Dumping Ground ― Following the Trail of the Hillside Stranglers and Their Victims

Los Angeles, the heartbeat, where sounds of lust and shopping swallow up catcalls, shameless bragging, screams of terror and delight, and from passing LAPD prowl cars darting down the San Diego Freeway comes the sad and lonesome wail of sirens--police sirens--the song of the city. The city streets are a carnival, it is burlesque. The city moves like an insect. It scurries. Neon beats against the window like a probe, even in the day. And somewhere, buried deep within this crazy world, are two killers who call this place home. Their hunting ground. Their dumping ground. One of them, a man whose birth given name was Kenneth Bianchi but whom his friends know as Ken, waits in the shadows sipping beer and smoking a cigarette and watching the show with delightful glee. These women – whether it be a Valley Girl or a lowly prostitute – all seem to remind him of his mother. His mother had been a prostitute who’d given him up as a child. When he first grew up and can remember, he was dressed as a girl by his mother, and he stayed that way for two or three years. And after that he was treated like what he would call the dog of the family. But that was long ago and far away; that was then and this is now. Tonight, his senses are accelerated and he can hear the pain and the sin on every street corner. It’s like they were calling to him, for him and his cousin Angelo to end their pain and suffering once and for all. The world around him continues to live and breathe, and as he watches sinners kiss, as he watches them gambol and dance, he is reminded of why he’s really here. DUMPING GROUND is an unflinching glimpse into the trail of their victims - from the victims point of view as well - and the aftermath that so aptly named them The Hillside Stranglers.