January 2, 2025 • 41 mins
Please check out Cindy's new podcast, True Crime California!
This week finishes the horrifying saga of Bill Bonin, otherwise known as the Freeway Killer, who killed at least 21 young men and boys between 1979 and 1980. In the second half of this case, we hear more horrifying details about his final murders, as well as how he and his accomplices were eventually caught, put on trial, and, in some cases, suffered fates similar to those of their victims.
Tune in to hear the terrible conclusion to this awful tale, and come back next week for more terrible stories from the golden state!
Instagram: True Crime California
Sources:
https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/3d/46/659.html
Without Redemption: Creation & Deeds of Freeway Killer Bill Bonin, His Five Accomplices & How One Who Escaped Justice (Serial Killer Books by Vonda Pelto, Ph.D. & Michael B. Butler)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bonin
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/freeway-killers-chilling-final-words-32031585
https://www.amazon.com/William-Bonin-Freeway-Historical-Murderers/dp/1519631197v
This week finishes the horrifying saga of Bill Bonin, otherwise known as the Freeway Killer, who killed at least 21 young men and boys between 1979 and 1980. In the second half of this case, we hear more horrifying details about his final murders, as well as how he and his accomplices were eventually caught, put on trial, and, in some cases, suffered fates similar to those of their victims.
Tune in to hear the terrible conclusion to this awful tale, and come back next week for more terrible stories from the golden state!
Instagram: True Crime California
Sources:
https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/3d/46/659.html
Without Redemption: Creation & Deeds of Freeway Killer Bill Bonin, His Five Accomplices & How One Who Escaped Justice (Serial Killer Books by Vonda Pelto, Ph.D. & Michael B. Butler)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bonin
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/freeway-killers-chilling-final-words-32031585
https://www.amazon.com/William-Bonin-Freeway-Historical-Murderers/dp/1519631197v
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everyone, Welcome to True Crime California. I'm your host, Cindy,
and I'm glad you're here. Welcome back everyone. This is
(00:22):
True Trime California, True Crime California, and this is part
two of the story of the serial killer William Bill Bonnan.
This story's fucked up. Been a real, real tough experience
for me researching. I gotta tell you, it's something that
(00:43):
I wish I had thought through a little better before
committing myself to it. But I think I got through
the majority of the craziness last week, and this week
is going to be kind of just coasting into the finale,
kind of the conclusion of this story. We're going to
get through this together and then we're going to move
on to probably nothing any easier or more lighthearted, but
(01:05):
at least it won't be little Boys, which is like
really a tough thing for me since I have a
nine year old little boy. Anyway, Welcome everybody. I don't
know if I've told anybody this, but the intro music
that you hear is from a band that I was
in in my twenties. I was the singer. It was
called boy Beach. It was a really fun experience really
good band. It was just me and a bunch of friends.
(01:26):
We never played that many shows, but we recorded a
lot and we played a few, and we actually got
paid to play a couple times, which was super crazy.
But anyway, so now every time I hear it, I
want to start singing the song, which is I don't know,
is that narcissistic, I'm not really sure, but in any case,
that's where the intro music comes from. It's great when
you're in a band because you don't have to pay
for intro music or little snippets of music because it's yours.
(01:51):
Not that I'm making money anyway, so I wouldn't really
owe anybody royalties. But in any case, I think I'm
rambling because I don't want to get into this case,
but I'm I'm going to have to. So let's see
where we left off. Let's see. Oh boy, okay, Yeah,
so where we left off was with twelve year old
(02:11):
James McCabe being tortured, raped and murdered, and then Bill
Bond in the Piece of Shit being arrested on a
parole violation and going to jail for I don't know,
like a month and a half, two months, something like that. Now,
I do want to note that I believe when he
(02:32):
picked up James McCabe, he was with Miley, Gregory Miley,
and so that's important for kind of the next part.
As we went over last time, Bill Bonn and had
a number of associates, accomplices, people that he sort of
controlled and made to do his bidding. At least that's
(02:53):
what they would tell you if you ask them, like
how they came to rape and murdered children. But I
think it's pretty you know, common for people once they're
caught doing something like this to try and blame somebody else.
But in any case, the last murder and a few
of the last murders that we covered were with his
accomplished Gregory Miley. Prior to that, it was Vernon Butts
(03:17):
with two teas. I like to call that out because
he deserves the name he had. And now we're going
to talk about his release and kind of what happens
from there. So ten days after Bonnen is released from
this last little stint in prison for a poorole violation,
he and Gregory Miley go out again and this time
(03:39):
they pick up eighteen year old Ronald Gatlin. Now Ronald
had just dropped his dad off at a restaurant and
was walking home from a friend's house in North Hollywood
when he was grabbed. And I just moved out of
North Hollywood into Burbank, So when I read that, I
immediately started to try to find where he was. I
couldn't find it, but still interesting. He was tortured severely.
(04:03):
He was raped, he was beaten, he was strangled, and
he had the telltale ligature marks on his wrists, ankles,
and neck. His next would be victim. Now I don't
know exactly what happened with Gregory Miley at this point,
but he seems to have kind of taken a back seat,
kind of like Vernon Butts did, and so Bonnen's next
(04:25):
would be victim. For whatever reason, became his next partner,
which I guess is the better option. I'm I'm not
really sure this near victim turned associate with seventeen year
old William Pugh. Bonnan did the same thing with him
that he did with like all the other boys, but
for whatever reason, decided not to kill him. And I
think maybe they had been hanging out at Everett Fraser's
(04:47):
party house, you know, his like neighbor and friend or whatever,
So maybe sort of the association saved this kid. It's
really fucking hard to say, but in any case, Bonnin
scared the shit out of him, started doing like the
weird sex talk. He tried to get out of the
car bond and grabbed him by the collar, brought him
back in to the car, and then started saying shit
(05:08):
like you know, if you kill somebody, you need to
know what to do with the body. Just really creepy shit.
And he liked to scare his victims, so it really
sounded like he was kind of going down that way.
But then he just let him go. He let him
out of the card, like dropped him off at home.
In fact, and for whatever reason, this fucking guy just
decides to keep hanging out with him. He's like, this
(05:30):
seems like a chill dude, Like this is my new bestie.
So they keep hanging out and he turns into his
accomplice and in fact, on March twentieth, nineteen eighty, he
accompanied Bill on yet another kill. Now this victim was
fifteen year old Harry Todd Turner. This poor boy. This
story really sucks. I mean they all suck, right, It's like, oh,
they're from a good family. Oh they're from no family,
(05:52):
Like there's no like one victim in the list of
all these victims. That is not incredibly sad, but this
I just hate hearing when people have bad lives and
then this happens. It's like there's just not a moment
of good for them, Like what could they have possibly
done to deserve this? Obviously nothing, you know, but it
just sucks. So anyway, Henry here or Harry, I'm so sorry.
(06:16):
Harry Todd Turner. He was a runaway who had escaped
an abusive boys home just before being picked up by Bonnin. Now,
when Bonnan picked him up, he approached him, he offered
him twenty dollars for sex, and Harry agreed because he
was desperate for money. Like I mentioned earlier, a lot
of these boys were in the sex trade. They cannot
(06:37):
be sex workers at fifteen years old. That's when I
refuse to call them that. That's not really a thing.
But they were kind of selling their bodies for money
because they didn't have any other way to make money,
and they didn't have family, they didn't have support. It
was very much a lot of them were like Bill
Bonnin when he was their age, which you would think
he would feel some sort of kinship, but he certainly
does not. So Harry was tied up, beaten, raped, and
(07:02):
this time Bonnon added another level of torture to the attack, because,
as I've noted previously, he likes to escalate every time
he bit Harry on his genitals to the point where
it bled. And he did this obviously before he was killed,
which is absolutely fucking horrific. Once he was murdered, he
(07:23):
was dumped like he's always dumped, you know, like like
he always dumps his victims. He just throws them out
like trash. And two days later, two days, two days later,
on March twenty second, two bodies were found. So he's
just like boom boom, boom one two three. So two
bodies were found on the Ortega Highway, which is outside
of San Diego. These boys were fourteen year old Glenn
(07:45):
Norman Barker and fifteen year old Russell Dwayne Rue now
Russell went by Rusty. Both were hitchhiking. I don't believe
they were hitchhiking together, which is how I know that
he was kind of like frenzied at this point. But
both were met with the same horrific fate. And in
the case of fourteen year old Glenn, there was yet
(08:07):
another uptick in the torture. His body was found with
a ring of cigarette burns around his neck. So we've
got knives, ice picks, strangling, raping, burning, hydrochloric acid. You know,
I think I mentioned the ice pick already, Like biting,
It's just fuck, it's endless what this guy will do.
(08:30):
He's fucking deranged. He's absolutely fucking evil. Now, Glenn, this
is again another story that's fucking sad. They're all sad.
But Glenn had been given money by his mother specifically
so he wouldn't hitchhike, but he spent the money and
ended up in Bondin's Van. Glenn's mother, who was battling
(08:51):
cancer at the time, suffered a really major health setback
when she found out that her son was murdered and
murdered so viciously in a he was fourteen. She did
live to see Bonnin charged and put in prison, but
she died three years later, so you know, she didn't
have the piece she was seeking for very long. Now,
(09:12):
two days after these bodies were found, despite the police
still saying there was no connection between these murders, which, like,
what the fuck? Despite that, the Orange County Register came
out with a story about the quote freeway killer this
is what they named him, which tied I think at
least five of the murders to a single killer, with
(09:34):
many more of these boys being listed as possible connections.
They had a forensic psychologist create a profile of the killer,
and his profile was almost one hundred percent correct, Like
it was real, real close. What he said was white male, smart,
late twenties or early thirties. He was in his early thirties,
(09:54):
ashamed of his sexuality, and the only thing that he
got wrong was why bond and killed This psychologist said
it was out of shame, when in reality, Bonding killed
for pleasure. He fucking loved it, and he wouldn't stop
if he wasn't stopped by someone. And he fucking even
(10:15):
said that he wouldn't stop if he wasn't stopped by someone.
He later, when he was captured, straight up admitted this.
So I mean, it's like it wasn't a secret. Now
with police pretending there wasn't a serial killer, things weren't
looking too good. So at least this case came out.
You know, they broke the story and brought attention to
(10:36):
the case. His next victim was sixteen year old Stephen Wood.
His body was found on the Pacific Coast Highway, which
we call PCH, which is like a coastal highway. It
runs all up and down the state I believe in Oregon,
maybe even Washington, and he was found on a portion
of it in Long Beach. He was killed in the
(10:58):
same way that all the other victims were killed. With
all victims, like I just kind of mentioned, you know,
the families are destroyed. This one was a little specific.
Stephen got into Bill Bonnon's van because he had already
met Bill, and he met him through his older brother
who was friends with Bill, who kind of ran in
(11:19):
similar circles, so he felt safe being with Bill Bonnon.
And as a result, he was tortured and murdered. And
this is significant because one it's a fucked up part
of the story, and two, his older brother, nine years
after Stephen's death, waited until Bill Bonnon's birthday, which is
(11:39):
January eighth, and he did this in nineteen eighty nine.
He went to a friend's house and shot himself to
death with a shotgun. So I think It's important to
note this because you know, again we talk about the
impact on families, this one was even more of like
a crazy like the guilt that he must have felt
(12:01):
for introducing his brother to this fucking murderer and that's
why his brother ended up dead is just terrible, Like
what what Bill Bonnan did? It just it stole so
many people's lives, like emotionally and actually in this case,
you know, this guy was so guilt ridden that he
couldn't he couldn't bear to be alive, which is super
(12:23):
super fucked up. Moving into April of nineteen eighty, the
next victim was nineteen year old Darren Lee Kendrick, who
was working like actively doing his job, like on the clock,
not even like going to work or coming home for work.
(12:43):
Like he was working collecting shopping carts at a grocery
store when Bill Bonnon convinced him to get into his van. Now,
the way he did that was he told him he
had drugs and that they could do them together, and
the guy was like, yeah, fuck this fucking job. You know,
I'm gonna go hang out his nineteen year old kid,
no no judgment whatsoever. Unfortunately, as soon as he was
(13:03):
in the van, the torture began, and again, unfortunately, this
time the torture escalated. Darren was tied up, beaten, brutally raped,
and when his body was found he had chemical burns
on his mouth, on his face, and on his chest
because Bonnen, as I had actually previously mentioned, forced him
(13:23):
to drink a hydrochloric acid. And in addition to this,
he also had an ice pick shoved into his ear.
It wasn't still in his ear, but they could tell
it had been shoved in, then removed and stabbed into
his spine, which would have rendered him paralyzed and b
it would have been extremely fucking painful. So this is
(13:46):
like a new level of violence. As wild as it
was that at this point he could even still be
leveling up, he was now in a crazy turn. His
next victim was actually his living boyfriend, eighteen year old
Lawrence Sharp. The two went on dates together like were
officially like a couple. I think he even like lived
(14:08):
with him and his mom, like Lawrence lived with with
Bill and his mom for a while. I read that
they went to Knotsberry Farm, so like kind of wholesome.
But after a while Bonnon said he grew tired of him,
so instead of just being like, let's break up, move out,
leave me alone, he fucking killed him and stuck his
body in a dumpster. I just don't even like, I
(14:33):
don't know. So that was I believe a solo killing,
as was his next victim. Now, his next victim was
fourteen year old Sean King, solo. He had asked Vernon
Butts to join him, but he said no, so Bonnon, undeterred,
went out on his own. This poor boy's body was
not actually found until after Bonnon was caught, and the
(14:56):
reasoning behind it was interesting. So apparently the victim's mother
begged Bonnin to tell her where the body was. She
wrote him a letter begging for mercy. And I guess
the letter kind of did it. But Bonin, if you
asked him, he said, no, it wasn't the letter. It's
because I knew when the cops took me to find
(15:16):
the body that they would get me a hamburger. So
that was his thing. And I gotta tell you, I
do think that maybe it appealed to his like, I
don't know, empathy, the tiny bit of empathy that he
maybe had somewhere deep down. But he wasn't willing to
admit that because he's such a fucked up person that
he had to be like, no, it's because I wanted
a hamburger. I really believe that. Like everything that I've read,
(15:38):
people are like, oh, that's how stone cold he is,
and I'm like, no, that sounds like an immature like
kid being like, no, you didn't make me do it.
I did it because I wanted to do it. This
why I did it, you know, Like it sounds really
like petulant. So I think that the letter really worked.
But in any case, Bonnan finally told police where the
body was because you go to burger stupid. So, you know,
(16:01):
I don't know if what he says is true. He's
just another example of him being a trash bag human.
But at the very least he's just immature and needs
to make excuses. Right. So, around this time, he had
not been caught yet, and Bill Bonnon met a drifter
named James Monroe who he invited to live with him
(16:22):
and his mom. Now this was after the boyfriend moved out,
so he invites James Monroe to live with him and
his mom. Of course, knew nothing right, had no idea,
so Anyway, they move in together and they're actually like
sleeping in the same room but in different beds, and
Bonnan even got this guy James a job at his work.
(16:44):
James later said his first impression of Bill was that
he was a good guy and quote really normal, which
I think your radar is off. You have some judgment
issues there, clearly, my guy. So anyway, the two somehow
get to the topic, you know, of raping and murdering
little boys, and James this is apparently open to the idea,
which again, like I'm just shocked how many people are like, yeah,
(17:05):
that sounds that sounds like a great way to spend
a night, Like, what the fuck? Guys crazy to me,
what is wrong with y'all? But anyway, he was down,
and I have to say, I'm actually really excited about
this because this is going to bring us to our
last victim. Yay, last murder victim, I should say, because
shit gets a little weird. And this victim was nineteen
(17:27):
year old Stephen Wells. So we had Steven Wood and
now we have Stephen Wells. Steven initially agreed to go
back to their house and have sex with them for
some money, and after they were done. You know, they
offered him any thing like two hundred dollars to tie
him up, and he said sure. So they tie him
up and then immediately Bill Bonden starts raping him while
James is in the other room watching TV. Now, James
(17:48):
said he didn't participate in this, in the consensual sex
or the rape, but he was there when this was
all happening. After a while, Bonding calls for James to
come in and James He's like, yo, dude, this is crazy,
Please fucking stop now. That's the weird thing is like
I know that he was prepped for this through their conversation,
(18:09):
and then he gets to the point where it's actually
happening and he's saying, I don't really want to do this,
but Bill is like, it's too late. This guy's gonna die.
We gotta just do this. So James beats him with
Bill Bonnon and this poor kid, you know, he's begging
for his life, and then they strangle him to death.
James Monroe later described the murder, saying that Bonnin was
(18:32):
screaming but like excitedly and telling this poor young man
that he was gonna die, just basically trying to scare
him as much as possible before actually ending his life.
He said Bonnin was extremely excited and animated while strangling
him to death, which, again like, how could his mom
not know this? If he's like in their shared home
(18:54):
screaming and attacking someone, it's like, give me a break,
you know, there's no way that she didn't fucking know. So, oh,
I did want to mention. Sorry, I forgot his father
was dead at this point, so he wasn't around anymore.
He died, but he still was with mom and she
had to know. So in any case, they go and
they dump this young man's body behind a gas station
(19:14):
in Huntington Beach, and he then threatens James because I
think he can tell that James is kind of like, whoa,
this wasn't what I thought it was going to be like,
and I don't want to do this anymore. So he
threatens James and he says, you know, if you tell anyone,
I'll fucking kill you. And during this time, again because
Bill really likes to ramp up the fear and intimidation,
(19:35):
he tells him I'm the Freeway killer. I have multiple
accomplices and they will know where you are. They will
know who you are, and they'll fucking kill you if
you tell on me. And then he told him I
killed forty five people. And now this could be taken
as him trying to scare James, or it could be
taken as truth, and we'll talk about that a little
(19:57):
bit more. But at the time, what was true was that,
you know, the Orange County Register, despite the police being
upset about it, really did help bring Bill bonn In
down and stop his reign of terror. Now this is
the case for many reasons, some of them obvious and
some of them not so immediately obvious. The first obvious
reason is this brought the cases of these murders to
the public's attention, which is huge in collecting evidence and
(20:20):
finding witnesses. Second, Bill Bonnan became obsessed with collecting news
clippings about the murders and would talk about them incessantly
to anyone who would listen. In fact, he kept a
scrap book in his fucking van, which makes sense because
you know, he kept everything else in their weapons fucking
evidence of murder, this which is you know, very very dumb.
(20:42):
But it's not like the scrap book was like the
thing that broke the case. But he did have it
in his van, which is ridiculous. Everett Fraser, the party neighbor,
said that they would often talk about the killer and
that he would often say Fraser that he wished the
police would catch him beyond bond and creating a piece
of evidence to tie himself to the crimes via the
scrap book. There was also a very important witness to
(21:04):
come forward, and that witness was the previously you know,
fifteen year old David McVicar, the boy who had been
raped way before the killing began. And I will remind
everyone that Bill Bannon went to prison for this attack.
So David McVicar knew exactly who it was that raped him,
and he noticed a lot of similarities between his attack
(21:29):
and the murders. McVicker went to the police pretty much
as soon as the story broke and said straight up like, hey,
based on the pattern, this guy's your fucking killer. Police
were super interested in his story and they did believe him.
But also they had another eyewitness come forward around that
same time, which is like the spring of nineteen eighty.
This witness was William Pugh. So there's some names from
(21:53):
you know, his past, not so far in the past.
Kind of coming forward to haunt him. Now, William Pugh
had been you know, isn't for at least one of
the murders, and had recently been picked up for grand
theft auto. Not wanting to get into trouble for car
theft and also not being very smart, he thought he
could use his knowledge of the murders to get out
of the theft charges, which like, bro, you're gonna get
(22:15):
murder charges instead, as this doesn't seem like a good exchange,
pardon me, but anyway, he took the chance. You know,
Bonnon definitely wasn't known for hanging out with geniuses. He
tried to skirt his own responsibility. William Pugh w and
he was like who went by Billy by the way
when he was talking about the murders, he didn't say
(22:36):
he knew a guy who had a scrapbook about the
murders in his van, who he thought might be suspicious.
Later he would testify against bond and for a reduced
sentence once the police kind of you know, figured out
what he did. But that name, having now come up
between two people with some pretty interesting information, got the
police very interested. And with this information police went and
(22:59):
talked to Everett Fraser, the neighbor, and they later said
that they could see the realization come over him while
they talked. They said, you know, on once they told
Everett here, you know, your neighbor, your friend, he's the
fucking freeway killer. They literally watched the arm hairs, his
arm hairs like raise like they stood on end. Because
(23:22):
he was just like, oh my god, it all makes sense.
That was definitely he's definitely the killer. Right. He then
agreed to give them any information he could to help,
which is great. The guy sounds not awesome, but at least,
you know, at least he's doing the right thing. And
with all of this, police began to focus on meaning
surveill Bill Bonnan. Sadly, they did not get to him
(23:45):
in time to save his last victim, but they did
get to him before he could murder anybody else. The
really sad thing talking about the timing. Police began surveilling
Bonnin the night that he killed his last victim, but
they started right after he dumped the body. So that
was June second, nineteen eighty, which is fucked up. So Bill,
(24:06):
I think he kind of knew, you know, that he
might end up getting getting caught and he obviously you know,
didn't want to. So for a time he started acting right.
We'll say he went to work every day on time,
drove trucks all day, then either went home or went
to Effett Fraser's house, which had to be super stressful
(24:27):
Foreverett because you know, now he knows what's going on.
And but you know, to police during this time, he
seemed normal, work home or with friends, go to bed,
and considering how back to back most of the murders
were like, who knows if police were like, now, this
isn't the guy. Maybe police were like, oh, you know,
(24:48):
we can tell he's just trying to throw us off.
You know. Luckily it took only nine days for Bonding
to need another kill. So while laying love boh was
a good idea, he wasn't really able to keep that up.
He went out cruising on the night of June eleventh,
nineteen eighty, and police watched as he unsuccessfully tried to
(25:12):
pick up five different young boys from the street. Finally,
after a few hours of trying, he picked up a
fifteen year old and drove him to a secluded beach
parking lot. Police followed and when they finally busted into
the van, Bonnan was already simultaneously raping and strangling the boy. Sorry,
(25:35):
my dog is barking or sneezing. And I think the
reason that he was being so quick in his murder
was that he was alone, so he didn't really have
an audience, so I don't think it was as exciting
for him to torture these boys. I think when he
was alone it was maybe more about just the kill,
the rape and the kill. He didn't go to the
(25:57):
same lengths that he did when he had an accomplice,
because again, he likes having that audience. Luckily, like I said,
you know, police were almost too late, but they did
make it in time to save this boy, traumatized as
I'm sure he was. Bill was arrested and booked on
suspicion of murder as well as multiple sex charges, and
(26:18):
at first Vonnon refused to talk. But remember how I said,
that letter from Sean King's mom seemingly worked. Regardless of
what he said later. That letter was in fact the
last thing he read before he decided to confess to
Shawn's murder, as well as twenty others. And I just
want to say that it later came out that the
(26:41):
letter was never written by Sean King's mother. It was
written by a detective, and this detective later told Bill
Bonn in this and I kind of love that, because
as much as I am not a fan of cops,
I love when killers who like think they're fucking smart
and think they're like, you know, above it all get
fucking humbled a little bit. So I did really enjoy
knowing about that. Either way. Uponnin you know, he started
(27:02):
to confess, and he confessed over several days, horrifying detectives
in the process, not only with details of the tortures
and murders, but with sort of the casual nature in
which he told the stories, coupled with the fact that
the only time he became anything other than borderline bored
with the stories was when he became excited about them,
which was usually when talking about the point at which
(27:24):
the victims died. So he was either very like matter
of fact, or enjoying the tale a little too much.
But there was never a hint of, you know, remorse.
There was never a hint of regret. He just was
either bored or kind of turned on, which is absolutely
fucking insane. In the end, he gave up details about
(27:46):
twenty one victims and also gave the names of every
one of his accomplices. In the end, he was only
charged with fourteen murders, but also robbery, sodomy, and mayhem.
He would have been charged with more, but the evidence
apparently just wasn't there, which is a bummer as in reality,
he is linked to at least twenty other victims, which
(28:06):
aligns pretty closely with what he said to James when
he said he killed forty five people. So that's kind
of where that number comes up again, because it sort
of makes sense even though we don't know for sure,
there are definitely a lot of names floating out around
that they think are tied to him, and in fact,
even to this day, they're trying to link him to
(28:26):
other murders using DNA. So far, I haven't heard of
any success with that, but it's definitely an interesting thing
that they are still to this day looking for connections
almost you know, what is it, thirty forty God, I'm old,
like almost forty something years later, they're still trying to
tie to solve these cases, which I love that they're
(28:48):
doing that because everybody, you know, they deserve the closure
in any case, so he would have been charged with more.
They couldn't really get the evidence, but they did start
picking up his accomplices, and on July twenty fifth, they
picked up Vernon Butts. They found evidence of at least
one of the murders in his home, and Vernon fully
admitted to everything, saying that Bondon had a quote hypnotic
(29:10):
effect on him. He also detailed the use of the
ice pick, acid and knives on the victims and said
that bon and quote loved to hear them scream. James
Monroe was the next to be arrested. He had skipped
town after Bonnon was arrested, but they caught up with
him in early August and nabbed his ass. In mid August,
(29:31):
police nabbed Gregory Miley in Texas, where he had run
after hearing of the arrests. He also admitted his role,
giving more details of the murders he took part in,
which apparently were only two, but it was enough to
put him away forever now. As the trial was coming,
police were dependent on Vernon Butts for a lot of
the testimony. He was, you know, he was the biggest accomplice,
(29:51):
Like he was there for the more of the murders
than there was, like nine of them or something, and unfortunately,
in January of nineteen eighty one, he hung himself in
his jail cell with a towel. Somehow, some people, including
his defense lawyers, say that maybe he was actually murdered.
He received a lot of threats, which people who rape
children get a lot of threats in prison, and they
(30:13):
definitely get murdered in prison, as we'll see. But so
I don't know, but everybody the police seemed to think
it was a suicide, which I don't really know if
that counts for much, but in any case, he's dead.
January nineteen eighty one, he died. And I believe that
this is a big part of why they weren't able
to charge Bonding with more murders, because one of their
main witnesses was gone, and in fact, after all was
(30:36):
sudden done, in LA, he was only charged with ten murders,
even though they tied him to twenty one. Now he
had another trial, but in LA there were ten. During
the Los Angeles trial, because there was that other one
in Orange County, which we'll talk about, it became pretty
clear that he had perpetrated the murders. You know, some
of the victims had green carpet fibers in their pubic hair,
(30:57):
which matched the green carpet in his van. We also
have the witness testimony, We have his own confession, we
have you know, David McVicker's eye witness of what happened
to him. So, you know, the case is just building
up pretty good. It was pretty clear that he did it,
so it became more about his defense, trying to defend
(31:17):
his actions or explain his actions get the jury to
sort of, I don't know, feel bad for him more
than anything. His mother took the stand and she talked
about the beatings that he endured as a child. To
back this up, Actually doctors looked at him and said,
you know, he has severe scarring around his head, which
indicated significant, like significant trauma basically to his brain, probably
(31:43):
potentially at a very young age. Kind Of lending to
the idea that this was pretty major was the fact
that when Bonnen was asked about it, he didn't know.
He didn't know how he caught those scars. He didn't
remember the beatings. He remembered a lot of trauma, but
he did not ever remember what exactly led to the
scarring around his head, So that's that's crazy because that's
(32:06):
probably just like a trauma block. Doctors also found evidence
of frontal cortex trauma, which is significant because that's what
controls your impulses or lack thereof, if it's damaged. So
between you know, the brain trauma, his horrific childhood, to
be fair, bilbon and did not stand a chance. You know,
there's no way that he was going to have a
good life. That being said, I still don't feel bad
(32:29):
for him beyond his childhood because you know, you could
have told somebody that you couldn't control yourself, but his
lack so okay, here's what I think. The impulse to
murder was because of what was messed up in his brain.
The lack of remorse is because of how he was raised.
So some of it is like, yeah, it's his brain,
and some of it is just him being like a
(32:51):
stone cold piece of shit not giving a fuck. You know, regardless,
he didn't give a fuck. If he didn't have the
brain damage, would he still have murdered. Maybe. I don't
think that's off the table when you have a life
like he had, But the brain damage definitely did not help.
But in any case, the jury was given the case,
they presented it to them, and after just a few
(33:11):
days they came back with the verdict of guilty on
all ten counts of murder. Bill Bonnen was given multiple
death sentences, and at the Orange County trial it was
much the same, four more convictions for more sentences, and
his accomplices were handed pretty tough sentences as well. Pew
for his cooperation was given I think sixteen years or
(33:34):
served around that much. Gregory Miley was given life with parole.
Now they were gonna put him up for the death penalty,
but he agreed to testify against Bill, so they said, okay,
we'll give you life with parole, so at some point
you can have parole. I know that I mentioned that
Gregory Miiley was not a very smart man, and I'm
(33:55):
gonna just kind of circle back to that. He was
a dumb ass, and basically he just fucked up the
whole time in prison. He got in trouble for rape,
he got in trouble for all sorts of shit, so
he was never ever going to get out. And actually
some years ago he was beaten to death in prison,
probably because of the crimes that he perpetrated, but it
(34:15):
took you know, I think it was like the early
two thousands when he was killed, so it took some
time for that to happen. But he died in prison.
James Monroe, the drifter who was there only for the
one murder, was given fifteen to life, but so far
is still in prison, with the family of his victim
coming to each parole hearing to ensure he is never released.
(34:37):
And David McVicar also comes because he does not trust
that this man who made the decision to partake in
this was told about it beforehand, said yeah, I think
that's a good idea, and then went through with it.
He doesn't believe that he's a good fit to be
in society, and like, I don't really disagree. James Monroe
is so miserable in prison that he's actually requested the
(34:58):
death penalty. He can just end it all, which good,
I guess, you know, if you're that fucking miserable. But
also you know, he said, I would have never agreed
to the plea deal of fifteen to life if I
knew that it actually meant I was gonna get life,
I would not have agreed. I would not have cooperated.
I would have pled not guilty, and like tried my luck.
(35:18):
And I guess that's just what happens, you know, when
you hang out with this kind of guy. So sorry, dude.
I did also want to say that while he kind
of like you know, has written letters to the family
saying he's so sorry, this, that and the other, every
single time he comes up for parole, he really paints
himself as the victim. He basically says, you know, I
(35:39):
was scared Bonding made me do it, so he's not
really taking responsibility and that, you know, that could be true.
He was kind of afraid of Bond and but he
could he could have just left. He didn't have to
stay living with him. He didn't have to kill the guy.
He was told ahead of time what was gonna happen.
He could have just said no. So in any case,
you know, I don't feel bad for this guy. Now,
(36:01):
Bill bonn In for his part, like I said, he
got a lot of death sentences and he was put
to death via lethal injection. Now, this is the first
prisoner in California to die this way. They had outlawed
the gas chamber as being cruel and unusual and it's
so fucked up. One of the books that I read
about Bill Bonn in they actually detail the way the
(36:24):
last prisoner to die in the gas chamber died, and
it made me a little sick. Something about it was
so detailed and fucked up that it made me feel
like queasy, which not great. Don't recommend. Don't recommend reading that,
but in any case, it did drive home the idea
that the gas chamber is cruel and unusual. I'm anti
(36:46):
death penalty, just to put it out there, just in general,
I think it's a bad idea. When it's something like
this and it's an open and shutcase, I still think
it's a bad idea. And I hate to say that
because Bill Bonnon sort of agreed with me. He said
as much like in his last words, which I probably
won't talk about too much. But in any case, he
was set to death. His date. The date was, you know,
(37:09):
February twenty second, but he actually died February twenty third,
because they started the injection at twelve one am. I
guess they do it in the middle of the night
for some reason. I don't really know why. He died
February twenty third, nineteen ninety six, just after midnight. His
last words. Really they offered nothing to his victim's family
families about remorse or anything of any value. He basically
just said, like, I don't believe in the death penalty.
(37:31):
I don't think it is a good example. He said, basically,
you know, the youth of America don't do what they're told.
They do what they see, and I don't think he's
entirely wrong. He also said something along the lines of,
if you're considering breaking the law, you should really think twice,
because obviously, you know, he didn't want to end up dead,
(37:51):
and you don't want to end up like him. He
over multiple interviews, said he was at peace with dying,
but didn't really know how he'd feel in the moment,
and he said, you know, I don't think anybody will
know until they're in that situation. I don't think I'll
know until I'm in that situation. But however, he felt
he did get to find out. February twenty second and
twenty third, his last meal consisted of two large sausage
(38:16):
and pepperoni pizzas, three gallons of coffee ice cream, and
either two or three six packs of Coca Cola, he
ate these alone. I'm not. I don't know how much
could you possibly eat, Like if I eat more than
a pint of ice cream, I feel like I'm gonna die.
But maybe that was the point, Like maybe he wanted
to feel so gross that it would be like a relief.
(38:38):
I don't know. I often wonder it's like, what is
the point of gluttony until the point of like being sick.
But in any case, Diva always from Twisted listens, she
always really enjoyed talking about the last meals of inmates
when they were put to death. So I wanted to
do this to sort of pay tribute tu Diva, because
I love her. In any case, after his death, you know,
(39:00):
the families tried to put their lives back together, to
varying degrees of success. But in all honesty, I think
the effects of what he did affected the families and
you know, the public at large for many, many years.
It's just really fucked up. And I also wanted to
note that, like nobody came for his body. They just
left him. They're like, we don't we don't want that.
(39:20):
And that's honestly, that's about it. That's the end of
the story. Is part two. I didn't have a full hour,
but I didn't want to do like an hour forty
five and I didn't want to leave anything out, so
I thought splitting the story made sense. Thanks everybody for listening.
This is a really fucked up tale. The craziest part
is that there was another freeway killer operating basically around
(39:41):
like the same area at the same time. There were
multiple other serial killers in this area at this time,
and so it's really crazy to me that the police
like refused to admit there was one, let alone like
multiple really says something about the time. I think, you know,
the time that we're that they were living in back then,
and how the police operated. So he got away with
(40:03):
a lot more than he probably should have, and hopefully
more than he than a serial killer would nowadays. You know,
we don't really hear that much about serial killers. People say, oh,
they're operating, there's fifty in the United States. It's really
not very many. It's crazy, it's terrifying. It's way too many,
but it's also not that many. And I feel like
(40:24):
back at this time there were like that many in California.
So I don't know what was happening back then, but
is a really fucked up case. I'm glad it's over.
I hope everybody enjoyed it. I have not chosen my
next case, but I will do so soon. You all
will know in about a week what that is. If
you guys have any requests, feel free to email True
Crime California Pod at gmail dot com. Please like, rate, review,
(40:48):
share with friends and family, follow us on Instagram, us
meaning me on Instagram. I'm really trying to build this up.
You know, my last podcast had a really good following,
and I'd love to get there with this one. Well,
I think it's possible. Hopefully my storytelling is interesting enough
that you all want to keep coming back. I want
to listen to more. But if there's anything you want
(41:08):
me to do, any cases, you want me to cover,
anything you want to hear in particular, tell me I'll
do it. I'm stoked. I'm down. And also, I am
now a part of the dark Cast Network, which I'm
super proud to be a part of. There's a really
good and popular podcast on there, so I feel like
I'm just in the best company. Check out all the
other podcasts on there, and until next week, everybody, stay safe.
(41:32):
Ah
Hey, everyone, Welcome to True Crime California. I'm your host, Cindy,
and I'm glad you're here. Welcome back everyone. This is
(00:22):
True Trime California, True Crime California, and this is part
two of the story of the serial killer William Bill Bonnan.
This story's fucked up. Been a real, real tough experience
for me researching. I gotta tell you, it's something that
(00:43):
I wish I had thought through a little better before
committing myself to it. But I think I got through
the majority of the craziness last week, and this week
is going to be kind of just coasting into the finale,
kind of the conclusion of this story. We're going to
get through this together and then we're going to move
on to probably nothing any easier or more lighthearted, but
(01:05):
at least it won't be little Boys, which is like
really a tough thing for me since I have a
nine year old little boy. Anyway, Welcome everybody. I don't
know if I've told anybody this, but the intro music
that you hear is from a band that I was
in in my twenties. I was the singer. It was
called boy Beach. It was a really fun experience really
good band. It was just me and a bunch of friends.
(01:26):
We never played that many shows, but we recorded a
lot and we played a few, and we actually got
paid to play a couple times, which was super crazy.
But anyway, so now every time I hear it, I
want to start singing the song, which is I don't know,
is that narcissistic, I'm not really sure, but in any case,
that's where the intro music comes from. It's great when
you're in a band because you don't have to pay
for intro music or little snippets of music because it's yours.
(01:51):
Not that I'm making money anyway, so I wouldn't really
owe anybody royalties. But in any case, I think I'm
rambling because I don't want to get into this case,
but I'm I'm going to have to. So let's see
where we left off. Let's see. Oh boy, okay, Yeah,
so where we left off was with twelve year old
(02:11):
James McCabe being tortured, raped and murdered, and then Bill
Bond in the Piece of Shit being arrested on a
parole violation and going to jail for I don't know,
like a month and a half, two months, something like that. Now,
I do want to note that I believe when he
(02:32):
picked up James McCabe, he was with Miley, Gregory Miley,
and so that's important for kind of the next part.
As we went over last time, Bill Bonn and had
a number of associates, accomplices, people that he sort of
controlled and made to do his bidding. At least that's
(02:53):
what they would tell you if you ask them, like
how they came to rape and murdered children. But I
think it's pretty you know, common for people once they're
caught doing something like this to try and blame somebody else.
But in any case, the last murder and a few
of the last murders that we covered were with his
accomplished Gregory Miley. Prior to that, it was Vernon Butts
(03:17):
with two teas. I like to call that out because
he deserves the name he had. And now we're going
to talk about his release and kind of what happens
from there. So ten days after Bonnen is released from
this last little stint in prison for a poorole violation,
he and Gregory Miley go out again and this time
(03:39):
they pick up eighteen year old Ronald Gatlin. Now Ronald
had just dropped his dad off at a restaurant and
was walking home from a friend's house in North Hollywood
when he was grabbed. And I just moved out of
North Hollywood into Burbank, So when I read that, I
immediately started to try to find where he was. I
couldn't find it, but still interesting. He was tortured severely.
(04:03):
He was raped, he was beaten, he was strangled, and
he had the telltale ligature marks on his wrists, ankles,
and neck. His next would be victim. Now I don't
know exactly what happened with Gregory Miley at this point,
but he seems to have kind of taken a back seat,
kind of like Vernon Butts did, and so Bonnen's next
(04:25):
would be victim. For whatever reason, became his next partner,
which I guess is the better option. I'm I'm not
really sure this near victim turned associate with seventeen year
old William Pugh. Bonnan did the same thing with him
that he did with like all the other boys, but
for whatever reason, decided not to kill him. And I
think maybe they had been hanging out at Everett Fraser's
(04:47):
party house, you know, his like neighbor and friend or whatever,
So maybe sort of the association saved this kid. It's
really fucking hard to say, but in any case, Bonnin
scared the shit out of him, started doing like the
weird sex talk. He tried to get out of the
car bond and grabbed him by the collar, brought him
back in to the car, and then started saying shit
(05:08):
like you know, if you kill somebody, you need to
know what to do with the body. Just really creepy shit.
And he liked to scare his victims, so it really
sounded like he was kind of going down that way.
But then he just let him go. He let him
out of the card, like dropped him off at home.
In fact, and for whatever reason, this fucking guy just
decides to keep hanging out with him. He's like, this
(05:30):
seems like a chill dude, Like this is my new bestie.
So they keep hanging out and he turns into his
accomplice and in fact, on March twentieth, nineteen eighty, he
accompanied Bill on yet another kill. Now this victim was
fifteen year old Harry Todd Turner. This poor boy. This
story really sucks. I mean they all suck, right, It's like, oh,
they're from a good family. Oh they're from no family,
(05:52):
Like there's no like one victim in the list of
all these victims. That is not incredibly sad, but this
I just hate hearing when people have bad lives and
then this happens. It's like there's just not a moment
of good for them, Like what could they have possibly
done to deserve this? Obviously nothing, you know, but it
just sucks. So anyway, Henry here or Harry, I'm so sorry.
(06:16):
Harry Todd Turner. He was a runaway who had escaped
an abusive boys home just before being picked up by Bonnin. Now,
when Bonnan picked him up, he approached him, he offered
him twenty dollars for sex, and Harry agreed because he
was desperate for money. Like I mentioned earlier, a lot
of these boys were in the sex trade. They cannot
(06:37):
be sex workers at fifteen years old. That's when I
refuse to call them that. That's not really a thing.
But they were kind of selling their bodies for money
because they didn't have any other way to make money,
and they didn't have family, they didn't have support. It
was very much a lot of them were like Bill
Bonnin when he was their age, which you would think
he would feel some sort of kinship, but he certainly
does not. So Harry was tied up, beaten, raped, and
(07:02):
this time Bonnon added another level of torture to the attack, because,
as I've noted previously, he likes to escalate every time
he bit Harry on his genitals to the point where
it bled. And he did this obviously before he was killed,
which is absolutely fucking horrific. Once he was murdered, he
(07:23):
was dumped like he's always dumped, you know, like like
he always dumps his victims. He just throws them out
like trash. And two days later, two days, two days later,
on March twenty second, two bodies were found. So he's
just like boom boom, boom one two three. So two
bodies were found on the Ortega Highway, which is outside
of San Diego. These boys were fourteen year old Glenn
(07:45):
Norman Barker and fifteen year old Russell Dwayne Rue now
Russell went by Rusty. Both were hitchhiking. I don't believe
they were hitchhiking together, which is how I know that
he was kind of like frenzied at this point. But
both were met with the same horrific fate. And in
the case of fourteen year old Glenn, there was yet
(08:07):
another uptick in the torture. His body was found with
a ring of cigarette burns around his neck. So we've
got knives, ice picks, strangling, raping, burning, hydrochloric acid. You know,
I think I mentioned the ice pick already, Like biting,
It's just fuck, it's endless what this guy will do.
(08:30):
He's fucking deranged. He's absolutely fucking evil. Now, Glenn, this
is again another story that's fucking sad. They're all sad.
But Glenn had been given money by his mother specifically
so he wouldn't hitchhike, but he spent the money and
ended up in Bondin's Van. Glenn's mother, who was battling
(08:51):
cancer at the time, suffered a really major health setback
when she found out that her son was murdered and
murdered so viciously in a he was fourteen. She did
live to see Bonnin charged and put in prison, but
she died three years later, so you know, she didn't
have the piece she was seeking for very long. Now,
(09:12):
two days after these bodies were found, despite the police
still saying there was no connection between these murders, which, like,
what the fuck? Despite that, the Orange County Register came
out with a story about the quote freeway killer this
is what they named him, which tied I think at
least five of the murders to a single killer, with
(09:34):
many more of these boys being listed as possible connections.
They had a forensic psychologist create a profile of the killer,
and his profile was almost one hundred percent correct, Like
it was real, real close. What he said was white male, smart,
late twenties or early thirties. He was in his early thirties,
(09:54):
ashamed of his sexuality, and the only thing that he
got wrong was why bond and killed This psychologist said
it was out of shame, when in reality, Bonding killed
for pleasure. He fucking loved it, and he wouldn't stop
if he wasn't stopped by someone. And he fucking even
(10:15):
said that he wouldn't stop if he wasn't stopped by someone.
He later, when he was captured, straight up admitted this.
So I mean, it's like it wasn't a secret. Now
with police pretending there wasn't a serial killer, things weren't
looking too good. So at least this case came out.
You know, they broke the story and brought attention to
(10:36):
the case. His next victim was sixteen year old Stephen Wood.
His body was found on the Pacific Coast Highway, which
we call PCH, which is like a coastal highway. It
runs all up and down the state I believe in Oregon,
maybe even Washington, and he was found on a portion
of it in Long Beach. He was killed in the
(10:58):
same way that all the other victims were killed. With
all victims, like I just kind of mentioned, you know,
the families are destroyed. This one was a little specific.
Stephen got into Bill Bonnon's van because he had already
met Bill, and he met him through his older brother
who was friends with Bill, who kind of ran in
(11:19):
similar circles, so he felt safe being with Bill Bonnon.
And as a result, he was tortured and murdered. And
this is significant because one it's a fucked up part
of the story, and two, his older brother, nine years
after Stephen's death, waited until Bill Bonnon's birthday, which is
(11:39):
January eighth, and he did this in nineteen eighty nine.
He went to a friend's house and shot himself to
death with a shotgun. So I think It's important to
note this because you know, again we talk about the
impact on families, this one was even more of like
a crazy like the guilt that he must have felt
(12:01):
for introducing his brother to this fucking murderer and that's
why his brother ended up dead is just terrible, Like
what what Bill Bonnan did? It just it stole so
many people's lives, like emotionally and actually in this case,
you know, this guy was so guilt ridden that he
couldn't he couldn't bear to be alive, which is super
(12:23):
super fucked up. Moving into April of nineteen eighty, the
next victim was nineteen year old Darren Lee Kendrick, who
was working like actively doing his job, like on the clock,
not even like going to work or coming home for work.
(12:43):
Like he was working collecting shopping carts at a grocery
store when Bill Bonnon convinced him to get into his van. Now,
the way he did that was he told him he
had drugs and that they could do them together, and
the guy was like, yeah, fuck this fucking job. You know,
I'm gonna go hang out his nineteen year old kid,
no no judgment whatsoever. Unfortunately, as soon as he was
(13:03):
in the van, the torture began, and again, unfortunately, this
time the torture escalated. Darren was tied up, beaten, brutally raped,
and when his body was found he had chemical burns
on his mouth, on his face, and on his chest
because Bonnen, as I had actually previously mentioned, forced him
(13:23):
to drink a hydrochloric acid. And in addition to this,
he also had an ice pick shoved into his ear.
It wasn't still in his ear, but they could tell
it had been shoved in, then removed and stabbed into
his spine, which would have rendered him paralyzed and b
it would have been extremely fucking painful. So this is
(13:46):
like a new level of violence. As wild as it
was that at this point he could even still be
leveling up, he was now in a crazy turn. His
next victim was actually his living boyfriend, eighteen year old
Lawrence Sharp. The two went on dates together like were
officially like a couple. I think he even like lived
(14:08):
with him and his mom, like Lawrence lived with with
Bill and his mom for a while. I read that
they went to Knotsberry Farm, so like kind of wholesome.
But after a while Bonnon said he grew tired of him,
so instead of just being like, let's break up, move out,
leave me alone, he fucking killed him and stuck his
body in a dumpster. I just don't even like, I
(14:33):
don't know. So that was I believe a solo killing,
as was his next victim. Now, his next victim was
fourteen year old Sean King, solo. He had asked Vernon
Butts to join him, but he said no, so Bonnon, undeterred,
went out on his own. This poor boy's body was
not actually found until after Bonnon was caught, and the
(14:56):
reasoning behind it was interesting. So apparently the victim's mother
begged Bonnin to tell her where the body was. She
wrote him a letter begging for mercy. And I guess
the letter kind of did it. But Bonin, if you
asked him, he said, no, it wasn't the letter. It's
because I knew when the cops took me to find
(15:16):
the body that they would get me a hamburger. So
that was his thing. And I gotta tell you, I
do think that maybe it appealed to his like, I
don't know, empathy, the tiny bit of empathy that he
maybe had somewhere deep down. But he wasn't willing to
admit that because he's such a fucked up person that
he had to be like, no, it's because I wanted
a hamburger. I really believe that. Like everything that I've read,
(15:38):
people are like, oh, that's how stone cold he is,
and I'm like, no, that sounds like an immature like
kid being like, no, you didn't make me do it.
I did it because I wanted to do it. This
why I did it, you know, Like it sounds really
like petulant. So I think that the letter really worked.
But in any case, Bonnan finally told police where the
body was because you go to burger stupid. So, you know,
(16:01):
I don't know if what he says is true. He's
just another example of him being a trash bag human.
But at the very least he's just immature and needs
to make excuses. Right. So, around this time, he had
not been caught yet, and Bill Bonnon met a drifter
named James Monroe who he invited to live with him
(16:22):
and his mom. Now this was after the boyfriend moved out,
so he invites James Monroe to live with him and
his mom. Of course, knew nothing right, had no idea,
so Anyway, they move in together and they're actually like
sleeping in the same room but in different beds, and
Bonnan even got this guy James a job at his work.
(16:44):
James later said his first impression of Bill was that
he was a good guy and quote really normal, which
I think your radar is off. You have some judgment
issues there, clearly, my guy. So anyway, the two somehow
get to the topic, you know, of raping and murdering
little boys, and James this is apparently open to the idea,
which again, like I'm just shocked how many people are like, yeah,
(17:05):
that sounds that sounds like a great way to spend
a night, Like, what the fuck? Guys crazy to me,
what is wrong with y'all? But anyway, he was down,
and I have to say, I'm actually really excited about
this because this is going to bring us to our
last victim. Yay, last murder victim, I should say, because
shit gets a little weird. And this victim was nineteen
(17:27):
year old Stephen Wells. So we had Steven Wood and
now we have Stephen Wells. Steven initially agreed to go
back to their house and have sex with them for
some money, and after they were done. You know, they
offered him any thing like two hundred dollars to tie
him up, and he said sure. So they tie him
up and then immediately Bill Bonden starts raping him while
James is in the other room watching TV. Now, James
(17:48):
said he didn't participate in this, in the consensual sex
or the rape, but he was there when this was
all happening. After a while, Bonding calls for James to
come in and James He's like, yo, dude, this is crazy,
Please fucking stop now. That's the weird thing is like
I know that he was prepped for this through their conversation,
(18:09):
and then he gets to the point where it's actually
happening and he's saying, I don't really want to do this,
but Bill is like, it's too late. This guy's gonna die.
We gotta just do this. So James beats him with
Bill Bonnon and this poor kid, you know, he's begging
for his life, and then they strangle him to death.
James Monroe later described the murder, saying that Bonnin was
(18:32):
screaming but like excitedly and telling this poor young man
that he was gonna die, just basically trying to scare
him as much as possible before actually ending his life.
He said Bonnin was extremely excited and animated while strangling
him to death, which, again like, how could his mom
not know this? If he's like in their shared home
(18:54):
screaming and attacking someone, it's like, give me a break,
you know, there's no way that she didn't fucking know. So, oh,
I did want to mention. Sorry, I forgot his father
was dead at this point, so he wasn't around anymore.
He died, but he still was with mom and she
had to know. So in any case, they go and
they dump this young man's body behind a gas station
(19:14):
in Huntington Beach, and he then threatens James because I
think he can tell that James is kind of like, whoa,
this wasn't what I thought it was going to be like,
and I don't want to do this anymore. So he
threatens James and he says, you know, if you tell anyone,
I'll fucking kill you. And during this time, again because
Bill really likes to ramp up the fear and intimidation,
(19:35):
he tells him I'm the Freeway killer. I have multiple
accomplices and they will know where you are. They will
know who you are, and they'll fucking kill you if
you tell on me. And then he told him I
killed forty five people. And now this could be taken
as him trying to scare James, or it could be
taken as truth, and we'll talk about that a little
(19:57):
bit more. But at the time, what was true was that,
you know, the Orange County Register, despite the police being
upset about it, really did help bring Bill bonn In
down and stop his reign of terror. Now this is
the case for many reasons, some of them obvious and
some of them not so immediately obvious. The first obvious
reason is this brought the cases of these murders to
the public's attention, which is huge in collecting evidence and
(20:20):
finding witnesses. Second, Bill Bonnan became obsessed with collecting news
clippings about the murders and would talk about them incessantly
to anyone who would listen. In fact, he kept a
scrap book in his fucking van, which makes sense because
you know, he kept everything else in their weapons fucking
evidence of murder, this which is you know, very very dumb.
(20:42):
But it's not like the scrap book was like the
thing that broke the case. But he did have it
in his van, which is ridiculous. Everett Fraser, the party neighbor,
said that they would often talk about the killer and
that he would often say Fraser that he wished the
police would catch him beyond bond and creating a piece
of evidence to tie himself to the crimes via the
scrap book. There was also a very important witness to
(21:04):
come forward, and that witness was the previously you know,
fifteen year old David McVicar, the boy who had been
raped way before the killing began. And I will remind
everyone that Bill Bannon went to prison for this attack.
So David McVicar knew exactly who it was that raped him,
and he noticed a lot of similarities between his attack
(21:29):
and the murders. McVicker went to the police pretty much
as soon as the story broke and said straight up like, hey,
based on the pattern, this guy's your fucking killer. Police
were super interested in his story and they did believe him.
But also they had another eyewitness come forward around that
same time, which is like the spring of nineteen eighty.
This witness was William Pugh. So there's some names from
(21:53):
you know, his past, not so far in the past.
Kind of coming forward to haunt him. Now, William Pugh
had been you know, isn't for at least one of
the murders, and had recently been picked up for grand
theft auto. Not wanting to get into trouble for car
theft and also not being very smart, he thought he
could use his knowledge of the murders to get out
of the theft charges, which like, bro, you're gonna get
(22:15):
murder charges instead, as this doesn't seem like a good exchange,
pardon me, but anyway, he took the chance. You know,
Bonnon definitely wasn't known for hanging out with geniuses. He
tried to skirt his own responsibility. William Pugh w and
he was like who went by Billy by the way
when he was talking about the murders, he didn't say
(22:36):
he knew a guy who had a scrapbook about the
murders in his van, who he thought might be suspicious.
Later he would testify against bond and for a reduced
sentence once the police kind of you know, figured out
what he did. But that name, having now come up
between two people with some pretty interesting information, got the
police very interested. And with this information police went and
(22:59):
talked to Everett Fraser, the neighbor, and they later said
that they could see the realization come over him while
they talked. They said, you know, on once they told
Everett here, you know, your neighbor, your friend, he's the
fucking freeway killer. They literally watched the arm hairs, his
arm hairs like raise like they stood on end. Because
(23:22):
he was just like, oh my god, it all makes sense.
That was definitely he's definitely the killer. Right. He then
agreed to give them any information he could to help,
which is great. The guy sounds not awesome, but at least,
you know, at least he's doing the right thing. And
with all of this, police began to focus on meaning
surveill Bill Bonnan. Sadly, they did not get to him
(23:45):
in time to save his last victim, but they did
get to him before he could murder anybody else. The
really sad thing talking about the timing. Police began surveilling
Bonnin the night that he killed his last victim, but
they started right after he dumped the body. So that
was June second, nineteen eighty, which is fucked up. So Bill,
(24:06):
I think he kind of knew, you know, that he
might end up getting getting caught and he obviously you know,
didn't want to. So for a time he started acting right.
We'll say he went to work every day on time,
drove trucks all day, then either went home or went
to Effett Fraser's house, which had to be super stressful
(24:27):
Foreverett because you know, now he knows what's going on.
And but you know, to police during this time, he
seemed normal, work home or with friends, go to bed,
and considering how back to back most of the murders
were like, who knows if police were like, now, this
isn't the guy. Maybe police were like, oh, you know,
(24:48):
we can tell he's just trying to throw us off.
You know. Luckily it took only nine days for Bonding
to need another kill. So while laying love boh was
a good idea, he wasn't really able to keep that up.
He went out cruising on the night of June eleventh,
nineteen eighty, and police watched as he unsuccessfully tried to
(25:12):
pick up five different young boys from the street. Finally,
after a few hours of trying, he picked up a
fifteen year old and drove him to a secluded beach
parking lot. Police followed and when they finally busted into
the van, Bonnan was already simultaneously raping and strangling the boy. Sorry,
(25:35):
my dog is barking or sneezing. And I think the
reason that he was being so quick in his murder
was that he was alone, so he didn't really have
an audience, so I don't think it was as exciting
for him to torture these boys. I think when he
was alone it was maybe more about just the kill,
the rape and the kill. He didn't go to the
(25:57):
same lengths that he did when he had an accomplice,
because again, he likes having that audience. Luckily, like I said,
you know, police were almost too late, but they did
make it in time to save this boy, traumatized as
I'm sure he was. Bill was arrested and booked on
suspicion of murder as well as multiple sex charges, and
(26:18):
at first Vonnon refused to talk. But remember how I said,
that letter from Sean King's mom seemingly worked. Regardless of
what he said later. That letter was in fact the
last thing he read before he decided to confess to
Shawn's murder, as well as twenty others. And I just
want to say that it later came out that the
(26:41):
letter was never written by Sean King's mother. It was
written by a detective, and this detective later told Bill
Bonn in this and I kind of love that, because
as much as I am not a fan of cops,
I love when killers who like think they're fucking smart
and think they're like, you know, above it all get
fucking humbled a little bit. So I did really enjoy
knowing about that. Either way. Uponnin you know, he started
(27:02):
to confess, and he confessed over several days, horrifying detectives
in the process, not only with details of the tortures
and murders, but with sort of the casual nature in
which he told the stories, coupled with the fact that
the only time he became anything other than borderline bored
with the stories was when he became excited about them,
which was usually when talking about the point at which
(27:24):
the victims died. So he was either very like matter
of fact, or enjoying the tale a little too much.
But there was never a hint of, you know, remorse.
There was never a hint of regret. He just was
either bored or kind of turned on, which is absolutely
fucking insane. In the end, he gave up details about
(27:46):
twenty one victims and also gave the names of every
one of his accomplices. In the end, he was only
charged with fourteen murders, but also robbery, sodomy, and mayhem.
He would have been charged with more, but the evidence
apparently just wasn't there, which is a bummer as in reality,
he is linked to at least twenty other victims, which
(28:06):
aligns pretty closely with what he said to James when
he said he killed forty five people. So that's kind
of where that number comes up again, because it sort
of makes sense even though we don't know for sure,
there are definitely a lot of names floating out around
that they think are tied to him, and in fact,
even to this day, they're trying to link him to
(28:26):
other murders using DNA. So far, I haven't heard of
any success with that, but it's definitely an interesting thing
that they are still to this day looking for connections
almost you know, what is it, thirty forty God, I'm old,
like almost forty something years later, they're still trying to
tie to solve these cases, which I love that they're
(28:48):
doing that because everybody, you know, they deserve the closure
in any case, so he would have been charged with more.
They couldn't really get the evidence, but they did start
picking up his accomplices, and on July twenty fifth, they
picked up Vernon Butts. They found evidence of at least
one of the murders in his home, and Vernon fully
admitted to everything, saying that Bondon had a quote hypnotic
(29:10):
effect on him. He also detailed the use of the
ice pick, acid and knives on the victims and said
that bon and quote loved to hear them scream. James
Monroe was the next to be arrested. He had skipped
town after Bonnon was arrested, but they caught up with
him in early August and nabbed his ass. In mid August,
(29:31):
police nabbed Gregory Miley in Texas, where he had run
after hearing of the arrests. He also admitted his role,
giving more details of the murders he took part in,
which apparently were only two, but it was enough to
put him away forever now. As the trial was coming,
police were dependent on Vernon Butts for a lot of
the testimony. He was, you know, he was the biggest accomplice,
(29:51):
Like he was there for the more of the murders
than there was, like nine of them or something, and unfortunately,
in January of nineteen eighty one, he hung himself in
his jail cell with a towel. Somehow, some people, including
his defense lawyers, say that maybe he was actually murdered.
He received a lot of threats, which people who rape
children get a lot of threats in prison, and they
(30:13):
definitely get murdered in prison, as we'll see. But so
I don't know, but everybody the police seemed to think
it was a suicide, which I don't really know if
that counts for much, but in any case, he's dead.
January nineteen eighty one, he died. And I believe that
this is a big part of why they weren't able
to charge Bonding with more murders, because one of their
main witnesses was gone, and in fact, after all was
(30:36):
sudden done, in LA, he was only charged with ten murders,
even though they tied him to twenty one. Now he
had another trial, but in LA there were ten. During
the Los Angeles trial, because there was that other one
in Orange County, which we'll talk about, it became pretty
clear that he had perpetrated the murders. You know, some
of the victims had green carpet fibers in their pubic hair,
(30:57):
which matched the green carpet in his van. We also
have the witness testimony, We have his own confession, we
have you know, David McVicker's eye witness of what happened
to him. So, you know, the case is just building
up pretty good. It was pretty clear that he did it,
so it became more about his defense, trying to defend
(31:17):
his actions or explain his actions get the jury to
sort of, I don't know, feel bad for him more
than anything. His mother took the stand and she talked
about the beatings that he endured as a child. To
back this up, Actually doctors looked at him and said,
you know, he has severe scarring around his head, which
indicated significant, like significant trauma basically to his brain, probably
(31:43):
potentially at a very young age. Kind Of lending to
the idea that this was pretty major was the fact
that when Bonnen was asked about it, he didn't know.
He didn't know how he caught those scars. He didn't
remember the beatings. He remembered a lot of trauma, but
he did not ever remember what exactly led to the
scarring around his head, So that's that's crazy because that's
(32:06):
probably just like a trauma block. Doctors also found evidence
of frontal cortex trauma, which is significant because that's what
controls your impulses or lack thereof, if it's damaged. So
between you know, the brain trauma, his horrific childhood, to
be fair, bilbon and did not stand a chance. You know,
there's no way that he was going to have a
good life. That being said, I still don't feel bad
(32:29):
for him beyond his childhood because you know, you could
have told somebody that you couldn't control yourself, but his
lack so okay, here's what I think. The impulse to
murder was because of what was messed up in his brain.
The lack of remorse is because of how he was raised.
So some of it is like, yeah, it's his brain,
and some of it is just him being like a
(32:51):
stone cold piece of shit not giving a fuck. You know, regardless,
he didn't give a fuck. If he didn't have the
brain damage, would he still have murdered. Maybe. I don't
think that's off the table when you have a life
like he had, But the brain damage definitely did not help.
But in any case, the jury was given the case,
they presented it to them, and after just a few
(33:11):
days they came back with the verdict of guilty on
all ten counts of murder. Bill Bonnen was given multiple
death sentences, and at the Orange County trial it was
much the same, four more convictions for more sentences, and
his accomplices were handed pretty tough sentences as well. Pew
for his cooperation was given I think sixteen years or
(33:34):
served around that much. Gregory Miley was given life with parole.
Now they were gonna put him up for the death penalty,
but he agreed to testify against Bill, so they said, okay,
we'll give you life with parole, so at some point
you can have parole. I know that I mentioned that
Gregory Miiley was not a very smart man, and I'm
(33:55):
gonna just kind of circle back to that. He was
a dumb ass, and basically he just fucked up the
whole time in prison. He got in trouble for rape,
he got in trouble for all sorts of shit, so
he was never ever going to get out. And actually
some years ago he was beaten to death in prison,
probably because of the crimes that he perpetrated, but it
(34:15):
took you know, I think it was like the early
two thousands when he was killed, so it took some
time for that to happen. But he died in prison.
James Monroe, the drifter who was there only for the
one murder, was given fifteen to life, but so far
is still in prison, with the family of his victim
coming to each parole hearing to ensure he is never released.
(34:37):
And David McVicar also comes because he does not trust
that this man who made the decision to partake in
this was told about it beforehand, said yeah, I think
that's a good idea, and then went through with it.
He doesn't believe that he's a good fit to be
in society, and like, I don't really disagree. James Monroe
is so miserable in prison that he's actually requested the
(34:58):
death penalty. He can just end it all, which good,
I guess, you know, if you're that fucking miserable. But
also you know, he said, I would have never agreed
to the plea deal of fifteen to life if I
knew that it actually meant I was gonna get life,
I would not have agreed. I would not have cooperated.
I would have pled not guilty, and like tried my luck.
(35:18):
And I guess that's just what happens, you know, when
you hang out with this kind of guy. So sorry, dude.
I did also want to say that while he kind
of like you know, has written letters to the family
saying he's so sorry, this, that and the other, every
single time he comes up for parole, he really paints
himself as the victim. He basically says, you know, I
(35:39):
was scared Bonding made me do it, so he's not
really taking responsibility and that, you know, that could be true.
He was kind of afraid of Bond and but he
could he could have just left. He didn't have to
stay living with him. He didn't have to kill the guy.
He was told ahead of time what was gonna happen.
He could have just said no. So in any case,
you know, I don't feel bad for this guy. Now,
(36:01):
Bill bonn In for his part, like I said, he
got a lot of death sentences and he was put
to death via lethal injection. Now, this is the first
prisoner in California to die this way. They had outlawed
the gas chamber as being cruel and unusual and it's
so fucked up. One of the books that I read
about Bill Bonn in they actually detail the way the
(36:24):
last prisoner to die in the gas chamber died, and
it made me a little sick. Something about it was
so detailed and fucked up that it made me feel
like queasy, which not great. Don't recommend. Don't recommend reading that,
but in any case, it did drive home the idea
that the gas chamber is cruel and unusual. I'm anti
(36:46):
death penalty, just to put it out there, just in general,
I think it's a bad idea. When it's something like
this and it's an open and shutcase, I still think
it's a bad idea. And I hate to say that
because Bill Bonnon sort of agreed with me. He said
as much like in his last words, which I probably
won't talk about too much. But in any case, he
was set to death. His date. The date was, you know,
(37:09):
February twenty second, but he actually died February twenty third,
because they started the injection at twelve one am. I
guess they do it in the middle of the night
for some reason. I don't really know why. He died
February twenty third, nineteen ninety six, just after midnight. His
last words. Really they offered nothing to his victim's family
families about remorse or anything of any value. He basically
just said, like, I don't believe in the death penalty.
(37:31):
I don't think it is a good example. He said, basically,
you know, the youth of America don't do what they're told.
They do what they see, and I don't think he's
entirely wrong. He also said something along the lines of,
if you're considering breaking the law, you should really think twice,
because obviously, you know, he didn't want to end up dead,
(37:51):
and you don't want to end up like him. He
over multiple interviews, said he was at peace with dying,
but didn't really know how he'd feel in the moment,
and he said, you know, I don't think anybody will
know until they're in that situation. I don't think I'll
know until I'm in that situation. But however, he felt
he did get to find out. February twenty second and
twenty third, his last meal consisted of two large sausage
(38:16):
and pepperoni pizzas, three gallons of coffee ice cream, and
either two or three six packs of Coca Cola, he
ate these alone. I'm not. I don't know how much
could you possibly eat, Like if I eat more than
a pint of ice cream, I feel like I'm gonna die.
But maybe that was the point, Like maybe he wanted
to feel so gross that it would be like a relief.
(38:38):
I don't know. I often wonder it's like, what is
the point of gluttony until the point of like being sick.
But in any case, Diva always from Twisted listens, she
always really enjoyed talking about the last meals of inmates
when they were put to death. So I wanted to
do this to sort of pay tribute tu Diva, because
I love her. In any case, after his death, you know,
(39:00):
the families tried to put their lives back together, to
varying degrees of success. But in all honesty, I think
the effects of what he did affected the families and
you know, the public at large for many, many years.
It's just really fucked up. And I also wanted to
note that, like nobody came for his body. They just
left him. They're like, we don't we don't want that.
(39:20):
And that's honestly, that's about it. That's the end of
the story. Is part two. I didn't have a full hour,
but I didn't want to do like an hour forty
five and I didn't want to leave anything out, so
I thought splitting the story made sense. Thanks everybody for listening.
This is a really fucked up tale. The craziest part
is that there was another freeway killer operating basically around
(39:41):
like the same area at the same time. There were
multiple other serial killers in this area at this time,
and so it's really crazy to me that the police
like refused to admit there was one, let alone like
multiple really says something about the time. I think, you know,
the time that we're that they were living in back then,
and how the police operated. So he got away with
(40:03):
a lot more than he probably should have, and hopefully
more than he than a serial killer would nowadays. You know,
we don't really hear that much about serial killers. People say, oh,
they're operating, there's fifty in the United States. It's really
not very many. It's crazy, it's terrifying. It's way too many,
but it's also not that many. And I feel like
(40:24):
back at this time there were like that many in California.
So I don't know what was happening back then, but
is a really fucked up case. I'm glad it's over.
I hope everybody enjoyed it. I have not chosen my
next case, but I will do so soon. You all
will know in about a week what that is. If
you guys have any requests, feel free to email True
Crime California Pod at gmail dot com. Please like, rate, review,
(40:48):
share with friends and family, follow us on Instagram, us
meaning me on Instagram. I'm really trying to build this up.
You know, my last podcast had a really good following,
and I'd love to get there with this one. Well,
I think it's possible. Hopefully my storytelling is interesting enough
that you all want to keep coming back. I want
to listen to more. But if there's anything you want
(41:08):
me to do, any cases, you want me to cover,
anything you want to hear in particular, tell me I'll
do it. I'm stoked. I'm down. And also, I am
now a part of the dark Cast Network, which I'm
super proud to be a part of. There's a really
good and popular podcast on there, so I feel like
I'm just in the best company. Check out all the
other podcasts on there, and until next week, everybody, stay safe.
(41:32):
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