The Hillside Stranglers

In the autumn of 1977, a relentless and chilling wave of violence swept across Los Angeles. Ten young women and girls, ranging in age from 12 to 28, were abducted, sexually assaulted, and slain. Bodies were discovered—naked, bound, and discarded—on the wooded hillsides surrounding the city. The media dubbed the perpetrator the “Hillside Strangler.” What began as local alarm soon escalated into a full-blown panic, as a community sought answers to an escalating string of unspeakable crimes. This documentary recounts the meticulous unraveling of the case behind that name—a case that would ultimately reveal not one, but two cousins: Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono Jr.

The Hillside Strangler saga begins in the crucible of familial connection and malevolence. Kenneth Alessio Bianchi, born May 22, 1951, journeyed from Rochester, New York to Los Angeles in early 1976 to live with his cousin Angelo Anthony Buono Jr., born October 5, 1934. Buono, a disquieting figure with a commanding presence, quickly asserted influence over the younger and more impressionable Bianchi. Sources suggest that, when financial opportunity beckoned, the two turned to the exploitation of vulnerable women through prostitution, a prelude to the horrors that would follow. Initially, the victims were young women living on the margins—prostitutes and sex workers. But that would change. As their spree continued, the victims' profiles diversified to include middle-class students—girls and women whose lives were marked by promise, not desperation. And so, the terror spread, conception by media and community alike, of a lurking predator stalking the hills of Los Angeles.

The killing began in October 1977 and concluded abruptly in February 1978. The first known victim, 19-year-old Yolanda Washington, a part-time waitress and sex worker, was discovered on October 18, 1977, posed naked on a hillside near the Ventura Freeway; she had been raped, strangled, and her body cleaned before disposal. Less than two weeks later, on November 1, the body of 15-year-old Judith Lynn Miller, a former Hollywood High student and runaway, was found in La Crescenta—also nude, bound, and strangled. Five days thereafter, on November 6, 21-year-old Elissa Teresa “Lissa” Kastin, a waitress and dancer, was discovered near the Chevy Chase Country Club in Glendale under eerily similar circumstances. During Thanksgiving week of 1977, the crimes escalated horrifically: two young girls—12-year-old Dolores Ann Cepeda and 14-year-old Sonja Marie Johnson—disappeared; their bodies were later found together, indicating a chilling progression in the Stranger’s victims and MO. Almost immediately, 20-year-old Kristina Weckler, a Pasadena Art Center student, was found, likely murdered in Buono’s shop and dumped on a hillside, with evidence of torture including injection wounds and asphyxiation. On November 23, 1977, the severely decomposed body of 28-year-old Evelyn Jane King, an aspiring actress, was found near the Golden State Freeway; the cause of death was strangulation. Six days later, on November 29, 18-year-old Lauren Rae Wagner, a business student who had been abducted from the San Fernando Valley, was discovered with ligature marks and signs of torture—including burn marks on her hands. The killings continued into December. On December 14, 1977, 17-year-old prostitute Kimberly Diane Martin was found on a lot near Los Angeles City Hall; she, too, had been tortured and strangled. Finally, on February 17, 1978, the last known victim, 20-year-old student and waitress Cindy Lee Hudspeth, was found in the trunk of her abandoned car at the bottom of a cliff. She had been raped, tortured, strangled, and placed in the trunk to be pushed off the Angeles Crest Highway. Thus, from October 1977 to February 1978, ten young women were killed in Los Angeles, marking a four-month reign of terror.

These killings provoked widespread fear and alarm. The moniker “Hillside Strangler” emerged as bodies were increasingly discovered in hills surrounding Los Angeles. Authorities formed a task force comprised of local law enforcement agencies—initially 30 officers—charged with hunting the perpetrator behind the dread that had gripped the city. As bodies mounted—eight within a span of weeks—the panic intensified. Reports noted young women afraid to go outside at night, and distrust even of police officers, due to the assailants’ tactic of impersonating law enforcement. At one point, a handyman was arrested on dubious testimony and quickly released—a public humiliation for the LAPD, which struggled to manage mounting leads, tips, and interagency communication. In mid‑January 1979, nearly a year after the last Hillside murder, a breakthrough occurred—but in Washington State. Kenneth Bianchi had moved north and was arrested in Bellingham for the rape and strangulation of two college students. Observant investigators noticed that Bianchi's address matched locations tied to two of the Strangler victims in Los Angeles. That prompted L.A. agencies to reopen the case and reevaluate their evidence and leads. Bianchi had already surfaced during the original investigation, occasionally agreeing to take a polygraph—but inconsistent name spellings and poor data management meant these clues were overlooked. Nonetheless, once he was in police custody, comparisons of forensic evidence, personal history, and geography illuminated the connection. Crucially, Bianchi named Angelo Buono Jr. as his accomplice, implicating him in the Strangler murders—a revelation that turned the case from one suspect to two.

Evidence against the duo was multifaceted. Bianchi provided testimony—though contradictory in parts—that included details alleged only by a participant, such as using cleaning fluid to inject a victim. Victim behavior and witness reports reinforced the ruse of fake arrests: multiple victims reported being pulled over and handcuffed by men claiming to be vice officers. Additional forensic evidence included polyester fibers found on victims, matching materials from Buono’s upholstery shop, reinforcing the link between the murders and the location where victims were taken and killed. And the breadth and consistency of modus operandi—ligatures on necks, wrists, ankles, staged dumping on hillsides—over so many victims indicated a pattern only two serial perpetrators working in tandem could sustain.

Legally, the path from arrest to resolution was prolonged. In exchange for avoiding the death penalty, Bianchi pleaded guilty to five of the California murders and two in Washington. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole and agreed to testify against Buono. Charges were brought against Buono in California, where he pleaded not guilty. That trial—laden with hundreds of witnesses and thousands of exhibits—became the longest murder trial in American history. Jury selection began in November 1981; by November 1983, Buono had been convicted of nine murders. In January 1984, he received a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Bianchi remains incarcerated in Washington State Penitentiary, denied parole as recently as 2025. Buono died of a heart attack on September 21, 2002, at age 67, while imprisoned at Calipatria State Prison.

Behind each crime statistic was a life—dreams, families, futures shattered by brutality. The victims included young women from all walks of life: some working in marginal circumstances, others students and aspiring artists or professionals. A terrifying bridging of class and age bred a chilling vulnerability that unmoored the city’s sense of safety. Their murders prompted a collective trauma in Los Angeles—women feared everyday encounters, even with uniformed officers, as the killers had impersonated police to lure and control their victims. Families who once assumed home safety were forced to confront an indiscriminate predator with no obvious motive, wasting no boundary—geographic, age-based, economic—to find a victim. The duration of the trial stretched the agony longer, as families relived their loss through testimony, evidence, and media coverage. Even decades later, the parole hearings and Buono’s death evoke reminders of a wound that has yet to fully heal.

The story of the Hillside Stranglers remains one of horror, complexity, and institutional challenge. It is a testament to the perils of flawed data systems, miscommunication between agencies, and the terrifying way in which cunning predators can manipulate trust—and authority—to commit atrocity. Yet it is also a testament to the tenacity of investigative work, the importance of reconnecting disparate leads, and the value of pursuing justice even when prosecutorial momentum wanes. Ultimately, this case reminds us that evil is sometimes not lone but cooperative—two men operating in tandem, weaving a pattern of brutality that terrorized a city. In honoring the victims, we commit to remembering their names and stories: Yolanda Washington; Judith Miller; Lissa Kastin; Dolores Cepeda; Sonja Johnson; Kristina Weckler; Evelyn Jane King; Lauren Wagner; Kimberly Martin; and Cindy Hudspeth. Their lives and their losses drove the relentless persistence of justice for a terror that had, for a time, consumed Los Angeles. And while the Hillside Stranglers are behind bars—or, in Buono’s case, gone from this world—the echo of their crimes reverberates in true crime history as a cautionary tale about vigilance, victimhood, and the depths to which human cruelty can descend.