L.A. Strangler

Police are still stymied

In life the ten victims were very different from each other. They ranged in age from twelve to 28. One was black. Two were Chicanos. Three were thought to be prostitutes who hustled along Hollywood and Sunset boulevards. Four were drifters. Two were coeds. One was a waitress who, according to friends, was "very cautious" about strangers. Their deaths, however, were frighteningly similar. Between Oct. 18 and Nov. 29, all ten were found sexually molested, strangled and flung down desolate ravines or roadside gullies in or near northeastern Los Angeles. In nine of the murders the bodies were nude.

Despite a massive manhunt by a special 55-man task force of the Los Angeles police department, aided by Los Angeles County and Glendale cops, the case of the "hillside strangler" has produced few usable clues and no suspects. Police are not sure whether they are looking for one killer or more--and, if more than one, whether they were working together or separately.

The family of the first victim, Yolanda Washington, 20, called her high-living boyfriend a "bad dude" before her body was discovered near Forest Lawn cemetery in suburban Glendale, but police do not regard him as a suspect. Victim No. 5, Kathleen Robinson, 17, a frequent hitchhiker, was found beside a parkway in Los Angeles. The two youngest, Dollie Cepeda, 12, and Sonja Johnson, 14, vanished a week before their bodies were found on a trash heap in Elysian Park, near Dodger Stadium. Neighbors of the latest victim, Lauren Rae Wagner, 18, a student at a local business college, saw her in a car with two strange men the night she disappeared.

If the police could solve just one of the murders, it might help them solve at least some of the others. They hope that well-publicized offers of $141,000 in rewards will elicit some information. "He --or they--can't keep a secret," said Glendale Police Lieut. Harry Lebrun last week. "He has got to talk to a close friend."

So far, however, the secret is undisclosed, and all the publicity has only deepened the fear in Glendale and other communities in the Los Angeles area. While sporting goods stores are ringing up large sales in guns of all types, merchants at Eagle Rock Plaza in Los Angeles complain that business has dropped sharply since local papers reported that Cepeda and Johnson were picked up there. At Glendale High School, alma mater of Actor John Wayne, a note on the bulletin board warns single teachers not to go unaccompanied to or from the faculty Christmas party. Adults who were attending night courses, says a school official, have dropped out "until the strangler is caught."

Many residents, particularly women, are rushing to sign up for classes in self-defense. Nearly 1,000 called to ask about a special six-hour self-defense course offered by Mary Conroy, 33, assistant professor of physical education at California State University in East Los Angeles. She only had space for 67 students, each of whom paid $22.50 in tuition, but she promises a repeat course in January. Conroy, 5 ft. 4 in. tall and a springy 104 Ibs., sounds like a boot camp instructor drilling raw recruits. "Ready, gouge! Ready, gouge!" she shouted one afternoon last week. "Now follow with the knee in the groin. G-o-o-o-o-d." Conroy insists that her students wear ordinary street clothes rather than leotards or warmup suits. "Those are not," she notes, "what they would be wearing during an attempted rape."

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