1977: The Hillside Stranglers Claim Their First Victim in Los Angeles
Nineteen-year-old Yolanda Washington was last seen getting into a car near a Los Angeles intersection one October evening in 1977. The next morning her body was found on a hillside near the Ventura Freeway, the first known victim of the killers soon dubbed the Hillside Stranglers.
Her killers were cousins Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, who had lured her with the promise of a ride before attacking and strangling her. Washington, who worked as a waitress and sometimes turned to sex work, was the opening victim in a killing spree that would terrorise the city for months before the cousins were finally caught.
