The 1970s in Los Angeles felt like a fever dream that just wouldn't break. You had the smog, the glitz, and, unfortunately, a string of bodies showing up on the brush-covered hillsides of the San Fernando Valley. People were terrified. For a long time, the LAPD thought they were chasing a ghost—a single "Hillside Strangler" who knew exactly how to evade the law. But the truth was twice as dark. It wasn't one man. It was a pair of cousins, Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, who had turned a Glendale upholstery shop into a house of horrors.
Honestly, the dynamic between these two was bizarre. You had Angelo Buono, an older, aggressive guy with a long rap sheet and a deep-seated hatred for women. Then you had Kenneth Bianchi, his younger cousin who moved out from Rochester, New York, looking for a fresh start or maybe just a mentor in all the wrong things. They didn't start with murder. At first, they were just trying to be pimps. When their "business" fell apart after a couple of girls escaped, their frustration turned into something much more lethal.
The Partnership of Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono
It’s hard to wrap your head around how they got away with it for so long. They didn't look like monsters. In fact, they used that "average Joe" look to their advantage. They bought fake badges and even used a Cadillac that looked just enough like an unmarked police car to fool people. They would pull over young women, flash the tin, and tell them they were being taken in for questioning. It was a simple, cruel ruse.
Most of the actual violence happened at Buono’s upholstery shop on Colorado Street. Between October 1977 and February 1978, they abducted and killed ten women and girls. The victims ranged from 12-year-old Dolly Cepeda to 28-year-old Jane King. They weren't just "stranglers" either. The autopsy reports are a grim read. They experimented with torture, using everything from electrical shocks to injecting cleaning fluid like Windex into their victims. It was sadistic, pointless, and purely about control.
Why the Police Were Stumped
The investigation was a mess. Because the bodies were dumped in different jurisdictions—some in the city, some in the county—the paperwork didn't always line up. Plus, the killers were careful. They would wash the bodies down to remove fibers and evidence. This was 1977; DNA profiling wasn't a thing yet. Investigators like Frank Salerno and Grogan were working with boot prints and witness accounts of a "two-tone sedan," but they were essentially looking for needles in a haystack.
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The Bellingham Mistake and the "Steve Walker" Scam
The spree in LA stopped in early 1978. Why? Because Kenneth Bianchi moved to Washington State. He probably thought he could leave the blood behind, but he couldn't stop. In January 1979, two college students, Karen Mandic and Diane Wilder, went missing in Bellingham. Bianchi had lured them to a house he was supposed to be guarding for a security job. He killed them both.
But he wasn't as careful as Buono.
The Bellingham police moved fast. They found jewelry in Bianchi's house that linked him back to the murders in Los Angeles. This was the break everyone had been waiting for. But instead of coming clean, Bianchi tried one of the most famous—and failed—legal gambits in history. He claimed he had Dissociative Identity Disorder (what people used to call Multiple Personality Disorder).
He told psychiatrists that a "bad" personality named "Steve Walker" was the one who committed the murders. He’d go into these fake trances and change his voice. It almost worked. A few experts were actually fooled until a world-renowned psychiatrist named Dr. Martin Orne stepped in. Orne noticed that Bianchi’s "trance" was a little too perfect. He tricked Bianchi by saying, "You know, usually people with this disorder have at least three personalities."
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Suddenly, a third personality named "Billy" appeared. It was a total con. It turned out "Steve Walker" was the name of a real person whose identity Bianchi had stolen to try and set up a fraudulent psychology practice.
The Longest Trial in History
Once the "multiple personality" defense fell apart, Bianchi flipped. He realized that if he didn't cooperate, he was looking at the death penalty. He agreed to testify against his cousin, Angelo Buono.
The trial of Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono (specifically the People v. Buono) became a marathon. It lasted two years. It cost millions. Bianchi was on the witness stand for six months alone. Honestly, it was a circus. Bianchi would lie, then tell the truth, then lie again just to spite the prosecutors. At one point, the DA even tried to dismiss the charges because they thought Bianchi was too unreliable as a witness. The judge, George Dell, basically told them "no way" and handed the case over to the State Attorney General.
In the end, the evidence was too much to ignore:
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- Fibers: Microscopic hairs and threads from Buono's upholstery shop were found on the victims.
- Eye Witness: A neighbor had seen Lauren Wagner being abducted by two men in a car matching Buono's.
- The "Trick List": A list of names from a prostitute they had tried to pimp out was found, linking the cousins to their first victim, Yolanda Washington.
In 1983, Buono was convicted of nine murders and sentenced to life without parole. He died in Calipatria State Prison in 2002. Bianchi is still alive, serving his time in Washington State. He’s changed his name to Anthony D’Amato and still tries to file for parole every few years, but the board isn't biting. Just recently, in 2025, he was denied again.
What We Can Learn From the Case
The Hillside Strangler case changed how police departments talk to each other. It was a brutal lesson in "linkage blindness"—the failure of different agencies to realize they are hunting the same person. It also highlighted the danger of the "police impersonator" tactic, which led to a massive shift in how the public views unmarked vehicles and plainclothes officers.
If you’re researching this case or interested in criminal justice history, here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Look at the forensics: This was a pivotal case for fiber analysis. If you're a student of forensic science, the way they matched the upholstery fibers is a classic study.
- Understand the psychology: Bianchi is a textbook case of a malingerer—someone faking mental illness for secondary gain. Reading Dr. Martin Orne’s reports on the "Steve Walker" interviews is a masterclass in behavioral analysis.
- Victim advocacy: Many of these women were marginalized or runaways. The case serves as a reminder of how killers often target those they think society won't miss, a tragic miscalculation that remains relevant in modern cold case investigations.
The story of Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono isn't just about a "spree." It's about a failure of systems that eventually caught up to two men who thought they were smarter than the world. They weren't. They were just cruel.
Actionable Insight: If you want to dive deeper into the legal nuances of this case, I recommend looking up the California Attorney General’s archives on the People v. Buono trial. It’s a fascinating look at how prosecutors manage "unreliable" star witnesses. For those interested in the psychological aspect, the documentary The Mind of a Murderer (Frontline) features the actual footage of Bianchi’s "hypnosis" sessions where he was caught faking his symptoms.
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