Kristina Weckler, a 20-year-old white female, was a student at the Pasadena Art Center of Design. On November 20, 1977, her body was discovered on a hillside in Los Angeles. The investigation revealed that she had been injected with a surface cleaning liquid, which was found through needle marks on her arm. This injection, along with other signs of torture, led to her death.
Kristina Weckler was one of the victims of the notorious Hillside Stranglers, a duo consisting of Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono Jr., who terrorized Los Angeles between October 1977 and February 1978.
The Hillside Stranglers, Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono Jr., were responsible for the kidnapping, raping, torturing, and murdering of ten females together, with Bianchi committing two additional murders on his own. The victims ranged in age from 12 to 28 and were predominantly white females. The bodies of the victims were often found in the hills surrounding Los Angeles, leading to the media epithet "Hillside Strangler." The investigation into the Hillside Stranglers was extensive and involved numerous law enforcement agencies. The breakthrough in the case came with the arrest of Kenneth Bianchi in January 1979 for the murder of two young women in Washington state. This arrest led to the linking of his past to the Hillside Strangler case.
Both Bianchi and Buono were eventually apprehended and convicted of their crimes. Bianchi was arrested on January 12, 1979, and Buono was arrested on October 22, 1979. They were both sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The trial and subsequent convictions of Bianchi and Buono brought some closure to the families of the victims, including Kristina Weckler's family. The case of the Hillside Stranglers remains one of the most infamous serial killer cases in American history, highlighting the brutality and depravity of the perpetrators and the extensive efforts of law enforcement to bring them to justice.
