Angelo Buono Jr.

Angelo Anthony Buono Jr. was born on October 5, 1934, in Rochester, New York, the son of Sicilian immigrants from Caltagirone. He moved to Glendale, California at five years old. As a teenager, Buono began blaming his mother for his parents' divorce, and calling her demeaning names such as "whore", and idolized rapist Caryl Chessman. He also boasted to his friends about raping and sodomizing girls. He dropped out of school at age 16. Buono's adoptive cousin, 24-year-old Kenneth Bianchi moved in with him. Bianchi was a criminal himself, having been arrested numerous times, mostly for petty theft. When Bianchi arrived to his cousin's home, he discovered that Buono had been holding four teenaged girls in his home virtually as prisoners, a sight which Bianchi described as a "junior harem". Bianchi later claimed that two of Buono's sons, Peter and Danny, often brought their own girlfriends to their father's place to be used for sex. In August 1976, about seven months after his cousin had moved in, Buono practically "threw [Bianchi] out of the house", after having grown tired of having him at his house so often. In June 1977, Bianchi met 16-year-old Sabra Hannan, from Phoenix, Arizona, and brought her to Buono's residence under a false pretense of nude photography in exchange for money as the girl had run out of cash. One night, Buono and Bianchi stripped her, beat her with a wet towel and then raped her. The girl was held as a prisoner for the following three months; she endured harsh beatings from the pair and was forced to "turn tricks" for customers at Buono's upholstery shop, which he used to bolster the business. The girl was sometimes starved for days at a time. In early September, Sabra escaped her captivity by running away during an "outside job". In the fall of 1977, Buono and Bianchi began discussing the idea of pimping young women as a way to make money. The idea was initially proposed by Buono as they were short on cash. By this point, according to Bianchi, he and Buono had already started talking about the possibility of killing someone. On October 16, 1977, Buono and Bianchi paid two sex workers; 18-year-old Deborah Noble and 19-year-old Yolanda Washington, who was also a part-time waitress, $175 for a list of their clients, known as a "trick list" in slang. The latter told Buono that she frequented a street on Sunset Boulevard. Shortly afterwards, the two found out the list was fake, and, infuriated, they pursued Noble and Washington to get revenge for the money they'd paid. On October 17 evening, Buono and Bianchi raped Washington in the back of Bianchi's car before strangling her to death. Soon afterwards, the pair embarked on a five-month killing spree which left nine more young women and girls dead; strangled with a garrote and then dumped naked on wooded hillsides across Los Angeles. ==Murders==

In October 1977, Buono and Bianchi began killing women. Cruising around Los Angeles, California, in Buono's car and using fake badges, the two men persuaded their victims that they were undercover police officers. They would then order the victims into Bianchi's Cadillac, which they claimed was an unmarked police car, and drive to Buono's home, where they typically raped and sodomized them before killing them. The women and girls ranged in age from 12 to 28. The confirmed victims were: • Yolanda Washington, age 19 – October 17, 1977 • Judith Lynn Miller, age 15 – October 31, 1977 • Lissa Kastin, age 21 – November 5, 1977 • Jane King, age 28 – November 9, 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 28, 1977 • Kimberly Martin, age 17 – December 13, 1977 • Cindy Lee Hudspeth, age 20 – February 16, 1978 Both Buono and Bianchi 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. ==Arrest, trial and conviction==

In January 1979, Bianchi was arrested in connection with the murders of two women in Bellingham, Washington. After pleading guilty, Bianchi was quickly linked to the Hillside Strangler murders in California. In order to avoid the death penalty, Bianchi named Buono as the other perpetrator in the Hillside Strangler case and agreed to testify against him. On October 22, 1979, Buono was arrested at his upholstery shop in Glendale and charged with 24 felonies, including murder, sodomy and rape. One day, an inmate had asked Buono why he killed all those girls, to which he reportedly replied: "They were no good. They deserved to die. It had to be done. But I only killed a couple of 'em. I ain't worried." The preliminary hearing on Buono lasted for 10 months. The legal case against Buono was based largely upon Bianchi's testimony. After Bianchi made repeated self-contradictory statements in order to diminish his own credibility as a witness to have the case against Buono dismissed, Jury selection for Buono's trial was completed in the spring of 1982. In June 1982, Bianchi took the stand and, once again, purposely made contradictory statements. In fact, one of the prosecutors warned the jury to "expect some lies" during Bianchi's testimony. The prosecutors played Bianchi's taped confession to the jury. Throughout the trial, the jurors were taken on a series of excursions to the sites where the victims were abducted or dumped, including the exact spot where the bodies of Sonja Johnson and Dolores Cepeda were discovered. The jury was also shown the graphic photos of the murdered women's corpses. During the trial, the defense attorneys called ten character witnesses for Buono, including his older sister, who testified that Buono was a "non-violent person" who cared for their cancer-stricken mother the same year that the killings had occurred. The prosecutors, in turn, called one of Buono's boyhood friends, who testified that Buono "talked about rape all the time." The jury returned 10 verdicts from October 30 to November 14, 1983; convicting Buono of 9 counts of murder. He was found not guilty in the murder of Yolanda Washington. On November 16, Buono took the stand for the first time. When asked what the appropriate punishment for him would be, he replied: "My morals and constitutional rights have been broken. I ain't taking any procedure in this trial." The prosecutors called for the death penalty, describing Buono and Bianchi's acts as "worse than animals." After one hour of deliberation, on January 4, 1984, Buono was sentenced to life imprisonment. Judge George concluded the two-year long trial by commenting that the death sentence was the appropriate punishment for both Buono and Bianchi, adding that the two "should never see the outside of a jail cell again." ==Detention, death and aftermath==

Shortly after his sentencing, Buono was initially sent to Folsom State Prison, where he refused to come out of his cell due to fear of injury by other inmates, He died of a heart attack on September 21, 2002, in his jail cell while incarcerated at Calipatria State Prison. His body was cremated. In 2007, Buono's grandson, Christopher Buono, committed suicide shortly after shooting his grandmother, Mary Castillo, in the head. Castillo was at one time married to Buono, and had five children with him, including Chris' father. Chris Buono was unaware of his grandfather's true identity until 2005. ==Media==

In the 1989 film The Case of the Hillside Stranglers, Buono was portrayed by actor Dennis Farina. In the 2004 film The Hillside Strangler, Buono was portrayed by actor Nicholas Turturro and in Rampage: The Hillside Strangler Murders (2006), he was played by Tomas Arana. == See also ==