Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. Between October 1977 and February 1978, the city of Los Angeles was terrorized by a serial killer. A serial killer who abducted young women, raped them, tortured them, and then dumped their lifeless bodies along Los Angeles hillsides.
Their bodies discarded like trash. During this five-month terror, the bodies of 12 innocent women were found throughout the sunny California hillsides. While searching for a possible suspect, investigators were faced with a terrifying reality that they might not be searching for just one serial killer. They might be searching for two. This is Forensic Tales, episode number eight, The Hillside Strangler.
♪
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell. Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast that covers real, bone-chilling true crime stories with a forensic science twist. Some of the cases have been solved by the help of forensic science. Others have turned cold.
The stories we cover each week send a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings. If you're interested in supporting the show and getting early access to weekly episodes, bonus material, ad-free episodes, merchandise, and so much more, consider visiting our Patreon page, patreon.com slash forensic tales.
Another great way you can help support Forensic Tales is by leaving us a positive rating with a review or telling friends and family about us. Now, let's jump right into this week's case. On October 17th, 1977, police officers discovered a nude young female body along a hillside near Southern California's Ventura Freeway.
Responding officers of the Los Angeles Police Department could tell that the body had been wiped down and was left squeaky clean. Police officers also noticed faint ligature marks around the victim's neck, wrist, and ankles. Ligature marks like this tell police that the victim was strangled and bound by rope. In addition to being strangled, whoever did this also brutally sexually assaulted her.
The medical examiner transported the body to the coroner's office. After the autopsy was complete, the medical examiner identified the victim as 19-year-old Yolanda Washington. Although Yolanda listed her occupation as a waitress, she was known to be a sex worker in downtown L.A. A few weeks after the police discovered Yolanda Washington's body, on November 1, 1977, the
Neighbors called police to Alta Terrace Drive, a nice neighborhood about 12 miles from downtown L.A. Police responded to a call of another nude, dead body of a young female, also found along the hillside. The young victim, who appeared to police, was found naked, face up, on a parkway in a middle-class residential area of Los Angeles.
The property's owners discovered the body. Before calling the police, the property owner covered the victim's body with a tarp to prevent neighborhood children from seeing her on their way to school. Just like what investigators saw with Yolanda Washington, police discovered ligature marks around the second victim's neck, wrist, and ankles, indicating to police that the young woman must have been strangled and bound.
It was pretty apparent to responding officers that the body had been killed somewhere else and then their bodies dumped on the property. Police thought that this was a secondary location. That's because the body was dumped on someone's private property. This made it extremely unlikely that the killer murdered the victim on the hillside itself. But why? Why did the killer pick that particular hill?
Investigators observed a small piece of light-colored fluff on one of the victim's eyelids. Every piece of forensic evidence is vital to a criminal investigation. Even though the fluff might not be of any significance, it was still collected. Maybe it belonged to the killer. Perhaps it didn't. The police transported the body to the medical examiner's office for an autopsy.
The coroner determined that the victim was raped and sodomized before she died. The victim appeared to be very young, and she only weighed 90 pounds. The police initially thought that the victim was about 16 years old, simply based on her appearance. Still, she was eventually properly identified as being only 15 years old.
Judith Miller was a local runaway with ties to being a sex worker also near downtown Los Angeles. 15-year-old Judith Miller was last seen on Halloween, October 31st, 1977, talking to a man driving a two-tone sedan on Sunset Boulevard. Now, this is the late 1970s. There have to be thousands of two-tone sedans driving around downtown L.A.,
But this information provided police just a little bit of info regarding Judith's last known whereabouts. On November 6th, the police discovered another naked body of a young woman found near the Chevy Chase Country Club in Glendale only six days later. Like the two earlier victims, the body had noticeable ligature marks around her neck, wrist, and ankles.
There were also obvious signs that the killer raped her before dumping her body. The medical examiner identified the woman as 21-year-old Elisa Kasten. Unlike the first two victims, Elisa wasn't a sex worker, and in fact, she didn't have any ties to prostitution. She worked as a professional dancer for the L.A. Knockers.
This information told police that they weren't just looking for someone who only targeted sex workers. This person wasn't like what we saw in the Green River Killer case, a story we covered back in episode number three. This information told police that the killer was targeting any young girl he could get his hands on. Within just a few short weeks, police had discovered the bodies of three young girls.
The killer murdered all the girls in a very similar way. All three victims were strangled with a rope, raped, and then their naked bodies dumped along various hillsides throughout Los Angeles. The similarities in each case were way too apparent for police to ignore. They knew they were looking for a serial killer, and they also knew if they didn't catch him quickly,
there would be another female found along yet another Southern California hillside. In early November 1977, two men who identified themselves as LAPD officers approached 24-year-old Catherine Lohr Baker. Catherine Baker was the daughter of a famous Hollywood actor, Peter Lohr.
The two officers asked for Catherine's wallet, and upon searching it, the men saw a picture of Catherine sitting on her famous father's lap. The two men handed Catherine's wallet back and walked away. Now, it's not clear why the two men left at this point and left Catherine without incident.
The best assumption is that the men saw the photo in her wallet, realized who she was, and then decided it's probably best to not mess with a celebrity's daughter. On Sunday, November 20th, 1977, a nine-year-old boy found two young girls' bodies while treasure hunting near Dodger Stadium.
How traumatic it must have been for this little nine-year-old boy to come across the badly decomposed bodies of two young girls. I can't even imagine. The police identified the two girls as 12-year-old Dolly Cepeda and 12-year-old Sanja Johnson. Both girls were last seen a few days earlier on November 13th. The girls were seen boarding a bus heading home.
witnesses last saw the girls getting off a bus on York Boulevard and Avenue 46, also approaching a two-tone sedan. If you recall, reports also indicate that an earlier victim, Judith Miller, was also seen getting into a two-tone sedan. But again, how many two-tone sedans are there throughout the massive city of Los Angeles?
The killer savagely raped and murdered Dolly and Sanja. Then, he dumped their bodies near Dodger Stadium. On November 20th, hikers came across the naked body of 20-year-old Christina Weckler, a honors student at the Art Center College of Design. Loved ones described Christina as being, quote, a loving and serious young woman who should have had the bright future ahead of her, end quote.
The police discovered her body on a hillside between Glendale and Eagle Rock. Again, similar to our earlier victims, investigators saw noticeable ligature marks around her neck, wrist, and ankles. But upon further examination of the body, police saw a bizarre and unusual spot on one of her arms. Police saw two puncture marks on her arm, which resembled needle or track marks that drug users display.
But Christina wasn't a drug user. She had absolutely no history of ever abusing drugs. During Christina's autopsy, the medical examiner examined two puncture marks on her arm, and the pathologist determined that she'd been injected by the common household cleaner Windex. Yes, Windex. Why the killer injected Christina with Windex?
Police and the public will never know. It's now believed that this was some form of torture before her brutal murder. On November 23rd, the police discovered 28-year-old Evelyn King near the Los Feliz off-ramp off the Golden State Freeway, only three days later. Evelyn went missing on November 9th. Her badly decomposed body was discovered a few weeks later.
Because Evelyn's body had been exposed to the elements for quite some time, medical examiners could not determine if she was raped or strangled prior to her murder. After Evelyn's body was discovered, the Los Angeles Police Department established a 30-officer task force to catch this savage killer, now nicknamed the Hillside Strangler. But police and investigators didn't believe they were searching for just one serial killer.
Because the victims were murdered and their bodies dumped elsewhere, police believed they were searching for at least two killers. They believed it was doubtful that one man working by himself would be able to abduct, torture, rape, murder, and dump the victims' bodies along these hillsides. The only thing scarier than searching for one crazed serial killer is searching for two.
The bodies of three more victims were found between November 29, 1977 and February 17, 1978. The victims included 18-year-old business student Lauren Wagner, 17-year-old sex worker Kimberly Martin, and 20-year-old student Cindy Lee Hudspeth. All three victims were strangled and tortured.
The MO or modus operandi of the hillside strangler is pretty consistent. The killer or killers target young female victims of various backgrounds, not just local sex workers or runaways. The strangler abducts the victim, tortures her, often raping her, and strangles her to death. Their bodies are dumped at a separate location, usually a hillside throughout the city of L.A.,
The MO is to rape and kill the victim in a different place and then dump their bodies elsewhere. The killer or killers leave behind very little forensic evidence because they often clean and wipe down the bodies. It's pretty clear that this killer or killers aren't necessarily motivated by sex. Rape and torture aren't typically seen as sexual crimes. They are crimes of power.
This offender wants to control these women, and most likely, they want to control them because they have a deep hatred towards all women. They see women as inferior to men. And by raping and torturing them in this way, they are exhibiting control and power over their victims. It's not about sex or sexual desires. It's about power.
By January 1979, police finally made a significant arrest in the case of the Hillside Strangler. Police arrest Kenneth Bianchi and his cousin, Angelo Buono Jr. So let's back up our story and let's talk about who these two men are. Kenneth Bianchi is originally from Rochester, New York, and decided to move out to Los Angeles in order to live with his older cousin, Angelo.
Both men were total losers, but Kenneth looked up to Angelo. He saw Angelo as this older, successful guy who he wanted to grow up to become. The two cousins lived together after both men have failed relationships with women. When the cousins start to run low on cash, they're total losers. Neither one of them have jobs.
They decide that it would be a good idea to get a couple young girls to work for them as prostitutes. Two young teenage runaways, Sabra Hannon and her friend Becky Spears, meet Kenneth and Angelo and move in. These two girls needed a place to stay, and most likely, Kenneth and Angelo tricked them. They probably tricked these girls into believing that they were getting something entirely different.
The two girls start working as sex workers while Kenneth and Angelo take all of their earnings. Luckily, the two girls were able to get in contact with a local lawyer who arranged for both girls to escape from Kenneth and Angelo. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.
What are some of your self-care non-negotiables? Maybe you never skip leg day or therapy day. When your schedule is packed with kids' activities, big work projects, or podcasting like me, it's easy to let your priorities slip. Even when we know it makes us feel good, it's hard to make time for it. But when you feel like you have no time for yourself, non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever.
Therapy can help with things like how to set healthy boundaries or find ways to be the best version of yourself. So if you're thinking about starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist or switch therapist anytime for no additional charge.
Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash tails to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash tails. Kenneth and Angelo again become short on cash and realize they need to find another teenage girl to pimp out. So impersonating police officers, Kenneth and Angelo found another young girl and moved her in.
his cousin Angelo also bought a trick list, which full disclosure, I had no idea what that meant when I read it while researching this. And if you're like me, here's what it is. So a trick list is a list of men who frequent prostitutes. So a young girl by the name of Deborah Noble and one of her friends, Yolanda Washington, delivered this trick list to Angelo in October 1977. And
If you recall, the first victim believed to have been killed by the Hillstride Strangler was a local sex worker named Yolanda Washington. So police believe shortly after receiving the trick list from Yolanda and her friend Debra, Yolanda was brutally murdered by Kenneth and Angelo. This tells police that Kenneth and Angelo specifically targeted Yolanda Washington.
The last known murder and 10th victim of the Hillside Strangler was in February 1978. During this time, Kenneth and Angelo were no longer getting along. Even when it came to abducting and torturing women, the two just stopped seeing eye to eye. Kenneth Bianchi decided to leave Los Angeles and move up to the state of Washington.
He even started applying for a job with the Bellingham Police Department, which is equal parts amusing as it is terrifying that a serial killer would even attempt to become a police officer. However, thank God, whoever was in charge of hiring for the department decided that Kenneth wasn't really a good fit for the department. So Kenneth decided to become a security guard instead.
Again, his choice to want to become a police officer or security guard really speaks to this man's ultimate desire to be in a position of power and to be in a position of control. So while working as a security guard, Kenneth Bianchi just couldn't control his urge or desire to kill entirely on his own.
Kenneth was arrested in Washington by the Bellingham Police Department, the same police department he tried to become a police officer with. He was arrested for raping and murdering two college students that he lured to a home for a house-sitting job. At this same time, police finally charged Kenneth Bianchi and his cousin Angelo for the 10 murders on the hillsides throughout Los Angeles.
After their arrest for the murders, Kenneth immediately claimed an insanity defense. He claimed that he suffered from a dissociative identity disorder and that a personality separate from his true self was the one responsible for all of the murders. Kenneth told the judge in his trial that the murders were committed by Steve, one of his alternate personalities.
Under due process, at least here in the United States, the court is pretty much obligated to look into any insanity defense. So the court ordered a forensic psychologist to visit Kenneth in jail and meet with him regarding his claim of this dissociative identity disorder. After this forensic psychologist examined Kenneth in jail,
The expert immediately picked up on Kenneth lying about this personality disorder, and this expert believed that he was making it up. Once Kenneth Bianchi realized that his made-up personality disorder wasn't exactly going to fly in court, he suddenly had a change of heart. He came forward to the court and confessed to the Hillside murders.
One of the biggest reasons he decided to come forward and confess was in order to testify against his cousin and to also avoid the death penalty. Law enforcement and prosecutors piled a ton of physical and forensic evidence against both Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, proving that combined, they were the suspects behind the hillside stranglings.
Law enforcement found jewelry in Kenneth Bianchi's home that perfectly matched the description of jewelry worn by two of the victims, Kimberly Martin's necklace and Yolanda Washington's turquoise ring. Now, it's incredibly common for serial killers to hold on to personal possessions from their victims. It's often like a trophy for the killers to hold on to and to remember their victims.
In addition to the personal trophies, police also found hair and fiber evidence that directly linked them to some of the Hillside murders. And remember, that small piece of light-colored fluff retrieved from 15-year-old Judy Miller's eyelid? Well, forensic scientists were able to determine that that little piece of fluff from the victim's eyelid was a perfect match for the kind of blindfold that the killers would use.
But the forensic evidence in the case doesn't stop there. In case there was any doubt, Kenneth Bianchi and his cousin Angelo Buono are the monsters responsible for the hillside murders. Crime scene investigators linked animal hairs stuck to one of Lauren Wagner's hands to bunny rabbits that Angelo was raising.
Investigators also found the imprint of a police badge on Angelo's wallet that proved the two men impersonated police officers in order to make contact with their victims. After hearing the prosecution present the overwhelming amount of physical and forensic evidence against Angelo,
Presiding Judge Ronald M. George ruled that there was more than sufficient evidence to show the presumption of guilt on Angelo's behalf. Although his cousin, Kenneth Bianchi, was prepared to testify against him, Angelo still insisted his case go to trial, and he still claimed his innocence. The first part of the trial was to determine whether or not to sever the non-murder counts.
so the court would separate the charges of pimping and rape separate from the murder charges. If the counts were divided, the court wouldn't necessarily hear evidence about the unspeakably brutal treatment of Angel's victims. Judge George decided to sever the murder counts from the non-murder counts to avoid a reversal if the case were to be appealed.
The judge also made this decision because he was confident that the prosecution would in fact be able to demonstrate Angelo's character some other way during the trial. On July 6, 1981, Kenneth Bianchi took the stand on Angelo's trial to convince the court that they couldn't use his testimony against Angelo.
However, his unbelievable testimony and performance in court didn't sway the judge or the prosecution, and the charges were not dismissed against Angelo. The trial and case against Angelo Buono went on and on, seemingly to no end. The court called over 250 witnesses, and thousands of exhibits were presented by both sides,
The case itself became the longest-running criminal trial in California's history. Angela Buona was eventually found guilty of murdering Lauren Wagner, Judy Miller, Dolores Cepeda, Sanja Johnson, Kimberly Martin, Christina Weckler, Lissa Kasten, Jane King, and Cindy Hubsbeth. He was found not guilty of the murder of Yolanda Washington.
The jury debated whether or not to sentence Angelo to the death penalty or life in prison. They ultimately decided to spare his life, and he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Because Kenneth Bianchi pled guilty and didn't take his case to trial, he was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Angelo Buono died of a massive heart attack on September 21, 2002, while serving his prison sentence in California. His accomplice and cousin, Kenneth Bianchi, is still serving his life sentence at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. And a side note on Kenneth, while he's been serving his prison sentence, he met a woman by the name of Veronica Compton.
And I know what you're thinking. Another case of a woman falling madly in love with a guy in prison. But anyway, it happened. So Kenneth and Veronica officially got together. Well, sort of. They still had prison walls between them in 1980. Veronica Compton even testified in Kenneth Bianchi's defense in the trial. So this woman was was dedicated.
While in prison, Kenneth and Veronica came up with this insane plan. And here's what they came up with. They decided that in order to prove that the Hillside Strangler was someone else and that Kenneth was 100% innocent in the murders, they had a plan. Somehow, someway, Kenneth was able to get his sperm from within the prison to Veronica.
Please don't ask me how Kenneth and Veronica did this or how it could have happened without prison guards knowing, but it did. So Veronica took the sperm, met a young woman working as a sex worker, and lured her into a motel room with her. Once Veronica and the young woman were in the motel room together...
Veronica attempted to strangle the woman, leaving the sperm sample behind in this crazy attempt to make it look like the hillside strangler was someone else. Remember, how could Kenneth Bianchi be the hillside strangler if there was another victim while he was locked up in federal prison?
Well, it doesn't take someone with a master's degree to know that this is the worst plan in the entire world. The sperm sample belongs to Kenneth Bianchi. They took his DNA and placed it all over the crime scene. Like, how does this make any sense whatsoever? Well, it doesn't.
Now, luckily, the victim in this situation survived and Veronica Compton was convicted and sentenced for her role in the botched murder and this attempt to basically say that the Hillside Strangler was still out there. Eventually, she was released from prison in 2003. To share your thoughts on the Hillside Strangler, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at Forensic Tales.
Also, to check out photos from the case, be sure to head to our website, ForensicTales.com. Don't forget to subscribe to Forensic Tales so you don't miss an episode. We release a new episode every Monday. If you love the show, consider leaving us a positive review or tell friends and family about us. You can also help support the show through Patreon.
All right, you guys. Thank you so much for joining me this week. Please join me next Monday. We'll have a brand new case and a brand new story to cover. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.
Thank you.
You can also help support the show by leaving us a positive review and telling friends and family about us. For a complete list of sources used in this episode, please visit ForensicTales.com.
Please join me next week. We release a new episode every Monday. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings. ♪♪♪
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪