Hillside Strangler

Oh, yeah.

It's one of the big ones, so let's get into Karen's story about the Hillside Stranglers.

[pow] [whir]

Starting a business can feel like one giant project made up of approximately 4,000 smaller projects.

Um, but I had planned up until right before-

Mm-hmm

... that I was gonna do the Hillside Stranglers.

Yeah.

Is that not the time when you're supposed to grapple harder with them?

If somebody says to you, uh, "Eric, uh, you know, previous election, uh, are, are you supportive of the Hillside Strangler or, uh, Ted Bundy? Go."

Milgram question.

Well, I don't know if Charles Manson might run as a, as a third party candidate, so it's too early to say.

As if all of Rodney's free passes in his life weren't enough, he soon had another advantage in concealing his crimes, another killer.

In the fall of 1977, the LAPD was on the hunt for someone known as the Hillside Strangler.

Between October and November of that year, nine young women were found dead in the Hollywood Hills.

Most had ligature marks on their necks, wrists, and ankles.

Because of Rodney's criminal background, he was called in for questioning.

But he had solid alibis for many of the Strangler cases, so investigators let him go.

What they didn't realize was that one of the women they thought had been killed by the Hillside Strangler actually was Rodney's victim.

You know that thing where you get an amazing pair of shoes at a really great price and want to tell everyone about it? Yeah, so do we.

Okay.

But whoever he is, what they normally do is they would give a serial killer a nickname, right? For example, the Night Stalker or the Green River Killer, you know what I mean? Or the Hillside Stranglers.

They'd give them those names, but then ultimately, we're going to find out who those people are, right? In this case, they gave him a name, Jack the Ripper.

He probably gave himself the name Jack the Ripper.

Without ever missing an episode, I love your shows.

However, can we back off on the serial killers? Between the Hillside Strangler and the Dating Game episode, there's been a lot of abused and slaughtered women.

It's been a bit much to take.

Thanks for listening to my thoughts, Helen.

remember she was leaving us in the car at the store when all the serial killers were running around.

California had the Hillside Strangler and all this weird, and then the Moonies and all sorts of, and those other guys, Manson brothers and stuff, killing people.

And we're like, Mom, you're leaving us in the car and there's murderers or whatever.

But we lived and I think it made us better.

Happy Friday, August 28th, here in the Relief Factor studios.

How do we find common ground with these people? How in the world do you sit, how could I sit down and break bread with a guy who has such monstrous thoughts? And these are monstrous thoughts, right? I wonder if Mamdani, if he was old enough at the time when Charlie Manson died, if he would be deeply saddened over the death of Charles Manson or John Wayne Gacy or the Hillside Strangler or serial killers.

This guy is no good.

This is a bad, bad dude.

Again, you can guess who.

This is the story of Alice Bag, leader of the seminal LA punk band called The Bags, and it's the story of LA punk rock being born in the shadow of the Hillside Strangler.

Make sure you check that out.

Alice Bag, that's available for you right now in Disgraceland.

I'm gonna do that right now.

The trailer will start with this cheesy line: "Some superheroes wear a mask, but this hero wore a paper bag." But the thing is, guys, this is true.

When a member of the LA punk scene was brutally murdered by the Hillside Strangler, one punk stepped up to protect the rest.

She wasn't born a protector.