Sabra Hannan
The relationship between Kenny and Kelli became tense. She would often go to stay with her brother, but would always go back to Kenny. In February, their son Sean was born. For awhile, things were better between them, but the old problems surfaced once again.
Ted Schwartz in The Hillside Strangler summarizes how Kelli viewed the difficulties: "Ken was irresponsible about work and about money. He would goof off, going over to play cards with Angelo after calling in sick. He owned a used Cadillac, then couldn't make the payments. She had hoped that the baby would cause him to have a sense of purpose, to encourage him to change his ways, but it didn't.
"Perhaps Los Angeles was the problem. Everything was a hustle. People had no depth, no values, no integrity. Ken did. He was a very moral man, yet he was young and easily influenced by others. He desperately wanted approval, and apparently he didn't get it from just doing his job and following the work ethic. Whatever the case, Kelli realized that they were finished in that city."
Kelli went back home to Bellingham to start over. Her parents and old friends were there to help. Ken was devastated by the decision. Once again, his woman abandoned him. Once she was gone, he wrote to her constantly. Finally, she agreed to give him another chance and he drove to Bellingham in May of 1978.
The police in Los Angeles released a photo of Bianchi to the news media and received a call from a lawyer named David Wood. Wood had rescued one of two girls, Becky Spears and Sabra Hannan, from Bianchi and his cousin, Angelo Buono who had forced the young women into prostitution by threats and brutality.
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Sabra Hannan |
While Salerno was in Bellingham, Grogan and Salerno's partner, Pete Finnigan, went to have a little chat with Angelo Buono. Buono was an ugly man in his forties with dyed black hair, poor teeth and a nose that dominated his face. The detectives had a strong hunch that this Angelo character was the other Hillside Strangler. |
Angelo Buono is an ugly man physically, emotionally and intellectually. He is coarse, vulgar, selfish, ignorant and sadistic. He was also a big hit with the ladies and called himself the "Italian Stallion." He had been married several times and had a number of children, all of whom he abused at least physically and sometimes sexually.
 Angelo Buono |
He was born in Rochester, New York, on October 5, 1934. When his mother and father got a divorce, he moved with Jenny, his mother and his older sister, Cecilia, to the south part of Glendale, California, in 1939. His mother supported the family by doing piecework in a shoe factory. Angelo was brought up Catholic, but neither his religion nor his public education had much impact on him. He remained uneducated throughout his life, spiritually, morally and academically. |
Despite his need for sex and the practicality of occasionally being decent to a woman in order to get as much as he needed, he has a deep loathing for women and a desire to humiliate and injure them. He called his mother a "cunt" and a "whore" to her face, but was emotionally tied to her until her death in 1978. Even as a fourteen-year-old, he boasted to his friends about raping and sodomizing girls.
It's not surprising that Angelo got in trouble with the law. He was sent to the Paso Robles School for Boys after he was convicted for grand theft auto. His proclaimed hero and role model was the notorious rapist, Caryl Chessman. "Chessman had demonstrated the possibilities of a police ruse. The red light he had attached to his car enabled him to con lovers parked in the hills of Los Angeles into opening their car windows and doors to him. They took him for a policeman. Showing a .45, Chessman would force the girl into his car, drive her to another secluded spot, and usually, make her perform oral sex...To Angelo he was a heroic combination of guts and brains." (O'Brien).
Angelo knocked up a girl from his high school girl in 1955 and married her. He left her less than a week later. Geraldine Vinal gave birth to Michael Lee Buono in 1956. Angelo refused to give her a cent for his support and refused to let the boy call him Dad. Angelo was in jail again for car theft when Michael was born.
At the end of 1956, Angelo had sired another son, Angelo Anthony Buono III. In 1957, he married the mother, Mary Castillo, who then gave birth every year or two: Peter Buono in1957; Danny Buono in 1958; Louis Buono in 1960; Grace Buono in 1962.
In 1964, Mary filed for divorce because of his violence and perverse sexual needs, plus she got tired of always being called a cunt. Darcy O'Brien recounts a night in their first year together when Angelo tied Mary spread-eagled to the bedposts and raped her so violently she was afraid that he was going to kill her. "...her pain seemed to give him his greatest pleasure, and when she failed to respond to his pinches and slaps and pile-driver poundings, he would tell her she was a 'dead piece of ass.' Nor did she share his passion for anal intercourse. But Angelo was not a man to be denied. Although he never drank, he beat and kicked her when she failed to please him, and far from caring whether the children witnessed the beatings, he seemed to want them to watch."
Angelo again successfully avoided paying any child support and Mary went on welfare to feed the children. She went to see Angelo about reconciliation, but he handcuffed her, shoved a gun to her stomach and threatened to kill her. That was the last time she thought about reconciliation with Angelo.
In 1965, Angelo started to live with a 25-year-old mother of two children named Nanette Campina. With Nanette, he had Tony in 1967 and Sam in 1969. She was treated just as well as Mary was, but she stayed with him because he made it clear that he would kill her if she didn't. By 1971, Nanette decided to risk everything to get away from Angelo, who had begun to abuse her fourteen-year-old daughter. "She needs breaking in," Angelo said. Angelo bragged to his friends that he'd raped his stepdaughter and then turned her over to his sons for their pleasure. True or not, Nanette took her children and left the state for good.
In 1972, Angelo married Deborah Taylor on a whim, but they never lived together and never got around to getting a divorce.
By 1975, Angelo had built himself a reasonable reputation as an auto upholsterer. He bought a place at 703 East Colorado Street for his residence and his upholstery shop. He had no use for employees, so the new place gave him the privacy to do any horrible thing he wanted.
Through some streak of perversity, young girls were attracted to Angelo. He was cocky, independent, direct and very, very much in-charge. He became a magnet for teenage girls in the neighborhood. They were usually naïve and had no idea about sex, so he had not trouble convincing them that his outrageous demands were normal.
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 cunt 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.
