Editing Hillside Strangler (section)

==Murders==

===Yolanda Washington===
Yolanda Washington was a 19 year old prostitute. She always worked on a certain stretch of Sunset Boulevard; her naked body was found on October 18, 1977, on a hillside near the Ventura Freeway. Detectives determined that the corpse was cleaned before being dumped, while faint marks were also visible around the neck, wrists and ankles, signs of a rope being used. The victim had been assaulted, raped and strangled.

===Judith Miller===
On November 1, 1977, police were called to Alta Terrace Drive in [[La Crescenta-Montrose, California|La Crescenta]],<ref>''Two of a Kind: The Hillside Stranglers'' {{ISBN|978-0-453-00499-2}} p. 24</ref> a neighborhood 12 miles north of [[downtown Los Angeles]], where the body of a teenage girl was found naked, face up on a parkway in a middle-class residential area. The homeowner had covered her with a tarp in the early morning hours to prevent the neighborhood children from viewing her on their way to school.<ref name="cl5">{{cite web |last=Bardsley |first=Marilyn |title=Early Victims |url=http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/stranglers/victims_2.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150210032548/http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/stranglers/victims_2.html |archive-date=February 10, 2015 |publisher=[[Crime Library]]}}</ref> Ligature marks were on her neck, wrists and ankles, indicating to police she was bound and strangled. The body had been dumped, indicating she was killed elsewhere.<ref name="cl5"/>

Detective Salerno also found a small piece of light-colored fluff on her eyelid and saved it for the [[forensic]] experts. A coroner's report further detailed that she had been raped and [[sodomy|sodomized]].<ref name="cl5"/> The girl, who was described as being "small and thin, weighing about 90 pounds and appearing to be about 16 years old",<ref name="cl5"/> was eventually identified as 15-year-old Judith Lynn Miller, a former student of [[Hollywood High School]]. After dropping out, Miller was a runaway and small-time sex worker.

Miller was last seen alive on Halloween, October 31, 1977, talking to a man driving a large, two-toned sedan on Sunset Boulevard next to [[Carney's]]. The stranglers had told her they were ‘undercover’ police officers, handcuffed her, and took her to Buono's Auto Upholstery Shop at 703 E. Colorado St. in [[Glendale, California|Glendale]], where she was murdered.

===Lissa Kastin===
Five days later, on November 6, 1977, the nude body of another woman was discovered near the Chevy Chase Country Club in Glendale. Like Miller, her body bore five-point (neck, wrists, and ankles) ligature marks, and showed signs of having been strangled and brutally raped, but not sodomized.<ref name="cl5"/> The woman was identified as 21-year-old waitress Elissa Teresa "Lissa" Kastin, who was last seen leaving the restaurant where she worked the night before her body was discovered.<ref name="vronsky188">{{cite book|first=Peter|last=Vronsky|title=Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters|url=https://archive.org/details/serialkillersmet00vron_582|url-access=limited|isbn=0-425-19640-2|page=[https://archive.org/details/serialkillersmet00vron_582/page/n209 188]|year=2004|publisher=Penguin }}</ref>

In addition to working full-time, Kastin was also a professional dancer in the all-female dance and cabaret troupe The L.A. Knockers and (unlike the previous two victims) was not a prostitute, drug user or runaway. The stranglers followed Kastin after she was seen driving home from work, pulled her over on the street she lived on, presented a fake ‘police badge’, and told her that they were detectives. They then handcuffed her and told her they needed to take her in for questioning.<ref name="vronsky188"/>

===Aborted abduction of Catharine Lorre Baker===
At some point in early November 1977,<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1346&dat=19791117&id=O3gsAAAAIBAJ&pg=6965,284812&hl=en|title=Peter Lorre's Daughter was Near-victim of Hillside Strangler|access-date=September 11, 2016|newspaper=Lakeland Ledger|date=November 17, 1979}}</ref> the two men approached 24-year-old Catharine Lorre Baker, the daughter of actor [[Peter Lorre]] — famous for his role as a serial killer in [[Fritz Lang]]'s film [[M (1931 film)|''M'']] — with the intent of [[Kidnapping|abducting]] and killing her. However, when Lorre produced not only her driver's license when requested, but also a picture of her sitting on her father's lap as a child, the two let her go without incident, fearing the murder of a celebrity's child would attract an unusually high amount of police and press attention.<ref>{{cite news|last=Edwards|first=Elisabeth|url=https://www.thevintagenews.com/2022/06/10/peter-lorre-daughter-hillside-strangler/|title='Casablanca' Star Peter Lorre Saved His Daughter from the Hillside Strangler|newspaper=The Vintage News|date=June 10, 2022|access-date=April 1, 2023}}</ref>

Lorre did not realize who the men were until they were arrested, at which point she recalled that two men flashing L.A. police badges had approached her in the past.<ref name="vronsky191">{{cite book|first=Peter|last=Vronsky|title=Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters|url=https://archive.org/details/serialkillersmet00vron_582|url-access=limited|isbn=0-425-19640-2|page=[https://archive.org/details/serialkillersmet00vron_582/page/n212 191]|year=2004|publisher=Penguin }}</ref>
[[File:Dolores Cepeda Sonja Johnson November 13 1977A.jpg|210px|right|thumb|Dolores Cepeda (left) and Sonja Johnson]]

===Dolores Cepeda and Sonja Johnson===
On Sunday, November 13, 1977, two girls, 12-year-old Dolores Ann "Dolly" Cepeda and 14-year-old Sonja Marie Johnson,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Guiltenane |first=Christian |date=February 22, 2022 |title=Who Was the Hillside Strangler and Who Were all the Victims? |url=https://www.entertainmentdaily.co.uk/tv/hillside-strangler-who-victims-how-arrested-still-alive/ |access-date=May 7, 2023 |website=Entertainment Daily |language=en-GB}}</ref> boarded an [[Southern California Rapid Transit District|RTD]] bus in front of the Eagle Rock Plaza on [[Colorado Boulevard]] and headed home. The last time they were seen was getting off the bus on York Boulevard and North Avenue 46, and approaching a two-tone [[Sedan (automobile)|sedan]] that reportedly had two men inside. Their two corpses were discovered by a 9-year-old boy who was treasure-hunting in a trash heap on a hillside near [[Dodger Stadium]] on November 20, 1977.<ref name="cl3">{{cite web |last=Bardsley |first=Marilyn |title=Two Killers |url=http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/stranglers/3.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150210032543/http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/stranglers/3.html |archive-date=February 10, 2015 |publisher=[[Crime Library]]}}</ref> Both of the girls' bodies had already begun to [[decomposition|decompose]]. It was determined that they had been strangled and raped.<ref name="vronsky188"/>

===Kristina Weckler===
Earlier that same day, November 20, 1977, hikers found the naked body of 20-year-old Kristina Weckler, a quiet, unassuming honors student at the [[Art Center College of Design]], described by Detective Bob Grogan of the [[Los Angeles Police Department]] as a ''"…loving and serious young woman who should have had a bright future ahead of her"''.<ref name="cl3"/> Weckler was discovered on a hillside between Glendale and [[Eagle Rock, Los Angeles|Eagle Rock]]. When found by Detective Grogan, the typical ligature marks were on her wrists, ankles, and neck, and when he turned her over, bruises were observed on her breasts and blood oozed from her rectum. Unlike the first three victims, there were two puncture marks on her arm, but no signs of the needle tracks that indicated a drug addict;<ref name="cl2">{{cite web |last=Bardsley |first=Marilyn |title=The 'Hillside Strangler' |url=http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/stranglers/2.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150210032542/http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/stranglers/2.html |archive-date=February 10, 2015 |publisher=[[Crime Library]]}}</ref> it was later determined that Weckler had been injected with [[Windex]], a common [[ammonia]]-based  window, glass and [[hard-surface cleaner]].<ref name="vronsky188"/>

===Evelyn Jane King===
On November 23, 1977, the badly decomposed body of 28-year-old Evelyn Jane King, an aspiring actress who had gone missing on November 9, was discovered in bushes<ref>''Two of a Kind: The Hillside Stranglers'' {{ISBN|978-0-453-00499-2}} p. 52</ref> near the [[Los Feliz Boulevard]] off-ramp of the [[Golden State Freeway]].<ref name="cl3"/> The severity of decomposition prevented determination as to whether she had been raped or [[torture]]d, but she had been strangled like the others. In response authorities created a task force — initially composed of 30 officers from the LAPD, the Sheriff's Department and the [[Glendale Police Department]] — to catch the predator now dubbed the "Hillside Strangler".<ref name="cl3"/>
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===Lauren Wagner===
On November 29, 1977, police found the body of 18-year-old Lauren Rae Wagner, a business student who lived with her parents in the [[San Fernando Valley]],<ref name="vronsky188"/> in the hills around Los Angeles's [[Mount Washington, Los Angeles|Mount Washington]]. She had ligature marks on her neck, ankles, and wrists. There were also burn marks on her hands indicating she was tortured.<ref name="cl4">{{cite web |last=Bardsley |first=Marilyn |title=A Witness |url=http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/stranglers/4.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150210032547/http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/stranglers/4.html |archive-date=February 10, 2015 |publisher=[[Crime Library]]}}</ref> Lauren's parents had expected her to come home before midnight, and the next morning, when they found her car parked across the street with the door ajar, her father questioned the neighbors.<ref name="cl4"/>

He found that the woman who lived in the house where Lauren's car had been parked saw her abduction. This woman stated that she saw two men: one was tall and young, the other one was older and shorter with bushy hair.<ref name="cl4"/> She also stated that she heard Wagner cry out "You won't get away with this!" during her abduction.<ref name="cl4"/>

===Kimberly Martin===
On December 14, 1977, the naked body of 17-year-old prostitute Kimberly Diane Martin, which also showed signs of torture, was found on a deserted lot near [[Los Angeles City Hall]]. Martin had previously joined a [[call girl]] agency because she feared exposing herself on the streets with the Strangler on the loose. The killers happened to place a call to her agency from a Hollywood Public Library pay phone, and she was the call girl who was dispatched. When the police investigated the apartment she had been dispatched to, they found it vacant and broken into.<ref name="cl6">{{cite web |last=Bardsley |first=Marilyn |title=Three More |url=http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/stranglers/6.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150210032549/http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/stranglers/6.html |archive-date=February 10, 2015 |publisher=[[Crime Library]]}}</ref>

===Cindy Hudspeth===
The body of the final Hillside Strangler victim was discovered in Los Angeles on February 17, 1978, when a helicopter pilot spotted an orange [[Datsun]] abandoned midway down a cliff on the [[Angeles Crest Highway]].<ref name="vronsky188"/> Police responded to the scene and discovered the nude body of the car's owner, 20-year-old Cindy Lee Hudspeth — a student and part-time waitress — in the trunk. Her corpse again showed ligature marks, and she had been raped and tortured. She had been strangled and her body placed in the trunk of her car, which was then pushed off the cliff.<ref name="cl6"/>

Hudspeth's murder had initially been unplanned. Bianchi had arrived at Buono's upholstery shop at closing time on February 16 to discover Hudspeth in the company of Buono, discussing upholstery work she wished him to perform on her car. The two men had a private discussion, opting to make her their next victim.<ref>''Two of a Kind: The Hillside Stranglers'' {{ISBN|978-0-453-00499-2}} p. 143</ref>