[Deathwatch] Angelo Buono Jr., "Hillside Strangler", 67

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

'Hillside Strangler' dies in prison
Sunday, September 22, 2002 Posted: 9:07 AM EDT (1307 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/West/09/22/strangler.death.ap/index.html

SACRAMENTO, California (AP) -- Angelo Buono Jr., whose killing of young
Los Angeles women in the 1970s earned him the nickname "Hillside
Strangler," died Saturday in prison, corrections officials said. 

Buono, 67, was found dead at Calipatria State Prison, said Bob
Martinez, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections. 

The cause of death was not immediately known but Martinez said Buono
suffered from heart problems. There were no signs of trauma, and Buono
was alone in his own cell when he died. 

"He had assigned duties at the prison, and he was singled-celled
because of the nature of his crime," Martinez said. "There was nothing
exceptional about his conduct in prison." 

In November 1983, Buono was sentenced to life in prison without the
possibility of parole after being convicted of killing nine young women
and dumping their nude bodies on Los Angeles-area hillsides, earning
him the nickname "Hillside Strangler." 

His adoptive cousin, Kenneth Bianchi, pleaded guilty to five of the
murders and testified against Buono. Bianchi is serving his prison
sentence in Washington state, where he killed two other women. 

The two were accused of kidnapping, raping, torturing and killing the
women, ranging in age from 12 to 28, during a four-month period in 1977
and 1978. 

Authorities said Buono and Bianchi would pose as police officers while
driving at night, pull over unsuspecting woman drivers, then abduct
them and take them to Buono's suburban home. The bodies were disposed
of on the wooded hillside not far away. 

In 1986, Buono took a wife while behind bars, marrying Christine
Kizuka, a mother of three and supervisor at the Los Angeles office of
the state Employment Development Department. 

A retired Bellingham, Washington, police detective whose investigation
of Bianchi led to a break in the case had little to say about Buono's
death. 

"As far as he's concerned, I don't really have any feeling for him,"
Fred Nolte said in an telephone interview from his home. "The world's
probably a better place without him."