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00:28You
00:35He said how you gonna get a girl from always in the apartment to the garage? He says I'm like
00:40you knock her out or something
00:48And Angela went behind her and he grabbed her one arm I grabbed her other arm
01:00There's a smile that mean you know, I knew he approved
01:23You'll hear it will kill her
01:26After watching 17 hours of videotapes of Ken Bianchi under hypnosis claiming he was guilty
01:37What I was seeing was a man broken down
01:44Put through psychiatric excesses
01:48To confess against himself to the point in which he believed his own false confession
01:56And you remember where she was taken
01:58there there is
02:01With the session of the first girl without the use of the Los Angeles
02:08Material the best year of reports. I couldn't really tell you exactly where the bodies were dumped
02:16My confessions, I said under hypnosis, were not reliable
02:21They did not match up with the facts
02:25My lawyer can't be materials for the case through a discovery
02:32And I essentially realized that I had no first-hand information about the crimes, or who committed the crimes
02:38That all the information was second-hand information from news reports
02:43The two women strangled were stuffed in the back area of the car
02:48The police files, or cops
02:50What I read was prompted in my memory during hypnosis subconsciously
02:57and I came out of it believing that I committed crimes
03:02I had literally false memory syndrome
03:08I had literally false memory syndrome
03:10But Angelo, has he killed anybody?
03:12Yep.
03:13How many?
03:14He has.
03:16Five girls.
03:18Did you watch him kill them all?
03:20You bet I did.
03:21You can be sure that he killed those five?
03:24Positively, without a doubt.
03:26Did you kill any down there?
03:27Yep, I did.
03:28How many?
03:29Four of them.
03:32Markins would ask one leading question after the other.
03:36And he wasn't the only one that asked leading questions.
03:39Allison 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. Allison had a book coming out.
04:04And he wanted to get the world record for most multiple personality cases, you know?
04:10And so he may have been leading with information.
04:14Why have you decided to not kill anyone?
04:19What do I know?
04:20Is that when you decided to move?
04:22I wanted to.
04:23I wanted to fucking kill more broads, you know?
04:27When you're under hypnosis, you're susceptible to somebody telling you that a memory happened
04:34when it didn't happen, creating false memories.
04:37So a clinician, if they're hypnotizing you, they could tell them what their memory is when
04:43it 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 that particular night in January the 10th.
04:5611.
04:5611, something like that.
04:57Yeah, okay.
04:59There was actually a famous study called Lost in the Mall.
05:08Basically, you could implant the memory of being lost in a mall with hypnosis.
05:13And 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 a mall as a child.
05:26Believe it or not, it's pretty easy to implant a lot of things into a person's mind.
05:31Yeah.
05:35No one bothered to warn me that there were real dangers to using hypnosis to retrieve or refresh memories.
05:42That once hypnotized, there would be a tendency to recall those memories that never existed,
05:47yet be convinced those memories are real and more.
05:53With the hypnosis, they led him down a path of, you know, now confess, and now he's convinced he did
06:01it.
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.
06:18You want to play games?
06:19I'll play games.
06:21I want him out of the way.
06:23You don't, wait, no.
06:24You don't fucking understand.
06:33Just keep looking at one.
06:36Just keep thinking over and over in your mind that 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.
06:48There are different techniques that get people to be in a state where they're susceptible to things that you are
06:54now going to lead them towards.
06:56Close your eyes.
06:58Take some deep breaths.
07:00Imagine I have no desire to smoke.
07:04But here's a fun fact about hypnosis.
07:08Unless 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.
07:20Your head dropping down, 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.
07:36Hold on.
07:38When you've got someone who's hypnotized, it's often really slow and quiet and figuring it out in a haze.
07:48None of this was the behavior of Ken.
07:50It's way too awake.
07:56There's a lot of energy.
07:57There's a lot of movement.
08:02I 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.
08:12But 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.
08:28Hi, Dr. Orr.
08:29Hi.
08:30Good to see you.
08:31How you doing?
08:32One of the experts I have is Dr. Martin Orr.
08:36He was a world expert in hypnosis and looking at people who are simulating being hypnotized.
08:42He seems like a pleasant, cooperative individual.
08:46But whenever I see an individual in a forensic situation, somebody accused of premeditated murder facing a death penalty, I
08:56always have to ask myself,
08:57is this individual telling me how he really feels or is he malingering or faking?
09:04When Orr comes in, he does a couple of pretty clever things.
09:08One of them, he's like, all right, what if we suggest that Dean Brett, who is Ken's attorney, we're going
09:16to have him show up, but an imaginary Dean Brett.
09:19I asked him to hallucinate Mr. Brett, his attorney.
09:24Shortly, I'm going to ask you to open your eyes.
09:28When do I do?
09:30What?
09:30Even Brett.
09:32The Brett will have come in.
09:34And he will be sitting in the chair right beside you.
09:39Open your eyes.
09:41Okay, Mr. Brett.
09:42What's the call?
09:43Hey, Dean.
09:44How you doing?
09:47I'll leave you to talk to him for a few moments.
09:50I'll be back.
09:55The immediacy at which, you know, Ken jumps up, shakes the hand of Dean Brett, and, you know, right there
10:02it feels like malingering.
10:04Even 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.
10:16What is his, is he shaven?
10:19Oh, no.
10:19Oh, he's beard.
10:21God, you can see him.
10:23You must be able to see him.
10:25His hair isn't cold as usual.
10:28You wouldn't say that, in my opinion.
10:30I mean, you wouldn't be saying, like, don't you see him?
10:32It's like you assume a person sees him.
10:34You 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?
10:57Dean Brett is here.
10:59Dean Brett is here.
11:01How can you be in two places?
11:04Me.
11:05Stay home.
11:08Wait for him.
11:09Wait for him.
11:13It's real.
11:14It's real.
11:15I didn't know.
11:17Because he's not there anymore.
11:20In my opinion, this all feels like a charade.
11:24He's seen Three Faces of Eve, the film, which is like an education on how to fake a multiple personality.
11:29Have 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.
11:41We've got Sybil.
11:42And I used to think that everybody was like this.
11:45That they would just naturally wake up and be someplace else or a whole lot older or wearing another dress.
11:52It exploded to the point where now, in the court systems, this is becoming a question.
11:58Can we use this for the defense?
12:01The judge ruled today that Billy Milligan was not responsible for the crimes of rape, kidnapping, and robbery.
12:07That man was found not guilty by reason of insanity because he had multiple personalities.
12:12It was a huge deal.
12:14A couple months after that, Kenneth Bianchi's case.
12:18So 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?
12:34Anything I fucking wanted.
12:37We're watching the videotape.
12:39We reject the tape out.
12:41I said, what do you think?
12:43He said, well, look what I wrote.
12:44His notebook said total bullshit, and mine said bullshit.
12:49It was a joke.
12:50It was a joke.
12:52There's a performative nature to this, and I believe Kenneth Bianchi has been performing his whole life.
12:59What's your name?
13:01Steve.
13:02One of the psychologists said, who is that now?
13:06He says, that's Steve.
13:07Steve got a last name?
13:09He did have a last name.
13:12What was it?
13:16I can't remember.
13:18What's Steve?
13:19Walker.
13:20Walker.
13:20Oh, where did he get that name?
13:23He says, Walker.
13:25Steve Walker.
13:26I said, oh, he forgot this name.
13:29And he jumps, and he went and found this piece of paper that says Steve Walker written on it.
13:36So I was like, woo-hoo.
13:38And then there were some transcripts that were found from local schools in L.A. and Bianchi's name.
13:45It 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 we found.
13:54Could you tell us who it belongs to?
13:59She looks at it, and she says, well, I can tell you right now it doesn't belong to that name.
14:05This transcript belongs to an individual by, I think it was Thomas Stephen Walker.
14:10And we looked at each other, we said, bingo, we got you.
14:14They 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?
14:29He 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.
14:49The one ad we found was a one ad for a counselor or psychologist.
14:54Send your resume and transcripts.
14:58610 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, and he realized that he had been
15:15caught in one of his major lies.
15:20That was a massive blow to the defense, because now they realize we're screwed.
15:26Our insanity defense is crumbling.
15:29This person is some dude that he conned.
15:32Once they got this report, Bianchi decided, hey, I've got a snowball's chance in hell.
15:38You know, I've got to change my plea.
15:45My defense has been destroyed.
15:49Dean Grant, my defense lawyer, told me in no uncertain terms, you're going to get the death penalty in both
15:57states.
15:58You're going to be put to death.
15:59And it scared the hell out of me.
16:01It scared me straight.
16:02So I decided I needed to change the plea agreement and testify against Angelo.
16:11He was attempting to do anything he could to stop the state from killing him, including making false confessions against
16:19himself and others.
16:21He was a broken man who could be manipulated.
16:25The Los Angeles District Attorney didn't feel like he had enough to arrest Angelo Bono.
16:33Angelo Bono was still on the streets.
16:35When I'd see him in the restaurant, I would just get really scared, and I just, you know, I didn't
16:39want 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.
16:51So, 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.
17:09There had been unconfirmed reports of plea bargaining efforts in the case, including reports of Bianchi waiving extradition to Los
17:17Angeles and changing his not guilty plea to the Bellingham charges in exchange for Whatcom County not asking for the
17:25death penalty.
17:26Bellingham 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 was like.
17:44If their case wasn't very good and they couldn't convict him, I didn't want to give up the death penalty
17:49here in Washington.
17:51So, I wanted to make sure they had a reasonable case so that if I was going to give something
17:56up, it was reasonable to give up.
18:02Once 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.
18:14LAPD 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,
18:27and he's telling the detectives what they did when they got back to Angelo's business.
18:35I'm Christina Weckler.
18:37After she was dead and nude on the floor,
18:41he 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 her cubit area a couple of times.
19:02We've got a series of murder photos when 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.
19:22Then 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 at the wall,
19:33so he had no room to move.
19:35We 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.
20:02It's interviewing you, knowing what you know, what you did.
20:05What I knew then or what I know now.
20:08Ken, we're not going to play that game.
20:09There's a difference.
20:11Wait a minute.
20:13Just be quiet.
20:13I'm not going to play that either.
20:14There is a big difference.
20:16Be quiet and listen to me.
20:18We're not playing that game.
20:20Don't think you're going to try and run it through on us.
20:22We're interested in what you know,
20:24what you did, what Bodo did, and his involvement.
20:27When I say, listen to me,
20:29don't talk to me in that tone of voice.
20:30I'm not some kind of animal.
20:31Listen, you can listen to us,
20:33and 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, all right?
20:39That's all we want, and it's not going to work any other way.
20:44Fine.
20:48We want to talk to you about Cindy Hutzman's 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.
21:07Tom's on the trunk of the car.
21:10And 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,
21:27because the car landed, put it up.
21:30We thought the car had been pushed over backwards.
21:33We're saying, wait a minute.
21:34Is he telling us the truth or not?
21:36Then we went to CHP, and had a report written.
21:41They came back, and they said,
21:43that car was driven in.
21:45They pushed it over, front first.
21:48It auto-rotated, because it hit big boulders
21:51that turned it around, and it landed facing up the hill.
21:57And the other thing they told us,
21:58they put every girl they took to the shop ligatured,
22:03and put them in one chair in one room.
22:08The three of us walked into the house,
22:09and said, why don't you have a seat?
22:14They pointed to the leather chair,
22:16and she sat down in it.
22:20And I turned around and got behind her
22:23when she was sitting in a chair.
22:31On the Wagner case,
22:33the palms of her hands had burn marks,
22:36and we were fortunate enough to pull fibers out of the chair
22:40and match fibers that were on Wagner's hands.
22:44There were so many things he told us.
22:47that only the killer would know.
22:51Another thing that we were able to corroborate
22:54was from one of the various interviews
22:56by the psychologists and psychiatrists.
22:59The thing with the hillside killings
23:01was the pretending to be police officers,
23:05that sort of thing.
23:13That was one of the more important things he told us.
23:17how they were operating.
23:20And it's exactly what they were doing.
23:25Were there people who were considered
23:29as victims, but then rejected?
23:34Yes.
23:35Peter Lorre's daughter was going to be a victim.
23:41Somehow, the notoriety, the fact that who she was,
23:44you know, Peter Lorre's daughter,
23:47somehow stifled whatever was going on.
23:51I can remember her showing the pictures of her
23:54sitting on her father's lap.
23:58Peter Lorre was a well-known actor in Hollywood.
24:02I actually played a serial murderer in a film,
24:06which was sort of ironic.
24:10With her, can you go up to her
24:14and can you show her a badge?
24:18Yes.
24:19And what do you say?
24:25Hi, we're police officer.
24:27You should step over to the car, please.
24:30What he said about Kathy Lorre,
24:33nobody knew about.
24:34Kathy 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 corroborated.
24:46She says, yeah, I was stopped once.
24:48This car came around the corner
24:50and just cut us off.
24:52At which point, two men got out of the car.
24:56One, uh...
24:58The one on the driver's side, Bianchi,
25:01uh, who started questioning me for ID and age.
25:07The other one, Bono,
25:09who was on the other side of the car
25:10standing in the doorway
25:14with his head just showing over the car,
25:15and both of them were just kind of flashing badges.
25:18She identifies Bianchi and Bono
25:21as having tried to kidnap her,
25:23but they backed off.
25:31On top of that, as luck would have it,
25:34we get a phone call from Detective Stan White,
25:38who's working Homicide Bureau,
25:40he says, Frank, listen to this.
25:42He says, an attorney who's a friend of mine,
25:45David Wood, recognized Bianchi
25:48when his name was put out in the paper in his picture.
25:52He said, Bianchi, along with his partner,
25:56Angelo Bono,
25:57their crime partner, is running an out-call service.
26:03David Wood had got a copy of the Los Angeles Free Press,
26:07which had a lot of personal ads in it
26:10for out-call stuff and massages.
26:13So he called one, and a gal shows up.
26:17It was a lady by the name of Becky Spears.
26:23She had one of those credit card machines.
26:26He'd put the card in it.
26:28He got a receipt for Angelo's Trim Shop for services rendered.
26:34Becky was a runaway from Arizona.
26:35It became obvious to him
26:37that she wasn't being treated very well.
26:39Did they work together?
26:41Yes, they did.
26:42How closely?
26:45Very closely.
26:47Becky Spears led us to Sabra Hannon.
26:50They had worked for Bianchi and Bono
26:53as odd-call prostitutes.
26:56So we'd interviewed both young ladies.
27:01After I graduated high school,
27:03I did some runway modeling.
27:06I will be honest, I was a very street-savvy kid.
27:12I spent a year going back and forth from Phoenix to California.
27:18I would come and I would visit friends.
27:21One of them asked if I would be interested
27:24in meeting this individual that was looking for models.
27:28And I kind of thought, sure, because I thought
27:31it was a way of getting into the modeling scene in California.
27:40They flew me out to California to meet Ken,
27:43and I thought, OK, well, you know, here's an individual.
27:45They're going to spot my plane fare.
27:49I 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.
28:05By the time I got to the car, I knew I had been drugged.
28:09And by then, it was too late.
28:14The next place that I ended up was at Angelo Bono's.
28:20That's when the horror began.
28:26I was forced into prostitution.
28:29And they demanded of me to do things that were unimaginable with not
28:35only themselves, but with others.
28:38I was being, you know, pursed out to individuals of power.
28:46And I had seen elected officials or law enforcement at Angelo's shop,
28:54casually meeting with him.
28:57Do you think that's how they got their badges?
28:59I know that's how they got their badges.
29:01I saw badges being traded.
29:06You know, when you're 17, where do you go?
29:09I'm going to go tell the local police department who I feel are involved.
29:14If I ever decided I wanted to turn them in or run away,
29:19they threatened to take me so far out in the country that I would never find my way back
29:23or really mess me up so I'd be a vegetable the rest of my life
29:28or never look the same.
29:33I was being watched, and every move I made, they knew.
29:37And they knew exactly what I purchased, exactly how much was spent,
29:40exactly where I even stopped to get a drink.
29:46So I had always been thinking in my mind, what do I do?
29:48How do I get out of this without being followed?
29:51You don't have a vehicle.
29:52You don't have any means of transportation.
29:55So you are driven to different locales.
29:59I knew one of the drivers was planning on leaving Los Angeles to go back home.
30:07One night, early to mid-summer of 1977,
30:13Angelo and Ken told me that I needed to be there at 2 o'clock,
30:17and they were coming, and I'd better be there.
30:22I knew something bad was about to happen.
30:25Because the night before, my whole place had been completely ransacked.
30:31So I knew it was going to be bad, whatever it was.
30:36You start having the palpitations,
30:38and you can feel your heartbeat and your carotid artery.
30:42And that little voice inside of me said,
30:45get out, get out now.
30:50That's when I asked the driver if he would please come and get me.
30:54Get me out of here.
30:56I'll pay for anything you need.
30:59And literally, I was out within, I want to say, 10 minutes.
31:05And this is just a small part of the story.
31:11Both 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.
31:26Now we felt we would be able to convict Bono of these murders.
31:35Our agreement for the plea to avoid the death penalty
31:39was that Bianchi would testify against his cousin.
31:44And in doing so, he would give up his right to go to trial.
31:53In Bellingham, Washington today,
31:55Kenneth Bianchi pleaded guilty to murdering two college coeds.
31:58And he confessed to killing at least five of the women
32:01who were victims of the hillside strangler in Los Angeles.
32:05Police say Bianchi agreed to confess in exchange
32:07for escaping the death penalty in both states.
32:13I can't find the words to express the sorrow I feel for what I've done.
32:20In no way can I take away the pain they have given to others.
32:26And in no way can I expect forgiveness from anybody.
32:34To even begin to try and live with myself.
32:38I have to take responsibility for what I've done.
32:44And I have to do everything I can to get Angelo Bono.
32:51And to devote my entire life.
32:54To do everything I possibly can to give my life.
32:58So that nobody else will hopefully follow my,
33:02well hopefully won't follow my footsteps.
33:07It's taken me years to actually believe anything that Ken Bianchi says.
33:13Because I've been influenced by what I've read,
33:16by the professionals in this case.
33:19I trusted their word that this was a,
33:22this was a man who was a liar and a psychopath.
33:26But this man had no presumption of innocence.
33:31Not even from the defence attorney who did everything he could
33:38to get a confession and a guilty verdict.
33:40The job of the prosecutor done by the defence attorney.
33:46I'd like to have my convictions shaken.
33:50Like I really would.
33:52I more than, as much as anyone,
33:55would like to see a simple solution.
33:59With a rightful answer.
34:01That the correct and horrific predator has been put behind bars.
34:06And in my career I am no bleeding heart
34:11for those that cry foul of the criminal justice system.
34:16But,
34:17my investigation of the case
34:20shows that not only was I finding reasonable doubt that, um,
34:24Bianchi was the killer.
34:25Um, there were other candidates.
34:28These wide spectrum of, of quite notorious serial killers that, um,
34:33were overlooked in the rush to convict Bianchi and Bueno.
34:39The unfortunate truth is that since 1976 in the early part of 1977,
34:45Los Angeles was struck with a tsunami of murder.
34:48Law enforcement agencies have 30 detectives on the case, but the murder wave continues.
34:54Police tie one killer to six legs.
34:56The suspect still at large.
34:58So I'm just afraid.
34:59That's all.
35:00I'm really afraid.
35:02All these events were overlapping with the hillside strangler crimes.
35:08You're talking about maybe two, even possibly three different suspects.
35:12And when I was able to isolate a wider series of strangle dump murders of women in the greater
35:20Los Angeles area, I discovered there were uncaught serial killers on the loose at the time.
35:28There was William Choas, who had kidnapped and body dumped a woman in Topanga Canyon.
35:35There was the West Side rapist, John Thomas Jr., who'd committed nearly a dozen crimes at the
35:41beginning of the spree. Robert Honenberg escaped to Louisiana after strangling two women in Los Angeles.
35:54So, 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, who were killing in similar ways to
36:10the hillside strangler crimes. And the key amongst those was Rodney Alcala.
36:17And here they are.
36:20An appearance on the classic 70s TV show, The Dating Game. This is what led to the capture
36:25of a suspected serial killer. Please welcome Rodney Alcala.
36:32Alcala is now linked to at least five and as many as 10 murders, mostly through DNA testing of old
36:38evidence. Number one, would you say hello to Cheryl, please? We're going to have a great time together,
36:44Cheryl. For me, what was crucial is the DNA evidence from 2007 showed that he was the killer
36:53of Jill Barkham. 18-year-old Jill Barkham was bludgeoned and strangled in the Hollywood Hills.
36:59Her photograph was prominent of what was 13 victims of perceived hillside strangler in a conference
37:09headed by Ed Henderson, the then head of the hillside strangler task force.
37:15Bachelor number one. You're a dirty old man. Take it. Come on, over here.
37:27All these other victims, because the crimes was considered, sold after the confession of
37:33Ken Bianchi. Rodney 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
37:51faith that the real hillside strangler was potentially still at large.
37:57And Ken Bianchi was telling me the truth of his innocence.
38:10The day Bianchi pled guilty, we arrested Bono.
38:18This morning in Glendale, California, Bono was arrested. Police said he and Bianchi had run a
38:23prostitution ring in Los Angeles and had together murdered 10 of the young women,
38:27the principal hillside strangler victim. They will be arraigned Monday.
38:39What'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
38:49nice, anything you want, like these little rabbits 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. So he came over here and he said he didn't have a place
39:04to live.
39:04He came from back east someplace. I don't know where.
39:07And then he got tired of him. They 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.
39:26And when I went in the office that morning, one of our lawyers ran up to me and said,
39:32I think we're going to get the strangler case, but you've got to be the one to go down
39:37and go in to see him. I had a high success rate in signing up clients.
39:47The next thing I know, I'm driving down to LA County Jail and going in to see Bono.
39:55I saw Angela walk from the holding area being accompanied by an officer to this little glass
40:03cubicle. I 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 LA.
40:16I 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
40:30Bono.
40:32He signed the retainer and, you know, I shook hands and left. It was a real feather in our cap
40:39from 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? Yeah,
40:53that's what bothered me. But we're going to have our work cut out for us.
40:58Bono has hired six Orange County attorneys to represent him. They refuse to discuss how they're
41:03being paid. Vindicated to us, they have file cabinets full of police reports, all that have
41:10to be gone through. It's impossible for one or two or even three men to do that. Additional motions
41:16will be filed by Bono's attorneys on December 10th here at the criminal court's 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.
41:45Once we brought him back, it had been at least two years since the crimes had occurred,
41:52and a year or so after he'd been arrested in Bellingham for the two murders up there.
41:58The lawyers in the district attorney's office, they were struggling. It was a very difficult case
42:06to build, and Roger Kelly worked very hard to do it. The defense is talking about attacking the
42:13credibility or the sanctity of our witness Kenneth Bianchi. Do you feel you can establish him as a
42:21credible witness in court? We wouldn't have filed the case unless we thought we did. We could.
42:26Someone 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
42:44penalty. Bianchi would give me information and I would give it to them. We worked hard with them to
42:53try to build a case against Angelo Buono.
43:03The next step in the process was for there to be a preliminary hearing of Angelo Buono.
43:10The purpose of the preliminary hearing is to determine whether or not there's enough evidence
43:14to go to trial. There 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 killings stop,
43:29and they don't start up again. And then if Bianchi's confession turned out to be wobbly
43:35or not believed, they would be left with nothing.
43:42Bianchi testified. He went through a period there where he started vacillating on his testimony.
43:51Today, after a pre-trial hearing in which Bianchi described Buono's role in 10 of the murders,
43:55prosecutors announced Bianchi had recanted his earlier confession.
43:59When we started to ask him, well, if you weren't involved in them, how did you know these specific
44:04aspects of the killings, burn marks on people's hands, certain areas of the person's body that
44:10have been shaved, etc., 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
44:21him by Angela Buono. Bianchi's answers were at odds a lot with the statements he'd previously made
44:28to police and to psychiatrists. He said one time, Buono showed him photographs of the victims,
44:35and then he said later, his own attorneys showed them. Bianchi went from describing the murderers and
44:43accepting responsibility, then went to, I didn't do it, or maybe I did, or I don't remember.
44:49Obviously, 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,
45:17because so much I had said was untrue, that it was just one inconsistency,
45:25one messed up version after the other, and I couldn't keep things straight. My testimony was
45:31wholly unreliable. This may be one of the last times Hillside Strangler suspect Angelo Buono makes
45:38the ride from county jail to the criminal courts building. The case against Buono is falling apart.
45:45Roger Kelly was investigating the circumstance of the killings of each of those victims,
45:52comparing them to Ken Bianchi's version of Vance, and in each and every crime,
45:58he was coming up that these confessions were bunkum, that they did not match the circumstances of the
46:05crime. That resulted in Roger Kelly doing something extraordinary. And that was to write a memo to his
46:16own boss, the district attorney, describing the failings of Ken Bianchi as the main witness,
46:24to the extent that it would be dangerous to cry Angelo Buono for these murders.
46:36Ken?
46:41Oh, there you go. Well, you're looking good too, Ken. The exciting news is the memo.
46:49This is the July 2, 1981 memo from Roger Kelly, which I'd been trying to get for nine years.
46:59It's absolutely amazing. Nobody ever showed it to me. That's extraordinary in itself, but I'm going to
47:06read out some of the memo to you. And this is Christine Weckler.
47:13In this case, like in all previous cases, Bianchi tells of how Buono used handcuffs to restrain the victims.
47:24He rolled her to the side and took her handcuffs off. The LAPD analyzed evidence report shows that none of
47:34the doctors, coroners, felt that any of the ligature impressions of any of the bodies could be associated
47:42with standard adjustable handcuffs. I mean, what particularly struck me is the detail that they
47:49knew of the ligatures, that there was no way that they could have been handcuffed.
47:55I mean, that's very significant. I mean, I actually believed what was false under hypnosis.
48:02Nobody said, wait a minute, wait a minute, that's not true. I mean, it's not just one false.
48:08It's literally hundreds. I should have come within 10 miles of a witness stand in this case.
48:18Jard by conflicting testimony of their key witness, prosecutors in California's Hillside
48:23Strangler case today asked the judge to dismiss 10 murder charges against suspect Angelo Buono.
48:30We're making this motion on the base of the evidence today, particularly relating to the
48:35credibility or lack of it thereof of the witness, Kenneth Bianchi, that there is insufficient evidence
48:40to convict Mr. Buono beyond a reasonable doubt. I think all of us are disappointed that we are
48:47at this position today. We're pleased that the district attorney's office has just moved to dismiss
48:52this case. It was a controversial move by the DA's office, particularly in a case with that many
49:02murders, that many complications. That was the first case I was involved in, where the DA had made a
49:10decision to dismiss it after we had filed it. It's just bullshit. When you put your case together and
49:20you take it to the DA's office, and you have to convince them that you have a good enough case
49:24for them
49:24to file and get a conviction. And then come out and say, well, we made a mistake. It was a
49:31real blow.
49:33They kept talking to Ken, and they got close. And in effect, they became one of his victims.
49:41That's his M.O. I mean, he works everybody all the time. You just can't pay attention to that. You
49:48pay
49:48attention to what he's told you, that you've corroborated. How they were killed. The fact that all the
49:57girls were put in that one chair. The fibers that were used. And the mark found on Weckler. Who else
50:07would
50:07know that? All this work, all this effort, all these resources. We knew we had the killers.
50:17We had a case. Now we're just going to flush it down the toilet.
51:10And we're just going toorcise the road. But looking for people who will just call open
51:13surprise, we are going to blow up the right of the toilet.
51:13But moving on to the lower the toilet. And that's the top of the toilet.
51:15And looking back, you're going to cost it down the right.
51:16You're going to need that. Queer of a extermination of that.
51:25Transcription by CastingWords
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