Kenneth Alessio Bianchi is an American serial killer, kidnapper, and rapist. He is known for the Hillside Strangler murders committed with his cousin Angelo Buono Jr. in Los Angeles, California, as well as for murdering two more women in Washington by himself. Bianchi is currently serving a sentence of life imprisonment in Washington State Penitentiary for these crimes. Bianchi was also at one time a suspect in the Alphabet murders, three unsolved murders in his home city of Rochester, New York, from 1971 to 1973. He is up for parole in 2025.
San Quentin Rehabilitation Center (SQ), formerly known as San Quentin State Prison, is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County.
Cary Anthony Stayner is an American serial killer and the older brother of kidnapping victim Steven Stayner. He worked as a mechanic in Mariposa County, California, and murdered four women between February and July 1999, dumping their bodies near Yosemite National Park, leading to him being dubbed the Yosemite Park Killer or simply the Yosemite Killer. Stayner was found guilty and received the death penalty in 2002. He is currently awaiting execution at San Quentin State Prison.
Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. is an American serial killer, serial rapist, burglar, peeping tom, former police officer and mechanic who committed at least 13 murders, 51 rapes, and 120 burglaries across California between 1974 and 1986. He is responsible for three known separate crime sprees throughout the state, each of which spawned a different nickname in the press, before it became evident that they were committed by the same person.
The Alphabet Killer is a 2008 thriller-horror film, loosely based on the Alphabet murders that took place in Rochester, New York between 1971 and 1973. Eliza Dushku stars alongside Cary Elwes, Michael Ironside, Bill Moseley and Timothy Hutton. The film is directed by Rob Schmidt, director of Wrong Turn, also starring Dushku, and written by Tom Malloy, who also acted in a supporting role.
The Alphabet murders are an unsolved series of child murders which occurred between 1971 and 1973 in Rochester, New York.
David Joseph Carpenter, known as The Trailside Killer, is an American serial killer and serial rapist known for stalking and murdering a variety of individuals on hiking trails in state parks near San Francisco, California. He attacked at least ten individuals and was convicted in seven murders and was confirmed to be the killer in an eighth murder; Carpenter is also suspected in two additional killings. Two victims, Steven Haertle and Lois Rinna, mother of television personality Lisa Rinna, survived. Carpenter used a .38 caliber handgun in all but one of the killings. A .44 caliber handgun was used in the killing of Edda Kane on Mount Tamalpais.
Michael Hubert Hughes is a convicted American serial killer on death row in San Quentin. Hughes was initially sentenced to life without parole for the murders of four women and girls in California. Later, he was convicted of committing three further murders of women, linked to the crimes via DNA profiling. At the second trial, he was sentenced to the death penalty.
The Doodler is an unidentified serial killer believed responsible for between six and sixteen murders and three assaults of men in San Francisco, California, between January 1974 and September 1975. The nickname was given due to the perpetrator's habit of sketching his victims prior to stabbing them to death. The perpetrator met his victims at gay nightclubs, bars and restaurants.
Rodney James Alcala was an American serial killer and convicted sex offender who was sentenced to death in California for five murders committed between 1977 and 1979. He also pleaded guilty and received a sentence of 25 years to life for two further murders committed in New York. He was also indicted for a murder in Wyoming, although the charges filed there were dropped. While Alcala has been conclusively linked to eight murders, the true number of victims remains unknown and could be as high as 130.
Juan Corona Vallejo was a Mexican serial killer who was convicted of the murders of 25 migrant farm workers found buried in peach orchards along the Feather River in Sutter County, California, in 1971. At the time, his crimes were among the most notorious in U.S. history. Until the discovery of Dean Corll's victims two years later, he was the deadliest known American serial killer.
Ricardo Leyva Muñoz Ramirez, better known as Richard Ramirez, and nicknamed the Night Stalker, was an American serial killer and sex offender whose killing spree occurred in Greater Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area in the state of California. From April 1984 to August 1985, Ramirez murdered at least fourteen people during various break-ins, with his crimes usually taking place in the afternoon, leading to him being dubbed the Night Stalker, the Walk-In Killer, and the Valley Intruder. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1989 and died while awaiting execution in 2013.
Michael Thomas Gargiulo is a convicted American serial killer. He moved to Southern California in the 1990s and gained the nickname The Hollywood Ripper. He was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death on July 16, 2021. As of April 2023, he was incarcerated in the California Health Care Facility; in September 2024, he was extradited to Cook County, Illinois, to face trial for a 1993 murder.
The barbecue murders, also known as the BBQ murders, refers to a 1975 double murder in Marin County, California, United States. Business consultant James "Jim" Olive and his wife Naomi were murdered in their home by their 16-year-old adopted daughter Marlene and her 20-year-old boyfriend Charles "Chuck" Riley, who then attempted to dispose of the bodies by burning them in a barbecue pit at a nearby campground. Riley was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and received a sentence of death, which was later changed to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. Marlene, tried as a juvenile, received a sentence of three to six years in a California Youth Authority juvenile facility, from which she was released at age 21 having served a little over four years.
Charles Jackson Jr., known as The East Bay Slayer, was an American serial killer and rapist who murdered at least seven women and one man in the San Francisco Bay area between 1975 and 1982. Convicted of a single murder, he died in prison in 2002 before the more complete exposure of his crimes was revealed based on DNA profiling. He is also suspected of committing several more murders.
Anthony McKnight was an American serial killer, rapist, kidnapper, and sex offender who killed five women and assaulted five others in Oakland, California, over a period of five months in late 1985 and early 1986. In 2008, he was found guilty of these murders and sentenced to death, but died awaiting execution in 2019.
Vender Lee Duncan was an American serial killer, rapist and burglar who sexually assaulted and killed three elderly women in San Francisco, California from 1955 to 1957. Following an arrest for burglary, he confessed to all his crimes, was convicted for two and eventually executed at the San Quentin State Prison in 1959.
