bianchi got a used car, loaded the trailer with all of his belongings in it, and drove up to washington. friday, january 12th, 1979, nearly one year after cindy hudspeth was discovered dead in the trunk of her car, the hillside strangler case has gone completely cold. then in bellingham, washington, two college roommates, karen mandic and diane wilder, mysteriously disappear on their way to a house-sitting job. within hours, their bodies are found stuffed inside the trunk of mandic s car. the next day, police identify and detain a suspect, a security guard named kenneth bianchi. coming up i m a dual personality. i didn t do it. phillip did it harry did it. peter did it. a killer s desperate attempt to clear his name. i [ bleep ] killed those broads. you know, to smarten him up, to show him he couldn t push me around. [ female announcer ] over the last ten years,
obviously they were stirred up, out looking for a victim and fate presents one, and they take her. the following morning, a los angeles county sheriff s department helicopter spots a car 50 feet down the embankment of a mountain road. there were no signs of life. we had an apparent fatality, so ground units were dispatched, as i recall, to check out the scene. inside the trunk search and rescue workers discover the nude body of cindy hudspeth. just looking into the trunk, you could see enough to say we ve got another one. she had the marks that we d seen before. she had ligature marks on the ankles, ligature marks on the wrist, ligature mark on the neck. you know, after a couple months, you begin to lose your fright and think that things are
both cindy hudspeth and kristina weckler both were victims of the hillside strangler. bianchi is linked to another victim as well. he had lived in the hollywood apartment building where call girl kimberly martin was lured prior to her death. police even interviewed bianchi at the scene as a potential witness. there was no doubt that we had we had one of the hillside stranglers. he was going to be it. bianchi is questioned by investigators from both bellingham and los angeles. they also interview his girlfriend. she told us, his only friend, his only companion, the guy named angelo buono, who was his cousin, and that s what led us to angelo. while investigators believed that buono may be the other killer, their suspicions grow even stronger, based on the location of his upholstery shop. los angeles is a huge area, and these killings were taking place in various areas, and the bodies were being left in different places.
time. february 16th, on a busy street in the san fernando valley, a retired schoolteacher witnesses two men trying to force a young woman into the back seat of their car. and so this grandmother, who is a feisty lady, she pulls over, she immediately tells them to let go of the girl, and tells the girl to get in the car, and the girl does. and as the car drove off, angelo buono turned around and said to her, god will get you for this. the tenth victim in broad daylight, trying to abduct somebody, that s almost like a thumb in your nose at the authorities. we did it in the dark and you couldn t catch us. look at what we can do now. look at what we re capable of. although buono and bianchi are foiled in the attempt to abduct a woman, another opportunity arises later that afternoon. 20-year-old cindy hudspeth drops by the upholstery shop to have work done on her car.
january 12th, 1979. in bellingham, washington, two young women are found strangled in the trunk of a car. almost immediately, police link the victims to a security guard who had offered them a house-sitting job. his name? kenneth bianchi. meanwhile, in los angeles, detective frank salerno has spent the last two years embroiled in the hillside strangler case. i get a phone call from the homicide bureau, and they tell me about a call that had been received from bellingham, washington. they had a suspect and the bureau had done a background. they had run a dmv history on him, and lo and behold, his dmv showed an 800 address on garfield in glendale, which put him in the same complex as the weckler, across the street from hudspeth.