A Rift in the Fabric of Time

Let me tell you about Veronica Compton. Our paths crossed on Bainbridge Island off Seattle in November 2013 shortly before Thanksgiving. Veronica was an integral player in the Hillside Strangler case in Los Angeles in 1980. First some background. The Hillside Strangler is the media epithet for two men Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono who were convicted of kidnapping raping torturing and killing ten females ranging in age from 12 to 28 years old during a four-month period from late 1977 to early 1978. They committed their crimes in the hills above Los Angeles California. The first victim of the Hillside Strangler was a Hollywood prostitute Yolanda Washington whose body was found near the Forest Lawn Cemetery on October 18 1977. The corpse was cleaned and faint marks were visible around the neck wrists and ankles where a rope had been used. It was discovered that the victim had been raped. On November 1 1977 police were called to a La Crescenta neighborhood northeast of downtown Los Angeles where the body of a teenage girl was found naked face up on a parkway in a residential area. The homeowner had covered her with a tarp to prevent the neighborhood children from viewing her on their way to school. Bruises on her neck indicated strangulation. The body had been dumped indicating she was killed elsewhere. The girl was eventually identified as Judith Lynn Miller a runaway prostitute who was barely 15 years old. The coroner''s report further detailed her being bound much like the first victim Yolanda Washington. Five days later on November 6 1977 the nude body of another woman was discovered near the Chevy Chase Country Club. Like Judith Lynn Miller she had been strangled with a ligature. The woman was identified as 21-year-old Lissa Teresa Kastin a waitress and was last seen leaving work the night before she was discovered. Two girls Dolores Cepeda 12 and Sonja Johnson 14 boarded a school bus and headed home on November 13 1977. The last time they were seen was getting off this bus and approaching a car. Inside the car were reportedly two men. A young boy cleaning up a trash-strewn hillside near Dodger Stadium found their bodies November 20. Both girls had been strangled and raped. Later that same day November 20 1977 hikers found the nude sexually assaulted body of Kristina Weckler 20 on a hillside near Glendale. Unlike previous victims there were signs of torture indicated by oozing injection marks. It was later revealed that Weckler had been injected with Windex. On November 23 1977 the badly decomposed body of Jane King 28 an actress was found near an off-ramp of the Golden State freeway. She had gone missing around November 9. With the continued discovery of bodies in hilly areas a task force was formed to catch the predator dubbed the Hillside Strangler. On November 29 1977 police found the body of Lauren Wagner 18. She also had been strangled with a ligature; and there were burn marks on her hands indicating she was tortured. The law enforcement task force—Los Angeles Police Department Los Angeles County Sheriff''s Department and Glendale Police Department—began to believe that more than one person was responsible for the murders even though the media continued to use the singular Hillside Strangler. On December 13 1977 police found the body of 17-year-old prostitute Kimberly Martin on a hillside.