Kenneth Bianchi

Kenneth Bianchi
1979 mugshot of Kenneth Bianchi
Born	Kenneth Alessio Bianchi (1951-05-22) May 22, 1951 Rochester, New York
Other names	The Hillside Strangler
Conviction(s)	Murder
Criminal penalty	Life imprisonment
Details
Victims	12
Span of crimes	October 16, 1977 – January 11, 1979
Country	United States
State(s)	California and Washington
Date apprehended	January 12, 1979

Kenneth Alessio Bianchi (born May 22, 1951) is an American serial killer, kidnapper and rapist. Bianchi and his cousin Angelo Buono, Jr., together are known as the Hillside Stranglers. He is serving a life imprisonment in Washington. Bianchi is also a suspect in the Alphabet murders, four unsolved murders in his home city of Rochester.

Biography

Early life

Bianchi was born in Rochester, New York, to a prostitute who gave him up for adoption two weeks after he was born. He was adopted at three months by Frances Scioliono and her husband Nicholas Bianchi in Rochester.

Bianchi was deeply troubled from a young age, and his adoptive mother described him as being "a compulsive liar who had risen from the cradle dissembling". He often worried her with his penchant for trance-like daydreams. Despite having above-average intelligence, he was an underachiever who was quick to lose his temper. He was diagnosed with petit mal seizures when he was five years old and passive-aggressive disorder when he was 10. After Nicholas' death from pneumonia in 1964, Frances had to work while her son attended high school. Frances is known for keeping Bianchi home from school for long periods of time.

Bianchi would make frequent trips to the doctors because of a urination problem. The doctors examined his genitals in an attempt to diagnose the issue. This caused him quite a bit of humiliation.

Shortly after Bianchi graduated from Gates-Chili High School in 1971, he married his high school sweetheart; the union ended after eight months. Supposedly, she left him without an explanation. As an adult, he dropped out of college after one semester, and drifted through a series of menial jobs, finally ending up as a security guard at a jewelry store. This gave him a great opportunity to steal valuables, which he often gave to girlfriends or prostitutes to buy their loyalty. Because of many petty thefts, Bianchi was constantly on the move.

He moved to Los Angeles in 1977, and started spending time with his older cousin, Angelo Buono, who impressed Bianchi with his fancy clothes, jewelry, and talent for getting any woman he wanted and "putting them in their place". Before long, they worked together as pimps, and, by late 1977, had escalated to murder. They had raped and murdered ten women by the time they were arrested in early 1979.

Murders

Bianchi and Buono would usually cruise around Los Angeles in Bianchi's car and use fake badges to persuade girls that they were undercover cops. Their victims were women and girls aged 12 to 28 from various walks of life. They would then order the girls into Buono's "unmarked police car" and drive them home to torture and murder them.

• Yolanda Washington, age 19 – October 17, 1977
• Judith Lynn Miller, age 15 – October 31, 1977
• Lissa Kastin, age 21 – November 6, 1977
• Jane King, age 28 – November 10, 1977
• Dolores Cepeda, age 12 – November 13, 1977
• Sonja Johnson, age 14 – November 13, 1977
• Kristina Weckler, age 20 – November 20, 1977
• Lauren Wagner, age 18 – November 29, 1977
• Kimberely Martin, age 17 – December 9, 1977
• Cindy Lee Hudspeth, age 20 – February 16, 1978
• Karen Mandic, age 22 – January 11, 1979
• Diane Wilder, age 27 – January 11, 1979

Both men would sexually abuse their victims before strangling them. They experimented with other methods of killing, such as lethal injection, electric shock, and carbon monoxide poisoning. Even while committing the murders, Bianchi applied for a job with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and had even been taken for several rides with police officers while they were searching for the Hillside Strangler.

One night, shortly after they botched their would-be eleventh murder, Bianchi revealed to Buono he had attended LAPD police ride alongs, and that he was currently being questioned about the strangler case. After hearing this, Buono erupted in a fit of rage. An argument ensued, and at one point Buono threatened to kill Bianchi if he did not flee to Bellingham, Washington. In May 1978, he did flee to Bellingham.

On January 11, 1979, working as a security guard, Bianchi lured two female students into a house he was guarding. The women were 22-year-old Karen Mandic and 27-year-old Diane Wilder, both students at Western Washington University. He forced the first student down the stairs in front of him and then strangled her. He murdered the second woman in a similar fashion. Without help from his partner, he left many clues and police apprehended him the next day. A California driver's license and a routine background check linked him to the addresses of two Hillside Strangler victims.

Following his arrest, Bianchi admitted he and Buono, in 1977, while posing as police officers, stopped a young female by the name of Catharine Lorre with intentions of abducting and killing her. But after learning she was the daughter of actor Peter Lorre, they let her go. Only after he was arrested did Catharine learn of the true identity of the men whom she encountered.

Trial

At his trial, Bianchi pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, claiming that another personality, one "Steve Walker", had committed the crimes. Bianchi even convinced a few expert psychiatrists that he indeed suffered from multiple personality disorder, but investigators brought in their own psychiatrists, mainly Martin Orne. When Orne mentioned to Bianchi that in genuine cases of the disorder, there tends to be three or more personalities, Bianchi promptly created another alias, "Billy". Eventually, investigators discovered that the name "Steven Walker" came from a student whose identity Bianchi had previously attempted to steal for the purpose of fraudulently practicing psychology. Police also found a small library of books in Bianchi's home on topics of modern psychology, further indicating his ability to fake the disorder. Once his claims were subjected to this scrutiny, Bianchi eventually admitted that he had been faking the disorder. He was eventually diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder with sexual sadism.

To acquire leniency, Bianchi agreed to testify against Buono. However, in giving his testimony, Bianchi made every effort to be as uncooperative and self-contradictory as possible, apparently hoping to avoid being the ultimate cause of Buono being convicted. In the end, Bianchi's efforts were unsuccessful, as Buono was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

In 1980, Bianchi began a relationship with Veronica Compton, a woman he had met while in prison. During his trial, she testified for the defense, telling the jury a false, vague tale about the crimes in an attempt to exculpate Bianchi and also admitting to wanting to buy a mortuary with another convicted murderer for the purpose of necrophilia. She was later convicted and imprisoned for attempting to strangle a woman she had lured to a motel in an attempt to convince authorities that the Hillside Strangler was still on the loose. Bianchi had given her some smuggled semen to use to make it look like a rape/murder committed by the Hillside Strangler.

In 1992 he sued Catherine Yronwode for 8.5 million dollars for having an image of his face depicted on a trading card; he claimed his face was his trademark. The judge dismissed the case after ruling that, if Bianchi had been using his face as a trademark when he was killing women, he would not have tried to hide it from the police. The judge ruled against Bianchi.

Bianchi is serving his sentence at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, Washington.

He was denied parole on August 18, 2010 by a state board in Sacramento (according to Los Angeles County District Attorney's office spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons). He will be eligible to apply for parole again in 2025.

References

Further reading

• Bardsley, Marilyn. Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi, the Hillside Stranglers. Crime Library. Retrieved on 2007-11-16.
• Farnsworth, Cheri. Alphabet Killer: The True Story of the Double Initial Murders

Films

• The Mind of a Murderer, Parts 1 and 2 (1985), PBS documentary