All language subtitles for Very.Scary.People.S04E08.WEBRip.AAC2.0.x264-BTN.en

♪♪

Bianchi: There may have been
another killing or two.

[Door creaks]

It's something that happened,
but it's not there all the time.

[Woman screams]

It's just like a bad dream.

And no disrespect for the girls,

dead people tell no tales.

[Woman screaming]

♪♪

Welcome to "Very Scary People."

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

For four months
in 1977 and 1978,

Los Angeles was terrorized by
a series of sadistic killings.

The victims, all women,
were tortured,

then humiliated in death
as their nude bodies

were displayed on hillsides.

The press dubbed the murders
the Hillside Stranglings.

In February 1978,
the killings suddenly stopped.

1,200 miles away
in Bellingham, Washington,

a young father
named Kenneth Bianchi

was charged with the murders
of two college students.

The women were strangled.

Could Bianchi be connected
to the killings in Los Angeles?

This is Part 2 of
"The Hillside Stranglers."

♪♪

Davis: Dolores Cepeda
and Sonja Johnson,

12 and 14-year old girls,

spent the day shopping
in East L.A.

Renner: They caught the bus
to come back,

and what they didn't know
is that they were being hunted.

They were motioned over
to this car by these two guys.

One of them badges them
and he says,

"You shouldn't be out here.
It's not safe.

We're from the police.
We'll take you home."

So they get in the car.

Dolores and Sonja weren't in
the habit of not returning home,

and so when they didn't show up,

their families
are really concerned.

Everyone's looking for
these two missing girls,

and of course,
as the hours tick by

and then a couple
of days roll by,

the families may not know it,

but the police know that the
outcome's likely not to be good.

♪♪

De Reyes:
A 9-year-old boy was rummaging

through a trash dump
near Dodger Stadium.

Renner:
He walks up to what he thinks
are mannequins, and they're not.

It's Dolores and Sonja.

They were victims
number four and number five.

♪♪

Davis: The body of
Kristina Weckler was found.

She was an art student.

She had a huge future
in front of her.

Renner:
There were marks on her arms

that were consistent
with needle marks.

Davis: She was injected
with a substance

usually used to clean windows,

which caused her to go
into violent convulsions.

She was tortured.

She was gassed before
she was finally killed.

♪♪

It became clear that there was
a serial killer on the loose.

Meredith:
They had been strangled.

Martin: Some had been
sexually assaulted.

Their bodies were dumped
largely in public places.

Davis:
Who will be the next victim?
Where will they be found?

Will it be someone I know?

News people came up
with a scary moniker,

the Hillside Strangler.

♪♪

Davis: Serial killers are
almost always one figure.

One thing that threw
all of us off is,

a pair of serial killers
is almost unheard of.

A theory circulated

that the killers
might be in law enforcement.

Martin: There was statements
badges had been flashed.

They were either imposters
posing as police officers,

or they were police officers.

[Sirens wail]

I mean the fear, the panic in
the community was tremendous.

We wound up joining with
the L.A. Sheriff's Department

and the Los Angeles
Police Department

to form a task force.

We were defenseless.

We were clueless,
trying to solve this.

I mean, we went through
10 murders and had no leads.

♪♪

One of the interesting things
that occurred

after the last victim
was found ...

the murders stopped.

They completely stopped.

We don't have closure.

♪♪

McEachran:
Bellingham was very concerned
about these two young women,

Karen Mandic, Diane Wilder,
who were missing.

This really had a note to it

that really concerned
the police.

Reporter: The bodies of
Karen Mandic and Diane Wilder

were found stuffed in the
back seat of Ms. Mandic's car.

McEachran: There were large
ligature marks on the necks

of both of the girls,

and which should indicate
they were strangled.

And it was something
the police department

put all of their energy
to solve.

Reporter: The first hint of
their disappearance

came late Thursday, when
Karen Mandic failed to return

to the local Fred Meyer
from her dinner break.

Which is a large
department food store.

Davis:
Karen asked her manager if she
could take a long dinner break,

because she had
a job opportunity that came up.

McEachran:
She had a security job.

Karen found out about
this security job

from a former
Fred Meyer's employee.

♪♪

McEachran: There was a note
there that indicated

"Ken B. Called."

Investigators had called
the security company

and found out a man by the name
of Kenneth Bianchi worked there.

He had also previously
worked at Fred Meyer.

McEachran: They also found
a pubic hair when they lifted

Diane Wilder's body
out of the car

that matched microscopically
the characteristics

of pubic hair from Mr. Bianchi.

I charged Kenneth Bianchi with

murder in the first degree,
two counts.

♪♪

Burkhalter: Then last week,
Kenneth Bianchi was arrested

in Bellingham, Washington,
and named as a prime suspect

in the strangulation murders
of two co-eds there.

The Hillside Strangler cases
we had heard about in the media,

but it was not something
at least

that I specifically
was following.

It was in California,

but our police chief in
Bellingham was from Los Angeles,

and he was familiar with
the Hillside Strangler cases.

He told me,
"I think this looks like it,

has a lot of the connections

that we have seen,
as far as the manner of death."

Burkhalter:
The young women had been
strangled, the car abandoned.

McEachran:
And he started checking
on Bianchi and realized

he had been in California.

He had lived in so-called
Strangler country,

the Glendale area
of San Fernando valley.

Burkhalter: A number of curious
coincidences came to light.

Among them, Bianchi had,

during the period
of the Los Angeles murders,

lived in
a Glendale apartment building

where one Hillside Strangler
victim also lived,

across the street
from where another victim lived.

♪♪

McEachran:
We went into his background,

and we sent officers immediately
out to Rochester, New York,

where he was from.

To say that Kenneth Bianchi
had a troubled childhood

is putting it mildly.

Bianchi's biological mother
was a sex worker.

Broberg:
His birth mother is very young
when she gives birth to him.

She very quickly realizes
she can't take care of Kenneth,

and then moves
through the adoption,

and the Bianchis
come into the situation.

The Bianchis then have
their own interesting dynamic.

Kenneth's mother is
the domineering personality.

The father plays
a very submissive role.

His mother was overprotective.

When we looked at some of
the records from schools

that Bianchi attended,

you can see references
made to chronic lying.

He lied when there was
no good reason to lie.

Schlesinger: When Bianchi
was 12, he got in trouble

for pulling down
a young girl's pants.

All young boys have sexual
interests at 12-13 years old,

but he acted on it.

Most young boys don't do that.

Bianchi did do that.

Notwithstanding Bianchi
being fairly bright,

he couldn't get along
with the teachers.

He is an individual who wants
to be dominant and in control,

and he wants to see
other people as submissive ...

submissive to him.

On the surface, though,
Bianchi could appear normal.

Schlesinger: He's a handsome
guy. He's well-spoken.

Davis: As a teen,
he even dated quite a bit.

He met a girl and married her
right out of high school.

She left him almost immediately.

There's little information
about her reason for leaving.

Either way, Bianchi
thought of the future

and had a conventional view
of what he wanted to do.

Schlesinger: Bianchi wanted
to be in authority.

He wanted a job in authority,
a police officer.

Bianchi never made the cut
to join the force,

so he did the next best thing.

He became a security guard.

McEachran: And his fellow
employees and coworkers

thought he was a nice guy.

Schlesinger:
He's smooth and manipulative,

and so he has a good ability
to put people at ease.

And so the disturbance
is masked and covered up.

That was, until he was
caught stealing

from the stores
he was hired to protect,

so he decided to make a change.

He decided, "Hey,
I'm going to go out to L.A.

I'm going to change my life,
see my cousin."

And sure enough,
that's what he did.

He moved out to
Glendale, California,

and moved in with Angelo Buono,
who was his role model.

And that's when
the real trouble began.

♪♪

Kenneth Bianchi told detectives
he had nothing to do

with the Hillside Stranglings
down in Los Angeles,

let alone the murders
of Diane Wilder

and Karen Mandic
up in Washington.

De Reyes:
His girlfriend, Kelli Boyd,
was raising their infant son

and didn't know what to think.

And he begins this process
of writing to her, saying,

"It's not true."

De Reyes: "It takes a real
maniac to do what was done.

God forgive him."

Broberg: And it continued on,

his ongoing belief
that he was innocent.

Davis: As L.A. detectives
continued to investigate

Bianchi for
the Hillside Stranglings,

the evidence in the Washington
murders continued to mount.

Once we reached a point where
I felt all the evidence showed

clearly that Bianchi had killed
both of these young women,

I filed for the death penalty,

and I'd notified
the defense attorney.

The same day,
he claimed that Mr. Bianchi

was a multiple personality.

Schulman:
He is in custody in Washington,

where he pleaded innocent
by reason of insanity

to two counts of murder.

Allnate:
Bianchi was examined by a series
of court-appointed psychiatrists

who recorded their sessions
on video tape.

I just can't imagine
killing anybody...

♪♪

Taking life.

Allnate: Two of the doctors
reported that Bianchi

suffered from multiple
or split personalities.

They said the murders
were committed

by one of
the hidden personalities

who called himself Steve Walker,

a personality
which allegedly surfaced

when Bianchi was hypnotized.

Psychiatrist: Okay,
I'm gonna start counting...

25, 26, 27...

And now I wanna
talk to Steve.

What's your name?

Steve.

What's
your last name?

You,
you're the [bleep]

that's been trying
to get me to leave him.

Broberg: So when Steve,
one of his personalities,

comes out, he confesses
to all sorts

of criminal type of behavior.

I [bleep] killed those broads,
you know, to smart him up,

to show him that he couldn't
push me [bleep] around.

Here in Bellingham?

That's right.

Strangled 'em, it's [bleep]
plain as that.

Strangled them with a [bleep]
cord, nothing to it.

The name Stephen Walker
was a name that interested us.

We had taken a briefcase
when Mr. Bianchi was arrested,

and in the briefcase,
there were papers showing

that he had a degree
in psychology

and that he had gone
to Pepperdine.

We checked with Pepperdine,
and he was not a student.

But we had transcripts
for Thomas Stephen Walker,

and he had graduated
from Pepperdine.

He had a degree in psychology.

And he had responded
to an advertisement in the paper

in Los Angeles
in which a psychologist

was asking to have someone
join his practice

and invited the people
to send in transcripts.

The so-called psychologist
who wanted the transcripts

was Kenneth Bianchi.

He was pretending
to be a psychologist,

and that's where Walker
sent his transcripts.

McEachran:
Bianchi changed the names

and put "Kenneth Bianchi"
in the names on the transcripts

and started a scam
psychological business.

Psychiatrist:
Up here in Bellingham,

what did Steve do
up here?

Okay, Steve up here lured
and killed the two girls.

We felt that the interviews

really were perpetuating
this scam that Mr. Bianchi

was trying to present.

In one session,
the psychologist urges Bianchi

to engage his alter ego
in a dialogue.

You keep saying
I killed those girls.

I didn't, you did.

It was me.

I'm the one that's
getting the blame.

♪♪

You just don't understand,
you know,

what happens to me
is gonna happen to you.

Schlesinger:
They also brought in Dr. Orne,

who is really
an expert on hypnosis

and
dissociative identity disorder.

McEachran: Dr. Orne told me,

"Look, I've looked
at the video tapes.

I'll tell you what, I think
he's simulating hypnosis."

Schlesinger: The psychologist
suggested to Bianchi

that most people that have
multiple personality disorders

have more than one personality.

And lo and behold,
there's a new personality

that Bianchi comes out with.

Dr. Allison:
Come on, Billy.

Come on, Billy.

Now is not the time
to be shy.

Dr. Allison,
nice to meet you.

You have not seen me before,
have you?

No, sir.

Right from the jump,
it was a bad performance.

As I count backwards from
5 to 1, you'll
be awake.

Anyone who knows anything about
multiple personality disorder,

this is just
a cheap acting job.

And it really underlined
the fact that this was a scam,

and we thought we'd be able
to wrestle him down in a trial.

But investigators were working
hard to try to tie him

to the Hillside Stranglings
in L.A.

They were asking about
these cases in California,

and we had made enough
of a connection there

that I'm sure he realized
that was a real problem for him.

This is probably
the major break in the case.

Let's go on listing
the kinds of activities

Steve was involved in,
in Los Angeles.

The killings
of the girls.

The killings of the girls to get
not only sexual gratification,

but also it gave
a personal sense

of stimulation
or excitement.

♪♪

He was trying to use
a multiple personality

as a defense to anything
that would come up there also.

He said to detectives,
"I'll tell you what.

I'll turn state's witness,

and I'll tell you
who the other strangler was.

It was my cousin, Angelo Buono."

Psychiatrist: Why did
Angelo kill any girls?

What did he have
against them?

I dunno, man.
You know, he just...

He was just an easy guy to get
with the program, you know?

I gave him the idea, and he
went with it all the way.

Did you watch him
kill them all?

You bet I did,
strangled them all.

It's the easiest way
to go.

He was giving a description
of these homicides and described

how he and Angelo had done
this together in California.

Who killed who?

I killed
the first broad.

Who was she?

Some black broad,
I don't remember her name.

How did you happen
to pick her up?

She was a hooker.

Okay, who killed
the second one?

Angelo.
Were you with him?

He did a nice job
doing it, too.

Where did you
kill her?

Right at
Angelo's house.

I would have to say that
certainly we are looking at him.

He's had a relationship
with Mr. Bianchi.

Angelo, now he's
my kind of person.

He doesn't care a [bleep]
about life, it's great.

Other people's life.

Has he killed
anybody?

Yup, he has.
How many?

Five girls.

What a team we were.

♪♪

Komo:
27-year-old Kenneth Bianchi,

charged with two homicides
here in Bellingham,

pleaded guilty
to the Bellingham charges

and admitted guilt
to the Los Angeles slayings.

When he's getting sentenced,
he cries to everybody.

He says how deeply sorry he is.

Bianchi: To even begin to try
and live with myself,

I have to take responsibility
for what I've done.

♪♪

And I have to do everything
I can to get Angelo Buono.

It's ridiculous.

He's not sorry about anything,
other than he got caught.

♪♪

Komo: Whatcom County prosecutor
Dave McEachran

asked for life sentences
to be served consecutively.

Bianchi says he will waive
extradition to California

and travel down there to testify
against his cousin,

Angelo Buono, whom Bianchi says
was an accomplice

in a series of killings

known as the Los Angeles
Hillside Stranglings.

Davis: As soon as
the name Angelo Buono

was tied to the case,

I and my colleagues found out
where he lived, where he worked.

His upholstery shop was
right next door to his house.

Allegedly, people such as
Frank Sinatra

were his customers.

He's an obsessive compulsive
neat freak.

He cleans things that you could
use as an operating table.

He cleans them again.

Davis: Bianchi was
an unreliable witness.

So there was a period of time

there when Buono
is loose on the streets.

He hasn't been arrested yet.

Now as a journalist,
I was going to find out

everything I could
about Angelo Buono.

♪♪

Angelo Buono was born
in Rochester, New York, in 1934.

Schlesinger:
Buono had a very, very troubled
relationship with his mother.

Evidently, she was running
around on his father,

which led to the divorce.

That, I really think
affected him,

because she stepped
out of her mother role

and acted out sexually,
at least in Buono's mind.

He had a hatred for women
that showed up again and again.

Angelo is known to
say many times,

"Some women
just deserve to die."

Schlesinger:
When Buono was an adolescent,

he was telling other guys
that he was sodomizing girls

and raping girls
and this sort of thing.

Whether or not it's true,
it's hard to know,

but just the fact that Buono
is talking like that,

it's really beyond what
average teenage boys talk about,

so you see deviancy emerging.

Buono was acting out
in a typical antisocial way

as a young person ...
left school, gets arrested,

steals,
all these sorts of things.

At 21, Angelo impregnates
a 17-year-old girl,

and she becomes his first wife.

He is awful to her, as he will
be to his subsequent wives.

He fathers at least
eight children,

never takes responsibility
for any of them,

and that's just his life.

That's just how he goes.

Buono ended up marrying
four times

and had numerous
other relationships.

All of the women he married,
he abused physically, verbally.

They also made the accusation
that he had abused

one of his stepdaughters
and that he said,

"Well, she needs to be
broken in."

I wouldn't call him
a charismatic person,

although apparently
a lot of young women

found him attractive.

He was the kind of guy
that carried a big wad

of $100 bills
and liked to impress people.

One of the characteristics
of a psychopath

is other people
want to be around them.

They know how to ingratiate
themselves with people,

and they can be attractive
to some types of individuals.

Among the people who came
to admire Buono was his cousin,

Ken Bianchi, who came out
to California to live with him.

Renner:
When Ken arrived in L.A.,

he had the Hollywood vision
of Los Angeles in his head,

and he just seemed to be
leading a normal life.

He found a girlfriend.
She got pregnant.

He seemed to be delighted,
really,

about the prospect
of being a father.

And so on the surface, he seemed
to be a perfectly normal guy

in his 20s with
a bright future ahead of him.

But the real Kenneth Bianchi

was someone completely different
from the guy

that he presented himself
to be in Los Angeles.

When Bianchi gets to L.A.,

we know he establishes this
kind of fake psychology service.

Renner:
He really studied the subject.

He knew the jargon.

So he got a false license,

and he was so well-read
in the subject

that he was able to convince
another psychologist

to let him have an office space.

He even had one or two
patients drop in.

De Reyes: But Bianchi, well,
he needed more.

He set his sights on being in
a position of authority,

something he was obsessed with
since he was a little kid.

Meredith:
We had a candidate that had
applied to be a police officer

that my sergeant wanted
to have rejected.

He goes, "I don't like this guy.
There's something about him."

So we wound up
disqualifying him.

His name happened to be
Kenneth Bianchi.

♪♪

♪♪

Welcome back to
"Very Scary People."

Kenneth Bianchi had
bright dreams

when he moved to Los Angeles

to be near his cousin,
Angelo Buono.

For years, he'd imagined himself
in a position of authority

and having others
look up to him.

Although Buono and Bianchi
barely knew each other,

the cousins found they had more
in common than either realized.

♪♪

Davis: When Bianchi moved out
to southern California,

he knew he needed
to make some money.

Well, his older cousin
Angelo said,

"Why don't we go into
the prostitution business?"

Reporter: This is Sabra.

She was 17 years old when she
was allegedly forced to work

as a prostitute
on behalf of Angelo Buono

and his cousin and companion,
Ken Bianchi,

now the two suspects
in the Hillside Stranglings.

His temper flared up
very easily,

and if he didn't get his way
on things that he wanted,

then it was like,

"I'm going to slap you around
a couple of times

until you realize
that I mean business."

Lee: Sabra's a very pretty girl,

full of dreams,
like many girls her age,

and believed that she was going
to be a model or an actress,

and came to Hollywood.

Kenneth Bianchi posed
as a modeling agent

when he lured Sabra.

He was a master of identities
and of personalities.

Sabra was pressured
to bring another girl in.

Becky Spears was
a friend of sabra's.

And Becky came in,

and things started to get rough
at that point.

I never saw a gentle side
of either one of them.

I never saw a human side
of either one of them.

I would say when I was there,
I was kidnapped.

I was there not
on my own will.

Becky was sent out to meet
a lawyer as a customer,

and Becky told him the story,
and he helped her escape.

De Reyes: They still had
the other young woman,

and eventually she escaped.

Lee: There's a theory that
after Sabra and Becky got away,

that these two wanted revenge,

but I think it was
more complicated than that.

I think that they had
the intentions

of setting up an escort service.

Davis: So Bianchi and Buono
contacted two young prostitutes

in Hollywood, Yolanda Washington
and Debbie Noble.

At one point, they were given
a list of possible johns.

They soon found out, though,
that the list was fake,

and that they were taken
for money.

That angered them greatly.

Yolanda Washington happened
to casually say to

Angelo and Ken where she walked
the streets on Sunset Boulevard,

and they went and found
Yolanda Washington.

Renner:
They killed her in a car,

but once they decided that
that was too risky,

they developed this whole M.O.

♪♪

Bianchi and Buono would drive
around as if they're two cops.

The police ruse thing was used
in almost all
of them.

Psychiatrist: So they were
under the impression

that they were being taken
to a police station, right?

Right.

All signs pointed to the fact
that most of the victims

were brought back
to Buono's home

next to the upholstery shop.

The girls were undressed,
bound, gagged, whatever.

There was sex
with them.

They were apparently
placed in a chair

where they were violated,
tortured.

Fibers from that chair were
found on several of the victims.

Then they were put on
the floor and killed.

After they were dead, the body
was loaded into
the car,

the nude body.

De Reyes: The bodies had been
dumped off in areas

that were pretty much in the
general vicinity of Glendale.

It would put Angelo Buono's shop
somewhat in the middle of it.

Buono and Bianchi were
operating undetected,

and the body count
continued to rise.

When law enforcement
hasn't started to target them,

they get brave,

and they begin to push
the envelope to see

if they can do more and more
to kind of frustrate the police.

Davis: Kimberly Martin was
the ninth victim.

She was working
for an escort service.

These guys were so confident,

they asked the service to a girl
to an empty apartment

in the same complex
where Bianchi lived.

Schlesinger: When they called up
and had a prostitute

go to an empty apartment
in a place where Bianchi lived,

that's high-risk behavior,

because they can get
connected to it.

Davis: Kimberly Martin ended up

getting into a struggle with the
killers in Bianchi's building,

and some of the neighbors
overheard the commotion.

Lee: The police officers were
interviewing everybody

in the apartments

and forcing them to show
their driver's license.

And they spoke
to Kenneth Bianchi,

and he manipulated his way
from showing them

the driver's license,

because if they would have seen
the driver's license,

they would have noted that the
address on the driver's license

was the same address
as the previous victim.

♪♪

♪♪

Meredith:
In the city of Los Angeles,
we went through 10 murders,

and the Cindy Hudspeth case
was the last one we had.

Renner: Cindy Hudspeth's
on her way to work.

She's in her car.
She's driving along.

She sees an auto upholstery shop

and just on a whim,
she stops in,

and it's Angelo Buono's
upholstery shop.

Angelo and Ken cannot
believe their good luck.

They don't even have to
go cruising for anyone.

This woman just walked
right into the trap.

And at this point, their M.O.
Is really solid.

And they get her tied up,
and they do what they always do.

They sexually assault her
and they strangle her.

♪♪

Since she just walked in,
her car is there.

They have to get rid of it.
They put her body in the trunk.

Ken's driving in her car
with her body in it.

They get it to a hillside.

Angelo parks at the side
of the road behind him.

They look around to see
if anyone's watching,

and they just pitch
the car over the side.

♪♪

So despite the extensive manhunt
for the Hillside Stranglers,

including after the death
of Cindy Hudspeth,

Bianchi continued
to take unnecessary risks.

At the time, LAPD had a program

to take citizens
on a ride-along with police.

Bianchi, who always wanted
to be in law enforcement,

took them up on it.

Schlesinger: Buono,
who's very street smart

and knows you can
only take it so far,

said to Bianchi,
"You got to get out of here,

and if you don't
I'm going to kill you,

because you're gonna get me
implicated in this."

So then Bianchi moved
to Washington state.

De Reyes:
After moving to Washington,

Bianchi was arrested
for the murders

of Diane Wilder
and Karen Mandic.

And then he started to talk,

fully implicating Angelo Buono
in the L.A. murders.

Davis:
Finally, detectives in L.A.

were ready to move
against Buono.

We immediately deployed
our tactical team.

We had placed some snipers
on the roof

of an apartment building

behind Angelo Buono's
upholstery shop.

We had secured the area.

♪♪

When he walked out in handcuffs,

I looked at him
and I thought, the arrogance,

the confidence, the demeanor,
the evilness that he possessed.

♪♪

I was relieved.
Finally, we've got him.

We get to do something about it.

Everyone was getting ready
for Buono's trial

when Bianchi's life
took a turn no one expected.

McEachran:
Veronica Compton was a woman

who likened herself
as a playwright,

and she wanted
to interview Bianchi.

Renner: She'd written a play
called, "The Mutilated Cutter,"

which is just one heck
of a name for anything.

And she approached
Bianchi in prison

and wanted to talk to him
to do some sort of research.

Well, one thing led to another.

She became romantically involved
with Bianchi.

And apparently,
they fell in love.

Renner: She's attractive,

But the thing that really
attracts Ken is,

in this screenplay
that she's written,

it revolves around
a female serial killer,

and she lays a false trail
for investigators

by taking the semen
of innocent men

and leaving it at the scene
to throw the police off.

The wheels start turning
in Ken's head.

Bianchi and Compton
came up with a plan

that they thought
would convince authorities

that they had the wrong man,
and that

the real Hillside Strangler
was on the loose.

Renner:
Never mind that he's already
confessed to the crimes,

but she's going to do
this thing for him.

De Reyes:
He gave her a condom of semen

to put on the victim
so that they could say,

"Hey, there's, there's somebody
else doing those crimes."

McEachran: She came to
Bellingham and had a disguise

on making her look pregnant,

had a long wig on,
and went to a local bar here

and encountered a young woman
whose name was Kim Breed.

And they started
drinking together,

and Veronica Compton invited
her back to her hotel room.

When they got there,
Veronica indicated

she wanted to
just change her clothes,

and went in the bathroom
and came back out

and was able to get behind
this young woman

and put a ligature
around her neck

and started choking her,
trying to kill her.

She was a very strong woman.

Was able to get the ligature
off her neck,

and knocked
Veronica Compton down

and Veronica Compton
ran out of the room.

Davis:
It wasn't long before police
caught up with Veronica Compton.

I charged her with attempted
murder in the first degree.

Veronica, did you attempt
to murder Kim Breed?

No.

It was supposed to be a game.
She was in on it.

The jury wasn't buying
Veronica Compton's claim.

She was convicted
in a jury trial.

Renner:
Veronica Compton does spend
22 years in prison for this.

The whole thing was
just bizarre.

I think that's the best word
that I can think of.

With the Compton distraction
out of the way,

prosecutors were now
concentrating on getting justice

for the victims
of the Hillside Stranglers.

♪♪

Reporter:
Buono wore a jail uniform

to and from
the criminal courts building.

At that time, we had
a system in Los Angeles

where judges would appoint
attorneys to represent someone,

so the first person who was
appointed was Gerry Chaleff.

Gerry was looking for
somebody in particular.

He wanted to have a female.

He knew a woman was going to be
sitting next to Angelo Buono.

And here's a man that's
charged with raping

and torturing and killing
10 women,

and if he can get along with
what appears to be a nice woman

for a lengthy period of time,

and the jury
is watching everything,

then maybe he's
not that bad after all.

The district attorney
at the time

realizes that Bianchi
lies constantly.

And so the district attorney
is saying,

"I can't go to court
and charge Buono

when my star witness is Bianchi,

who can't tell the truth
about anything."

Mader: And so the district
attorney of Los Angeles

at the time went into court
to dismiss the case.

And the judge, Ron George, said,
"Mm, wait a minute here.

I'm not necessarily going to
just on the spot here

dismiss the case.

I need more information."

I would say in over 99%
of the cases,

one would not second guess
a prosecutor,

but in this case,
I felt obliged to.

He picked up on a lot
of scientific investigations,

reports,
particularly the fiber evidence,

that appeared to connect Buono
and Buono's house

to the murdered young women.

De Reyes:
So they appointed a couple
of attorneys to handle the case,

and these guys were much
more gung-ho.

These guys were much more
battle-tested, you could tell.

And I think that Gerald Chaleff
and Katherine Mader

had their hands full
with these two.

♪♪

Davis: The trial went on and on.

In fact, it was the longest
trial in Los Angeles County

at that time.

De Reyes: The prosecution was
determined to use Bianchi

as their star witness.

He'd already pleaded guilty
to the two murderers

in Washington state
and the five in L.A.

The defense countered that it
was impossible for Bianchi

to tell a consistent story.

Chaleff: I think he's a liar.

He's a sophisticated con man
who will use anything

and anybody
to get what he wants.

Perhaps I had convinced myself

that we really had a shot
of getting an acquittal here

as to all the murders.

♪♪

The convictions
came in piecemeal.

The first verdict that
the jurors reached

was with the victim
Yolanda Washington,

and the jurors came back
fairly quickly

with a not guilty verdict.

I think that must have
freaked out the prosecution.

And then for the subsequent
nine victims,

they convicted him
of everything.

Reporter: Los Angeles Superior
Court Judge Ronald George

lamented that he had
no legal choice

but to follow the jury's
recommendation of life sentences

instead of the death penalty.

George:
Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi

terrorized this city
for several months,

as Angelo Buono
and Kenneth Bianchi

slowly squeezed out of their
victims their last breath of air

and their promise
of a future life.

And all for what?

The momentary, sadistic thrill

of enjoying a brief,
perverted sexual satisfaction

and the venting
of their hatred of women.

♪♪

Davis: Buono was serving
his sentence in 2002

when he met a sudden end.

De Reyes: Angelo Buono died
of a heart attack,

which was a very merciful thing

to happen to
a very unmerciful individual.

♪♪

McEachran: Mr. Bianchi has filed

a number of lawsuits
and appeals.

He has said a number of times

that the real killer
is still there.

That's all he has to do,
is try to argue these things,

and it's just crazy
at this point.

Lee: Bianchi's never gonna
get out on parole,

so he's just stuck there.

And I think
that's a good place for ...

those are the kind of people
that belong in jail.

Davis: Sadly, cases like this,

it's another attack
on our fortress of feeling safe.

For those of us who
lived through

the Hillside Strangler case,
we'll never forget it.

Renner: There are ripples
from these crimes

that go on literally
for generations.

It's the fabric of the universe,

and that's what each one of
these victims represents to me,

just a tear in the fabric
of the universe

that never gets put right again.

It did change the way people
looked at the city,

the way they lived.

That's what serial killers
did for Los Angeles.

It set us up for this kind of
paranoid lifestyle

that we still sort of live now.

♪♪

Meredith: I have seen a lot of
horrific crimes in my time,

but I cannot imagine
anything being as horrific

as what occurred to these women
and these girls.

I've dealt with
some evil people,

but nobody as evil and dark
as Buono and Bianchi.

Kenneth Bianchi will be eligible
for parole again in 2025,

the same year he turns 74.

Sadly, while his name
still generates headlines,

the identities of his victims
remains largely unknown,

except to their
friends and loved ones.

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

Thanks for watching.

Goodnight.