Read Married to Murder: The Bizarre and True Accounts of People Who Married Murderers for Free Online

Hillside Stranglers that kidnapped, raped, and murdered ten women between October 1977 and January 1978. They were called the Hillside Stranglers because they dumped the bodies in the Hillside neighborhood of Los Angeles.
    Buono was hardly much of a catch for Kizuka; at the time of his marriage, he was a small time hustler, car thief, rapist, and pimp turned serial killer. He also had a series of failed marriages on his record. Among the crimes on Buono’s rap sheet was failure to pay child support. Of course, by the time of his marriage to Kizuka, he would not have been able to save much support out of his cigarette money.
    That didn’t stop Kizuka from seeking the monster out and marrying him. Nor was he much of a genius; some media accounts indicate that Buono and Bianchi’s reign of terror began as a botched attempt to force women into prostitution. They took women hostage and ended up killing the women when they wouldn’t go along with the scheme.
     

A Monster and the Longest Trial in American History
    Anthony Buono had already attracted a lot of attention by the time he married Kizuka. He had been involved in one of the longest murder trials in American history. The case took so long because prosecutors had actually found it hard to convict Buono because two people were involved in the crimes.
    Bianchi didn’t make their job any easier with some bizarre attempts to beat the rap. Among other things, Bianchi talked a serial killer groupie named Veronica Lynn Compton into trying to commit another Hillside Strangler crime in order to misdirect jurors. Instead of committing murder, Compton got herself arrested for attempted murder and went from prison groupie to prisoner.
    The trial lasted two full years, from 1981 to 1983, and evidence was so circumstantial that prosecutors were only able to convict Buono with Bianchi’s testimony. Bianchi had committed two other murders in Washington State after breaking up his partnership with Buono.
    The jury eventually convicted Buono of nine of the ten murders he had been charged with. Bianchi pled guilty to the five other Hillside Strangler killings. In an interesting coincidence, the jury found Buono guilty on Halloween (Oct. 31) in 1983.
     

Was Buono a Dupe or a Monster?
    The most bothersome thing about Angelo Buono might be that he was simply a dupe who was used by his smarter and more charming cousin. Testimony at the trial indicated that Buono drove the car while Bianchi committed the crimes. The crimes themselves didn’t begin until Bianchi moved to LA and moved in with Buono, who was running an upholstery shop.
    There is a strong possibility that Bianchi talked Buono into going along on his killing spree in much the same way he talked Compton into attempting murder. Bianchi is a charming and handsome individual who was something of a conman. Buono was a small time loser who didn’t commit a major crime until Bianchi came into his life.
    So it is hard to see what Kizuka saw in him. At the time of their marriage, Buono was a fifty–two-year-old former upholsterer and petty criminal. He was also serving nine life sentences in the California State prison system. Pictures of Kizuka revealed her to be an attractive woman with long blonde hair.
     

An Unconsummated Marriage
    Kizuka apparently met Buono in 1983 when her first husband was serving time for assault with a deadly weapon in the cell next to his. In other words, she met her violent convict new husband through her convict ex-husband.
    Little is known about Christine Kizuka’s personal life, but it is doubtful her marriage was ever consummated. In 1987 prison officials assured The Los Angeles Times that Buono would never be allowed a conjugal (sex) visit with his wife. Buono was found dead in his prison cell in 2001. He died of an apparent heart attack; he was 67 years old.
    The story of Christine Kizuka and Angelo Buono Jr. is a bizarre one. It is made even more bizarre by the fact that Kenneth Bianchi was able