- 47 minutes ago
The Hillside Strangler 2026 - Season 1 Episode 3 - The Trial Of The Century
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Short filmTranscript
00:00You
00:30This is how you're gonna get a girl from always in the apartment to the garage pieces and might you knock her out or something
00:48An angel went behind her and he grabbed her one arm I grabbed her other arm
01:00There's a smile at me and I knew you poop
01:24You'll hurt and it'll kill her
01:26After watching 17 hours of videotapes of Ken Bianchi under hypnosis claiming he was guilty
01:36What I was seeing was a man broken down put through psychiatric excesses
01:46To confess against himself to the point in which he believed his own false confession
01:53And you remember where she was taken?
01:57There is
01:59With the exception of the first girl
02:01Without the use of the Los Angeles
02:03Material
02:05The investigator reports I couldn't really tell you exactly where the bodies were down to
02:07I said under hypnosis were not reliable
02:11They did not match up with the facts
02:13My lawyer handed the materials for the case through a discovery
02:17And I essentially realized that I had no first-hand information about the crimes
02:21Or who committed the crimes
02:23That all my information was
02:25The two women strangled were stuffed in the back area of the car
02:27The case files or cops
02:29What I read was painted in my memory during hypnosis subconsciously
02:33And I came out of it believing and committing crimes
02:35And I came out of it believing and committing crimes
02:39I had literally false memory syndrome
02:43How about that in LA?
02:45But Angelo
02:47Has he killed anybody?
02:49Yeah
02:51I had literally false memory syndrome
02:53How about that in LA?
02:54Any time in LA?
02:55How many?
02:56He has
02:57Five girls
02:58Did you watch him fill them all?
03:00You bet I did
03:03You can be sure that he didn't believe me
03:04I'm sure no, no, no, no
03:05No, no, no
03:06No, no, no
03:07No, no, no
03:08No, no
03:12No, no, no
03:13No, no, no
03:14No, no, no
03:16No, no
03:17No, no
03:18No, no
03:19No, no
03:20No
03:21I bet I did.
03:22You can be sure that he killed those five?
03:24Positively, without a doubt.
03:26Did you kill any down there?
03:28Yep, I did.
03:29How many?
03:30Four of them.
03:32Markins would ask one leading question after the other.
03:36And he wasn't the only one that asked leading questions.
03:39Ellison did the same thing too.
03:41He would make a statement in the form of a question,
03:46and I ended up providing an answer that was not the truth.
03:52But he assumed it was the truth.
03:56When these doctors came in, they were fumbling around,
03:59and they did have ulterior motives.
04:02Dr. Ellison had a book coming up,
04:05and he wanted to get the world record
04:07for most multiple personality cases, you know?
04:10And so he may have been leading with information.
04:14Why have you decided not to kill anyone?
04:19Mark, I know.
04:20Was that when he decided to move?
04:22I wanted to.
04:23I wanted to fucking kill more broads, you know?
04:27When you're under hypnosis,
04:29you're susceptible to somebody telling you
04:32that a memory happened when it didn't happen,
04:35creating false memories.
04:37So a clinician, if they're hypnotizing you,
04:40they could tell them what their memory is
04:43when it was actually not what happened at all.
04:47You remember being at the office, you say?
04:49Yes, I know.
04:50Okay.
04:51And that was in particular night in January the 10th.
04:5511th.
04:5611th.
04:57Something like that.
04:58Yeah, okay.
04:59There was actually a famous study called Lost in the Mall.
05:02Basically, you could implant the memory of being lost in a mall with hypnosis.
05:14And that 25% of the people had apparently never been lost in a mall as a child.
05:19But under hypnosis, they became convinced that they had been lost in the mall as a child.
05:25Believe it or not, it's pretty easy to implant a lot of things into a person's mind.
05:31Yeah.
05:32No one bothered to warn me that there were real dangers to using hypnosis to retrieve or refresh memories.
05:42And once hypnotized, there would be a tendency to recall those memories that never existed,
05:47yet be convinced those memories are real and more.
05:50With the hypnosis, they led him down a path of, you know, now confess, and now he's convinced he did it.
06:02If Ken was hypnotized, yes, his argument could be plausible for sure.
06:09But chances are, in my opinion, in front of what I've seen, I don't think Ken was ever hypnotized.
06:16You want to play games? I'll play games.
06:21I want him out of the way. You don't, wait, no. You don't fucking understand.
06:34Just keep looking at one. Just keep thinking over and over in your mind.
06:39That you're feeling very tired.
06:41We know that people absolutely can be hypnotized.
06:44We can see there's plenty of fMRI studies that show, like, what happens to the brain.
06:49There are different techniques that get people to be in a state where they're susceptible to things that you are now going to lead them towards.
06:56Close your eyes. Take some deep breaths.
07:00Imagine I have no desire to smoke.
07:04But here's a fun fact about hypnosis.
07:07Unless you want to be hypnotized, you can't be hypnotized.
07:12So for someone like Kenneth Bianchi, I don't know if he would allow himself to be that vulnerable.
07:18Your head dropping down, down, down.
07:25Down, down, down.
07:28And I think that for any kind of serial killer, being in the non-dominant position, it's too risky.
07:36Hold on.
07:38When you've got someone who's hypnotized, it's often really slow and quiet and figuring it out in a haze.
07:47None of this was the behavior of Ken.
07:50It's way too, too awake.
07:54There's a lot of energy. There's a lot of movement.
07:59I think that Ken saw doctors that seemed kind of excited.
08:07And I really think he was thinking, I am smarter than all these people.
08:13But after Dr. Watkins and Dr. Allison assessed Ken, the prosecution brings in their guys.
08:21And their job is to be more skeptical about this whole situation.
08:29Hi, Dr. Orr.
08:30Hi. Good to see you.
08:31How you doing?
08:33One of the experts I have is Dr. Martin Orr.
08:36I was a world expert in hypnosis and looking at people who are simulating being hypnotized.
08:43He seems like a pleasant, cooperative individual.
08:46But whenever I see an individual in a forensic situation,
08:50somebody accused of a premeditated murder facing a death penalty,
08:55I always have to ask myself, is this individual telling me how he really feels?
09:01Or is he malingering or faking?
09:04When Orr comes in, he does a couple of pretty clever things.
09:09One of them, he's like, all right, what if we suggest that Dean Brett, who is Ken's attorney,
09:16we're going to have him show up, but an imaginary Dean Brett.
09:19I asked him to hallucinate Mr. Brett, his attorney.
09:20I asked him to hallucinate Mr. Brett, his attorney.
09:24Shorter, I'm going to ask you to open your eyes.
09:28When I do, you want to see Mr. Brett.
09:32Mr. Brett will have come in.
09:34He will be sitting in the chair right beside you.
09:39Open your eyes.
09:41Mr. Brett wants to talk to you.
09:43Hey, Dean.
09:44How are you doing?
09:45I'll leave you to talk to him for a few moments.
09:46I'll be back.
09:47You want to have the baby yet?
09:48The immediacy at which, you know, Ken jumps up, shakes the hand of Dean Brett,
10:01and you know, right there it feels like malingering.
10:03Even more striking, though, is what he does when I ask him to describe Dean Brett.
10:09What are we going to talk about, the three of us?
10:11Well, I want you to describe Dean to me in some detail.
10:14What is his, is he shaving?
10:18Oh, no.
10:19His beard?
10:20God, you can see him.
10:22You must be able to see him.
10:24His hair isn't cold as usual.
10:27You wouldn't say that, in my opinion.
10:30And you wouldn't be saying, like, don't you see him?
10:32Don't you see him?
10:33It's like you assume a person sees him.
10:35You would just say, yeah, I see him.
10:36You wouldn't be like, don't you?
10:38It's, again, that part right there feels malingery.
10:41And then you've got him having the real Dean Brett showing up.
10:45Tell me, who is this over here?
10:52Dean Brett?
10:54Who is this?
10:57The Dean Brett is here.
10:59The Dean Brett is here.
11:01How did he be in your place?
11:03Me?
11:04Hang on.
11:05What do you want?
11:06It's real.
11:07It's real.
11:08I didn't know.
11:09Because he's not there anymore.
11:10In my opinion, this all feels like a charade.
11:11He's seen Three Faces of Eve, the film, which is like an education in how to fake a multiple personality.
11:16Have you ever heard of multiple personality?
11:17In the 70s, Hollywood was really interested in this whole idea.
11:18We've got the Three Faces of Eve, we've got Sybil.
11:20And I used to think that everybody was like this.
11:21That they would just naturally wake up and be someplace else, or a whole lot older, or wearing another dress.
11:22And I used to think that everybody was like this.
11:23That they would just naturally wake up and be someplace else, or a whole lot older, or wearing another dress.
11:27It exploded.
11:28To the point where now, in the court systems, this is becoming an education in how to fake a multiple personality.
11:31Have you ever heard of multiple personality?
11:34In the 70s, Hollywood was really interested in this whole idea.
11:39We've got the Three Faces of Eve, we've got Sybil.
11:43And I used to think that everybody was like this.
11:46That they would just naturally wake up and be someplace else, or a whole lot older, or wearing another dress.
11:51It exploded.
11:54To the point where now, in the court systems, this is becoming a question.
11:59Can we use this for the defense?
12:02The judge ruled today that Billy Milligan was not responsible for the crimes of rape, kidnapping, and robbery.
12:08That man was found not guilty by reason of insanity because he had multiple personalities.
12:13It was a huge deal.
12:15A couple months after that, Kenneth Bianchi's case.
12:19So it's possible that Attorney Dean Brett is thinking to himself, maybe we can use this for Kenneth Bianchi.
12:27You haven't come out in jail at all here?
12:30Yeah, I fucking used to.
12:33To do what?
12:35Anything I fucking wanted.
12:37We're watching the videotape.
12:40We eject the tape out.
12:42I said, what do you think?
12:43He said, well, look what I wrote.
12:45His notebook said total bullshit, and mine said bullshit.
12:48It was a joke.
12:50It was a joke.
12:51It was a joke.
12:53There's a performative nature to this, and I believe Kenneth Bianchi has been performing his whole life.
12:59What's your name?
13:01Steve.
13:02Steve.
13:03One of the psychologists said, who is that now?
13:06He says, that's Steve.
13:08Steve got a last name?
13:10He did have a last name.
13:13What was it?
13:17I can't remember.
13:18What's Steve?
13:19Steve.
13:20Walker.
13:21Walker.
13:22Walker.
13:23Oh, where did he get that name?
13:24He says, Walker.
13:25Steve Walker.
13:26I said, oh, he forgot this name.
13:28Yeah.
13:29And he jumps.
13:30And he went and found this piece of paper that says, Steve Walker written on it.
13:35So I was like, woohoo.
13:36And then there were some transcripts that were found from local schools in L.A. in Bianchi's
13:45name.
13:46It didn't make much sense.
13:47So we went to Valley College, said, we'll work on this murder case, and here's a transcript
13:54we found.
13:55Could you tell us who it belongs to?
14:00She looks at it, and she says, well, I can tell you right now it doesn't belong to that
14:04name.
14:05This transcript belongs to an individual by, I think it was Thomas Stephen Walker.
14:11And we looked at each other, we said, bingo, we got you.
14:15They asked me if I recognized the name that was at the top of the paper.
14:19I looked up, expecting to see my own name, instead seeing the name of Kenneth A. Bianchi.
14:24He said, how would an individual get these from you?
14:30He said, well, I applied for a lot of jobs when I graduated.
14:33I had answered an ad in the Los Angeles Times classified for a job.
14:39So then we spent four days down in the archives grinding those old tapes of L.A. Times.
14:48The one ad we found was a one ad for a counselor or psychologist.
14:54Send your resume and transcripts.
14:57610 Verdugo, Glendale.
15:01Well, that had been an address Bianchi had lived at.
15:04We knew we were onto something there.
15:06We rode it up, sent it up to Bellingham, showed it to Bianchi.
15:13And he realized that he had been caught in one of his major lies.
15:18That was a massive blow to the defense, because now they realize we're screwed.
15:25Our insanity defense is crumbling.
15:29This person is some dude that he can't.
15:32Once they got this report, Bianchi decided, hey, I got a snowball's chance in hell.
15:38You know, I've got to change my plea.
15:40My defense gets destroyed.
15:50Dean Brandt, my defense lawyer, told me in no uncertain terms,
15:55you're going to get the death penalty in both states.
15:58You're going to be put to death, and it scared the hell out of me.
16:01It scared me straight.
16:03So I decided I needed to change the plea agreement and testify against Angelo.
16:12He was attempting to do anything he could to stop the state from killing him,
16:17including making false confessions against himself and others.
16:22He was a broken man who could be manipulated.
16:26The Los Angeles District Attorney didn't feel like he had enough to arrest Angelo Bono.
16:32Angela Bono was still on the streets.
16:35When I'd see him in the restaurant, I would just get really scared,
16:38and I just, you know, I didn't want to be around him.
16:41All of the agencies in Los Angeles, they really needed help.
16:46They needed help from Ken Bianchi to be able to convict Bono.
16:52So we went up to Bellingham to assess Bianchi as a potential witness against Angelo Bono.
17:01I felt if he was a believable witness, and we could cooperate, we could convict Bono.
17:10There had been unconfirmed reports of plea bargaining efforts in the case,
17:14including reports of Bianchi waiving extradition to Los Angeles
17:18and changing his not guilty plea to the Bellingham charges in exchange for Whatcom County not asking for the death penalty.
17:25Bellingham authorities will not comment on those unconfirmed reports.
17:34The Los Angeles PD, the sheriff's office, they came up to Bellingham.
17:39They wanted to know what our case was like, and we wanted to know what their case is like.
17:43If their case wasn't very good and they couldn't convict them,
17:47I didn't want to give up the death penalty here in Washington.
17:51So I wanted to make sure they had a reasonable case, so that if I was going to give something up,
17:56it was reasonable to give up.
17:58Once we got up to Bellingham, all the investigators and the agencies wanted first crack at Bianchi.
18:09There was a lot of politicking going on.
18:12LAPD got him first, so we listened to all the interviews that we didn't participate in.
18:23We're sitting there listening when they were talking to him about Christina Weckler,
18:28and he's telling the detectives what they did when they got back to Angela's business.
18:33On Christina Weckler, after she was dead and nude on the floor,
18:42he leashed up and got the needle, the syringe.
18:47He made a crack about checking the teeth, if she's dead or not.
18:53And he took the syringe and he poked the cubic area a couple of times.
19:03We've got a series of murder photos where we're listening.
19:06And Pete grabs the photo and he brings it over and he says,
19:09look, an injection mark on her hip.
19:13LAPD didn't ask him that.
19:15They didn't say, hey, what about that injection mark?
19:18He brought it up.
19:23And we finally got to interview Bianchi.
19:26We went in and looked at where he was being interviewed.
19:29We took the table and put him so he was looking straight into a wall,
19:33so he had no room to move.
19:36We were smoking cigars, closed all the doors.
19:40When we first sat down to talk to him,
19:42he just came across as a sleazy con man,
19:45and he was of the opinion he was going to be on the team.
19:49He had all this paperwork.
19:51Frank stood up and he just swept all that stuff onto the floor.
19:54He said, you're not going to need that shit.
19:56We're going to talk about real stuff.
20:00We're interested in doing one thing.
20:02That's interviewing you, knowing what you know, what you did.
20:05What I knew then or what I know now.
20:07Ken, we're not going to play that game.
20:09What is the difference?
20:10Wait a minute.
20:12Wait a minute. Just be quiet.
20:13I'm not going to play that either.
20:14There is a big difference.
20:15Be quiet and listen to me.
20:17We're not playing that game.
20:19Don't think you're going to try and run it through on us, all right?
20:22We're interested in what you know.
20:24What you did.
20:25What Bodo did in his involvement.
20:27When I say...
20:28Listen to me.
20:29Don't talk to me in that tone of voice.
20:30I'm not some kind of animal.
20:31Listen.
20:32You can listen to us, and you can be interviewed by us,
20:34but you're not going to interview us.
20:36I'm cooperating.
20:37We're trying to determine your worth as a witness.
20:39All right?
20:40That's all we want.
20:41And it's not going to work any other way.
20:44Fine.
20:45We want to talk to you about Cindy Hutzman case.
20:52We set her in the trunk of the car.
20:54He took off, and I followed him to Angelo's crest.
21:04Angelo's behind the car.
21:06Tom's on the trunk of the car.
21:09And he and I both pushed it, and...
21:12You say Angelo pushed from the rear?
21:15That's correct.
21:26I thought he was lying, because the car landed, put up.
21:30We thought the car had been pushed over backwards.
21:33We're saying, wait a minute.
21:35Is he telling us the truth or not?
21:37Then we went to CHP and had a report written.
21:40They came back, and they said, that car was driven in.
21:45They pushed it over, front first.
21:48It auto-rotated, because it hit big boulders that turned it around,
21:53and it landed facing up the hill.
21:57The other thing they told us, they put every girl they took to the shop ligatured,
22:03and put them in one chair in one room.
22:07The three of us walked into the house and said, why don't you have a seat?
22:12They pointed to the leather chair, and she sat down in it.
22:17And I turned around and got behind her when she was sitting in a chair.
22:24On the Wagner case, the palms of her hands had burn marks.
22:36And we were fortunate enough to pull fibers on a chair that matched fibers that were on Wagner's hands.
22:43There were so many things he told us that only the killer would know.
22:48Another thing that we were able to corroborate was from one of the various interviews by the psychologists and psychiatrists.
22:58The thing with the hillside killings was the pretending to be police officers, that sort of thing.
23:06That was one of the more important things he told us, how they were operating.
23:18And it's exactly what they were doing.
23:22Were there people who were considered as victims but then rejected?
23:34Yes.
23:35Peter Lorre's daughter was going to be the victim.
23:41Somehow the notoriety, the fact that who she was, you know, Peter Lorre's daughter, somehow stifled whatever was going on.
23:51I can remember her showing the pictures of her sitting on her father's lap.
23:58Peter Lorre was a well-known actor in Hollywood.
24:02He actually played a serial murderer in a film, which was sort of ironic.
24:11With her, if you go up to her and ask me to show her a badge.
24:18Yes.
24:19And what do you say?
24:21Um...
24:25Hi, we're police officer.
24:27You should step over to the car, please.
24:30What he said about Cathy Lorre, nobody knew about.
24:34Cathy Lorre didn't even report it.
24:37It was an unreported attempt, all right?
24:40And he tells us about it.
24:43We found her.
24:44She cooperated.
24:45She says, yeah, I was stopped once.
24:49This car came around the corner and just cut us off.
24:53At which point, two men got out of the car.
24:55One, uh, the one on the driver's side, Bianchi, uh, who started questioning me for ID and age.
25:07The other one, Bono, who was on the other side of the car standing in the doorway, with his head just showing over the car.
25:15And both of them were just kind of flashing badges.
25:18And she identifies Bianchi and Bono as having tried to kidnap her, but they backed off.
25:24On top of that, as luck would have it, we got a phone call from Detective Stan White, who's working in Homicide Bureau.
25:39He says, Frank, listen to this.
25:42He says, an attorney who's a friend of mine.
25:45David Wood recognized Bianchi when his name was put out in the paper in his picture.
25:52He said, Bianchi, along with his partner, Angelo Bono, their crime partner, is running an out-call service.
26:00David Wood had got a copy of the Los Angeles Free Press, which had a lot of personal ads in it for out-call stuff and massages.
26:13And so he called one, and a gal shows up.
26:17There was a lady by the name of Becky Spears.
26:23She had one of those credit card machines.
26:26He put the card in, and he got a receipt for Angelo's Trim Shop for services rendered.
26:33Becky was a runaway from Arizona.
26:36It became obvious to him that she wasn't being treated very well.
26:39Did they work together?
26:41Yes, they did.
26:42How closely?
26:44Very closely.
26:47Becky Spears, let us to say, Brehannon, they had worked for Bianchi and Bono as odd coal prostitutes.
26:55So we'd interviewed both young ladies.
27:01After I graduated high school, I did some runway modeling.
27:06I will be honest, I was a very street-savvy kid.
27:13I spent a year going back and forth from Phoenix to California.
27:17I would come and I would visit friends.
27:21One of them asked if I would be interested in meeting this individual that was looking for models.
27:28And I kind of thought, sure, because I thought it was a way of getting into the modeling scene in California.
27:34They flew me out to California to meet Ken, and I thought, okay, well, you know, here's an individual.
27:45They're going to spot my plane fare.
27:47I met him at the airport, picked me up, and I'll never forget.
27:53He said, hey, do you want a drink?
27:55And I said, sure.
27:56Got me an orange juice out of a vending machine.
27:59By the time I got to the car, I knew I had been drugged.
28:09And by then, it was too late.
28:12The next place that I ended up was at Angelo Bono's.
28:20That's when the horror began.
28:26I was forced into prostitution.
28:29They demanded of me to do things that were unimaginable with not only themselves, but with others.
28:37I was being, you know, pursed out to individuals of power.
28:47And I had seen elected officials or law enforcement at Angelo's shop, casually meeting with him.
28:57Do you think that's how they got their badges?
28:59I know that's how they got their badges.
29:02I saw badges being traded.
29:04You know, when you're 17, where do you go?
29:08I'm going to go tell the local police department who I feel are involved.
29:13If I ever decided I wanted to turn them in or run away, they threatened to take me so far out in the country that I would never find my way back or really mess me up so I'd be a vegetable the rest of my life or never look the same.
29:28I was being watched and every move I made, they knew and they knew exactly what I purchased, exactly how much was spent, exactly where I even stopped to get a drink.
29:42So I'd always been thinking in my mind, what do I do? How do I get out of this without being followed?
29:49You don't have a vehicle. You don't have any means of transportation.
29:52So you are driven to different locales.
29:55I knew one of the drivers was planning on leaving Los Angeles to go back home.
30:04One night, early to mid-summer of 1977, Angelo and Ken told me that I needed to be there at 2 o'clock and they were coming and I'd better be there.
30:19I knew something bad was about to happen because the night before my whole place had been completely ransacked.
30:31So I knew it was going to be bad, whatever it was.
30:35You start having the palpitations and you can feel your heartbeat in your carotid artery.
30:40And that little voice inside of me said, get out, get out now.
30:50That's when I asked the driver if he would please come and get me, get me out of here.
30:55I'll pay for anything you need.
31:00And literally, I was out within, I want to say 10 minutes.
31:05And this is just a small part of the story.
31:08Both Sabra and Becky laid out the fact that they were living at Bono's house.
31:17He and Bianchi were quite abusive to them.
31:19It was obvious that they were crime partners.
31:22That was a major break in the case.
31:25Now we felt we would be able to convict Bono of these murders.
31:31Our agreement for the plea to avoid the death penalty was that Bianchi would testify against his cousin.
31:44And in doing so, he would give up his right to go to trial.
31:48In Bellingham, Washington today, Kenneth Bianchi pleaded guilty to murdering two college co-eds.
31:59And he confessed to killing at least five of the women who were victims of the Hillside Strangler in Los Angeles.
32:05Police say Bianchi agreed to confess in exchange for escaping the death penalty in both states.
32:10I can't find the words to express the sorrow I feel for what I've done.
32:21In no way can I take away the pain that I've given to others.
32:26And in no way can I expect forgiveness from anybody.
32:30To even begin to try and live with myself.
32:38I have to take responsibility for what I've done.
32:42And I have to do everything I can to get Angelo Bono.
32:50And to devote my entire life to do everything I possibly can to give my life.
32:57So that nobody else will hopefully follow my, will hopefully won't follow my footsteps.
33:07It's taken me years to actually believe anything that Ken Bianchi says.
33:14Because I've been influenced by what I've read, by the professionals in this case.
33:20I trusted their word that this was a, this was a man who was a liar and a psychopath.
33:27But this man had no presumption of innocence.
33:32Not even from the, the, the defence attorney.
33:36Who did everything he could to get a confession and a guilty verdict.
33:41The job of the prosecutor done by the defence attorney.
33:44You know, I'd like to have my convictions shaken.
33:50Like, I really would.
33:53I more than, as much as anyone, would like to see a simple solution.
33:58Um, uh, with a rightful answer that, that the correct and horrific predator has been put behind the bars.
34:06And in my career, I am no bleeding heart, um, for, um, those that, that cry foul of the criminal justice system.
34:16But, my investigation of the case shows that not only was I finding reasonable doubt that, um, Bianchi was the killer.
34:25Um, there were other candidates, these wide spectrum of, of quite notorious serial killers that, um, were overlooked in the rush to convict Bianchi and Bueno.
34:38The unfortunate truth is that since 1976, in the early part of 1977, Los Angeles was struck with a tsunami of murder.
34:49Law enforcement agencies have 30 detectives on the case, but the murder wave continues.
34:54Police tie one killer to six lanes, the suspect still at large.
34:58I'm just afraid, that's all, really afraid.
35:03All these events were overlapping with the Hillside Strangler crimes.
35:08You're talking about maybe two, even possibly three different suspects.
35:13And when I was able to isolate a wider series of strangle-dump murders of women in the greater Los Angeles area,
35:22I discovered there were uncaught serial killers on the loose at the time.
35:29There was William Chowas, who had kidnapped and body-dumped a woman in Topanga Canyon.
35:36There was the Westside rapist, John Thomas Jr., who'd committed nearly a dozen crimes at the beginning of the spree.
35:44Robert Honenberg escaped to Louisiana after strangling two women in Los Angeles.
35:50So, one has got to consider that at this time, Los Angeles was riddled with predatory men,
36:03more vicious, with even worse backgrounds than Bianchi,
36:08who were killing in singular ways to the Hillside Strangler crimes.
36:13And the key amongst those was Rodney Alcala.
36:16And here they are!
36:20An appearance on the classic 70's TV show, The Dating Game.
36:24This is what led to the capture of a suspected serial killer.
36:27Please welcome Rodney Alcala.
36:32And Alcala is now linked to at least five and as many as ten murders, mostly through DNA testing of old evidence.
36:40Number one, would you say hello to Cheryl, please?
36:43We're going to have a great time together, Cheryl.
36:44For me, what was crucial is the DNA evidence from 2007 showed that he was the killer of Jill Barkham.
36:5418-year-old Jill Barkham was bludgeoned and strangled in the Hollywood Hills.
37:00Her photograph was prominent of what was 13 victims of perceived Hillside Strangler in a conference headed by Ed Henderson,
37:12then head of the Hillside Strangler Task Force.
37:15Bachelor number one.
37:18You're a dirty old man.
37:21Take it.
37:23Come on, over here.
37:25All these other victims, the course of the crimes was considered, sold after the confession of Fen Bianchi.
37:34Rodney Alcala was overlooked as being connected to any of these crimes.
37:43Seeing these possibilities of these predators capturing and killing Los Angeles women gave me faith that the real Hillside Strangler was potentially still at large.
37:57And Ken Bianchi was telling me the truth of his innocence.
38:04The day Bianchi pled guilty, we arrested Bono.
38:19This morning in Glendale, California, Bono was arrested.
38:22Police said he and Bianchi had run a prostitution ring in Los Angeles and had together murdered 10 of the young women, the principal Hillside Strangler victim.
38:30It will be a rain Monday.
38:40What's your reaction at all of this?
38:42Surprises us to think that he would be implicated in this thing because I know he's just nice, anything you want, like these little rapids he has running around, he gives them to kids.
38:54Did you say that he threw his cousin out of the place?
38:57Well, he told him to get out because he was too lazy, he didn't want to work.
38:59So he says he threw him out.
39:01So he came over here and he said he didn't have a place to live.
39:04He came from back east someplace, I don't know where.
39:06And then he got tired of him and he threw him out and all this trouble started, I guess.
39:14I remember hearing about the Hillside Strangler case and that Bono had been arrested.
39:20And I remember thinking, that's the next case of the century.
39:25And when I went in the office that morning, one of our lawyers ran up to me and said, I think we're going to get the Strangler case, but you've got to be the one to go down and go in to see it.
39:39I had a high success rate in signing up clients.
39:47The next thing I know, I'm driving down to L.A. County Jail and going in to see Bono.
39:56I saw Angela walk from the holding area, being accompanied by an officer to this little glass cubicle.
40:05I remember the swagger, the almost cockiness of, aren't I a big shot?
40:12This guy's just been arrested for one of the most serious crimes in L.A.
40:17I have talked to a lot of bad guys, serial killers that did awful things.
40:23And I never felt a feeling of evil like I felt every time I was in that cubicle with Angelo Bono.
40:31He signed the retainer and, you know, I shook hands and left.
40:38It was a real feather in our cap from a criminal defense business standpoint to represent Bono.
40:46But did I think that it was possible that this guy was a psychopath, serial killer?
40:53Yeah, that's what bothered me.
40:55We're going to have our work cut out for us.
40:57Bono has hired six Orange County attorneys to represent him.
41:02They refuse to discuss how they're being paid.
41:05Indicated to us they have file cabinets full of police reports.
41:10All of it have to be gone through.
41:12It's impossible for one or two or even three men to do that.
41:16Additional motions will be filed by Bono's attorneys on December 10th here at the Criminal Courts Building.
41:20A preliminary hearing is scheduled for January 21st, 1980.
41:27Kenneth Bianchi flew today by helicopter to a Los Angeles jail.
41:32As part of a plea bargain, Bianchi will receive life in prison instead of the death penalty.
41:37He also agreed to testify against his cousin, Angelo Buono, in the Hillside Strangler case.
41:42Once we brought him back, it had been at least two years since the crimes had occurred and a year or so after he'd been arrested in Bellingham for the two murders up there.
41:57The lawyers in the district attorney's office, they were struggling.
42:04It was a very difficult case to build and Roger Kelly worked very hard to do it.
42:11The defense is talking about attacking the credibility or the sanity of Mr. Sarabwitmas, Kenneth Bianchi.
42:18Do you feel you can establish him as a credible witness in court?
42:23We wouldn't have filed the case once we thought we did.
42:25We could.
42:27As someone representing Bianchi, I took on a role that was very different from any other defense counsel.
42:36I became part of Angelo Buono's prosecution because I didn't want to see Bianchi convicted for the death penalty.
42:46Bianchi would give me information and I would give it to them.
42:51We worked hard with them to try to build a case against Angelo Buono.
42:56The next step in the process was for there to be a preliminary hearing of Angelo Buono.
43:11The purpose of the preliminary hearing is to determine whether or not there's enough evidence to go to trial.
43:15There was a really significant lack of evidence that Buono did these killings.
43:23The biggest thing we had going for us was the fact that Bianchi moves to Washington in the killing stop.
43:29And they don't start up again.
43:31And then if Bianchi's confession turned out to be wobbly or not believed, they would be left with nothing.
43:38Bianchi testified.
43:39He went through a period there where he started vacillating on his testimony.
43:49Today, after a pretrial hearing in which Bianchi described Buono's role in 10 of the murders, prosecutors announced Bianchi had recanted his earlier confession.
43:58When we started to ask him, well, if you weren't involved in them, how did you know these specific aspects of the killings, burn marks in people's hands, certain areas of the person's body that have been shaved, et cetera, that only either the killer or the police would have awareness of.
44:15He would explain those away by stating that he had seen some photographs that had been shown to him by Angelo Buono.
44:22Bianchi's answers were at odds a lot with the statements he'd previously made to police and to psychiatrists.
44:31He said one time, Buono showed him photographs of the victims.
44:35And then he said later, his own attorneys showed them.
44:39Bianchi went from describing the murderers and accepting responsibility, then went to, I didn't do it, or maybe I did, or I don't remember.
44:48Obviously, he did everything to scuttle the case.
44:56When I was on the stand, I didn't know what the hell I was talking about.
45:00I wasn't trying to remember what I allegedly did, because I didn't have any firsthand knowledge.
45:07I was trying my best to remember what I told the doctors during the evaluations in Bellingham, because so much I had said was untrue, that it was just one inconsistency, one messed up version after the other, and I couldn't keep things straight.
45:30My testimony was wholly unreliable.
45:34This may be one of the last times Hillside Strangler suspect Angelo Buono makes the ride from county jail to the criminal courts building.
45:41The case against Buono is falling apart.
45:43Roger Kelly was investigating the circumstance of the killings of each of those victims, comparing them to Ken Bianchi's version of Vance.
45:56And in each and every crime, he was coming up that these confessions were bunkum, that they did not match the circumstances of the crime.
46:05That resulted in Roger Kelly doing something extraordinary.
46:14And that was to write a memo to his own boss, the district attorney, describing the bailings of Ken Bianchi as the main witness, to the extent that it would be dangerous to try Angelo Buono for these murders.
46:33Ken?
46:38David.
46:40Yes, you look very dapper.
46:42Oh, there you go. Well, you're looking good too, Ken.
46:45The exciting news is the memo.
46:50This is the July 2, 1981 memo from Roger Kelly, which I'd been trying to get for nine years.
46:59It's absolutely amazing if nobody ever showed it to me.
47:02That's extraordinary in itself, but I'm going to read out some of the memo to you.
47:09And this is Christine Weckler.
47:11In this case, like in all previous cases, Bianchi tells of how Buono used handcuffs to restrain the victims.
47:22He rolled her to the side and took her handcuffs off.
47:29The LAPD analyzed evidence report shows that none of the doctors, coroners, felt that any of the ligature impressions of any of the bodies could be associated with standard adjustable handcuffs.
47:44I mean, what particularly struck me is the detail that they knew of the ligatures, that there was no way that they could have been handcuffed.
47:54I mean, that's very significant. I actually believed what was false under hypnosis. Nobody said, wait a minute, wait a minute, that's not true. I mean, it's not just one false. It's literally hundreds. I should have come within 10 miles of a witness stand in this case.
48:14Jarred by conflicting testimony of their key witness, prosecutors in California's Hillside Strangler case today asked the judge to dismiss 10 murder charges against suspect Angelo Buono.
48:29We are making this motion on the base of the evidence today, particularly relating to the credibility or lack of it thereof of the witness Kenneth Bianchi that there is insufficient evidence to convict Mr. Buono beyond a reasonable doubt.
48:44I think all of us are disappointed that we are at this position today.
48:49We're pleased that the district attorney's office has moved to dismiss this case.
48:53It was a controversial move by the DA's office, particularly in a case with that many murders, that many complications.
49:06That was the first case I was involved in where the DA made a decision to dismiss it after we had filed it. It's just bullshit.
49:16When you put your case together and you take it to the DA's office and you have to convince them that you have a good enough case for them to file and get a conviction.
49:27And then come out and say, well, we made a mistake. It was a real blow.
49:32They kept talking to Ken and they got close. And in effect, they became one of his victims. That's his M.O. I mean, he works everybody all the time.
49:44You just can't pay attention to that. You pay attention to what he's told that you've corroborated. How they were killed. The fact that all the girls were put in that one chair. The fibers that were used.
50:02And the mark found on Weckler. Who else would know that? All this work, all this effort, all these resources. We knew we had the killers. We had a case.
50:21Now we're just going to flush it down the toilet.
50:24Now we're just going to close it up.
50:26We're just going to close it up.
50:30Now it's just like the moment we saw it before we get to go with the murder.
50:32Now we're just going to close it up.
50:34We're just going to close it up.
50:37Now let's see.
50:39Now.
50:40Now.
50:42Now anyway.
50:43Now.
50:44Next.
50:45Now.
50:46First.
50:47What?
50:48Now.
50:49Then.
50:50Now.
50:51Now.
50:52Now.
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