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Hey weirdos, I'm Alayna. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid.
Morbid. Morbid! Here we are. Hi. This is going to be a crazy one.
I just want to warn you right out the gate.
I don't know what it is. It's going to be a two-parter.
Love that. There are a lot of victims in this case, and I wanted to make sure I mentioned as many as I could humanly possibly find and confirm, because I didn't want to glaze anybody over.
Today we are going to be talking about the insane case of William George Bonin.
Ooh, I have not heard of this person. Yeah, you know, I had heard... of his name and he's called, he was referred to as the freeway killer.
And yeah, we're just going to get right into it because there's a lot to talk about.
So I don't want to waste any time. Oh, good.
He's called the freeway killer, which I think there's been a few freeway killers.
Okay, I was going to say that. Because I was like...
The Freeway Killer or Amy Freeway Killer.
Yeah, sometimes they reuse those stupid names that they give people.
But yeah, he's one of them. so you've definitely i'm sure heard of at least one of them uh but william bonin sounded familiar to me so when i dove into this i was like wow i didn't know all of this okay he's another one of those that you're like What?
Why were you lurking? How? What? Yeah, it's a crazy one.
He abducted, raped, tortured, and killed. at least 21 young men and boys.
Oh, my God. Yes, in California. And he did this in the late 70s, early 80s.
Of course he did. Yeah. So, yeah, they were young men, like all in their teens.
He never got out of the teens, but really not higher.
I think maybe one of them is possibly like 23.
That's it, but they're young. And he's known, too, for never showing any remorse.
He had never shown remorse. He never apologized.
When he talked about it later, he was like, yeah.
Like, I liked doing it. I don't know what to tell you.
Like, he's not sorry at all. People who knew him, and we'll get into it later, people who knew him said that he literally liked to hear people in pain.
Like that's what he enjoyed. Yeah. And what's even weirder with him is he had a few different accomplices. that he worked with.
This wasn't a hillside strangler. This wasn't Henry Lee Lucas and Otis Toole.
This is... He had like... four accomplices that he like rotated through damn so he met four people who wanted to do this with them.
That is a scary, scary thing. That's insane.
And I can't wrap my brain around it. but it happens.
Probably good that you cannot wrap your brain around that.
So let's take you back, shall we? No, thanks.
He was actually born in Connecticut. Oh, like right over there.
So like right over there. Hey, Connecticut.
Hey, Connecticut. Yeah, you're very soothing to drive through because nothing's going on.
Maybe not anymore. Yeah, very not. But he was born on January 8th, 1947.
He was the middle child of three brothers.
The middle child. He was. Uh... But I think his entire family was just a middle child because it was very bad, very dysfunctional, not a good childhood at all.
I'd like to preface this by saying there is a lot of talk of rape. a lot um and um there's going to be talk of child molestation i'm not going to get into it i'm not going to go like details or anything, but it's going to be mentioned.
So just so you know, if that's a bummer and you don't want to listen to that.
We understand. Yeah, that is a bummer. And you know what?
Here's your moment. We love you. Have a good time.
Whatever you're doing today. See you next time.
Bye. Okay, for everybody who's still here.
His parents, Robert and Alice Bonnen, We're not great.
Okay. Not great. Not even adequate. They're not even fine.
They're just bad. They were both definitely like really angry alcoholics.
They were aggressive, they were violent.
Robert in particular was very mean-tempered.
He had a vicious addiction to gambling as well.
Oh. And when I say vicious, I mean, like, he used every cent that that family had and did not care about taking money out of his kids' mouths, basically.
He spent all their grocery money, he would spend their mortgage money, like he did not care.
And as a result, the home did eventually go in foreclosure.
I was wondering if you were gonna say that.
Before that happened, he... He had taken so much money from that family that those kids were not... clothed properly.
They were hungry all the time. And eventually neighbors would see these boys just hungry and sad and like dirty and they would help them.
Like luckily they had neighbors that would help them, but like their neighbors had to take that on. because these two fucking assholes couldn't take care of their own just not couldn't wouldn't take care of their own kids you don't have to have kids yeah had the means it's not a requirement Oh, yeah, and they had the means to take care of them, but they spent it in other ways.
So fucked. These neighbors took on, which...
Lucky for them that they had those neighbors, but sad for these neighbors who had to take on that responsibility.
Yeah, absolutely. If that wasn't bad enough, they especially Robert also beat his kids and his wife.
So they were really off to a great start here.
That's horrible. Yeah. And from what I read, Alice often wanted the children out of the house because Robert was such a monster.
So she was like, I just need to get them out of here.
Yeah. But also they both just didn't really want to deal with them at times.
I don't know what they thought when they had three kids, what was going to happen there, but you have to take care of them.
It does get chaotic. It does. So instead they would just send them to live with their grandfather every once in a while.
Like just send them out for like months at a time.
Was he all right? Um, that's a no. Like, no.
Nope. He wasn't. Yeah. So you would think that like, okay, we're sending them off to the grandfathers.
So this must be someone that wants to take care of them.
No. Right? You would think that. No. He had actually molested Alice when she was young.
He was a convicted pedophile. And she's shipping her fucking kids off to him?
And she would send her three young children to go live with him where he definitely sexually assaulted all three of them.
So she just, like, endangered her children.
Yeah, and just didn't care because she didn't want their responsibility.
What the fuck? So all those kids were also assaulted at their grandfather's house.
So like this family on both sides, it's like the father is an absolute monster and then look at the mother's side.
It's like there was nothing here. she's a monster she knows full well that he's a fucking pedophile you're gonna send three children to a pedophile's house there's no love here There's no comfort.
There's no safety. There's no childhood.
There's no innocence. There's nothing here.
No. And actually, at the age of six, she just put them all into an orphanage.
Yeah. What? She said like their father was a piece of shit.
So like she didn't know what to do. How did like.
How do you just give three children to an orphanage when they're six years old?
Yeah, just hand them over. And she just gave him to an orphanage.
Now, this place was terrible, and... horrific and abuse was rampant as was the case with a lot of these places. especially at that time.
And in fact, one thing that was confirmed as a punishment at this place was they would either fill sinks with water and hold your head under it, until you blacked out if you did something wrong.
Or they would just stick your head in the toilet bowl for the same effect.
Ew. Kids. Orphans. That's what they did to them for things like, you know, not like dropping something or...
Staying up when the lights were supposed to be out.
This is so sad. Yeah. So... Not a great start, to say the least.
His parents did get him back into their custody when he was nine years old.
Why? probably honestly a lateral move at this point from the orphanage.
I don't It's really just like, yeah, just going right.
Much of the same. And it's like you drop your kid off at an orphanage and then three years later, you're like, just pick them back up. never mind it's like a three-year like daycare stint babysitter that's just like what like terrible babysitter what All I have to say so far is what the fuck.
Yeah, this whole thing is going to be what the fuck.
This is a situation where, like, You made a monster.
He made a monster here. I mean, there was obviously other things going on here, as we'll see.
He definitely has some brain defects that... like frontal lobe defects that played into this as well.
But this was probably a nice little combo of both.
By age 10, he was in a juvenile detention center. because he would commit thefts, he would do like little petty offenses, but he would like steal license plates from cars.
At 10. It's for random. While he was there...
He was sexually assaulted by some of the older boys, and he later said one of his counselors did it to him.
I mean, that's coming from him, but to be honest, like, everybody around him was doing that to him, so... there's really not a lot to not believe there.
But after he left that, he decided that okay, well, the world has done this to me, so I'm going to do it to the world.
It's like a Carl Panzeram situation. He truly is.
Like a mini Carl. Yeah. You know those photos sitting in your phone, the ones that make you smile every time you scroll past them?
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And he basically did what he was taught.
So he started sexually assaulting other boys in the neighborhood and his own brothers.
So it was eighth grade that the home was foreclosed on when he was in eighth grade.
And the family actually ended up moving across the country to California. oh wow so he just continued the same shit there just with new people um but The father, Robert, actually died of cirrhosis of the liver at that home not long after.
So he was gone, bye. And he, so William got in a lot of trouble starting from the age of like 10 years old.
That's really when he started just acting out. actually committing crimes and getting in trouble for it.
And in California... He continued the whole theft thing, and he was also molesting boys younger than him in his neighborhood. he would literally lure them into his house like a predator like he would promise them like things and just bring them in like he was turning in he was a predator Because that's what he learned.
I mean, his father was an asshole. His grandfather was literally a predator.
And it's like and then he went to a detention center where he learned how to be a predator.
Like he that's all he's ever learned. been taught it's all he's known yeah now he's gonna use it right because he himself is a monster oh my god this is horrible So in 1965, he graduated high school and immediately joined the Air Force.
Now, before he left, he actually, he apparently had a high school girlfriend named Susan, which I was shocked by.
No, thank you. And he asked her to marry him.
And she said, yes, don't do it. He later said he basically just proposed to her to please his mother, which is weird.
Cause I'm like, you wanted to please your mother.
But I think she wanted him to do something that she felt was like, quote-unquote normal yeah and that was marrying a girl right out of high school like a good old boy i guess like okay i don't really know So off he went to serve in the Vietnam War.
Where he learned... Which was probably not going to be great for him, but let's see.
This is just a pile on. Yeah. So he went in there and he became an aerial gunner and he actually was doing great.
He received medals for conduct and actually saved a fellow soldier's life at one point and received an honor for that. like risked his own life to save a fellow soldier.
What a dichotomy. Yes. You would think that maybe that would give him some new sense of purpose or a feeling that life is precious.
But it did not. And again, Vietnam was...
There's not even words. Because even, it's like, you would hope that maybe saving a fellow soldier would give you something to latch on to, but then the other stuff that he saw, I'm sure it was just like...
A constant flux of terrible. Now, during his enlistment, he actually ended up assaulting two fellow soldiers he literally like tied them down and raped them oh god yeah at gunpoint Oh, God.
So he already started this really like bad reign of terror thing.
He was there for I think a five-month tour, so in 1968 he was honorably discharged.
He was later quoted as saying that his time in Vietnam made him feel like, quote, human life was overvalued. okay so not great like who are you to decide that not great this is not gonna be great He moved back in with his mom again in Downey, which is pretty close to Los Angeles.
And once he was there, he married Susan like right away.
Mm-hmm. he was not a peach to be married to i was gonna say poor susan i know this is probably a shock In fact, Susan later said that, quote, he told me he had this dream a lot of times. he would be in a bar alone and he would walk up to a girl who had no face.
He would buy her a drink and take her to a deserted place.
There he'd rape her, kill her, and bury her in a shallow grave.
So she divorced his ass pretty fast, like blink and you'll miss it fast.
Like they were married for like a blip. Yeah.
So she was like, bye. Somebody tells you they have that dream.
No, thank you. You dip right out of that sitch.
So now he's pissed. He's rejected. He's been scorned.
He's failed. And he's ready. He's like, you know what?
I'm just going to go back to my old ways.
I'm going to hunt young boys. boys again.
So he moved back in with his mother, like I said, who obviously that's not a good relationship, so we're not killing it.
No. And he starts his spree. Now he starts abducting and sexually assaulting boys like back to back to back.
He did it to four young boys, like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
These victims were, I'm just going to say their first names, even though they're published, like, why?
Larry, William, John, and Jesus who are 12, 14, 17, and 18 years old.
He raped them all after abducting them. And then after that, he tortured all of them in various ways.
Like how? We're going to get into some of those ways.
Now, in 1969, he was 22 years old. and he was arrested.
So this was shortly after those four boys he assaulted.
He was arrested in 1969 when he was found with a 16-year-old boy in his car.
Now, he had lured this kid in and then forcibly kept him there when he tried to leave.
And the kid had tried to get out of the car.
And luckily, while he was trying to get out of the car, a police officer happened to be passing by wow and helped thank god now he did tell the police at that point he was like I probably would have killed that boy if you had not come.
Okay, so he told the police that I would have killed him, but then he went on to, like, kill other people?
Okay. And they connected him to the other assaults.
So now he was charged with five counts of kidnapping.
And he was also charged with child molestation and some other horrific offenses like sodomy.
Go to jail forever. Forced sodomy and terrible things to children.
Throw away the key. Throw it away. During evaluations, he was deemed, quote, mentally disordered sex offender amendable to treatment.
Amendable to treatment. So he was sent to a hospital for treatment.
When they evaluated him further, they said he actually had an IQ of 121, which is above average.
He was also manically depressed and also had found they found damage to parts of his brain that regulate violent impulses.
I wonder what happened there. So he does not remember.
But he or he didn't remember. But he said that I mean, he knows he was abused his entire life.
Like, his parents abused him, his father abused him.
Like, they think some... massive damage was done and he just doesn't remember it because it was probably done when he was so young That's horrible.
So I imagine, I mean, it was definitely his frontal lobes were fucked and like, you know.
That connects to the prefrontal cortex will signal to the amygdala.
Let it know that a perceived threat is something to get all pissed about.
And then the amygdala will sound the alarm when a threat is near. and it will be the one to recognize it, but the prefrontal cortex, that thing, is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, let me check it out.
And then it reports back. So the frontal cortex is the one that's like, Let me make sure that this is something we need to like fuck around with.
Gotcha. So when that gets like. activated up you can't regulate what is a perceived threat what isn't What impulse is violent?
What isn't? So you just go off of all your impulses.
Like, it just... Like there's no filter, no regulation at all.
It just, there's no impulse control. And no violent impulses or thoughts can be regulated.
And how do you amend that? They just spill out. that's a hard one to yeah that's really all you can do it's once that's Like intensive therapy, I would assume.
Yeah. I mean, it's literally brain damage.
Furthermore, when they looked him over more medically, they saw a ton of scars on his body from childhood.
Oh, God. He had clearly been brutally abused, and he didn't remember where most of them came from.
That's really sad. So they placed him at Atascadero State Hospital in San Luis Obispo County.
And after two years they said, all right, we can't really treat him.
He's unable to be treated like we can't make him better.
So then you just put him into the world.
No, they said they couldn't, they were like, we can't even budge him away from like not being horrific.
And so they were like, you just need to finish your sentence in prison because you're something's wrong.
Like, which is smart. Yeah. Which is smart, but you have to finish your sentence?
How long was the sentence? And he was released June 11th, 1974 because doctors said he was not a threat anymore.
Doubt it. They were so fucking wrong. Clearly.
Like so wrong. Because here we are today.
Could not be more wrong. So he was released and only 16 months after he was released.
So a little over a year. Yeah. He picked up 14-year-old David, who his last name is also published, but I'm just going to call him David.
Yeah. He was hitchhiking. David said he was not feeling threatened at all at first when he was picked up by William.
Mm. And he said, you know, he seemed like a cool guy.
They just kind of drove and talked. He was like, I literally didn't feel threatened at all.
He did not give off a bad vibe. That's so scary.
Yeah, he never was weird like in the beginning.
And, you know, he didn't have a face that freaked me out and blah, blah, blah.
But he said all of a sudden he started to get a little inappropriate.
Like he was saying things that were making him uncomfortable.
And David was like, you know what? Can you please pull over because I want to get out.
Yeah. Like I'm not into this. And suddenly William got. pissed and he pulled a gun on david oh man and then he drove him at gunpoint to a field Oh, God.
Where he brutally raped David and tried to strangle him with his own T-shirt.
And it was horrific. David was screaming as loud as he could just to try to attract anyone's attention.
And he was just trying to beg him to not do this.
And this apparently did something. to William because he stopped.
Yeah. And it's the only time he stopped.
I don't know why this worked this time. Can you imagine being that one?
Like, why did this work? Right. I don't know why this.
Maybe it's because he didn't have an accomplice with him.
He was not great when he didn't have someone with him.
Okay. But he did do it. He did do it by himself eventually.
But maybe it was... Maybe he just wasn't confident enough in his own sick abilities to do this.
Mm-hmm. But he stopped, he apologized, and then drove David home.
But apparently, when he dropped him off, he looked him dead in the eyes and said, we'll meet again.
And he said that like haunted him. Oh, duh.
Yeah. So then. he attempted to abduct, very shortly after this, he attempted to abduct another teenage boy, and this time he was caught when he attempted to run the kid over with his car for rejecting him.
What? He was caught and he was charged with attempted vehicular manslaughter and rape for David.
He was tried for both of these crimes and sentenced to one to 15 years at California Men's Facility in San Luis Obispo. am i missing something yeah one so yeah 15 years for attempted murder and rape yeah First of all, that's a very... What?
1 to 15? That's a pretty big range. Huge span there.
And also 1... He could get one? Like 365 days for attempting to kill a human being and literally raping someone.
Brutally and aggressively and violently raping someone and attempting to kill them.
Yeah. He served three years. What the fuck?
Three years. He was released October 11th, 1978.
What is the justice system? With only 18 months supervised probation.
No, like get the fuck out of here. Like what?
Get the fuck out of my face with that. What?
I just, what? This case, you're going to see, there was a few times where I was, and I think I wrote it down somewhere in these notes.
I was like, this is John Wayne Gacy. He just keeps getting let go.
No, it's true. When you were talking about it in the beginning, I got the vibe of John Wayne Gacy.
So much vibes. Yeah, he's got that vibe for sure.
And he has that luck. He has that like... random dude luck that just get, they get out of everything apparently.
Like a sweet talker somehow. Now, He moves back in with his mother because like that's working out so well.
So like, why don't we just keep doing this?
Yeah, let's go. Yeah, I think that's where you need to be, where everything's going great.
So he got a job as a truck driver and he starts dating a woman and he's like, things are cooling down.
But he was not satisfied with that, obviously.
Was he gay, do you think? That's the thing nobody really knows.
And do you think it was, like, internally?
It sounds like he was very angry. And he was and I don't know if that was because he didn't accept himself. or because I'm not really... Or he may have been bi.
Because it was, you know, men who were like being predatory to him his entire childhood.
So I don't know if he was raging out against them in that way and taking them. power back yeah but a lot of people do think he was at the very least bisexual and that he was just that's what his his victim profile was young men all right for sure But nobody knows for sure.
Yeah. He never came out. He never discussed it.
He never. Spoiler alert. Is he still alive?
He is not. Oh. I just did a big, so I was like, he is not.
But yeah, so that's up in the air for anybody to speculate about.
But at this time, this was a time when gay people were being treated abysmally uh-huh like not that there's been a time where they really haven't but this was one of those like Like really bad times.
Yeah. Like this was like way out in the open and horrible and horrible and horrible.
So a lot of these murders were being blamed on like sexuality and stuff and it had nothing to do with that had nothing to do with it.
That's not it at all. It's like, but that was the main thing in all these stories in a lot of them, so...
It's a bummer when you read some of the old newspapers, you're like, fuck you.
It has nothing to do with that. You know what's even more stressful than a packed calendar?
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The sale ends 831. Don't miss it. So he's dating a woman.
That's the other thing. That's why a lot of people are like, was he bi?
Or was he just trying to... I don't know.
Yeah. I just don't know. But he was dating a woman.
He was not satisfied with that life. He was not satisfied just being a truck driver and going to work every day and dating somebody and just going home.
Yeah. He wasn't satisfied with anything.
He needed thrills. He was definitely a thrill-seeker.
That was why he was doing this. It got him off.
It got him happy. He liked this. Try a roller coaster.
You would think that would do it, but no.
Go to Six Flags. So he was like, you know what, I've been trying, I've been sexually assaulting, you know. boys and raping boys and you know I gotta like up this a notch so he was like you know what I bet torture and murder would be the thing that could really no really get me going no so around this time he was hanging out with a lot of neighbors in the area, and these neighbors that he was hanging out with used to throw a lot of parties at night.
They would have random dudes over, so he would float in and out of those parties.
And some of these people he met were Vernon Butts, 22 years old, and Gregory Miley, who was 19 years old.
Now, this is like right in his age group wheelhouse that he likes to hang out with.
And Vernon was a magician. And he was apparently into like dark shit as well.
He was like into the occult, people said.
Ooh. Um, but they ended up striking up a conversation and somehow it led to how they all were pretty into the idea of raping, torturing, and killing young boys.
Good. Would have loved to know how that segue just flowed into that.
Yeah. I like magic tricks. And then it just goes into that, like what?
How do you just meet like two other people that are as fucked up as you?
And how do you broach that subject? You're literally... you're just saying it and hoping that they're like me too.
Cause if they're not, then are you going to kill that person?
Cause you've just told them that's what you're into.
Like, So I guess either way, you either get an accomplice or a victim out of it?
That's fucked up. That is truly fucked up.
It's really weird. So a few nights later... So they had all talked about this and... been like yeah like that's what i'm into and i guess he was saying like that's um this is like my plan like i'll hit you up when i decide to do this and they were like cool Now, a few nights later, he met another future accomplice at another one of these parties.
The fuck? What are these parties? I'm saying.
Who's at these parties? His name was William Pugh, and he was 17 years old.
He, too, was very intrigued when he heard that Bonnen liked to abduct, rape, beat, and murder teen boys.
Or that was his plan. He's 17. Again, how are they all in one place?
Come on. How? Come on. But... What he did with support from them was next by a pea green Ford van.
I saw that. Very creepy. Saw that. He had gotten a job as a delivery driver, so he was using it for that.
And he also turned it into a murder mobile. he removed the door handles in the back so that anyone inside was stuck in there with no way to get out oh fuck that He also placed various weapons all around the back and like hid them so that no matter where he was in the van, he could just grab a weapon on an uncertainty. suspecting victim that's terrifying yeah um and it reminds me of like the lawrence bittaker the toolbox Because they used to call their van like Murder Mac or something like that.
Shut the fuck up. We're going to cover that one, but that one's so... horrific I mean they all are but that one you're gonna break me that's like there's a transcript involved with that one that I would never read in a million years it's like toy box It's really heavy, but it gives me that vibes.
So this is when the murders officially began.
May 18, 1979, he and Vernon picked up a 13-year-old boy named Thomas Lundgren He was hitchhiking, because again, this is the time.
It's the late 70s. Oh yeah, everybody's hitchhiking.
Everyone's hitchhiking. Once they had him inside the van, he was raped. stabbed several times and strangled and then they slit his throat for good measure jesus Before they dumped his body, they also removed his penis and testicles.
Oh my God. Now for each of these murders, he also used a yellow nylon rope.
And he would bind there in all the court documents.
They found ligature marks on all the victim's wrists, ankles, and necks. and sometimes would find the actual cord still attached.
So they were bound while this happened. Shortly after this, he was arrested again because he was caught again sexually assaulting a 17-year-old boy.
So remember, he was on probation, so he was supposed to go straight back to jail and serve the rest of his sentence but there was a fucking paperwork error.
Isn't there always a fucking paperwork error?
Paperwork error. Why? released before his court date.
It's literally John Wayne Gacy. There is always a paperwork error.
Like I'm pretty sure that same thing happens.
It literally did. If you work in the paperwork field, stop making errors.
Yeah. Come on. Proofread. Come on. Have somebody else check it out for you.
Especially in these cases, man. Paperwork's pretty fucking important here.
Come on. Yeah, but it happens all the time.
Oh, I know. We've covered cases. Look at this.
I'm so mad right now. Oh, yeah. And I felt this way with the John Wayne Gacy thing because everyone's like, how did that dude just keep getting out of it and keep slipping through the and keep being able to do this.
And this is what happened. He was able to do this. because people didn't do their job any good into the world so why are like you like they probably feel like they're getting rewarded of course Now, apparently one of his neighbors was the one who gave him a ride home from jail when he was released.
Thanks. And he said to him something along the lines of...
There won't be any more boys testifying against me again.
This won't happen again. I'd be like, see, I have to leave now.
And he meant it. And I need to go tell the police what you've just said.
He meant it. He was going to eliminate the possibility that any boy would be able to ID him or tell on him again.
He was ready to commit to he was ready to continue to murder every single boy he raped. i mean he literally castrated somebody so what is he not capable he's a monster Now, towards the end of the summer, 17-year-old Mark Shelton was walking to a movie theater on Beach Boulevard.
Bonnen and Vernon saw him and abducted him into their van.
There, they tortured and raped him brutally.
They used objects to do this as well. And apparently it was so horrific and brutal that his body died from going into shock.
Oh my goodness. So they didn't actually get to control when he died and they weren't finished.
So they just tossed him out of the van because they were pissed.
They tossed him out of the van in San Bernardino County and they kept searching for another victim because they were mad that that happened.
That didn't go how they wanted it to go.
Yeah. so they did search that day for another one they didn't find one that night but they found one the next day The next day they were back out looking again and they found 17-year-old Marcus Grabes.
Now, he was in the US from Germany. He was actually like an exchange student over here.
And he had also come for the celebration of his 17th birthday because he wanted to like Just cross the country, meet people, stay in hostels, like just float through the U.S.
Like he loved visiting here. And he was hitchhiking on the Pacific Coast Highway on August 5th, 1979, when he was spotted by Bonnen and Vern. in they picked him up saying they would bring him to his next stop and instead they raped beat and tortured him in the van Then they weren't finished, so they brought him to Bonnen's mother's home and continued it all.
What? He was stabbed more than 70 times.
Oh my god. He was strangled with a yellow nylon cord and he was bound with electrical cords on his ankles and wrists.
When they had killed him after hours of torture, they threw his body into the Malibu Canyon and he was discovered the next day.
Now, according to William Bonin, the true story of the freeway killer, by Jack Rosewood, which I'll link in the notes because it's pretty fascinating.
A detective on the case later said of the victim, quote, Bonnen was like a rabid dog that had gone insane and didn't know when to stop biting.
Yeah, to say that is pretty on the nose.
No, at this point, the police are not connecting any of these.
That makes sense. And that seems to be a running theme through this whole thing.
Seems to be a running theme through a lot of them.
But in true crime as well. But Bonin later said that this was actually when, in his mind, he needed to start escalating.
He was like, I'm already getting stagnant.
What are you escalating to? He said he felt like he was addicted to killing and torture.
He said initially he just wanted as much of it as possible, but soon it just wasn't doing it for him.
So he was like, as we're going to see, he...
He brings it up a notch and adds more things that he feels are more satisfying to him.
Now, at this point, he also got an apartment of his own.
Wow, finally. Yeah, big boy. So it was close to his mother's home, but he could not you know, now he could host parties, have young men over, do the terrible things he was doing.
Have a murder apartment. I became that guy with the mustache that would show you porn and give you beer.
Ew, why are people watching porn together?
Yeah, I don't understand that at all. Okay, John Wayne Gacy.
Yeah, I can't. He has so much Sean Wayne Gacy vibes.
It's true. It's outrageous. Why are you just sitting around a TV watching people fuck?
That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard in it's not a bonding experience i can't now watch a hallmark movie yeah for watch bravo Watch literally anything else.
Anything else. But only days later on August 29th, 1979, he was ready. to do it again.
So this victim was Donald Hyden Jr. He was only 15 years old.
He was walking along Santa Monica Boulevard and he was actually from originally Cincinnati. but he had moved to California in 1977 when his parents divorced and his mom had moved out to California.
Aw. So he decided to live with her. He had only lived there for two years.
Oh, God. Which, like, that always bums me out just in, like, a different way because... No, I agree.
Like, you go into this new place. You're excited.
And it's like, you could be back in Cincinnati, but you're here with these assholes.
Yeah. Like, I don't know. So he was abducted after accepting a ride from Bonnen and Vernon and was raped and tortured in the van forever. hours all night.
They found evidence he had been stabbed in the genitals, neck, torso.
They attempted to remove his genitals. He was burned in various areas of his body.
He was beaten with bruises everywhere. His throat was slashed.
He had been raped in various ways and had experienced blunt force trauma to the head before being strangled.
My God, they did literally every possible meme of killing somebody.
And before strangulation, he was alive for all of it.
Oh my God. Now, after he was thrown into a dumpster off the Ventura Freeway, he was found at 11am the next morning.
Stop. yeah 15 years old thrown in a dumpster yeah like that is somebody's child yeah it's Less than two weeks later, September 9th, 1979, he went for another victim, David Murillo. was 17 years old and was just riding his bike to a movie.
It was Bonnen and Vernon again, Vernon Butts, and they abducted him into the van and repeated the process of rape torture and murder he was beaten in the head with a tire iron and strangled oh my god He was then dumped on Highway 101, where he was found three days later.
September 17th, so only days later, another victim, Robert Wyrostek.
He was 18 years old and was also riding his bike like David Murillo.
He was riding his bike to his job at a grocery store when he was seen by Bonnen and Vernon.
They abducted, tortured, and murdered him as well, and he was dumped... along Highway 1, or excuse me, around Highway I-10.
Now, November 29th, about a month later again.
This time it was a John Doe who hasn't ever been identified.
Oh, no. He was abducted, raped, beaten and strangled and then dumped.
Reports said his face was completely destroyed by the beating that they inflicted on him.
Yes. So it was difficult to even come up with a composite.
They had ruined all the features of his face.
Bonnen said this guy, Bonnen himself later said this guy was 23 years old.
Mm-hmm. And they did estimate he was slightly older than the normal victims.
Authority thought he was between 29 and 20, or 29, 19 and 25 years old.
Okay. So it does match. but they believe he may have been homeless or just passing through because he's never been identified.
And he didn't get matched to any of the missing persons, people in the area.
That's so sad. He's still not been identified.
I hope that they can somehow someday. I know.
I mean... They just got into John Wayne Gacy one like decades later.
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Start your free trial in Apple Podcasts Spotify or the Wondery app Now, the very next day, 17 year old Frank Dennis Fox was abducted, raped, tortured and killed.
He was beaten in the face and strangled.
And they also found evidence that he had been bound by his wrist, legs, and neck. and he was dumped on the Ortega Highway.
Then 15-year-old John Kilpatrick was abducted sometime towards the end of the year.
So that was in November. And then it was like more towards the end of the year that he was abducted.
He wasn't initially found to be missing until February.
Because he was one of those kids that would go missing for a while and not talk to anybody.
He was kind of like a... a floater. So his family didn't really think anything of it or think he was missing.
At this point, they're still not connecting.
A serial killer, by the way. All these bodies along highways.
With the exact same ligature marks. Guys, come on.
Yeah. So in January 1980, Bonnen killed someone alone for the first time.
Oh, shit. Almost ever. Michael Francis McDonald was 16 years old.
He raped, beat and strangled him, then dumped him in San Bernardino County as well.
February 3rd, 1980, Charles Miranda was abducted.
He was 15 years old. He was hitchhiking along Santa Monica Boulevard and This is when Bonnen was with Gregory Miley, so that other accomplice.
He was 19 years old. Mm-hmm. uh they picked him up together they attacked him raped him with sharp objects and then beat him Apparently he said to Gregory Miley at one point, kid's gonna die.
This kid's gonna die. Like, was just like, I don't know what to do.
And I guess Miley was like, well, then why don't you just let him go?
And he said, I would, but he would ID us.
So we have to kill him. What? Now, Bonnen then used a T-shirt and a tire iron like a garrote.
And he, like, placed the tire iron through the sleeves of the t-shirt.
Uh-huh. And he would wrap the t-shirt around their neck and then use the tire iron as like a grot to like tighten it.
What the fuck? Fuck. And he did this while Gregory Miley jumped on his chest.
Oh. Yeah. They then drove to L.A. and dumped Charles's body in an alley there.
This is so brutal. So brutal. So brutal.
Yeah, it's really brutal. According to Miley, Bonnen said that as soon as they dumped...
Charles's body, I guess Bonnen immediately was like, let's go do another one. and he was like uh and he said miley said like he didn't want to right away which is like oh pat you on the back oh yeah But he said he just didn't.
He just went with it. So the same day. immediately after dropping Charles's body in an alleyway in Los Angeles, this one's really sad. they found 12 year old James McCabe.
He was at a bus stop on his way to Disneyland.
Are you fucking kidding me? Yeah. Yeah. And he got in the van willingly because they told him they would bring him.
They were like, we won't. You don't have to wait for the bus.
We'll just bring you. And they did the same thing to him and they killed him.
They stole money out of his pocket. Money that was given to him by his older brother for his trip to Disney.
Yeah. His body was dumped like the others near a dumpster.
M. Bonin was later quoted as saying, that little kid was the easiest to kill.
Because he's a little fucking kid, you piece of shit.
A literal child on his way to Disneyland.
That's heartbreaking. Yeah. Now, in that one, I just wanted to like, like, I just want to get as far away.
He wanted to go to Disneyland. Yeah, he was literally on his way to Disneyland.
He was by himself? So what I read in a couple of things was that his parents were out of town and he was staying with his older brother.
He wanted to go to Disneyland. And that was a normal thing.
Kids would just go. It wasn't like it is now.
It was different. different time yeah yeah so it's like I think he was just going to Disneyland to hang out by himself and that was not a strange thing yeah just go and play on the rides gotcha Because it was also definitely not what it is now.
No, of course not. So I think it was more like an amusement park kind of thing.
Mm-hmm. So March 14th, 18-year-old Robert Gatlin was abducted in North Hollywood and He suffered the same fate as the other victims, except he had something different done at the end.
He had an ice pick jammed into his ear and throat. and was strangled to death before being dumped on a freeway.
An ice pick in his ear? Yep, and that was the first time he had done that.
And throat. What the fuck? So March 20th, remember that was March 14th.
March 20th, days later. He brought William Pugh this time with him, that third accomplice that was into this.
And they abducted 15-year-old Harry Todd Turner.
Harry had actually escaped from a group home, I think, like a boy's group home.
Where he was probably like being abused already.
Exactly. And he was just trying to get money, like do anything he could to get money and food.
And they offered him 20 bucks for whatever.
And he agreed. So they bound him with electrical cords, raped him, beat him. and beat him so badly that his skull was fractured in eight places.
Oh my god. Bonin actually bit him several times as well.
What the fuck? in various places. They then used the t-shirt and tire iron trick to strangle him to death and dumped him in an alley in LA. just like Charles Miranda.
Now, the next victims were only days later, and they were 15-year-old Russell Dwayne, I think it's Russell Dwayne Rueh, and 14-year-old Glenn Norman Barker.
Both had been picked up hitchhiking, they had been brutally raped, beaten, bound and then strangled to death.
And both of them were dumped along the Ortega Highway.
Glenn Norman Baker also had cigarette burns in a necklace pattern around his neck.
What the fuck? Yes. Yes. they're still not thinking this is a serial killer.
Come on, guys. What were you guys doing back then?
Yeah, like they're looking at this and being like, yeah, I don't think this is connected.
No. Yeah, I don't think this is like one of them.
One of the cops came out and was like, no, this isn't like a high hillside strangler thing.
It's like, come on. It is though. It's like you didn't think the Hillside Strangler thing was a Hillside Strangler thing either.
You're not batting a thousand on these. Maybe just go in a different direction.
Give it a chance. So also... They later spoke to his accomplices and they all agreed that one of the things that they noticed was that The more that these victims screamed, the happier William was.
So they said it seemed like his whole thing was to get the most fear, the most terror, the most pain. and the most screams out of these people.
And he would do whatever he had to do to do that.
And that's why it kept escalating because he wanted more. and more and more.
He wasn't just an ends justify the means kind of killer.
Some of them are like, I didn't enjoy the process, but I was happy with the end result.
No, he loved the entire process. This was a real, real monster from start to finish.
Now, the police may not have been willing or into seeing that There was clearly a serial killer angle here, but the rest of pretty much everyone was definitely noticing a pattern, Especially reporters that were covering this case.
They were like, hey... We're seeing this.
Why aren't you? So days after the last few victims were found, there was an article written about the case.
And it was a reporter named J.J. Maloney.
He worked for the Orange County Register and he kind of like busted it wide open.
Oh, shit. Yeah. So he, and they did a ton of research.
They talked to a bunch of like professionals about this whole thing.
And they published a story he wrote that basically called out the police department for not putting these cases together.
Good for them. He said, what I think is happening is the police department is scared of the public pressure that comes from saying serial killers out there.
Because once you say it, they're going to want you to catch them.
And it's like, they're worried about that.
So they're not saying it. and that's detrimental to solving the case yeah like yeah you're gonna get a lot of pressure and you're gonna get a lot of if you don't solve it right away that's kind of your job yeah maybe the pressure actually like the direct description of your job yeah like the The pressure should get you going.
The pressure should be the thing that makes you want to solve this.
Like, what are you doing? So they were actually the ones who called him the freeway killer.
Okay. They're the ones who, like, coined that for him.
Mm-hmm. The police were pissed. Yeah, because they just got asses made of them.
They were not happy. But like, call it like you said.
See it, man. Yeah, they were quoted as saying, I think it was Captain Walt Ownby of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said, I believe it was the Orange County Register that started all this.
This has built up and created a lot of fear about a killer or group of killers.
And there is no evidence substantiating any of that.
Oh honey. Eat those words. Eat them for dinner.
They were wrong. Eat them. And that's where I'm going to leave you for part one.
Yeah, good, because I need a minute. Yeah, I think we need a little break.
Everybody needs a minute. but so this is where we are we are uh close to april of that year yeah and We are no closer to even connecting these as a serial killer case.
And he is just on a reign. Of terror. A true, true reign of terror.
This is like the definition of reign of terror.
He truly is. And it's... This guy has been doing this, I mean, when he was 10 years old, he was already getting in trouble.
Yeah. But he didn't have a chance. This was no chance of this person.
There's no justifying it. And you feel horrible. for younger him you feel horrible for younger him and his brothers turn it around man you hate the people that did this to you and then you become one of them what fucking sense does that make it just like it seemed like the system failed him his parents his parents failed him his grandpa failed him and then he failed himself And it's like, there was just massive failures in every single... angle of this case.
I think too, unfortunately, like therapy was so looked down upon at that point in time.
He could have benefited obviously so much from therapy.
Oh, 100%. But it was just a different time.
Then you throw Vietnam in the whole thing, and it's like, oh, man, this is just a recipe for... It's literally like... like bubbling in a cauldron.
Of course, yeah, because I think he logged something like 700 combat hours or something.
Wow. So he definitely saw some shit like that and as someone who has never witnessed that kind of carnage.
I can't imagine. No. I can't imagine what that does to somebody who isn't even going through something before that.
Right. and hasn't had this traumatic life up to that point.
But then you sit there and think about like prisoners of war during Vietnam. who also were like logging those same hours and then came out of Vietnam together. decorated soldiers who didn't act that way and murder a bunch of people.
Oh, there's like... 99.999% of Vietnam soldiers did not come back and start mass murdering people.
So it's like... Can't use it as an excuse.
You can't use it. It's not an excuse. That's the thing.
It's like, how many people have these childhoods that are...
And somehow make it out of here. Right. But there's no way of like... quantifying no i mean like you can't figure it out you're just there's no pattern Sure, you see abuse, you see neglect, you see horrific circumstances, you see brain damage, but then you see...
Other people go through the same thing that don't... There's no way to predict it.
...brutalize young boys. There's no way to predict it.
Of course... If you don't abuse your child and you give them a loving, safe home where they feel.
That's a good start. Where they feel comforted and safe and, you know, loved and cared for. that is going to likely provide someone who can at least function in society.
And if you are neglectful and abusive and terrible, you have a higher chance of creating a monster.
You're already starting out bad. If we're looking at those two things...
You should probably always choose treating your kids nicely and loving them and appreciating them.
I'm going to go ahead and say definitely.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to generalize here and just say, keep it that weird that you just like love your kids and you do good things for them.
I keep it so weird that you create a loving environment for your children that you chose to have.
And with that, we hope you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it that weird. Yes, keep it that weird.
Love your kids. Goodbye! Thank you. If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
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