[42][13] As such, the two frequently argued about his homosexual attraction. Number 15. The interior of the van had also been extensively stained with human blood. [11] Bonin's parents were both alcoholics; his father was a machinist, an ill-tempered war veteran[10] and gambling addict who was frequently physically abusive toward his wife in the presence of his children, and who is known to have occasionally beaten his sons during his wife's absence. [5] Furthermore, upon three victims' bodies, investigators had discovered hair samples which were proven to be a precise match with Bonin. [17][13] This Catholic convent was known to severely discipline the children it housed for major and minor breaches of conduct, with punishments administered including harsh beatings, stress positions, repeatedly pacing staircases until exhausted, and partial drowning in sinks filled with ice water. [114], Shortly thereafter, Bonin and his younger brother Paul who worked as a plumber relocated to the rural community of Silverado, California, and ran a neighborhood bar called the Alpine Inn. [83] In May 1969, Bonin recounted to a probation officer his recent stressful separation and admitted his guilt in molesting male youths, although he also expressed desire to start a family and become a pilot upon his release. Not only did he enjoy it, and plan to enjoy it, he had an insatiable demand, an insatiable appetite not only for sodomy, but for killing." [247][248] Bonin then drove to Butts' apartment in Lakewood, where the trio began listening to music as they sat on the couch. I stabbed him again and then again, and again and again until he was helpless. These convened judges also rejected Bonin's final claim that he had a right to choose between the gas chamber or lethal injection as his actual method of execution.[347]. [392] On this date, Miley was informed he would need to serve a minimum of sixteen years and eight months before he would be considered for parole. [85] In the final evaluation, he was found to be "seriously lacking insight and responsibility" for crimes committed since his childhood. William Bonin (con Diego Zanassi) Scroll. They encountered 15-year-old Charles Miranda standing close to the Starwood nightclub,[215] hitchhiking along Santa Monica Boulevard. He was also charged with three counts of robbery. Shortly after McVicker entered Bonin's Opel Kadett, he asked him whether he had engaged in homosexuality or was homosexual. This incident had occurred on December 8, 1981; Bonin had subsequently worn sunglasses in court to conceal his black eyes. On May 25, 2016, Miley died of injuries he had sustained two days previously, when he had been attacked by another inmate in an exercise yard at Mule Creek State Prison. [244][245] Prior to disposing of Wood's body, Bonin allegedly drove to a scheduled job interview before eating pizza as he awaited the onset of dusk to safely discard the corpse. Hanson remained Bonin's attorney until October 1981 when, at Bonin's request, he was replaced by William Charvet and Tracy Stewart. One Friday evening in March, 1980, Bonin offered a 17-year-old named William Ray Pugh a ride home as the pair left the house of Everett Fraser. Returning home, his mother promptly reported Bonin to police. He also accepted a subsequent offer of employment at the Montebello delivery firm where Bonin worked, and was allowed by Bonin to drive his van on occasion. [232] He was bound, beaten and strangled to death after an estimated eight hours of captivity[234] before his body was discarded alongside that of Barker in Cleveland National Forest, close to the Ortega Highway. When Bonin briefly departed to urinate, he allegedly caught the youth stealing $100 from his billfold. Although Charvet did not specifically ask the jurors to find Bonin not guilty,[321] he did request they only return the "reasonable verdict you can bring", indicating a likelihood of not guilty verdicts on at least some counts upon which Bonin stood charged. [115], Through his frequent attendance at Fraser's parties,[112] Bonin became acquainted with 21-year-old porcelain factory worker, occultist, and part-time magician Vernon Robert Butts[118] and 18-year-old Gregory Matthews Miley. [275][268], At approximately 9p.m., the two drove to Butts' Lakewood apartment[276] as Bonin informed Munro that he, Butts, and others had committed many of the "Freeway Killer" murders. On at least twelve occasions, Bonin was assisted by one of his four known . I met Vernon Butts [and] I admired him. According to Douglas, Bonin had held a newspaper article aloft before saying to him: "These are the little boys I got ahold of". [80][n 4], He was indicted on five counts of kidnapping, four counts of sodomy, one count of oral copulation, and one count of child molestation against the five individuals he had abducted and assaulted or in the case of the final youth he had abducted, attempted to assault since the previous November. [244] Wood's autopsy revealed the youth had been killed by ligature strangulation. [129][130][n 8] Butts also held suspicion that his apartment was haunted by ghosts,[132] and had recently been fired from his employment as a magic store clerk at Knott's Berry Farm due to his unkempt appearance and increasingly strange and unpredictable behavior. Young people act as they see other people acting instead of as people tell them to act. While driving, the suspect became visibly angry before asking the minor whether he "knew there were homosexuals in this world" and homosexuality. - Bonin, describing his acquaintance with Vernon Butts to psychologist Dr Vonda Pelto. Murder Defendant Enters Plea of Guilty", "Without Remorse: The Story of the Woman who Kept Los Angeles' Serial Killers Alive", "William George Bonin, Petitioner-appellant, v. Arthur Calderon (1995)", "Strangulations Described: Deaths Linked", "Gas Chamber Mulled for Homosexual Killer", "One of Freeway Killer Victims Was His Nephew, Witness Against Bonin Reveals", "Interview Confession Testified by Reporter", "Suspected Freeway Killer Described as Insatiable", "Bonin Convicted of Ten 'Freeway' Sex-torture Slayings", "Families Hope Freeway Killer's Execution Ends Their Years of Pain", "Freeway Killer William Bonin, Already Facing the Gas Chamber, is Convicted of Four Further Slayings", "Freeway Killer William Bonin, Already Facing the Gas Chamber", "Bonin's History: Fourteen Murders, Two Acquittals", "Freeway Killer William Bonin, What He Did & Why? [23] After returning home, Bonin was reportedly more recalcitrant toward his parents than before the punishment. [259], Having by this stage determined a definitive link between many of the murders committed within the previous year, investigators from the various jurisdictions where victims had been abducted or discovered had themselves begun sharing information in their collective hunt for the perpetrator. Upon hearing muffled screams and banging sounds emanating from inside the van, these plainclothes officers forced their way into the vehicle;[280] discovering Bonin in the act of raping 17-year-old Orange County runaway Harold Eugene Tate, whom he had handcuffed and bound. [389] (In the days immediately following the murder of Wells and prior to Bonin's arrest, Munro boasted to several colleagues of his belief the Freeway Killer would never be caught. Next time, I figured I wouldn't use as much. [51] According to Bonin, he was something of an awkward, shy loner who generally felt uncomfortable in the presence of his peers. [153] Bonin himself later likened his homicidal urges to that of an addiction, emphasizing to neurologists his scarcely being able to wait for the onset of dusk to begin his cruising[31] and referencing his feelings of extreme restlessness and sexual frustration in the hours prior to his murders,[154] emphasizing that he had felt an intense sense of excitement as he drove in search of his victims. [59] Nonetheless, Bonin's mother, later expressing extreme disappointment and contempt for her middle son's sexuality and actions,[60][42] evicted her son from the household on at least one occasion for undisclosed reasons. [286] The following day, Munro stole Bonin's car and fled to his native Michigan,[287] where he resided temporarily with a friend before his arrest. My mother never stopped him. [129][125] Butts also held "Mystery Parties" in which up to sixteen people searched for various murder artifacts in the city of Downey, such as a hairpin or ice pick. "[354], At 6 p.m. on the day he was executed, Bonin was moved from his cell to a death watch cell, where he ordered his last meal: two large pizzas, three pints of ice cream and three six-packs of Coke, which he ate while watching an episode of Jeopardy!. [112] On August 13, 1979,[176] Fraser drove to collect Bonin from the Orange County Jail where he had been incarcerated. [73] His body was found two days later alongside the Ortega Highway, five miles east of San Juan Capistrano. Ashamed of his sexual attraction to younger children and male teachers, Bonin isolated himself from others to whom he struggled to relate. [307], Bonin was brought to trial in Los Angeles County, charged with the murder of twelve of his victims whose bodies had been found within this constituency, on October 19, 1981. In an interview with . Retrieving the youth from his vehicle and handcuffing him, Bonin choked him in the parking lot before threatening to murder and sodomize Jones if he did not comply with orders. Willimantic Willimantic is a census-designated place, former city and borough. It is located in the town of Windham in Windham County, Connecticut. Ignoring the boy's pleas to let him go, Bonin began threatening Brettman and parked north of Hawthorne Boulevard and Palos Verdes North where he forced the child to orally copulate him, molesting and robbing the boy under threat of a pistol; he then threatened to kill this victim if he ever reported the incident. How & Why Bonin covered for accomplice Eric Wijnaendts, who helped him with two murders. Bonin was the first California inmate to be executed by lethal injection. . [313], The strategy of Bonin's defense attorneys, Charvet and Stewart, was to challenge the credibility of numerous prosecution witnesses, and to suggest that extremely significant mitigating factors as to the root causes of Bonin's behavior lay in the extensive physical, sexual, and emotional abuse he had endured throughout his early life. Bonin would later allege he had been intimately involved with Sharp, and had taken him out to Knott's Berry Farm for a date when his (Bonin's) girlfriend was absent. [224][225] Bonin then forced Macabe to sleep in his arms. [379] In addition, many of his victims had been aged in their early- or mid-twenties, and a small number of his victims had also been dismembered prior to their disposal. In addition, a neurologist's magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalogram tests conducted on Bonin would reveal that he had minimal, if any, brain anomalies indicative of damage. [339][341], After three days of deliberations as to the actual penalty to be imposed upon Bonin, the jury announced on August 22 their recommendations that he be sentenced to death on each count. Enraged with Shelton's fear and resistance, Bonin immediately beat the youth, squeezing his genitals and driving his knee into his face until he lost consciousness. [268], A police investigation into Bonin's background revealed his extensive history of convictions for sexually assaulting teenage boys. Shortly after his enrollment at Westminster High School, he into close friends founded a Westminster world's affair club at Westminster High Kraft was again regarded as a pleasant bright student who regularly achieved he was also known to occasionally date girls. [61] Stationed in Phu Loi Base Camp, he served five months of active duty in the 205th Assault Support Helicopter Unit during the Vietnam War as an aerial gunner, logging over 700 hours of combat and patrol time. ", "Southern California's Most Infamous Killers", "San Quentin's Killer Bridge Parties: Kraft, Bonin and Two Other Serial Murderers Play a Mean Game of Cards", "Wilson Denies Bonin's Plea to Halt Execution", "Lethal Jab Ends Life of 'Freeway Killer', "Here are the 13 Men Executed in California Since 1978", "Where are the Serial Killers and Sexual Predators Vonda Pelto Dealt With Now", "Condemned: But Not Without Friends to End", "Trail of Death Now Twisting Through the Courts", "An 18-year-old Who Reportedly Led Police to the Prime Suspect", "Courtroom Cleared at Accused Killers' Hearing", "Eric Marten Wijnaendts Pleads Not Guilty", "Prosecutors to Seek 'Freeway Killer' Indictments", "Victims' Families Monitor Freeway Killer Case", "Twenty-one Killings Admitted, Newsman Says", "Patrick W. Kearney: The Trash Bag Murderers", "Bonin's Mom to Repay Son's Disability Benefits", "Sole Survivor Of Notorious 'Freeway Killer' Speaks Out", "Freeway Killer Accomplice Gets 25 Years", "Freeway Killer Accomplice Gets 25-years-to-life Sentence", "Gregory Miley, Accomplice of 'Freeway Killer' William Bonin, Seeks Parole", "Inmate Death at Mule Creek State Prison is Suspected Homicide", "Accomplice of Notorious 'Freeway Killer' Fatally Beaten in Prison", "Homicide suspected in Mule Creek Prison Inmate's Death", "Gregory Matthew Miley, Accomplice of "Freeway Killer" William Bonin, Seeks Parole", "Accomplice of California 'Freeway Killer' Slain in Prison", "Crime Articles: Have You Heard of the Freeway Killer? He had a total disregard for the sanctity of human life and a civilized society. On January 5, 1982 Bonin was convicted on ten counts of murder and robbery. [236], According to Pugh, Bonin entered an irritable state before confiding in him that he enjoyed abducting young male hitchhikers on Friday and Saturday nights so he had time to take his girlfriend roller-skating on Sundays, adding that he restrained and abused youths before strangling them to death with their own T-shirts. She put me in one of those boy's homes, and I got raped by these older guys. His friends also mistakenly reported seeing him at the mall. William born in Boston was a cruel, malicious monster, a boogie man who stalked the roads between Orange County and Los Angeles. [317][318] Lpez further stated that when he asked Bonin what he would be doing if he were still at large, Bonin had replied: "I'd still be killing, I couldn't stop killing. He then phoned his mother, who promptly informed Garden Grove police of the incident. [216], According to Miley, Bonin and Miranda engaged in consensual intercourse in the rear of the van as he drove, before Bonin privily stammered to him, "Kid's going to die. William Bonin "The Freeway Killer" was executed on February 23, 1996 by lethal injection. [109] Fraser considered Bonin a respectful, polite and placid individual to whom he frequently introduced his young male acquaintances,[13] with the two also exchanging stories of their homosexual exploits and penchant for sex with teenage boys. [397] At the time of Miley's death, his next scheduled parole hearing was to be held in 2019. I stuck them with the knife in different places because I didn't know where to stab, you know, I didn't know where the vital organs [were] or anything like that. [151] Butts claimed his participation in the murders was typically limited to restraining the victims, although he admitted to mutilating one victim with a wire coat hanger. 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