the streets, sometimes selling her body to get by. She was last seen on Sunset Boulevard talking to a man in a large, two tone Sedan. Buono and Bianki told her they were undercover cops, handcuffed her, drove her to the shop, raped her, tortured her, strangled her, dumped her body on a hillside in La Crescenta on November first, fifteen years old, should be in high school should be worried about homework and friends and what to wear to the dance. Instead, she's dead in a ravine because two monsters wanted to see what it felt like to kill again. November fifth, nineteen seventy seven.

8:08 Lissa Caston, twenty one years old. This one was different. Lisa wasn't a prostitute. She was a waitress working to pay for dance lessons, part of an all female dance troupe called the La Knockers Dreams of Making It in Hollywood. She was last seen leaving the restaurant where she worked. Coworkers noticed she'd been talking to two customers who seemed suspicious. The next day, her body was found near the Chevy Chase country Club in Glendale, naked, strangled, five point ligature marks, neck wrists, ankles. This was the first victim who wasn't involved in prostitution. The killers were expanding their target selection. Nobody was safe. November ninth, nineteen seventy seven. Jane King, twenty eight years old, aspiring actress, disappeared while waiting for a bus. Her decomposed body was found November twenty third and bushes near the Los Fales Boulevard off ramp of the Golden State Freeway. But before Jane's body was found, the killers had already taken three more victims in a single week, November thirteenth, nineteen seventy seven. The youngest victims, the ones that changed everything. Dolores Dolly Sapada, twelve years old and her best friend Sonya Johnson, fourteen, just kids getting off a bus at the Eagle Rock Plaza shopping center, walking home from school. Buono and Bianci pulled up, flashed their badges, said the girls matched the description of runaways,

9:40 needed to take them in for questioning. The girls had no reason to doubt them. They'd been taught to respect police officers. To comply, they got in the car. Their bodies were found November twentieth on a hillside in Elysian Park, naked, strangled, raped, a twelve year old and a fourteen year old, tortured and murdered by two grown men who posed as police officers. Dolly suppeda was twelve years old, should be in sixth grade, should be worried about middle school drama and learning to play an instrument and making her parents proud. Should be alive today at fifty nine years old, a grandmother, maybe a career, a life. Sonia Johnson was fourteen, should be a freshman in high school, should be thinking about her future college career. Family, should be sixty one years old today. Instead, they were strangled in an upholstery shop by two monsters who enjoyed watching children die. Make it make sense. That same week, November twentieth, the body of Christinoveckler was also found, twenty years old college student. What made her death different the method Buono and Bianchi had experimented. Injected her with windecks, a household cleaning product, pumped directly into her to see what would happen. It didn't kill her fast enough, so they strangled her. Like the others, these men weren't just killing.

11:09 They were experimenting, trying different methods. Lethal injection, electric shock, carbon monoxide poisoning. Strangulation remained their favorite, but they wanted variety. They wanted to see women suffer in new ways. November twenty eighth, nineteen seventy seven, Lauren Wagner, eighteen years old, business school student. She was getting out of her car in front of her parents' house when two men grabbed her. A neighbor heard screaming, saw Lauren being forced into a vehicle, saw burn marks on her palms. Later, the killers had electrocuted her during torture. December fourteenth, nineteen seventy seven. Kimberly Diane Martin, seventeen years old. Here's the cruel irony. Kimberly had stopped working the streets because she was afraid of the Hillside strangler. She joined a call girl agency, thinking it would be safer. An agency would vet clients, screen calls, provide protection. Buono and Bianci called the agency from a payphone in the Hollywood Public Library, requested a girl, gave a vacant apartment address they'd broken into. Kimberly was dispatched, walked into the empty apartment and into their hands. Her body was found on a deserted lot near Los Angeles City Hall. Seventeen years old, electrical burns on her palms, strangled.

12:34 February sixteenth, nineteen seventy eight. The final victim in Los Angeles. Cindi Lee Hudspeth, twenty years old, student and part time waitress, had just gotten her first new car, an Orange Dotson she was incredibly proud of. She went to Bueno's upholstery shop that evening. Legitimate business wanted him to do some work on her car's interior. Bianki arrived. As she was there. The two men looked at at each other, made a decision, made her their last victim. They raped her, strangled her, put her body in the trunk of her own orange Dotson drove to Angelus Crest Highway, pushed the car off a cliff. February seventeenth, nineteen seventy eight, a helicopter pilot spotted the orange car halfway down the cliff. Police responded, found Cindy's body in the trunk, and then nothing. The murder stopped. No more bodies on hillsides, no more naked women dumped like trash. The hillside strangler, whoever he was, had gone silent. The city waited, The task force kept investigating, women kept their doors locked, and nobody knew that the killers had simply had a falling out. Bianki and Buono weren't getting along anymore, even with murder as a shared hobby.

13:53 Cousins can fight. Bianki had been questioned by police, not as a suspect, but as a potential witness. He'd actually gone on ride alongs with LAPD officers who were hunting the strangler the audacity, but when Bianki mentioned the police contact to Buono, his cousin exploded, threatened to kill him if he didn't leave Los Angeles immediately. The partnership was over. In May nineteen seventy eight, Kenneth Bianki packed up and moved to Bellingham, Washington, got a job as a security guard, had a son with his girlfriend, Kelly Boyd. Tried to apply for the Bellingham Police Department, rejected again. Los Angeles breathed easier. The strangler was gone. Maybe he'd died, maybe he'd moved away, maybe he'd just stopped. But Kenneth Bianchi couldn't stop. The compulsion was too strong, and in January nineteen seventy nine, he would kill again, this time alone, and finally get caught. Tomorrow, Part two, We'll be right back with the woman who almost became a victim and was only spared because her father was a Hollywood legend.

15:18 Welcome back to celebrity trials. I'm read Carter. Before we close today, I need to tell you about Catherine Lare, the woman who should have been victim number eleven but wasn't. Late nineteen seventy seven, the height of the killing spree. Catherine Law was walking home alone one night in Hollywood, twenty something years old. Dark hair, fit the profile perfectly. A car pulled up beside her. Two men inside. They showed her badges, told her she matched the description of a suspect, needed her to come with them for questioning. Catherine was smart. Something felt wrong. These didn't feel like real cops. But what could she do if they were real?

15:58 Resisting would only make things worse If they weren't, she was already in trouble. She got in the car. As they drove, the men asked her questions, name, address, What was she doing out so late? Catherine answered? Then one of them asked who she was really was. Catherine reached into her purse, pulled out a photograph her and her father. I'm Peter Laurie's daughter. The car went silent. Peter Laurie one of the most famous character actors in Hollywood history Casablanca, the Maltese Falcon m where he played a child murderer. Ironically enough, a face everyone in the industry knew, a name that carried weight. Bianci and Buono looked at each other, looked at the photo, looked at Catherine and let her go.

16:48 They actually pulled over and led her out of the car, told her to have a nice night, drove away. Peter Laurie had died in nineteen sixty four, but his fame saved his daughter's life thirteen years later. The killers were worried that murdering a celebrity's child would bring too much heat, too much investigation, too much risk. Catherine Laurie didn't learn the truth until after Bianchi and Buono were arrested. Didn't know how close she'd come. That photograph in her purse, a sentimental keepsake of her famous father, had been the only thing standing between her and an upholstery shop in Glendale. She'd walked away from the hillside stranglers because of a dead man's face in a picture. Make it make sense?

17:34 Ten women murdered, one spared because of celebrity, as if the other victim's lives mattered less because they didn't have famous fathers. But that's the randomness of serial killing, the arbitrary decisions that determine who lives and who dies. Catherine Laurie happened to have a photo Kimberly Martin happened to be the call girl dispatched that night. Dolly Suppita and Sonya Johnson happened to get off the bus at that exact moment. Wrong place, wrong time, Wrong monsters watching. That's Part one of our Hillside Strangler Special. Ten victims, four months, two killers posing as police officers, a city gripped with terror. Yolanda Washington nineteen, Judith Miller fifteen, Lyssa Caston twenty one, Jane King twenty eight, Dolores Sapada twelve, Sonia Johnson fourteen, Christina Weckler twenty, Lauren Wagner eighteen, Kimberly Martin seventeen, Cindy Lee Hudspeth twenty, ten names, ten futures destroyed, Ten families that never recovered. Tomorrow Part two January eleventh, nineteen seventy nine, forty seven years ago. Tomorrow. Kenneth Bianki murders two college students in Bellingham, Washington, gets caught within days, tries to fake multiple personality disorder to escape justice, implicates his cousin and a woman named Veronica Kam and tries to commit a copycat murder with smuggled seamen to set him free.

19:04 You can't make this stuff up. Truth really is stranger than fiction. The trial, the conviction, Buono's death in prison, and Bianci, now going by the name Anthony Diamato, denied parole again just last July. Still alive, still in prison, still claiming innocence after forty six years. Someone has to say their names. Someone has to remember they were people with dreams and families and futures, not just victims of the hillside stranglers. I'm read Carter, see you tomorrow for part two. This is celebrity trials.