WILLIAM GEORGE BONIN: THE FREEWAY KILLER

William George Bonin who was also referred to by the press as the infamous "Freeway Killer," heartlessly kidnapped, robbed, raped and murdered a total of 14 teenage boys between 1979 and 1980. His co-defendants were also disturbed young men between the ages of 17 and 21. Bonin was finally brought to justice and sentenced to death in 1982 for 10 murders across Los Angeles County. Roughly a year later he was then tried and consequently convicted of the other four murders in Orange County, for which he received a second death sentence for.

Bonin also was suspected of barbarically murdering numerous other males, whose bodies were found around the same period of time in Kern, Riverside, San Diego and San Bernardino Counties but Bonin was unfortunately not prosecuted for those crimes. Most serial killers follow a certain pattern or MO, however breaking from the norm William George Bonin had multiple accomplices during his vicious murder spree which is not very common. Known accomplices included Vernon Robert Butts, Gregory Matthew Miley, William Ray Pugh and James Michael Munro.

In May 1980, Pugh was arrested for stealing cars then while he was in prison sang like a canary, giving the detectives juicy details connecting the freeway murders to Bonin in exchange for a lighter sentence. Pugh told the detectives that he got ride from Bonin who then stupidly bragged that he was in fact the Freeway Killer. Evidence later proved that Pugh and Bonin's relationship went way deeper than just a one-time ride and Pugh had been involved in at least two of the brutal murders. After being placed under police surveillance, Bonin was arrested while sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in the back of his van.

Bonin was executed February 23, 1996 at San Quentin State Prison making him the first California inmate to be executed by lethal injection. At about 6 p.m., he was taken into the death watch cell. His last meal was two large pepperoni and sausage pizzas, three pints of coffee ice cream and three six-packs of regular Coca Cola. Warden Arthur Calderon gave the order to begin the execution at 12:09 am. Having spent his day visiting with friends Bonin was quickly pronounced dead at 12:13 am. During that final evening, Bonin was also visited by the warden and the Catholic chaplain then at 11:30 in the evening he gave the following last words to the Warden:

"That I feel the death penalty is not an answer to the problems at hand. That I feel it sends the wrong message to the youth of the country. Young people act as they see other people acting instead of as people tell them to act. And I would suggest that when a person has a thought of doing anything serious against the law, that before they did, that they should go to a quiet place and think about it seriously."

Born in Connecticut on January 8, 1947, Bonin was the middle child of three brothers. Raised in a very dysfunctional family with an alcoholic father and a grandfather who was a convicted child molester, he was a seriously troubled child and ran away from home when he was only eight years old. Later he was sent to a juvenile detention center for various minor crimes, where he was allegedly sexually molested by older teens. After leaving the center far more troubled than when he arrived, he began molesting children. After high school, Bonin joined the U.S. Air Force and served in the Vietnam War as a gunner. When he returned home, he got married then quite quickly divorced and moved to California.

He was first arrested at age 22 for sexually assaulting young boys and spent five years in jail. After his release, he molested a 14-year-old boy and was returned to prison for an additional four years. Vowing never to get caught again, he began killing his young victims, I would assume so that there were no more people to get him in trouble for his actions. From 1979 until his arrest in June 1980, Bonin and his accomplices went on a ferocious raping, torturing and killing spree. Often cruising California highways and streets predatorily stalking the vulnerable young male hitchhikers and school children he seemed to be so enamoured with.

After his arrest, he confessed to killing 21 young boys and young men. Police suspected him in 15 additional murders, I dread to think there may have been far more than that after looking into the details surrounding the case. On August 5, 1979, the defendant and co-defendant Butts accosted Marcus Grabs, 17, in Newport Beach sometime between 6 and 10 p.m. Marcus, a German student who was on a backpacking tour of the United States, was sodomised, beaten and remorselessly stabbed 77 times. His nude body was found the next day beside a road in Malibu, with an orange nylon cord loosely wrapped behind his head and a piece of ignition wire around one of his ankles.

On August 27, 1979, at 1 a.m., the defendant and co-defendant Butts picked up Donald Hyden, 15, near the Gay Community Services Center in Los Angeles. His nude body was found at 11 a.m. near Liberty Canyon and the off ramp of the Ventura Freeway. Donald had been strangled by ligature and stabbed. He had been sodomized and it appeared that attempts had been made to cut off his testicles and slash his throat.

On September 9, 1979, in the early morning, David Murillo, 17, was bicycling to the movies in La Mirada when the defendant and co-defendant Butts abducted him. David's nude body was found three days later on a Ventura Highway off-ramp. His head had been bashed in with a tire iron, and he had been sodomized and strangled with a ligature.

On February 3, 1980, in the early morning, the defendant, driving a van with co-defendant Miley, picked up Charles Miranda, 15, in West Hollywood. They drove several blocks away, parked, and the defendant sodomized Charles. The co-defendant tried to sodomize him, but was unable to sustain an erection. After the co-defendant took six dollars from Charles, the two men bound his feet and hands together. The defendant wrapped Charles' shirt around his neck and using a jack handle, the defendant twisted the shirt like a corkscrew until Charles was dead. The autopsy also disturbingly revealed a blunt object had been inserted into Charles' anus. The defendants drove to an alley in downtown Los Angeles to dump Charles' nude body and then drove on to Huntington Beach, seeking other victims for their sick game.

A little while later, they began talking to James McCabe only 12, who said he was on his way to Disneyland. They invited James into the van & while Bonin had sex with him the co-defendant, Miley, drove. Later, the two men held the victim down, beating him, strangled him with his shirt and crushed his neck with a jack handle. After taking money out of James' wallet, the defendants left his broken body next to a dumpster in the City of Walnut, where it was finally found Feb. 6.

On March 14, 1980, Ronald Gatlin, 19, was picked up by the defendant in Van Nuys at about 8:30 p.m. Ronald's nude body was found the next day in Duarte, near the juncture of the 210 and 605 freeways. He had been sodomized and strangled with a ligature. There were wounds to the neck and right ear that apparently had been made by an ice pick and the body showed signs of a serious beating.

Sometime on or after March 20, 1980 the defendant and co-defendant William Pugh picked up Harry Todd Turner, 14, in Hollywood. Harry's nude body was found the morning of March 25 in an alley behind a Los Angeles business. He had been beaten, sodomized, and strangled by ligature. On April 10, 1980, Steven Wood, 16, was picked up by the defendant at about 12:15 p.m. in Los Angeles. Steven's nude body was found the next morning in an alley behind an industrial complex near the Pacific Coast Highway and Long Beach Freeway. He had also been savagely beaten, sodomized and strangled by ligature.

On April 29, 1980, at 9:15 p.m., the defendant and co-defendant Butts accosted Darin Lee Kendrick, 19, in the parking lot of a supermarket in Stanton. Darin had been collecting shopping carts and was lured into the van on a pretext of being sold some drugs. His nude body was found the next morning in an industrial park in Carson near the Artesia Freeway. In addition to being sodomized and strangled by ligature, Darin apparently was forced to swallow chloral hydrate which left him with nasty caustic chemical burns on his mouth, chin, chest and stomach. Darin also had an ice pick through his right ear that caused a fatal wound to the upper cervical spinal cord.

On June 2, 1980, at about 5:40 p.m., the defendant and co-defendant James Munro were driving a van in Downey when they picked up a hitchhiker, Steven Jay Wells, 18. At first Steven had agreed to have sex with the defendant but later he allowed himself to be tied up, expecting to be paid for having sex with a friend of the defendant's. The defendant and co-defendant tied Steven up, took his money, beat him, then strangled him with his own T-shirt. They placed Steven's body in a cardboard box and carried it out to the van. At about 8 p.m., they drove to the house of Butts who told them to take the body and "drop it off somewhere." Munro and the defendant then drove to Huntington Beach where they left Steven's nude body at the rear of a closed gas station, where it was eventually found June 3.

The defendant was finally caught after co-defendant Pugh, 17, was thankfully arrested on car theft charges on May 29, 1980. He told detectives that he had accepted a ride home from a party with the defendant, who had talked about killing young boys. The defendant was then placed under surveillance which began on June 2, 1980.

On June 11, 1980, his van was followed to Hollywood & he was observed talking to five different young men standing on street corners before 15-year-old Harold T. entered his van. The defendant parked with Harold still inside, in a vacant lot on the Santa Monica Boulevard. Despite Harold's resistance, the defendant orally copulated him. Shortly thereafter, the defendant was apprehended in the act of viciously raping and sodomizing Harold. The police found a length of white nylon cord and three knives in the van. During the same time period as the Los Angeles murders, defendant Bonin and two co-defendants murdered four other young men in Orange County.

On December 2, 1979, the body of Dennis Frank Fox, 17, was found along Ortego Highway about five miles east of the San Diego Freeway. On March 22 1980, the bodies of Russell Rugh, 15, and Glenn Barker, 14, were tragically found a few miles farther east along the same road. On May 18, 1980, the body of Lawrence Sharp, 17, was found in a trash bin behind a service station in Westminster.

The four victims were all hitchhikers who the defendant had picked up in his van and then killed by strangulation. The defendant was assisted in most or possibly all the crimes by two other men, co-defendants Miley and Munro. All of the victims' bodies showed signs of physical beating and the cause of death of each victim was strangulation by ligature. Marks on the body of at least one of the victims indicated that a bar or other similar object had been placed between the ligature and the neck and then twisted to causing a far greater increase in pressure. Other marks also indicated that the hands and feet of all the victims had been remorselessly bound, or even handcuffed and following the pattern victims had been sodomized.

Disturbingly during Bonin's murder spree, there was another active serial killer by the name of Patrick Kearney. He was also using the California freeways as his hunting ground, so we will never truly know the extent of the heinous crimes committed by them.