Where Are the Hillside Stranglers Now? What to Know About Their Lives After Killing At Least 9 Young L.A. Women in the '70s By Kelsey Lentz

It’s been nearly 50 years since the Hillside Stranglers sent the city of Los Angeles into a frenzied panic.

The serial killers, later revealed to be cousins Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, were accused of kidnapping, raping and strangling 10 women between October 1977 and February 1978. Many of their victims’ bodies were discovered along the hillsides of L.A., earning them the now-infamous nickname.

In January 1979, Bianchi was arrested for the murders of two college students in Bellingham, Wash., per the Los Angeles Times. After pleading guilty and confessing to five of the L.A. slayings, he turned on Buono and agreed to testify against him to avoid the death penalty. Buono was later convicted of nine of the homicides.

The five-month killing spree and the terror it unleashed across the city are now at the center of the MGM+ docuseries The Hillside Strangler.

So where are the Hillside Stranglers now? Here’s everything to know about Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono’s lives in prison nearly 50 years later.

Who were the Hillside Stranglers?

Bianchi and his older cousin, Buono, were the men behind the Hillside murders.

Born in 1951 to a 17-year-old prostitute, Bianchi was adopted as a baby by Nicholas and Frances Bianchi and raised in Rochester, N.Y. He was a troubled child who was prone to fits of anger and consistently underperformed in school despite having an above-average IQ.

After dropping out of college, he moved to L.A. and lived in a Hollywood apartment, with aspirations to become a cop. Meanwhile, Buono was a high school dropout and operated his own auto upholstery shop out of his Glendale garage, per the Los Angeles Times.

The two cousins also operated an outcall prostitution service. By the fall of 1977, they had turned to murder and rape, often posing as cops to lure women back to Buono’s place.

At the time of their arrests, Bianchi was 27 and Buono was 44.

Who were the Hillside Stranglers’ victims?

The first known victim of the Hillside Stranglers was Yolanda Washington, a 19-year-old sex worker who was found dead in October 1977. She had been bound and raped before being killed, and her naked body was dumped near Griffith Park, per A&E.

In the months that followed, nine other women were killed in a similar manner: Judith Miller, Lissa Kastin, Dolores Cepeda, Sonja Johnson, Kristina Weckler, Jane King, Lauren Wagner, Kimberly Martin and Cindy Huspeth.

The women ranged in age from 12 to 28. Some were aspiring actresses and models, while others were sex workers or runaways.

Bianchi and Buono also attempted to kidnap Catharine Lorre Baker, the daughter of Casablanca actor Peter Lorre, in November 1977, but they ultimately did not go through with the plan after she produced identification proving she was the actor’s daughter.

She later testified for the prosecution at the trial, along with two young women who lived in Buono’s house around that time — Rebekah Spears and Sabra Hannan. Hannan accused the men of forcing her into prostitution and raping her.

How were the Hillside Stranglers caught?

By early 1978, the Hillside murders had suddenly stopped, but it wasn’t long before the killers struck again — this time in a different state.

In January 1979, Bianchi, who was working as a security guard, was arrested in Bellingham for the murders of 22-year-old Karen Mandic and 27-year-old Diane Wilder, per A&E. The women were lured to a house in South Bellingham under the guise of a house-sitting job, where they were then raped and strangled to death.

While under hypnosis, a common law enforcement practice at the time, Bianchi confessed to killing Mandic and Wilder, along with five of the Hillside Strangler victims. He also corroborated Buono’s involvement in all 10 of the murders.

After a failed attempt to convince authorities and psychiatrists that he had multiple personality disorder, Bianchi agreed to plead guilty and testify against Buono, waiving his right to a trial.

Why did the Hillside Stranglers trial take so long?

Buono’s trial began in 1981 and took two years to reach a verdict. It featured 400 witnesses, more than 50,000 pages of testimony and 20 days of sequestered jury deliberations, according to A&E. At the time, it was the longest and most expensive trial in California history, and it remains the longest murder trial in U.S. history, per the Los Angeles Times.

The trial was drawn out for a number of reasons, with the main one being the prosecution’s dependence on Bianchi, a deeply unreliable witness. While on the stand, Bianchi vacillated between different versions of his story and denied several elements of his original confession.

Another major complication was District Attorney John Van De Kamp’s controversial decision to drop all murder charges against Buono in July 1981, sparking public outrage. However, Superior Court Judge Ronald George rescued the case, ordering the district attorney’s office to “vigorously and effectively resume” the prosecution, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Where are the Hillside Stranglers now?

Buono received a life sentence with no possibility of parole. He died from a heart attack at Calipatria State Prison around Palm Springs, Calif., in 2002 at 67 years old.

Bianchi is currently serving his life sentence in Walla Walla State Penitentiary in Washington. In July 2025, he was denied parole for the eighth time after previously being denied in 2010, per CBS News. He will be eligible for parole again in 10 years.

To this day, Bianchi continues to maintain his innocence and alleges that his confession under hypnosis was coerced and untrue, per the Washington Standard. According to the outlet, he changed his name in 2023 to Anthony D’Amato.