- 5 weeks ago
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01:00It was a county fire department helicopter that first spotted the victim's car
01:21over a cliff on Angeles Crest Highway above La Cunada.
01:25Twenty-year-old Cindy Lee Hutspeth died by strangulation.
01:31Ms. Hutspeth's nude body was found stuffed in the car's trunk.
01:35There were marks on her neck and chest.
01:36That's the word from the coroner's office,
01:38lending just a little more credence to the contention
01:41that the tall, attractive girl was the hillside strangler's victim.
01:44We are seeing that she is a strangler victim, yes.
01:49Somebody, one killer, or a team, has been murdering young girls.
01:53Lots of them.
01:54The other victims were found nude on hillsides,
01:57also in the northern part of Los Angeles County.
02:00They ranged in age from 12 to 28.
02:06Darkness manifests however it can, in whatever way it can.
02:12Big fucking deal, so I killed a couple of kinds.
02:14It's no fucking big deal.
02:16I killed four.
02:17I got one in a couple.
02:20How's it going?
02:22Strangling them all.
02:23It's the easiest way to go.
02:27What's the attitude of this community today?
02:30It's very tense.
02:32It's very nervous.
02:33It just scares me.
02:36I can't, I'm afraid to go anywhere alone.
02:39The places where they found the bodies were our backyard.
02:42What were her last moments like?
02:43What were her last moments like?
02:44They brutally killed these women.
02:482,081 clues have been reported to the task force.
02:52All of them are investigated as quickly as they possibly can be.
02:57We don't think that enough is being done.
03:00And fast enough.
03:01We want that!
03:03It was a collective trauma broadcast into people's living rooms.
03:09No matter what the situation is, you fight.
03:12You fight for your life.
03:13The city of Los Angeles, our first stop, Hollywood.
03:18Suddenly, the film studios, that had always seemed bigger than life, were right behind the scenes.
03:22The city of Los Angeles, our first stop, Hollywood.
03:25The city of Los Angeles, our first stop, Hollywood.
03:44Suddenly, the film studios, that had always seemed bigger than life, were right there.
03:52Star-studded, isn't it?
03:53It's incredible, isn't it?
03:55It was in the music, it was on television, and people believed it.
04:01So beautiful out.
04:02This could only happen in L.A.
04:05They're hearing all this stuff, they're seeing these things.
04:09It'll be great.
04:10My life will be just like paradise.
04:12Come to L.A.
04:13L.A. will surprise you.
04:17Well, with the dreamers...
04:21...come the predators.
04:25Sharks go where the food is.
04:33Nobody's worth it out there.
04:35It's just a fucked up world.
04:37I want to kill those broads.
04:39This was the highlight of, you know, the discos and the private nightclubs.
04:49After nightclubs would close, men would drive down Sunset Boulevard.
04:53There was 50, 60 girls working on one corner.
04:57The girls on the street came in contact with everything and all the lowlifes, that's for sure.
05:05So I went out on the streets and interviewed many of them.
05:10Lois Lee, a sociologist who works with prostitutes in the Hollywood area.
05:14Because of the adversity, people who didn't care about prostitutes, the way law enforcement treated them.
05:22I met girls on the street and ended up meeting Yolanda Washington.
05:28Yolanda was a very pretty little black girl who was working to support her daughter.
05:34Yolanda came to L.A. to be a model and this is what happens so often.
05:44People come to a place like Los Angeles and they try to make it and they find themselves just scraping to survive.
05:50And she basically was forced into survival type sex work in Hollywood.
05:58Friends called me up one day and said, remember that girl you met on the streets with us?
06:04And I go, well, which one was that?
06:05And she says, the black girl and it was Yolanda.
06:08And I said, yeah.
06:13And she said, she's dead.
06:16Getting killed was an occupational hazard.
06:25She was 19 years old.
06:27She was a sex worker.
06:28She was found posed.
06:30She was naked.
06:31She'd been strangled to death.
06:34And she was found on Forest Lawn right near Warner Brothers Studios.
06:40I talked to the police and I took them out to introduce them to the girls because the girls on the street had information.
06:46And LAPD homicide just snubbed them.
06:50They said to me, what do you think?
06:51The whores are going to solve this murder investigation?
06:56Nobody really cared.
06:59At the time she died, I don't even know if there was an investigation.
07:05It's the belief that Yolanda was working under the control of a pimp.
07:10In the 70s, there were sex workers being murdered all over Los Angeles.
07:19Everybody kind of turned a blind eye.
07:21Prostitutes were seen as they're only hurting themselves, so who cares?
07:25That was the attitude.
07:29Predators can single you out from the herd, separate you, and you're gone before anyone even misses you.
07:36Ah!
07:44A-ha!
07:53I'd only been in homicide a year and a half.
07:57I can't tell you the exact numbers per year,
07:59but we worked with a number of the homicides in Los Angeles County.
08:03nothing really surprises you after a while
08:07I got a call at home said that they had a case a dead young female nude laying in the front yard
08:23the witness who lived there knew that there are a number of kids that walk out going to school
08:30so he covered the body with a tarp the way the crime scene was laid out she was laying in a bed
08:39of like ice plant whoever placed her there checked out that spot for whatever reason which I couldn't
08:48understand we processed the scene she'd been strangled you can see ligatures on her ankles
08:56canvas the neighborhood no evidence no witnesses homicides were common we had four or five hundred
09:09a year which is more than one a day it was just another young lady that was murdered and dumped
09:20but before we get our victim identified Glendale Police Department calls us and say they've got a
09:31case where a young female was dumped nude about seven eight miles away from ours
09:41the victim was Lisa Kasten she was a 21 year old waitress and dancer working with a troop called LA
09:52knockers she was last seen leaving her place of work on Hollywood Boulevard
09:57Lisa was found nude with very distinctive ligature marks at the side of the road by the Chevy Chase
10:08country club in Glendale the first victim was still unidentified and then the coroner's office
10:14he went to the Lisa Kasten autopsy we had the corner pull both bodies out put them side by side and as
10:24soon as you looked at him there was no doubt they had the exact same ligature marks on the throat
10:32on the wrists and on the ankles looks like they came out of a xerox machine at that point we knew we
10:46were looking for individual responsible for both murders whoever killed Kasten killed our Jane Doe
10:53one of the first things we did is we looked for other body dumps that may be similar to ours we found the
11:03Yolanda Washington case that was overall Forest Lawn Drive she had been manually strangled so we didn't
11:10connect that case to ours immediately we didn't have a starting point so our goal was try to identify our Jane Doe
11:29a number of ants and other insects to bitten her so we had one of our staff artists come in and draw a picture of her in an attempt to get her identified as a result we started receiving numerous calls about our victim being possibly the name of Judy no last name Judy
11:57that Judy that Judy hung out on Hollywood Boulevard so we went down there trying to find somebody that knew her
12:08Hollywood is not what most people think of it or as it's portrayed in movies we were talking to people
12:17that uh with no names prostitutes male and female street people a lot of these girls came from such
12:28terrible families parents didn't care where they were some of them didn't even know that their child
12:35you know was prostituting it was very very sad one of the kids we talked to said she lives with her mother
12:46and father in a small hotel off of Hollywood Boulevard so we went down to that apartment knocked on the door
12:54is your daughter home no have you seen her recently and she said no because she runs away all the time she
13:02she said the last time she saw her she was walking on the other side of Hollywood Boulevard and we waved to each other
13:16we positively ID'd our Jane Doe as Judy Miller
13:23she was 15 years old she was a runaway and at 15 there's not a whole lot you can do for a living
13:32she was engaged in sex work she wasn't in the true sense of a prostitute she would spend the night
13:40with somebody if they provide him a room and a meal it was a survival instinct
13:46when prostitutes were killed there wasn't any coverage because the news responds to the appetite
13:56of American people I just don't think anybody cared once we got Jane Doe identified as Judy Miller then
14:07one of the things we were trying to do is to see if we could connect Judy with Lisa Kasten one was a
14:15runaway and one was working at a restaurant no connection other than the fact that both of them lived in the
14:24Hollywood area during that time period Hollywood Boulevard was overrun with young people who were
14:35runaways from all over the United States the kids down there they didn't know what day it was
14:54I've been living in Los Angeles since 1975 I would cut school and take the bus off to Hollywood Boulevard
15:16the reason all of the people in the punk scene were living there was because it was the only thing we
15:22could afford it we're all living within blocks of each other it just became like a punk rock neighborhood
15:36the punk scene was very close-knit
15:48like a club or a cult of people together
15:59we were wild crazy young people that were out all night
16:03normally it wouldn't occur to anybody to walk home in a group but
16:23our friend Jane had been missing and everybody was terrified
16:30a highway worker discovered this body 28 year old Jane King described by our mother as a free spirit
16:56and anyone who would do a thing like that it had to be something awfully terribly wrong with them
17:03this photo is always on our mantle I mean look at those shoes very 70s I love the platform very kind of
17:21Stevie Nicks long skirt
17:23Stevie Nicks long skirt
17:25yeah
17:31from what I know from all the letters I've read
17:33Jane was a free spirit
17:35Jane was a free spirit
17:37very creative
17:39taking voice lessons and acting classes
17:42when you look at these pictures me look at her smiling I would like to think that I myself haven't lost the whimsy and the magic that I think Jane had
17:59but these photos of Jane are all we have
18:06all we have
18:12during the time that we're investigating Kasten and Miller
18:16we started picking up on the series of cases from LAPD and from Glendale
18:26police had their first hard leads
18:29a 28 year old woman and then three girls
18:32series of crimes committed in the Los Angeles area
18:34a baffled Los Angeles police department announced
18:36they were beating up their investigative forces
18:38four young ladies went missing
18:40in a very short period of time
18:44it's obvious that a series is in progress
18:50the killer was still out there
18:52looking for victims
18:54on November 9th
19:09there was Jane King
19:11on November 13th
19:13there was Dolores Cepeda
19:15Sonya Johnson
19:16and then on the 19th
19:18we've got Christina Weckler
19:20we've got all these bodies showing up
19:23the body of 28 year old Jane King
19:26was found close to the Los Feliz off-ramp
19:28of the Interstate 5 freeway
19:30the MO was so much alike
19:33from Jane King to Christina Weckler
19:40nude, dumb, ligature strangulation
19:46and then we had Dolores Cepeda and Sonya Johnson
20:01they're 12 and 14
20:03we had no witnesses
20:06we had no physical evidence
20:08all we had was
20:10all we had was
20:11the nude great bodies
20:13of these two young girls
20:14on a hillside
20:17we had school children
20:18lost something so insidious
20:26they had been at Eagle Rock Plaza shopping
20:29because that's what girls do
20:30and they were last seen
20:33kind of leaning into a car
20:34talking to someone in a car
20:39I have no words to describe
20:40how disgusting it was
20:43those poor little girls
20:48the adult victims
20:49it was tragic and bad enough
20:52but these are young children
20:54and that I think
20:56upped the ante for everybody
20:57there is murder
21:00bloody and foul
21:01in the otherwise peaceful area
21:03around Glendale, California
21:05there's a killer loose
21:06in the Los Angeles area
21:08there may be more than one
21:09raping and strangling young women
21:11we've had six bodies
21:15the media went crazy over it
21:18the search for the hillside strangler continues
21:22okay
21:25and that's when the name
21:28the hillside strangler
21:30was coined by the media
21:32it became the most publicized case
21:34at that point
21:35I think in Los Angeles history
21:37standby here we go
21:39three, one, thirty
21:41this was the era in which
21:43TV news was becoming a show format
21:47so sex and death becomes a primary driver
21:51because that was what sold the news
21:54all were nude
21:56and most have been sexually molested
21:58that gives me the chills
22:03I don't want you know
22:04it to happen to me
22:05or any of my friends
22:06or my mother
22:07anybody you know
22:08at that point
22:12at that point
22:13the only connection
22:14between these cases
22:16was the MO
22:17nude bodies
22:20no trauma
22:21ligature marks where they were
22:23and dumped
22:25but there was no connection
22:27between the victims whatsoever
22:29so we had no way of knowing
22:32how these victims were selected
22:35you know
22:36it's frustrating
22:37it's frustrating
22:38the victims body was found in an isolated hillside area of Los Angeles
22:56the victim was in her early twenties with red hair
23:14her nude body was dumped on the roadside
23:17but at this point
23:23there are no suspects
23:24and not many clues to go on
23:26Lauren Wagner's victim number eight
23:34when her body was found
23:36she had electrical burns
23:39it was an escalation in the violence
23:43this is literally now torture
23:46that's a level of sadism
23:48you don't always see in crimes
23:53and that's something that investigators could focus on
24:00when the Lauren Wagner murder occurred
24:04the investigation led back to her home
24:08Los Angeles Police Department detectives
24:11discovered a witness
24:13that had actually seen
24:14the kidnapping of Miss Wagner
24:17as she was arriving home
24:22one neighbor heard a commotion last night
24:24about 10 o'clock
24:26she saw Lauren Wagner out here
24:28Lauren apparently got out of her car
24:30and got into a car with at least two men in it
24:33and drove away
24:34that sort of solidified in our mind
24:37that we were dealing with two individuals
24:39committing these murders
24:42it sort of took my thought process
24:44back to the Miller case
24:46where my impression was
24:47that two people were involved
24:49and how the body was placed
24:51and how she was found
24:53as an investigator
24:55you look at that as a break
24:58because if you have two
25:01one's going to be the weak link
25:03it's going to roll on his partner
25:05other than the fact
25:06that there were two suspects
25:08this witness described
25:09this witness described
25:10how Wagner was abducted
25:13it appeared like
25:14there were police officers
25:15talking to her
25:16and it looked like
25:17a police stop
25:21the press jumped on that
25:23officers from the police department's
25:25major crimes investigation section
25:27are currently going through
25:29the active personnel files
25:31of police officers in Los Angeles
25:33I want to make that very very clear
25:36we don't suspicion any of our police officers
25:38but again we don't want to disregard anything
25:43there was a term that was used
25:45it was called blue clues
25:47those were clues that were pointed at
25:50a specific police officer
25:52as possibly being a suspect
25:54it was not unusual to hear about
26:01guys pretending to be
26:04undercover police officers
26:06arresting a prostitute
26:08and then pretending they're taking them
26:11into the jail
26:12but then say you know
26:14I hate to do this
26:15and basically they work on an arrangement
26:17where the girl would give them sex
26:19and then they let them go
26:21these killers probably utilize that
26:26in order to fool the women
26:28so you're afraid
26:35yes all of us are afraid
26:37I'm like afraid to go outside
26:42you know and ride my bike
26:44and yeah I'm afraid of it
26:46many women are enrolling in classes
26:49for self-defense
26:50then I turn my hips again
26:52hitting here
26:53other women are purchasing guns
26:56officials say gun sales to women
26:58are going up
26:59women were quite traumatized
27:02it's very frightening
27:04I mean you would go into a hardware store
27:06and there wouldn't be locks
27:07because women had run down to buy
27:09all the locks to lock everything
27:11the strangler case makes a grim fact vividly clear
27:17from the tree-lined streets of the suburbs
27:19all the way to the honky-tonk back alleys
27:21of the red light district
27:23there's no way people can totally protect themselves
27:26from a madman
27:27who apparently chooses his victims at random
27:30how has the hillside strangler affected your business
27:35and the way you do business
27:36dropped it a hundred percent
27:38he is right in this this area almost on this exact corner
27:42right now
27:45I'm gonna wanna die
27:57I was coming home one night
27:59and a male and a female cop stopped me
28:02and said you look like you're in a gang
28:05the lady just started frisking me
28:08and she found a pearl-handled switchblade
28:12if you're not in a gang
28:14why do you have a knife
28:16they just said
28:18the hillside strangler
28:20hillside strangler
28:23one, two
28:24one, two
28:25no rhyme or reason
28:27just up in season
28:29the cops can't find me
28:31we don't have any indication
28:33what type of suspect we're dealing with
28:36or a description of a suspect
28:37or any physical evidence
28:39that would indicate anything to us
28:41in regards to a suspect
28:43here
28:44the subject
28:45hillside strangler
28:46hillside strangler
28:48hillside strangler
28:50shit just catching
28:52at that point we have these six bodies
28:57and we have no suspects what so ever
29:01it's mind boggling it's frustrating
29:04It's mind-boggling, it's frustrating,
29:07but we tried to concentrate on our case
29:12and develop as much information on it
29:15and still try to learn what was being developed
29:18on these other cases from LAPD and from Glendale.
29:23So it makes it much more difficult.
29:28Los Angeles, just by its very nature,
29:30is serial killer friendly.
29:32You're almost always close to a freeway.
29:35You can cross jurisdictions, multiple jurisdictions,
29:39in 15 or 20 minutes.
29:43And in the 70s, you have an amazingly mind-boggling
29:50patchwork quilt of law enforcement all over Los Angeles.
29:56That's perfect for someone who wants to commit a crime.
30:00You could kill someone on the west side
30:03and dump them on the east side.
30:05There might not be any crosstalk.
30:07They have no idea.
30:08The Los Angeles police don't know if they're looking for one killer
30:14or for several, but Frank Burgholzer reports a special task force
30:20has been formed to find out.
30:27Right from the get-go, we had about 24 people
30:31following up on what leads we were getting
30:33and trying to see where it would lead us.
30:36The police had a really tough time.
30:39They were working 20-hour days,
30:41and they just could not find the offenders,
30:44largely because they had not left any clues.
30:50They didn't have much forensically to go on.
30:54We're frustrated because we don't have enough evidence
30:56to give us enough to...
30:58Despite hours of work by detectives
31:11from the Sheriff's Department, Glendale Police,
31:12and Los Angeles Police, the 52-man task force
31:15has not been able to crack the Strangler case.
31:18The mayor of L.A. was putting pressure on the police.
31:21The governor was putting pressure on the police.
31:24You know, as long as there were killings going on,
31:27it caused the pressure to build even more.
31:32Even the head of the task force trying to catch the killer
31:35was forced to admit the Hillside Strangler
31:37has a knack for the deadly game he's playing.
31:40Officers say their efforts so far have produced very little.
31:45From the time the task force started
31:47and enlarged itself to over 100,
31:50there was no significant progress whatsoever
31:54as far as a viable suspect.
32:13It had been just over two weeks
32:14since the last body was found.
32:16Along this period, the Strangler had gone between killings.
32:19Police were hopeful that publicity might have scared him off,
32:22but apparently not.
32:26Victim number nine was Kimberly Martin, and she's 17.
32:33As with the other victims, there was no attempt
32:35to hide the body.
32:37It seemed to be a brutal, open display
32:39of the Strangler's work.
32:40Not only are there photographs of her at ground level,
32:45not only are there photographs of her at ground level,
32:49there are aerial photographs of her in full view.
32:54If you stood on the hill and faced the direction
32:59her body was facing, you could see City Hall.
33:07It was almost like the perpetrator wanted to just give
33:12a giant middle finger to all of Los Angeles.
33:17They were playing to the media on this one.
33:23You've got to deal with this, and that's a tough thing to do.
33:32When Kimberly Martin got killed and it was front page news,
33:35I think the public thought that the police
33:37were not doing their job.
33:39Let's face it, there was just a lot of fumbling all the way around,
33:44because I knew what happened.
33:48And the night Kimberly was killed,
33:50a prostitute from an escort service called me.
33:54She said, you know, I've sent out a girl and I can't find her.
33:59And so I said to her, OK, do you have the phone number
34:02he called from?
34:03She said, yeah.
34:04She said, it's a pay phone.
34:07He claimed it was his home phone number, which was a lie.
34:10And so I called the police, and I said,
34:14there's a prostitute who's been sent out to meet a man.
34:18Here's the address where she was sent.
34:19We believe there's foul play.
34:40When she failed to telephone the service that she had arrived,
34:57they became suspicious and called an organization known
35:00as California Association for Trollops.
35:04I kept calling LAPD, and they kept referring me
35:06to a different office, to a different office,
35:07to the strangulation task force.
35:10That they couldn't do anything.
35:11They said, she's just a whore.
35:13She just changed trick pads on you.
35:14We're not sending a police car there.
35:17Potentially could have checked that phone booth
35:19right then and there, and to check the people
35:21where the phone call was made to see
35:22if anyone had seen this man.
35:24If they would have gone when I called,
35:26Kimberly Martin would have been alive.
35:30Kimberly and I were friends.
35:34Our relationship was like I was an older sister to her.
35:38We did everything together.
35:40I met her when she was 16.
35:43I heard on a radio that another body was found,
35:46and it had a cross with four dots on her arm,
35:50and that's her tattoo.
35:53So I started screaming.
35:56This was shocking to me.
36:02My whole life became the news then.
36:06Well, these murders, it's awful.
36:10And something like this has a fallout.
36:14They have to try to solve it.
36:19Police say they don't know whether they're looking
36:20for one killer or many killers,
36:22and they have no suspects.
36:24There was a time there when, due to the pressure
36:26and attention in the communities,
36:29that our brass, they wanted to hang this thing on somebody
36:32and make it go away, and the press
36:36had their own pet suspect.
36:38Police have questioned a man with long hair
36:40and a mustache who walked with a limp.
36:43He is no longer a suspect.
36:48Friends of Ned York say the actor is a soft-spoken
36:51religious man.
36:52They were stunned when he called the Los Angeles police,
36:54claiming he was the hillside strangler.
36:57York was unintelligible when he was questioned,
36:59but police booked him on suspicion.
37:01Now they say his babbling may have been caused by drugs,
37:04and they do not believe he has committed the crimes.
37:06They will likely let the bit part actor go this weekend.
37:19After Martin was the longest period of time
37:22between murders.
37:25We went through December, January.
37:29And you start wondering, what's happened?
37:33Where the killer of killers at?
37:37We were waiting for other bodies to start showing up.
37:59We were waiting for a few years.
38:00We were waiting for a few years.
38:01We were waiting for a few years.
38:02We were waiting for a few years.
38:03We were waiting for a few years.
38:04We were waiting for a few years.
38:05We were waiting for a few years.
38:06We were waiting for a few years.
38:07We were waiting for a few years.
38:08We were waiting for a few years.
38:09We were waiting for a few years.
38:10We were waiting for a few years.
38:11We were waiting for a few years.
38:12We were waiting for a few years.
38:13We were waiting for a few years.
38:14We were waiting for a few years.
38:15We were waiting for a few years.
38:16We were waiting for a few years.
38:17We were waiting for a few years.
38:18We were waiting for a few years.
38:19We were waiting for a few years.
38:20We were waiting for a few years.
38:21it was a county fire department helicopter that first spotted the victim's car
38:31it was in an isolated spot three miles north of los angeles in the angeles national forest
38:38the victim was found in the trunk of her new car 50 feet down a steep hillside
38:44remove the body we take a closer look then we saw the ligature marks real clear there are striking
38:55similarities between the other victims and this victim we are saying that she is a strangler victim
38:59yes she was Cindy Hudspeth pushed over a cliff
39:14so you can see that they escalated and now it's this dramatic display
39:21in los angeles another young woman strangled in the hills a 20-year-old bank clerk who taught bible
39:29classes and wanted to be an actress funeral services were held today it was somber and emotional
39:36two of those attending the services fainted and had to be brought outside
39:40miss hussbeck lived with a roommate in this middle class section of glendale california
39:46the 800 block of garfield avenue in glendale is a quiet street michelle exner who first reported
39:52cindy missing thursday night was accompanied by two deputies to the 160 a month apartment they share
39:58a 19-year-old neighbor bob young dated cindy occasionally and attended class with her at glendale
40:04college she was pretty conservative she frequented discos quite a bit she was an excellent dancer
40:09when i got home from work my roommate had the tv on with the news and that's how i found out
40:19we were pretty close and she was like my little sister
40:25we would go dancing different clubs to partake in dance contests and she really wanted to become a good
40:33dancer and even professional we had fun together
40:41i was devastated you know it's like why
40:50she had goals and she worked hard to get what she wanted
40:55she ended up buying a dachshund b210 and it was a brand new car and she was so proud of that
41:01she felt like she had accomplished in one of her dreams you know being able to own a brand new car
41:09she didn't deserve for this to happen to her
41:14when it comes that close to home you realize guess what it happens to all kinds of people
41:21not because they did anything because they were women they were like pieces of meat to them
41:25and it didn't matter how old or what they were all 10 victims of these murders were different but
41:34when you look at it superficially in the news what they talk about is who she was where she was that's
41:40the kind of judgment that was made a lot of times maybe she was in a place where she shouldn't have been
41:49didn't she know better i just it so bothers me the characterizations of the victims it's a it's a cruel
41:59thing to do to just to sell a newspaper the portrait of cindy lee hutspot that emerges is one of being a
42:05nice girl her lifestyle doesn't bear much resemblance to the other murdered girls the research of journalists
42:12was what did these women do to cause them to have this happen this doesn't say violence against women
42:21is ubiquitous in almost every form of media this says individual women have been victimized
42:30through some fault of their own
42:32and the media in la in particular had chosen to depict all these murders without any consciousness
42:47about how it would affect women when cindy's nude body was found the nude body was almost in the
42:55backyard dumped on the roadside we were pretty angry
43:02so
43:16I am here for the rage of all women.
43:37I am here for women fighting back.
43:42Warning and rage as we recognize our own collective strength through action.
43:49For all of the women here now, for all of the women who will see this, we are here today
44:01in memory of the ten women who were recently slain in Los Angeles.
44:10Even callous workers in downtown Los Angeles had never seen anything like this, which was
44:20exactly the effect these women were trying to create.
44:23We were critiquing the media coverage of the Hillside Strangler.
44:30A memorial mixed with Greek theater.
44:32Women expressing their personal grief and anger over the recent strangulation murders in the area.
44:37In memory of our sisters, we fought back.
44:41But they pointed out that the killings were just part of what they called an ongoing condition
44:46of violence against women.
44:47We are here in memory of all women who have been and are being battered, raped and killed throughout this country.
45:00And I think for us, really sharing this kind of grief as well as this rage for what women were going through
45:11and what we were going through in L.A. was critically important.
45:15We fight back!
45:25After Hudspeth, nothing was occurring.
45:32No more victims.
45:35Our leads were petering out.
45:37You don't want to wish for one more, but give us one more chance type of thing.
45:44You know?
45:45When's the next one going to happen?
45:49But then, it stopped.
45:55And without having caught a killer, everyone is just relieved but still uneasy.
46:02Because you just don't know what happened.
46:12The big thing is why they were so active.
46:19And all of a sudden, now there's nothing.
46:22The killers had done a good job.
46:24They did not leave their fingerprints.
46:26And DNA analysis was not yet a thing.
46:29The case really went cold.
46:33In January 1979, the Hillside Strangler Task Force was gutted to a shadow of itself.
46:41It was whittled down to just a dozen officers.
46:44We went back into the rotation, you know, working other cases.
46:51It's never an ideal situation.
46:54You know, you think, God, you can't let a string of ten murders just die a natural death.
47:01It seems to be the only one that happened a child's death, you know,
47:04and the people came with a natural death.
47:08in january 1979 i got a call at home two young women were murdered in bellingham washington
47:38it was a double murder they were strangulation murders and they've got a guy in custody up
47:44there with a california driver's license so they asked me to do a background check
47:50went into the system and i started running him
47:54kenneth alicio bianchi the investigator came to this machine entered kenneth bianchi's name and
48:01his birth date received this teletype from department of motor vehicles says kenneth
48:07elicio bianchi 809 east garfield apartment d christina weckler one of the victims lived in
48:12apartment c or e right next door at 809 east garfield also cindy hudspeth our last victim
48:19lived across the street at 800 east garfield not only had he lived in the same street as two victims
48:27he lived in the same apartment block so i went downtown pulled the suspect printouts
48:34look down the line bianchi one two three four five times he's in there five times
48:44there was no doubt that the hillside strangler squad should have taken ken bianchi seriously as a suspect
48:52and they followed up they were on the next flight up there to bellingham
48:57to find out what they could about this suspect there was a rush we've got a good suspect here
49:04and it also explained why a year had gone botched without any other murder in los angeles county
49:10because he'd moved to bellingham we're off and running now on this case he was arrested on january 12
49:18and his first court appearance was january 26 his bail was set at a huge figure of 150 000 which bianchi
49:28couldn't raise he was locked away and it was kept in solitary confinement
49:38news spread fast
49:39and the interest in him was intense bianchi lived in the same apartment as one victim across the
49:48street from another a third woman was believed killed in a hollywood apartment where he stayed
49:53and he worked at a real estate title firm with a fourth victim's sister he looked like the kind of
49:58guy you'd bump into at the local disco if i had been at a nightclub and that man asked me to dance
50:04with him i would have and that's scary he wasn't a drooling monster he was an average to a little
50:11bit better than average looking guy so well how could someone like that commit these crimes in the first
50:17place to accept this free call press one to refuse this free call press two
50:28i am innocent
50:36whoever committed these crimes
50:40is still out there
50:51my friends abuse me people excuse me thought i was no good
50:56thought i was
51:10now they don't realize
51:12now it's so easy
51:16is
51:31never know what the night can bring express myself with a simple piece of string
51:37is
51:48is
51:50is
51:52is
51:54is
51:56is
51:58is
52:00is
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