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The Story of the Hillside Stranglers: The Serial Killer Duo · The Infographics Show Podcast

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Welcome to be on infographics. We're the place you come
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: to get past those quick summaries to really dig into
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: the detailed case files. We look at the footnotes, the
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: surprising testimonies, the science, everything that gives you the complete picture.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, and today we are tackling a case that well,
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: it truly defines true crime horror from the late nineteen seventies.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: It fundamentally changed how Los Angeles saw itself, created this
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: wave of just intense fear.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: You're talking about that period, what was it, October seventy
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: seven to February seventy eight, those four.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Months, exactly, those four months, it was genuine pervasive terror
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: gripping the city. The media, you know, struggling to understand
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: why bodies were appearing on hillsides. They quickly came up
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: with a name, the Hillside Strangler, singular, this one terrifying figure, and.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: That name, the Hillside Strangler's that's really the central awful
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: irony here, isn't it. Because as the authorities dug deeper,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: they realized, well, the name was.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Wrong, completely wrong. It wasn't one killer they were hunting,
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: it was two. It wasn't the strangler, it was the
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: stranglers plural.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: We're talking about the cousins Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono Junior.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: That's them over that horrifying stretch. They work together, rape, torture,
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: murder ten victims in Los Angeles County and then Biyanki.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: He went on to kill two more women by himself
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: later up in Washington State.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Learning it was a duo. I mean, that must have
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: just amplified the panic. It cemented LA's reputation unfortunately as
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: a kind of serial killer capital back there.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: That absolutely did. The whole city was on edge.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: So our goal today for you listening is to really
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: extract the full chilling story from all the sources. We
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: want to go beyond just the what happened the body count.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: We need to understand the psychology this toxic partnership between Borno,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: the older, sadistic one, and Byanki, the younger guy who
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: followed him. How did this monstrous team even form and operate.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Let's get into it.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: You really can't understand the killing spree without first dissecting
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: the power dynamic between them and that like aetny relationship.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Really it starts with who these individuals were. Let's begin
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: with the older cousin, Angelo Borno Junior.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Okay Buono born nineteen thirty four, first generation Italian American,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: And the sources make it really clear he wasn't someone
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: who just suddenly snapped. He had a long criminal history
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: before the murder started.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, a long history. We're talking a salt rape,
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: grand theft auto. This was new territory for him.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: The descriptions paint him as well, deeply violent, sadistic, with
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: this intense hatred of women. But paradoxically, he wanted to
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: be seen as a ladies man.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Right, this weird toxic bravado. He apparently demanded women, including
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: his wives, call him the Italian Stallion. It's just chilling.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: And the control, the manipulation within his own family that
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: seems to set the stage. His ex wife's divorce filing
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: mentioned perverse sexual needs and violence.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: That's a key point. The level of abuse was extreme.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Court records show he used aggression, humiliation. He even wanted
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: his own kids to watch him beat their mother.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Oh that's horrific.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: It shows how his view of power and sex was
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: all tangled up with domination and inflicting pain. And then
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: there's this detail he openly admired Carol.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Chessman, the red light bandit rapist from the forties and fifties.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the notorious eliot rapist who was eventually executed. One
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: don't call Chessman a hero and role model. He wasn't
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: just a criminal. He seemed to aspire to infamy.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, so that's Blano. Now let's look at the younger cousin,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Kenneth Bianki born fifty one. Very different background, but just
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: as damaging.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: It seems very different. He was adopted shortly after birth.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: His biological mother was a prostitute, and his adopted mother,
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Francis Bianki, was well intensely overprotective. How so, sources say
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: it was psychologically damaging. She kept him home from school
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: a lot, subjected him to invasive medical exams for a
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: childhood bedwetting issue. It created this deep sense of anxiety
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: inadequacy in him, even though interestingly he had above average intelligence.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: So you have this insecure guy, an underachiever, but also
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: a compulsive liar with these big dreams of authority. I
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: read he was dissembling from the cradle.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Exactly, and that desire for authority led him to study
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: police science and psychology. He desperately wanted to be a cop,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: applied to LAPD Glendale p D and got rejected by
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: both rejected, and you have to understand that rejection was
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: huge for him. He needed that badge, that veneer of control,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: and he couldn't get it. It left this hole. So
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: when he moves from Rochester, New York, out to la
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy six, who does he seek out?
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Angelo Borno, the guy projecting all the confidence Bianki lacked.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Precisely, the timing is critical. Bianki apparently idolized Buno, the clothes,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: the jewelry of especially how he controlled women, and Wono
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: saw this immediately in Biyanki.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Saw his vulnerability.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Maybe absolutely. Bono reportedly gave Bianchi this nickname Minumi. It's
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Sicilian means something like my gods or maybe more accurately,
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: my fate my destiny.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Doesn't sound like a compliment.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Not at all. It sounds like Buono recognized Bianchi as
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: the perfect tool, you know, someone desperate for validation, someone
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: he could manipulate and use for his own twisted plans.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: And that manipulation turned pretty quickly into a joint venture, right,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: this money making.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Scheme immediately pimping teenage runways. Buono suggested it. Right after
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: Bianci arrived.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: They used Bueno's auto shop, the place that later became
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: the murder scene.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: That's the one they basically turned it into a prison
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: for two girls. Initially, Sobra Hannon and Becky Spears locked
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: them in, subjected them to just constant brutal sexual assault, violence,
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: force prostitution.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: The details that came out later from the survivors are
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: stomach churning, like Becky Spears being forced to wear a
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: tampon rectily because of the severity of the assaults and
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: the threats, Bruno claiming mafia tize.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: Total terror tactics. But here's the critical turning point for
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: the timeline. The girls escaped.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: How do they manage that.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Becky Spears confided in a client who happened to be
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: a lawyer, David Wood. He helped her get out of
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: La so Imbra Hannon escaped soon after, so Borno.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: And Biyanki lost their income, but maybe more importantly, they
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: lost control.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Exactly that loss of control right then seems to be
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: the direct trigger. The pressure cooker environment in that shop
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: just exploded. It went from forced prostitution and abuse Street
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: into murder.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: And the very first murder victim, Yolanda Washington, that was
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: framed as revenge. Wasn't it over some bad business deal?
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: They claimed she was involved in.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Correct, a direct violent reaction to losing control and money.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: The pursuit switched instantly from control to killing.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, So once they crossed that line, their methods became
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: really systematic, which is why the police initially thought, okay,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: single killer here.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Very organized at least at first.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Let's break down their mo O. First, the lure. How
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: did they actually get these women?
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: It was what investigators called the policeman lure, directly playing
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: on Byanki's failed police ambitions and born those fascination with
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: that kind of authority.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: So they pretend to be cops.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sometimes flashing fake badges. They tell victims they were
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: being taken in for questioning or maybe arrested for soliciting.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: It worked because you know, people often comply with perceived authority,
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: especially when scared.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Clever and cynical and the layer we mentioned it before.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: One Oh's Auto Upholstery Shop seven oh three East Colorado
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Street in Glendale. That was ground zero. They lived there,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: worked there, except for one victim. Committed all the La
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: murders right there. It was insulated, noisy, perfect cover.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: And the method of killing itself was consistent, linking the victims.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Disturbingly so all victims were subjected to prolonged sexual assault, rape, sodomy, beatings, torture,
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: and then strangulation.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: With ligature right rope or cord.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Yes, and it left very distinct marks what the coroner
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: called five point literature marks around the neck, both wrists,
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: both ankles, and after the murder, they were meticulous at
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: first about cleaning the bodies, removing hair fibers, any evidence,
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: before dumping them naked on various hillsides around La.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Let's check the timeline of victims because it shows how
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: quickly they escalated, how their criteria widened. Ulando, Washington, the
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: first October seventy seven, killed over that supposed bad trick list.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Then just days later, Judith Miller, she was only fifteen, runaway,
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: maybe involved in sex work, abducted, dumped in a residential
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: area in La Crecenta early November.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: And Judith Miller's case is crucial forensically, isn't it? Despite
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: their cleaning attempts.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: Absolutely crucial because Detective Frank Seleno's team found something tiny,
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: almost invisible, on her eyelid, a piece of light colored fluff, just.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: A tiny fiber, a.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Tiny synthetic polyester fiber, the kind you'd find an auto upholstery.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: It took painstaking work analyzing the specific chemical makeup, but
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: they eventually traced fibers like that directly back to materials
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Bueno used in his shop. It was the silent witness
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: that placed her inside their layer.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Incredible. Okay, so, just five days after Miller, the victim
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: profile changes dramatically lysa cast in twenty one a waitress,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: a dancer, not a prostitute, not a runaway.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: This showed a huge jump in confidence or maybe recklessness.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: They apparently followed her home, used the fake badge routine again,
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: and her case reveals Bueno's deep misogyny. Oh so well.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: The sources based on Bianki's later confections say they decided
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: not to sodomize her because they were and this is
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: their word, disappointed she had hairy legs.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Disappointed. That's grotesque.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: It shows the violence wasn't just rage. It was about
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: punishing women for not meeting their twisted standards of perfection,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: controlled down to the most demeaning details, but.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: That need for control nearly tripped them up, didn't it.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: With Catherin Laura Baker.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Ah Yes, the daughter of the actor Peter Lourie. They
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: pulled her over, same routine, but when she showed her
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: driver's license and maybe a photo with her famous.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Dad, they've realized her she was and they panicked.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Buono knew killing a celebrity's daughter would bring massive police attention,
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: media scrutiny on what he called too much heat. They
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: let her go. Preservation kicked in.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: A rare moment of calculation overriding impulse, but it didn't last.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Mid November, they targeted minors tragically.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, twelve year old dolor Cepada and fourteen year
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: old Sonja Johnson abducted right after getting off a city bus.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: And their bodies found by a child.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Found decomposing in a trashy near Dodger Stadium by a
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: nine year old boy. Just horrific and dumping them like that, decomposing.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: It suggests maybe one his control was slipping, or their
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: confidence was becoming arrogance, less careful concealment, and the torture.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: It seems like they started experimenting Christina Weckler, the twenty
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: year old honor student found November twentieth.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Yes, the autopsy found puncture marks, later confirmed Bianki admitted
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: it they injected her with windex and ammonia based cleaner.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Just gratuitous cruelty.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: And wasn't there a personal connection with Weckler?
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: There was? Bianki knew her. He apparently asked her out
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: before and she turned him down, said he seemed like
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: a used car salesman kind of creepy, so there might
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: have been a personal revenge element there, especially for the
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: insecure Bianchi.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: The pre murder rituals are just as disturbing Evelyn Jane King,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: the actress.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Bianchi later described how they forced her to go to
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: the bathroom before they started the assault and torture. Why
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: his explanation was chillingly practical to prevent her from losing
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: control of her bladder or bowels during the ordeal and
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: making a mess. It's this extreme level of planned dehumanization,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: stripping away dignity before life, and.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: The violence continued even as she was dying.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Bianki confirmed one of them sodomized her while she was dying,
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: after they'd put a bag over her head, just absolute depravity.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Then Lauren Wagner, eighteen year old student late November, abducted
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: in broad daylight. This was the one with the witness.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Right, crucial witness, a neighbor saw the whole thing, described
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: two men, one tall, young biankie, one older, shorter, bushy
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: hair bono, and Lauren Wagner herself showed incredible courage. The
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: witness heard her yell you won't get away with this.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: She also had electrical burns signs of shock torture. So
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: the witness account plus the specific torture methods matching others,
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: this was the moment police knew for sure it wasn't
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: one strangler, it was two.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: The Hillside stranglers, the city's worst nightmare confirmed.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: So the killings continued for a bit longer in la
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: in a late seventy seven early seventy eight. But you
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: start to see, well, maybe sloppiness creeping in or just
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: extreme confidence, like.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: With Kimberly Martin, the seventeen year old found in December.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: She was trying to be safe using a call girl agency,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: specifically because of the strangler fear.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: Right, and what do they do? They just call the
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: agency from a payphone request a girl and Martin get
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: sent right to them. Unbelievable audacity.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: And they didn't even use Buono Shop for that one, No,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: they used a vacant apartment in Byanki's own building.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Talk about hubris and get this. Around this same time, Bianci,
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: using his old police academy applications, somehow actually got permission
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: to go on ride alongs with the Lapdo.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: He was writing with cops while actively murdering women.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, the arrogance is staggering. He's gathering intel on the
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: investigation into him. He was even questioned about Kimberly Martin's
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: murder because while she was taken from his building, he
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: just played dumb. He said he heard screams.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: That ability to compartmentalize to role play. It's deeply disturbing.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: It speaks volumes about his need to be associated with
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: law enforcement, even while betraying it so horrifically.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: The last LA victim was Cindy Hutsmith February seventy eight,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: student waitress. This one seems different, though.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Less planned, completely opportunistic. It seems she just happened to
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: go to Buono Shop for car upholstery work. They saw
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: her and apparently just decide on the spot she'd be next.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: And her body was found in her own car.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they killed her, put her body in the trunk
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: of her Orange Dats and drove it up Angela's Crest
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Highway and pushed it off a cliff.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: And then just like that, after Hudsmith, the la murder stopped.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Cold, stopped completely because Kenn's beyond here did he go
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: up to Bellingham, Washington. He was trying to patch things
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: up with his girlfriend, Kelly Boyd. She was the mother
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: of his child and had moved up there earlier.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: So the partnership dissolved. Warno's control mechanism was gone. What
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: happened when Bianki tried to operate alone, he.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Fell apart, basically became incredibly sloppy. Almost a year later,
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: January nineteen seventy nine, he decided to kill again. He
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: lured two college students in Bellingham, Karen Mandick and Diane.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Wilder, same kind of lure, similar theme.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Pretended he needed someone to house sit for a.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Wealthy family, and he got caught how quickly the.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Very next day, without Bono's planning, his oversight, the meticulous
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: cleaning Byanki just left a trail the methods were similar
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: enough to the La cases, and crucially, when they arrested him,
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: he had his California driver's license on him. Oh boy,
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: Washington police ran the ID connected the docks to the
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: unsolved Hillside strangler case that had haunted La biankie solo act.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: His carelessness was the key that unlocked everything.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: So now he's caught facing serious charges, maybe the death penalty.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: And this is where his psychological games really ramp up.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, his pathological lying, his fascination with psychology, it
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: all comes out. He tries to fake insanity, specifically dissociative
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: identity disorder or d D, multiple personalities.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: He invented a personality he.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Did called the Steve, but it was a total fabrication.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: Bianki later admitted he'd researched d D symptoms by watching
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: TV movies like Sybil and The Three Faces of Eve.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: He was literally trying to act out what he saw
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: on screen.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: So how did they prove he was faking if he
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: studied it?
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: They brought in experts, notably doctor Martin orn, a leading
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: forensic psychiatrist. Warning was clever. He didn't just look for
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: consistency in the Steve persona. He subtenly manipulated Biyanki. Orni
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: used what sometimes called the Doctor Jekyll and mister Hyde test.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: He suggested the Bianki, while Biankie was supposedly being Steve,
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: that it's actually quite common for people with real dd
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: to have more than two personalities.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Ah planting an idea exactly.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: He hinted maybe there was a third personality lurking Bianki,
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: thinking this was part of the expected script for DDE,
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: he immediately started producing two more completely made a personality.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Proving he was just creating them on demand.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Proving he was lingering faking it. The whole defense collapsed.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: So with the insanity plea gone, Bianki's only option was
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: to make a deal, pretty much.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: He pleaded guilty to the two Washington murders and five
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: of the California ones. The deal life in prison, not death,
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: and the crucial part he agreed to testify against Angelo Buono.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Becoming the star witness against his own cousin and partner
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: in crime, the only.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Way they could realistically hope to convict Bueno. But relying
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: on Bianchi, a confessed killer and master liar, was a
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: huge gamble for the prosecution. That's why that tiny piece
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: of fluff, that fiber from Judith Miller's eyelid became so
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: incredibly important. It was the objective scientific proof linking Bueno's
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: shop to the crimes, backing up Byankee's story.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: So Borno's arrested in October seventy nine, he pleads not
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: and that sets the stage for what became a real
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: legal marathon.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: An absolute spectacle. Yeah, prosecuting Bueno based mainly on Beyoncei's testimony.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: It was incredibly complex. Bruno's defense team spent years just
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: trying to shred Biyanki's credibility.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Arguing he was just blaming Bueno to save himself exactly.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Painting Bianchi as the sole killer or the mastermind, and
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Borno as maybe just a sleazy pimp caught up in it,
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: but not a murder.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: How long did the trial actually last.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: It dragged on for over two years, from nineteen eighty
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: one to nineteen eighty three. At that point it was
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: the longest criminal trial in US history. Imagined two years
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: of reliving those horrific details in court.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Every day, just draining for everyone involved. But eventually the
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: prosecution's case held up.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: It did the combination of Biyanki's detailed testimony, which matched
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: the crime scene evidence in so many ways, plus the
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: forensic links like the ligature marks, the burns, and especially
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: those uphulsary fibers.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: It was enough so the verdict.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: Buono was convicted on nine counts of murder, life in prison,
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: no possibility to parole. Bianchi, for his part, got multiple
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: life sentences served up in Washington.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: I remember reading about the judge's comments at one Oho sentencing,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Judge Ronald M. George. He seemed really frustrated.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: He was. Judge George, who later became Chief Justice of California,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: basically said he regretted he couldn't impose the death penalty.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: His words were something like, these defendants use almost every
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: form of execution on their victims, yet they escaped capital
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: punishment themselves. A powerful statement on the limits of the
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: law when facing such extreme brutality.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: So Buono goes to prison for life.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: He died there, right, Yeah, he died of a heart
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: attack in Calipatrio State Prison back in two thousand and two.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: He was sixty seven. But even in prison, the weirdness continued.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: You mean the groupies, hybristophilia.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: That's part of it bono. This man known for hating
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: and degrading women actually got married while incarcerated to a
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: PRISM supervisor, Christine Kazuka.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: It's hard to fathom, and Bianchi, still serving his time
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: in Washington, still is.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: He continues his identity games, constantly changing his name in prison,
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Nicholas Fontana, Anthony Diomatto. It's like he can't stop playing roles.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: But Bianki attracted an even more extreme follower, didn't he.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: This Veronica Compton story is just wild.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: It's almost unbelievable. Compton was a playwright, became his pen pal,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: completely convinced of his innocence. But she didn't just write letters.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: She hatched this bizarre plot to exonerate him.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: The plot involving smuggling evidence out of prison.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Yes, Biankei managed to smuggle out of condom containing his
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: semen hidden in the spine of a book.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Compton got it, okay, What was she planning to do
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: with it?
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: Her plan was insane. She was going to stage a
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: new murder, mimicking the Hillside Strangler's ligature method. Then she'd
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: plant Biankie seamen on this new victim.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: To make it look like the real strangler was still out.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: There exactly thereby approving Bianki, locked up in Washington, couldn't
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: be the killer. He was desperate and frankly incredibly stupid.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Actually try it, she did.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: She lured a woman to a motel, tried to strangle
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: her with a cord. Thankfully she failed to kill the woman,
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: but she was arrested for attempted murder.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Wow, convicted and imprisoned herself trying to free a serial killer.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: It just shows the powerful, disturbing pull these kinds of
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: figures can have, even from behind bars. The damage they
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: cause ripples outwards.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: And speaking of ripples, Detective Frank Salerno, who led the
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: strangler investigation, he later worked the night stalker case Richard Ramirez.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: There's a connection there too, isn't there?
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: A chilling one? When Ramirez was caught and jailed, he
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: was apparently put in the same cell Bono had occupied earlier,
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: and Ramirez was reportedly thrilled about it.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Thrilled.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It suggests that Bono and Bianchi, their notoriety, their methods,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: they created this dark benchmark, something later monsters actually aspired
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: to hashtag at tech outro.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: So, looking back at everything we've covered, the defining elements
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: of this case are just so stark, aren't they. You've
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: got that toxic power, dynamic poet of the mentor Bianci
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: the follow you have the horrifying escalation from pimping into torture,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: the wind dex, the rituals, and.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: The sheer luck really of the breakthrough Bianchi getting sloppy
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: on his own in Washington, that one mistake brought the
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: whole thing down.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: It feels like a closed chapter in some ways, but
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: there are these lingering questions, these shadows that stretch even
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: further back. Potentially you're thinking about Rochester exactly. The Yankee
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: moved from Rochester, New York, to la and there were
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: those unsolved alphabet murders back in Rochester in the early seventies.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: The methods ligature, strangulation, sexual violence, they bear some unnerving
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: similarities to the Strangler's mo.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Bianky has always denied it naturally, but the timing, the location,
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: the methods, it definitely makes you wonder could his killing
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: have started years earlier before he even met Wuano. Was
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: Bono just the catalyst that let the monster fully emerge.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: It's a disturbing thought. And then there's the final tragic
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: echo of this violence impacting Borno's own family decades later.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just heartbreaking. Two thousand and seven, Angelo Buono's grandson,
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: Christopher Bueno, he shot his own grandmother.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: That was Mary Castillo, right, Angela's ex wife, who filed
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: for divorce citing his violence way back when.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: That's her Christopher shot her and then he killed himself.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: And this happened just months after he apparently found out
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: the truth about who his grandfather really was.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: It leaves you with such a heavy question, doesn't it?
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: For you?
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Listening what happens when the knowledge of this kind of
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: pure evil just radiates outwards. The trauma clearly didn't end
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: when Bueno and Bianci were locked up. It seeped into
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the next generation, destroying more lives long after the original crimes.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: It's a truly devastating legacy.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: A profound and horrifying close to end. Thank you for
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: joining us for this Beyond infographics