On September 4, 1977, the body of Laura Collins, a 22-year-old woman, was found in Griffith Park, Los Angeles. She had been strangled to death, and her murder remains unsolved to this day. At the time, her death was initially suspected to be linked to the Hillside Strangler cases, as several women in Los Angeles had been killed in a similar manner.
However, subsequent investigations revealed no evidence to directly connect her murder to Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi, the infamous Hillside Stranglers, who were later convicted for other similar crimes during that period.
The body of Laura Collins was discovered dumped in Griffith Park, close to a location where other victims had been left by different perpetrators. Investigators noted that Collins, like other victims, had no identification on her at the time, which made it challenging to identify her initially. The fact that she had been found in the same area as victims of other serial killings heightened fears that she could be part of a broader pattern of serial murders happening in Los Angeles during the late 1970s. Her case has drawn significant attention due to the brutal nature of her death, but despite these efforts, no arrests have ever been made.
The investigation into Collins' murder faced numerous challenges, as law enforcement in Los Angeles was already dealing with several high-profile serial killings during this time, such as those attributed to the Hillside Strangler. This, combined with the lack of witnesses or concrete leads, meant that her case went cold and remains one of many unsolved homicides from that turbulent period in Los Angeles history. The area around Griffith Park had become notorious for violent incidents, which often made pinpointing specific perpetrators difficult, especially given the rise in random attacks by multiple assailants around that time.
