1951-present
Who Is Kenneth Bianchi?
Serial killer Kenneth Bianchi and his cousin, Angelo Buono, went on a killing spree between October 1977 and February 1978, raping and murdering 10 victims in Los Angeles. The men posed as policemen and targeted young women and girls. They usually left the bodies on the hillsides of the Glendale Highland Park area, earning the nickname “The Hillside Strangler.” Bianchi later committed two more murders on his own in Washington state, where he was eventually arrested and sentenced to life in prison.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Kenneth Alessio Bianchi
BORN: May 22, 1951
BIRTHPLACE: Rochester, New York
SPOUSES: Brenda Beck (1971-1972) and Shirlee Joyce Book (1989-1993)
CHILDREN: One son
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Gemini
Early Life
Kenneth Alessio Bianchi was born on May 22, 1951, in Rochester, New York. His biological mother—a 17-year-old sex worker—gave him up for adoption as a newborn, and he was soon adopted by Nicholas Bianchi and Frances Scioliono Bianchi when he was just three months old.
Growing up, Bianchi exhibited behavioral problems at an early age. He was only a toddler when he began lying compulsively and throwing violent temper tantrums. At 5 years old, Bianchi was diagnosed with absence seizures after experiencing frequent but brief lapses of consciousness. That same year, he injured his face jumping off a jungle gym.
Not long after the accident, his adoptive mother enrolled him in Catholic school with the hope that it would change his behavior. By age 11, however, Bianchi had changed schools twice after having difficulty getting along with his teachers. Though his IQ was reportedly above average, he gained a reputation in school as a chronic underachiever.
Following several trips to the psychiatrist, a 10-year-old Bianchi was diagnosed with passive-aggressive personality disorder, which is no longer classified as a mental health diagnosis in the DSM-5. Despite getting psychiatric help, his behavior only continued to escalate. When he was 12 years old, he pulled down a young girl’s underwear, which he decided he found enjoyable. After Bianchi’s adoptive father died of pneumonia the following year, he notably refused to cry or visibly mourn the loss.
No longer able to afford Catholic school, he was sent back to public school. As a student at Gates-Chili High School in Rochester, Bianchi excelled academically. He even began dating girls and joined a motorcycle club. After graduating in 1970, he married his high school girlfriend Brenda Beck in 1971, but their marriage was annulled just eight months later.
Interested in police work but unable to secure a job, Bianchi eventually settled for a post as a security guard. He would often steal from his employers, however, and was always jumping from job to job. In January 1976, Bianchi moved to Los Angeles to live with his cousin, Angelo Buono Jr., whom he greatly admired.
Becoming the Hillside Strangler
Once in Los Angeles, Bianchi applied to become a police officer multiple times but was repeatedly denied. While he was able to get a job with the California Land Title Company, a real estate insurance organization, he skipped work frequently, falsely claiming that he had cancer as an excuse for his absence. Bianchi was eventually fired for storing marijuana in his desk.
Before he left, however, he started dating his co-worker, Kelli Boyd, who he moved in with in July 1976. The following May, Boyd became pregnant with his child. Bianchi immediately proposed to her but she turned him down. It was around this time that he set up a psychology practice with a phony degree, though he didn’t get much business.
Soon enough, Bianchi moved onto another quick money-making venture, teaming up with Buono to become pimps. In October 1977, they met two young sex workers, Deborah Noble and Yolanda Washington, who sold them a list of clients in the area that turned out to be fake.
Angered by this deception, the two men soon embarked on a spree of kidnappings, rapes, and murders that claimed 10 victims, mostly in and around Los Angeles, between October 1977 and February 1978. Posing as policemen, Bianchi and Buono first targeted sex workers before moving on to middle-class girls and young women. They usually left the bodies on the hillsides of the Glendale-Highland Park area, earning the moniker “The Hillside Strangler.”
Victims
Bianchi and Buono’s first victim was 19-year-old Yolanda Washington. Pretending to be cops, they picked her up outside her part-time job on October 17, 1977 and bound and raped her in Bianchi’s car before strangling her to death. Her nude body was dumped on a hill near the Ventura Freeway, where she was discovered the following day.
That Halloween, Bianchi and his cousin struck again, raping and murdering 15-year-old high school student and sex worker Judith Miller in Buono’s upholstery store. Like many of their other victims, Miller was also found naked with rope marks on her wrists and ankles. Just days later, on November 5, the duo killed Elissa Kastin, a 21-year-old server. It was after her death that police realized they were dealing with a serial killer, though they still didn’t know two people were responsible for their murders.
Bianchi and Buono continued to kill in quick succession, next slaying their oldest victim, 28-year-old Evelyn Jane King, another four days later. That same month, they kidnapped and strangled school friends Dolly Cepeda, 12, and Sonja Johnson, 14, on the same day, before later murdering college students Kristina Weckler, 20, and Lauren Wagner, 18.
Slowing down, the cousins targeted only one victim in December 1977, raping and strangling Kim Martin, a 17-year-old sex worker. That February, they committed their final act as a duo when they killed 20-year-old Cindy Lee Hudspeth.
Soon after, Bianchi moved to Bellingham, Washington to be closer to his ex-girlfriend, Boyd, and their son, but he still wasn’t done killing. In January 1979, he brought two Western Washington University students—Karen Mandic, 22, and Diane Wilder, 27—to a house he was working at as a security guard and strangled them to death.
Arrest and Conviction
Without Buono by his side, however, Bianchi was not as adept at evading the authorities. Thanks to forensic evidence and eyewitness statements, police quickly identified him as the killer and arrested him the next day. Upon searching his home, the cops found jewelry and other items tying him to the Los Angeles murders.
He initially pleaded not guilty to the charges against him but later changed his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity, claiming he had dissociative identity disorder. According to the Bianchi, it was another personality named Steve Walker who had committed the crimes. After a judge found him fit to stand trial, however, he admitted that this defense was fabricated and pleaded guilty to the Washington murders, as well as five of the slayings in Los Angeles. He even testified against Buono to avoid the death penalty.
Bianchi received six life sentences in 1979, while Buono was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole in November 1983 after a lengthy trial. Bianchi is currently imprisoned in Washington State Penitentiary and has been denied parole eight times.
Marriages and Son
Bianchi married his high school sweetheart Brenda Beck in 1971, but their marriage was annulled after just a few months. Five years later, in early 1976, he started dating his co-worker, Kelli Boyd, who became pregnant with their son in May 1977. Their son's name is unknown to the public.
Following his conviction, Bianchi wed Shirlee Joyce Book, his Louisiana pen pal, in September 1989 in a prison chapel ceremony, but the pair later divorced in 1993.
Media: Movies and Documentaries
Bianchi and his cousin have been the subject of several movies and documentaries. Their crimes were first showcased in the 1989 TV movie The Case of the Hillside Strangler, starring actor Billy Zane as Bianchi. This was soon followed by the film The Hillside Strangler in 2004, this time with Thomas C. Howell portraying the killer.
In 2022, NBC's streaming service Peacock released the docuseries The Hillside Strangler: Devil in Disguise, which offered a fresh look at the cousins' brutal killings. Now, a new four-part docuseries, also titled The Hillside Strangler, will arrive on MGM+ in January 2026. The series will explore the case and investigation and feature Bianchi's first on-camera interview.
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