The Hillside Strangler later the Hillside Stranglers is the media epithet for an American serial killer —later discovered to be a duo, Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono —who terrorized the women of Los Angeles between October and February , during a time when Southern California was plagued by several active serial killers. The nickname originates from the pattern of many of the victims' bodies being discovered in the hills surrounding the city, typically victims of strangulation.
An unusual twist in the investigation was the arrival in California of a psychic from Berlin ; Detective Bob Grogan was politely unenthusiastic when the medium wrote, in German , that the police should be looking for two male Italians who were possibly brothers, aged about This assessment proved to be—at least partially—correct, when the Hillside Stranglers were eventually found to be New York state natives Angelo Buono, Jr.
Initially, it was believed that only one person was responsible for the killings, as investigators had no reason to believe otherwise. However, judging from the positions of some of the victims' bodies, it was deduced that two criminals were working together, though police withheld that information from the press.
After an elderly neighbor of one of the victims witnessed and reported her kidnapping having heard the words "You won't get away with this" , police had their confirmation that two individuals were involved. The uncle-nephew duo were eventually apprehended and convicted of kidnapping , raping , torturing and murdering 10 females together, plus two by Bianchi alone, ranging in age from 12 to The Hillside Strangler murders began with the deaths of two prostitutes , who were found strangled and dumped naked on hillsides northeast of Los Angeles in October and early November It was not until the deaths of five more young women—who were not sex workers—, from middle-class neighborhoods, that the media attention and subsequent "Hillside Strangler" moniker came to prominence.
There were two more deaths in December and February before the murders abruptly stopped. An extensive investigation proved fruitless, until the arrest of Bianchi in January for the murder of two young women in Washington state, and the subsequent linking of his past to the Strangler case. Ironically, Bianchi had tried, and failed, several times to become a police officer himself, but was denied each time. Nevertheless, he remained cordial and even developed a brief "friendship" with some of the officers at the Los Angeles Police Department , being invited to several social gatherings and going on patrols with some of them.
