Crime Library: Criminal Minds and Methods

Buono and Bianchi, the Hillside Stranglers

Killing Cousins

In late 1975, when Cousin Kenny arrived, he found Angelo with dyed black hair, gold chains around his neck, a large gaudy turquoise ring on his finger, red silk underwear and a virtual harem of jailbait girls.

Angelo provided a strong role model for the easy-going Kenny. He taught Kenny how to get a whore free by flashing a badge in her face after he got what he wanted. "You can't let a c--t get the upper hand," he instructed Kenny. "Put them in their place."

When Kenny was short of money, Angelo came up with the idea of getting some girls to work for them as prostitutes. Kenny's charm could be used to recruit the girls and Angelo's connections could be used to get the customers. Two teenage runaways, Sabra Hannan and Becky Spears fell under their influence. Once under their control, the girls were forced to prostitute themselves or be subjected to severe physical punishment. They were virtually being held prisoner.

Eventually, Becky happened to meet lawyer David Wood, who was appalled at their plight and arranged for her to escape from the city. When Angelo understood what happened, he threatened David Wood. Wood had one of his clients -- a mountain of a man -- call on Angelo to gently persuade him not to threaten Wood any more. It worked.

Emboldened by Becky's escape, Sabra ran away from Angelo and Kenny a short time later. With his pimping income gone, Kenny missed payments on his Cadillac, which was eventually repossessed.

They had to find more teenage girls. Impersonating police officers, they tried to abduct one girl until they found out that she was Catherine Lorre, the daughter of actor Peter Lorre. Eventually they found a young woman and installed her in Sabra's old bedroom. Also, they bought from a prostitute named Deborah Noble a "trick list" with names of men who frequented prostitutes.

Yolanda Washington
Yolanda Washington

Deborah and her friend, Yolanda Washington, delivered the trick list to Angelo in October of 1977. Yolanda happened to mention to Angelo that she always worked on a certain stretch of Sunset Boulevard. When Angelo and Kenny found that Deborah had deceived them about the list, they decided to take out their rage on Yolanda, since they didn't know how to find Deborah Noble.

Yolanda was their first kill.

Now all of Angelo's and Kenny's kills were being immortalized in Kenny's Bellingham jail song.

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