William Bonin was convicted of murdering fourteen boys and young men in Southern California between August 1979 and June 1980. They were between 12 and 19 years old. Most were hitchhikers or boys walking alone whom he picked up in his van in Hollywood, Orange County beach towns and the suburbs between. He strangled most of them and left their bodies beside freeways, in alleys and behind gas stations, often with nothing to identify them. On the night of his last killing he told the young man who had helped him that he was the "Freeway Killer."
He had been to prison twice before for sexual attacks on boys and young men, and he had been paroled in 1978, the year before the killings that ended in his convictions began. A Los Angeles County jury convicted him of ten murders in January 1982 and an Orange County jury of four more in 1983, and both juries chose death. Three young men who had been with him on different nights were convicted and sent to prison, two of them after testifying against him in exchange for lighter sentences, and a fourth died by suicide in jail before any trial. After fourteen years on death row, Bonin was executed at San Quentin on February 23, 1996, the first person California put to death by lethal injection.
In 1979 and 1980 Bonin lived in Downey, in southeast Los Angeles County. He was a Vietnam War veteran and worked as a truck driver in Montebello, the OC Weekly reported in a 2011 account of the case. His van became the center of both trials.
The young men who rode with him were younger than he was. Gregory Miley and James Munro were each about 19, and each, the California Supreme Court recorded, was a sexual partner of Bonin's. William Pugh was 17 when he was arrested in May 1980, according to the state corrections department. Vernon Robert Butts was the fourth; the corrections department lists him with the others as a co-defendant. The courts' accounts of the killings rest largely on what Miley and Munro later told juries about nights they spent in the van.
Almost everything in the record about Bonin's early life comes from the penalty phases of his trials, where his lawyers offered it to the juries as mitigation, and from later medical testimony in the federal courts. The California Supreme Court's summaries say his father's drinking and gambling caused serious problems for the family, and that Bonin had been a good and helpful child. As a young boy he was sexually abused by older men, his lawyers told the Orange County jury, and the Los Angeles jury heard that he was abused in a detention home at the age of 10.
His mother testified for him at the Los Angeles penalty phase. According to the Ninth Circuit's later review, she described an abusive, alcoholic father, Bonin's molestation at the detention home, and his good behavior whenever he was in a structured setting. His brother Robert supported her account, and another brother, Paul, testified that Bonin had never harmed the hitchhikers they picked up together. A friend, Everett Fraser, said Bonin had never been violent.
In 1992, at hearings on his federal habeas petitions, a neurologist testified that Bonin had brain damage that might have left him unable to control his impulses, and that he had probably been abused as a child by his grandfather, Amnesty International reported in 1996. The neurologist, Dr. Pincus, found signs of damage to the frontal lobes, the Ninth Circuit recorded; another defense expert, Dr. Foster, described childhood abuse and a possible attention deficit disorder. Doctors called by the state, Dr. Park Dietz and Dr. Nuwer, found no organic impairment. In their view his conduct showed planning, and they described him as a sexual sadist, possibly with an antisocial personality disorder.
Bonin served in Vietnam. The defense told the Orange County jury that he had earned a medal for gallantry for saving a fellow soldier at the risk of his own life. The same evidence, as the California Supreme Court summarized it, was that in Vietnam he began violent sexual activity with other men without their consent. "He returned from Vietnam a changed man," the defense told the jury. A psychologist who had worked as a parole counselor, Kathleen Shuttleworth, testified for him in Los Angeles about his decorated service, his helpfulness to others and his requests for help while in prison.
In late 1968 and early 1969 Bonin sexually attacked four boys and young men aged 12, 14, 17 and 18. The corrections department's record of that case, dated November 17, 1968, lists charges of kidnapping, sodomy involving minors and lewd conduct. In the spring of 1969 he pleaded guilty to several offenses against the four and was committed to Atascadero State Hospital as a mentally disordered sex offender found amenable to treatment. In 1971 he was declared not amenable after all and sent to prison. He was released in 1974.
The four were not named in the court records.
In 1975 Bonin abducted and sexually assaulted a 14-year-old boy. Afterward, the Ninth Circuit recorded, he told police he would never leave witnesses alive. He was convicted of a lewd conduct offense, which the corrections department dates to September 8, 1975, and was sent back to prison. He was paroled in 1978. The Ninth Circuit's summary says that after his release he "resumed his crimes."
The parole would later be one of his own arguments. In his last federal petitions he claimed that it was cruel and unusual to execute him after the state had ended his mental treatment and released him. The Ninth Circuit held in 1996 that the claim had come too late.
Both trials described the same sequence. A boy or young man was picked up in the van, tied, beaten and strangled, most often with a ligature, and his body was left in a public place. In most cases, the California Supreme Court said, the body was found with no clothing or identification. Robbery was charged in almost every count, because Bonin or a companion took whatever the victims carried, often a few dollars. The courts and the Ninth Circuit record that the victims were sexually assaulted.
Of the fourteen boys and young men whose deaths ended in convictions, little more has been reported than their ages, their home towns and the places they were last seen.
Marcus Grabs was 17, a German tourist, the Associated Press reported. The corrections department says he was accosted in Newport Beach between 6 and 10 p.m. on August 5, 1979. He died that day of multiple stab wounds, and his body was found on August 6 in Malibu Canyon, near Las Virgenes Canyon Road. His backpack was left at the scene. Two men, Scott Fraser and Ray Pendleton, testified at the Los Angeles trial that Bonin had told them he picked Grabs up while driving his van and killed him.
Donald Hyden was 15. The corrections department says he was picked up at about 1 a.m. on August 27, 1979, near the Gay Community Services Center in Los Angeles. His body was found that day in Liberty Canyon, near the Ventura Freeway. He had been strangled with a ligature.
David Murillo was 17 and lived in La Mirada. He was riding his bicycle to the movies early on September 9, 1979, when he was taken, according to the corrections department. His body was found on September 12 beside the Ventura Freeway near the Lemon Grove overpass. He had been strangled.
Dennis Frank Fox was 17. He died on or about November 30, 1979, and his body was found on December 2 along the Ortega Highway in Caspers Regional Park, in Orange County. He had been strangled with a ligature, and like the other Orange County victims he had been beaten and bound at the wrists and ankles. Fox was the one Orange County victim whom Bonin never named in his conversations with a television reporter; the prosecution tied the reporter's account to Fox through a published list of 21 victims, which Bonin discussed with him.
The most detailed account of any single night came from Gregory Miley, who was in the van and later testified for the state. In the early hours of February 3, 1980, Bonin picked up Charles Miranda in Hollywood. The Orange County District Attorney's office places the pickup near the Starwood Ballroom in West Hollywood. Miranda was 15 by the court's account and the corrections department's, and 14 by the district attorney's.
Bonin tied him up and asked about a ransom. Miranda had about six dollars, which was taken. Miley testified that he suggested letting the boy go, and that Bonin refused because the boy would recognize them and the van. "No, because he'll know us and he'll know the van," Miley recalled him saying. The two men beat Miranda and strangled him with a shirt and a jack handle, and left his body in an alley in downtown Los Angeles, where it was found the same day.
Later on February 3, in Huntington Beach, they picked up James Macabe, who was 12. The district attorney's office and the corrections department spell his surname McCabe. He told them he was on his way to Disneyland and accepted a ride. In the van Bonin asked him what ransom he could bring and told him, "This is a kidnap." The boy fought back. He was beaten and strangled in the same way, and his body, still clothed, was left near Walnut Drive in the city of Walnut, where it was found on February 6. Money was taken from his wallet, which was thrown from the van.
Miley was 18 at the time, the district attorney's office said. On August 22, 1980, living in Houston, Texas, he admitted his part in the two killings during a recorded telephone call with a friend, and he was arrested there.
Ronald Gatlin was 19. The corrections department says he was picked up in Van Nuys at about 8:30 p.m. on March 14, 1980. His body was found the next day near Central Avenue in Duarte. He had been strangled with a ligature.
Harry Todd Turner was 14. He was picked up in Hollywood on or after March 20, 1980, and his body was found on March 25 in an alley in Los Angeles. He had been strangled. The corrections department's summary says William Pugh was with Bonin when Turner was picked up.
Russell Rugh was 15 and Glenn Barker was 14. Both were hitchhiking when they were picked up in the van, according to the corrections department. They died on March 21 or 22, 1980, and their bodies were found together on March 22 off the Ortega Highway at the San Juan Campgrounds, in Orange County. Both had been strangled with a ligature. Bonin later named both boys to the television reporter and said he had left them "not far from where I dumped the other kid," the reporter testified.
Steven Wood was 16. He was picked up in Los Angeles at about 12:15 p.m. on April 10, 1980. His body was found the next day in an alley in Long Beach, near the Pacific Coast Highway. He had been strangled.
Darin Lee Kendrick was 19 and worked as a supermarket boxboy, the Associated Press reported. At about 9:15 p.m. on April 29, 1980, while he was collecting shopping carts in a supermarket parking lot in Stanton, he was lured into the van with a false offer of drugs, according to the corrections department. His body was found the next day on Avalon Street in Carson, near the Artesia Freeway. He had been strangled and stabbed. At the Orange County penalty phase the prosecution tried to prove that Kendrick had been killed as part of a ritual of what it called the "black art." Kendrick's brother, Steve, was at San Quentin when Bonin was executed.
Lawrence Sharp was 17. He died on May 17 or 18, 1980, and his body was found on May 18 at a gas station at Westminster Boulevard and Bolsa Chica in Westminster. He had been strangled with a ligature.
Steven Jay Wells was 18. At about 5:40 p.m. on June 2, 1980, he was hitchhiking in Downey when Bonin and James Munro picked him up. Munro testified that they took him to Bonin's home in Downey, where Bonin persuaded him to let himself be tied up and took his money and identification. With Munro's help Bonin beat Wells and strangled him with a T-shirt, and they left his body behind a gas station in Huntington Beach, where it was found on June 3.
That night, Munro said, Bonin told him that he was the "Freeway Killer," that Miley was one of his partners, and that he had committed about 14 murders.
At the Los Angeles trial a prosecution criminalist described an experiment in which he wrapped a T-shirt around his own upper arm and found marks like those on Wells's neck. The California Supreme Court later held that the testimony should not have been admitted, because no one had shown that the experiment's conditions matched the crime, but that the error was harmless.
On May 29, 1980, police arrested William Pugh, 17, on auto theft charges. Pugh told detectives that he had accepted a ride from Bonin and that Bonin had talked about killing young boys, the corrections department's summary says. On June 2, 1980, Bonin was placed under surveillance. Steven Wells was killed the same day.
On June 11, 1980, officers followed Bonin's van to Hollywood, where they watched him talk with several young men on street corners. A 15-year-old boy got into the van. The officers moved in and caught Bonin assaulting him. In the van they found a white nylon cord and three knives. The boy survived.
The van gave the prosecutors much of their physical evidence. Fibers with a triskelion-shaped cross section were found on the bodies of all four Orange County victims, and an expert testified they were consistent with the van's carpet; the expert said the van was also stained in several places with human blood. In the Los Angeles case, carpet-type fibers consistent with the van were found on three of the bodies and hair matching Bonin's on three others, and human blood was found in the van and at his home.
Charges were filed in Los Angeles County on August 8, 1980, and a lawyer, Earl L. Hanson, was appointed to represent Bonin on August 11. The information filed on January 2, 1981, named fourteen murder victims, one of them identified only as "John Doe," and added counts of robbery, sodomy and mayhem, with special-circumstance allegations that made him eligible for death. Before trial the court dismissed the murder counts for a victim named Wirostek and for John Doe. Orange County charged him separately with the murders and robberies of Fox, Rugh, Barker and Sharp.
From December 1980 through April 1981 Bonin talked about the killings with David Lopez, a reporter for the Los Angeles television station KNXT. Lopez testified at both trials. In Orange County he told the jury that Bonin had admitted killing Fox, Rugh, Barker, Sharp, Miranda and Wells. In the prosecution's offer of proof, Bonin had described approximately 21 different killings. When Lopez asked about a list of 21 victims that had been published in newspapers and on television, including the Orange County Register, Bonin said he had killed all but one. The one he denied was the boy named Lundgren.
In the Los Angeles case Lopez testified that Bonin had admitted all ten of the killings tried there, and others. Jailhouse informers and other witnesses testified to further admissions and to threats that he would leave no witnesses alive. The Associated Press summarized the reporter's account in 1996: Bonin "told a reporter he had killed 21 people."
Bonin's Los Angeles trial was set for May 4, 1981, and then put off twice, finally to September 14. On September 3 he told the court he wanted to replace Hanson with a private firm, Charvet & Stewart. The deputy district attorney, Sterling E. Norris, objected. The firm had talked with James Munro, the prosecution's key witness, in the county jail in late 1980, when Munro was looking for a lawyer, and the prosecution also pointed to a possible arrangement under which the firm would be paid with the rights to Bonin's story. William Charvet denied that he had ever represented Munro and said their talk had been minimal.
On September 14 the trial court refused the substitution. It found that a conflict had developed because Charvet had talked with Munro, and that the request was a tactic to delay the trial. The Court of Appeal summarily denied Bonin's petition on September 18. On September 21 the court put the trial off about thirty days, and on October 19, 1981, it allowed Charvet and his partner, Tracy L. Stewart, to substitute in, without obtaining a waiver of the conflict from Bonin. The trial began that day.
Miley and Munro testified for the state. Miley had pleaded guilty to the murders of Miranda and Macabe in exchange for his testimony, and Munro had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Scott Fraser and Ray Pendleton testified about what Bonin had said of Grabs, Lopez about his interviews, and informers about admissions in jail. The prosecution also called parents of the victims, who described their sons' appearance and ages, whether they had money with them, and when and where they were last seen, and who identified photographs. The defense had offered to agree to the victims' identities and the photographs, and the California Supreme Court later held that the parents' testimony should not have been allowed for that purpose, but that the error was harmless because they gave no evidence of the crimes' effect on them.
The defense argued that the prosecution had not proved guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and attacked the credibility of the prosecution witnesses.
In January 1982 the jury found Bonin guilty of ten counts of first-degree murder, of Grabs, Hyden, Murillo, Miranda, Macabe, Gatlin, Turner, Wood, Kendrick and Wells, and of robbery. It found true every special circumstance alleged except felony murder in the course of sodomy. It acquitted him of the murders of the boys named Lundgren and King, of the sodomy of Grabs and of mayhem on Lundgren. The same jury returned death on each of the ten murder counts.
At the penalty phase the prosecution relied on his convictions for sex offenses from 1968 to 1975 and on evidence of the Orange County killings. Charvet's defense rested on what the Ninth Circuit later called an "institutional adjustment" theory: Bonin was dangerous outside a structured setting but did well in prison and could do some good there. His mother, his brothers, Everett Fraser and Kathleen Shuttleworth testified. A psychologist told the jury he could be productive only in a structured prison setting.
The Ninth Circuit gave the date of the Los Angeles death sentence as January 20, 1982. The corrections department gives March 12, 1982, and the California Supreme Court said judgment was entered in March 1982. Bonin was received at San Quentin on March 22, 1982.
The Orange County trial was held in Santa Ana. Jury selection began in March 1983. The defense asked twice to move the trial out of the county, in July 1982 and again after jury selection in June 1983, and lost both times. Of 204 prospective jurors, 174 had been exposed to some of the publicity, 60 of them to coverage of the Los Angeles case, and 39 were excused for bias; Bonin used all 26 of his peremptory challenges. The California Supreme Court described the coverage as extensive before the Los Angeles sentencing and minimal afterward.
The prosecutor was Bryan Brown, a deputy district attorney. When the trial opened in June 1983, United Press International reported, his opening statement was so graphic that one victim's mother left the courtroom, and he called Bonin's van "a virtual death wagon."
The state had no accomplice to put in the van with any of the four Orange County victims. It relied on the fibers and blood, on Lopez's account of Bonin's admissions, and on witnesses who said Bonin had told them he would not leave witnesses alive. The trial court also allowed the prosecution to prove the killings of Miranda and Wells, through Miley and Munro, to show that the same man had committed all six. The defense attacked Munro's credibility and the reliability of the fiber evidence. Charvet and Stewart again represented him.
Over the court's earlier ruling, the prosecutor drew from Lopez that Bonin had admitted about 14 additional killings beyond Miranda and Wells. The California Supreme Court later declined to decide whether this was misconduct, holding that it did no harm in the face of what it called "overwhelming" evidence of guilt.
The jury convicted Bonin of all four murders and robberies and returned death on each count. At the penalty phase the prosecution put in his prior sex offenses and the ten Los Angeles killings. The defense put in his childhood, his military service and his conduct in custody; Charvet called the records custodian of Atascadero State Hospital, Virginia Padgett, whose cross-examination, the Ninth Circuit later said, brought out testimony damaging to him. The trial court refused to let a second defense lawyer give a closing argument at the penalty phase, which the California Supreme Court later found was a violation of state law but harmless.
The Ninth Circuit dated the Orange County death sentence August 22, 1983; the corrections department gives August 26, 1983.
Gregory Miley pleaded guilty in Los Angeles County to the murders of Charles Miranda and James Macabe in exchange for his testimony, the California Supreme Court recorded. He was received in state prison on February 16, 1982, under a sentence of life with the possibility of parole for first-degree murder, the corrections department said in 2016. In Orange County he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced on November 22, 1983, to 25 years to life. The Orange County District Attorney's office said in 2011 that this term ran consecutively to the Los Angeles sentence; the OC Weekly reported it as concurrent. The corrections department's 2016 account describes both convictions as arising from his role in the killings of two boys.
James Michael Munro pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 15 years to life, according to the corrections department and the California Supreme Court. He testified against Bonin in exchange for a lighter sentence, the Associated Press reported.
William Ray Pugh, 17 when he was arrested, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to six years, the corrections department says. No later report of him has appeared.
Vernon Robert Butts died by suicide in the Los Angeles County Jail before any trial, according to the corrections department; the Associated Press reported that he hanged himself. He was never tried, and he died legally unconvicted. His part in any killing is not described in the court records cited.
The California Supreme Court reviewed both death judgments automatically. On August 29, 1988, it affirmed the Orange County judgment in an opinion by Justice Mosk, joined by Chief Justice Lucas and Justices Panelli, Eagleson and Kaufman. It held that the trial court had properly refused to move the trial and that the prosecutor's handling of Lopez's testimony was not prejudicial. It vacated three of the four multiple-murder special-circumstance findings, because the law allowed only one such finding in a single case, and otherwise affirmed. Justice Broussard, joined by Justice Arguelles, wrote separately.
On January 9, 1989, the court affirmed the Los Angeles judgment, again in an opinion by Justice Mosk. It held that the trial court had erred when, having found a possible conflict in Charvet's contact with Munro, it let him take over the case without a valid waiver. "The trial court is obligated not merely to inquire but also to act in response to what its inquiry discovers," the court wrote. But it found that Bonin had not shown the conflict affected Charvet's work, pointing to his cross-examination of Munro, and it declined to reverse. It rejected claims that Charvet, with about thirty days to prepare, could not have been effective, and that Miley and Munro should have been barred from testifying. It vacated nine of the ten multiple-murder special-circumstance findings and said the judgment "must be affirmed in its entirety" in every other respect.
Justice Broussard dissented from the affirmance of the convictions and the death sentence. He argued that the trial court had a duty to refuse the substitution of a lawyer burdened with two possible conflicts, the contact with Munro and a possible literary-rights clause in the retainer, and he would have sent the case back for the trial court to decide whether a literary-rights agreement existed and whether it had hurt Charvet's work. The United States Supreme Court denied review, the Ninth Circuit later noted.
Bonin filed one habeas petition in the California Supreme Court on the Los Angeles convictions and three on the Orange County convictions; all were denied. He filed federal petitions on July 12, 1990 (Orange County) and February 7, 1991 (Los Angeles). In July 1993, while those cases were on appeal, the Ninth Circuit refused to let the California State Public Defender withdraw as his counsel. The office had argued that its own earlier mistakes might be a reason to excuse claims it had failed to raise, which put it in conflict with its client. The court held that there is no constitutional right to a lawyer in post-conviction proceedings, so counsel's errors there could not provide that excuse.
The central claim in the federal cases was the one Justice Broussard had raised. Bonin said that before Charvet became his trial lawyer, the two had made a literary-rights agreement that gave Charvet a reason to seek publicity rather than defend him well, that Charvet had agreed to try the Los Angeles case for a further ten percent of the proceeds, and that he had never been warned of the danger. He also said that Charvet had kept a retained psychiatrist, Dr. Lunde, off the stand in Orange County for fear that Lunde would reveal the arrangement. The state answered that there had been only tentative talks, which produced a letter of intent, that Charvet had warned Bonin against a book deal while the cases were pending, and that Bonin had signed a release of the letter after Charvet became trial counsel.
After three days of evidentiary hearings, the federal district court in Los Angeles found that "Bonin and Charvet never had a literary rights agreement," and denied both petitions in 1992. On June 28, 1995, the Ninth Circuit affirmed, in an opinion by Chief Judge Wallace, joined by Judges Melvin Brunetti and Alex Kozinski. It held the finding was not clearly wrong, though it noted that Charvet had "at least pretended" to have such an agreement in order to get money from Bonin's fiancée, Rhodora Hood. A possible conflict of that kind, or a lawyer's interest in his fee, was not an actual conflict under the Supreme Court's test, the court held.
The court also rejected the claim that Charvet had been ineffective at the penalty phases. Lunde's preliminary report said he was "not turning up anything major," and Charvet ended the psychiatric inquiry there. The court found it a reasonable choice to avoid psychiatric experts who could open the door to a detailed account of the murders before the jury. "Although with hindsight one may question Charvet's tactical decisions, they were certainly reasonable at the time," the court wrote. It added that the aggravating evidence was overwhelming.
In January 1993 California changed its law to let condemned prisoners choose between lethal gas and lethal injection, the corrections department records. A federal court barred the use of cyanide gas as cruel and unusual in 1994, and the Ninth Circuit upheld that ruling in February 1996, in Fierro v. Gomez. Amnesty International, appealing to Governor Pete Wilson on February 13, 1996, to commute the sentence, noted that California's last execution had been that of David Mason, by lethal gas, on August 25, 1993. It also repeated claims it had received, and did not verify, that Bonin's trial lawyer had been incompetent and had agreed to be paid from the rights to his story.
Bonin's lawyers went back to court. On February 6, 1996, they filed two new petitions in the California Supreme Court, which denied them on February 15. The new claims included juror misconduct learned from interviews on January 8, 1996; complaints about the testimony of Miley and Munro; the argument that it was cruel to execute him after the state had ended his treatment and released him; and the argument that about fourteen years on death row was itself cruel and unusual. On February 16 he sued in federal court in San Francisco, arguing that he had a state-created right to choose the method of his death. Federal judges in Los Angeles and San Francisco ruled against him on February 20.
On February 22, 1996, the Ninth Circuit panel that had heard his earlier appeal affirmed both rulings and denied a stay. Bonin had told the district court that his first federal petition was comprehensive and that he was not keeping claims "in his hip pocket," the court noted, and the new claims were an abuse of the writ. Because lethal gas had been held unconstitutional, the court said, the statute's alternative method applied, and Bonin had not argued that lethal injection was itself cruel. Governor Wilson did not grant clemency.
Bonin spent his last day at San Quentin State Prison visiting friends, according to the corrections department, and was moved to the death watch cell at about 6 p.m. His last meal was two large pepperoni and sausage pizzas, three pints of coffee ice cream and three six-packs of Coca-Cola. The warden, Arthur Calderon, and the Catholic chaplain visited him that evening.
In his final statement he said that the death penalty "is not an answer to the problems at hand," and that it sent the wrong message to young people, who copy what they see adults do. He told anyone thinking of doing "anything serious against the law" to "go to a quiet place and think about it seriously," the Associated Press reported.
Warden Calderon ordered the execution to begin at 12:09 a.m. on February 23, 1996, and Bonin was pronounced dead at 12:13 a.m. He was 49. He died in the room that had served as the gas chamber, the first prisoner in California to be executed by injection, and only the third person executed in the state in 30 years, the Associated Press reported.
Relatives of two of the victims brought photographs into the chamber and held them as the execution went on. One witness was a man whom Bonin had kidnapped and sexually assaulted years earlier and who had survived. "It is justice. Bonin is gone," he said, and he wept and embraced the woman beside him. Steve Kendrick, Darin's brother, said, "He got the easy way out, not like the guys he killed." Afterward about a dozen relatives and friends of victims toasted the execution with champagne in a motel parking lot near the prison.
"Justice has finally been done," Governor Wilson said. "I hope and pray that the families and loved ones of Bonin's victims may finally find some peace."
In 1996 California amended its Penal Code so that if one method of execution were held invalid, the other would apply, and made lethal injection the method for a prisoner who did not choose, according to the corrections department.
While on death row Bonin had played bridge with Randy Kraft, another Orange County man later sentenced to death for killing young men, the OC Weekly reported in 2011.
Gregory Miley went before the Board of Parole Hearings at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility in Corcoran on November 30, 2011. The Orange County District Attorney, Tony Rackauckas, opposed his release, citing 26 rules violations in prison, nine of them serious. Before the hearing began, Miley conceded that parole would be denied and agreed to put the next hearing off for three years.
On the evening of May 23, 2016, another prisoner attacked Miley in the exercise yard at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione. He was examined at the prison's medical facility and returned to his housing unit; at about 9:07 p.m. he lost consciousness and was flown to an outside hospital, where he was taken off life support and pronounced dead at 4:10 p.m. on May 25. He was 54, the Associated Press reported. The corrections department said it was investigating his death as a suspected homicide. A state inspector general's report issued the week before had found that Mule Creek gave inmates poor medical care. No outcome of the homicide investigation was reported.
Bonin was executed on February 23, 1996. His fourteen murder convictions were final. Of the young men convicted with him, Miley died in 2016.
Proven by final judgment: the first-degree murders of Marcus Grabs, Donald Hyden, David Murillo, Charles Miranda, James Macabe, Ronald Gatlin, Harry Todd Turner, Steven Wood, Darin Lee Kendrick and Steven Wells (Los Angeles County jury, January 1982), and of Dennis Frank Fox, Russell Rugh, Glenn Barker and Lawrence Sharp (Orange County jury, 1983), all affirmed by the California Supreme Court.
Acquitted: the murders of the boys named in the Los Angeles opinion as Lundgren and King, the sodomy of Grabs and mayhem on Lundgren. These are not murders by Bonin in any legal sense. Bonin himself denied killing Lundgren when the reporter showed him the published list.
Dismissed before trial: the murder counts for the victim named Wirostek and for an unidentified young man charged as John Doe.
Admitted but never tried: Bonin described about 21 killings to David Lopez of KNXT in 1980 and 1981, and told James Munro in June 1980 that he had committed about 14 murders. The corrections department says he was suspected in the deaths of other young males found in Kern, Riverside, San Diego and San Bernardino counties in the same period, but was never prosecuted for them. No reliable report names those victims, and figures such as "21 victims" are his own claim, not a finding by any court.
Details that differ between sources: the dates of the two death sentences (January 20 or March 12, 1982, in Los Angeles; August 22 or 26, 1983, in Orange County); Charles Miranda's age (15 in the court record, 14 in the district attorney's releases) and where he was picked up (Hollywood or West Hollywood); the spelling of James Macabe's surname (Macabe in the court records, McCabe elsewhere) and the time of his pickup (early afternoon by the court's account, later in the morning by the district attorney's); whether Miley's Orange County term ran consecutively to or concurrently with his Los Angeles term; and the branch in which Bonin served in Vietnam, which the court records do not state consistently.
1968 to 1969: sexually attacks four boys and young men, aged 12 to 18; pleads guilty in the spring of 1969 and is committed to Atascadero State Hospital.
1971: declared not amenable to treatment and sent to prison.
1974: released.
1975: abducts and assaults a 14-year-old boy; convicted and returned to prison.
1978: paroled.
August 5, 1979: Marcus Grabs, 17, is killed; his body is found in Malibu Canyon the next day.
August 1979: Donald Hyden, 15, is killed; found in Liberty Canyon.
September 9, 1979: David Murillo, 17, is taken in La Mirada; found September 12.
About November 30, 1979: Dennis Frank Fox, 17, is killed; found December 2 off the Ortega Highway.
February 3, 1980: Charles Miranda and James Macabe are killed, with Gregory Miley in the van.
March 14 or 15, 1980: Ronald Gatlin, 19, is killed; found in Duarte on March 15.
On or after March 20, 1980: Harry Todd Turner, 14, is picked up in Hollywood; found March 25.
March 21 or 22, 1980: Russell Rugh, 15, and Glenn Barker, 14, are killed; found at the San Juan Campgrounds.
April 10, 1980: Steven Wood, 16, is picked up; found in Long Beach the next day.
April 29, 1980: Darin Lee Kendrick, 19, is lured from a Stanton parking lot; found in Carson the next day.
May 17 or 18, 1980: Lawrence Sharp, 17, is killed; found in Westminster.
May 29, 1980: William Pugh, 17, arrested on auto theft charges, tells detectives about Bonin.
June 2, 1980: surveillance begins; Steven Wells, 18, is killed with James Munro in the van.
June 11, 1980: Bonin is caught in his van in Hollywood with a 15-year-old boy, who survives.
August 8, 1980: Los Angeles charges filed; Earl Hanson appointed August 11.
August 22, 1980: Miley admits his part in a recorded call in Houston and is arrested.
December 1980 to April 1981: Bonin's conversations with KNXT reporter David Lopez.
January 2, 1981: Los Angeles information names 14 murder victims.
Before trial: Vernon Butts dies by suicide in the Los Angeles County Jail.
October 19, 1981: Charvet & Stewart substitute in; the Los Angeles trial begins.
January 1982: Los Angeles jury convicts him of ten murders, acquits him of two, and returns death.
February 16, 1982: Miley received in state prison.
March 22, 1982: Bonin received at San Quentin.
March 1983: Orange County jury selection begins; testimony begins in June.
August 1983: death sentence in Orange County for four murders.
November 22, 1983: Miley sentenced in Orange County to 25 years to life.
August 29, 1988: California Supreme Court affirms the Orange County judgment.
January 9, 1989: California Supreme Court affirms the Los Angeles judgment.
July 12, 1990, and February 7, 1991: federal habeas petitions filed.
1992: federal district court denies both petitions.
July 16, 1993: Ninth Circuit refuses to let the State Public Defender withdraw.
June 28, 1995: Ninth Circuit affirms denial of habeas relief.
February 15, 1996: California Supreme Court denies new petitions.
February 22, 1996: Ninth Circuit affirms denial of his last petitions and refuses a stay.
February 23, 1996, 12:13 a.m.: executed by lethal injection at San Quentin.
November 30, 2011: Miley agrees to a three-year parole continuance.
May 25, 2016: Miley dies after an attack at Mule Creek State Prison.