The True Story of the Hillside Strangler Will Give You Nightmares

Where are Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi now?

In 1986, Buono married Christine Kizuka, a mother of three he met when her previous husband spent five months in a cell next to his while serving a term for assault with a deadly weapon. A spokesman for the California Department of Corrections told the Associated Press that Buono was not allowed conjugal visits, nor was he ever likely to be, “due to the nature of his crimes against women.”

Buono, who had heart trouble, died in his cell at Calpatria State Prison of natural causes on Sept. 21, 2002. He was 67.

In January 2007, Christopher Buono, one of the killer’s grandchildren, shot his grandmother Mary Castillo in the head and then fatally turned the gun on himself. Castillo survived. 

A neighbor who knew of her past told the Orange County Register, “People should leave her alone, or care about her because she’s Mary, not because she used to be married to that man.”

Meanwhile, Bianchi married Shirlee Joyce Book, who started off as a pen pal, in 1989, meeting her in person for the first time the day before their wedding. Now 71, he remains locked up in Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. He was denied parole on his first attempt, in 2010, and he can try again in 2025.