William Bonin - Freeway Killer Murders

Freeway Killer Murders

Two months after the murder of Thomas Lundgren, on August 4, 1979, Bonin and Butts abducted a 17-year-old Westminster youth named Mark Shelton as the youth walked to a movie theater near Beach Boulevard. Shelton was violated with foreign objects, causing his body to enter a state of shock which proved fatal. His body was then discarded in San Bernardino County. The following day, Bonin and Butts encountered a 17-year-old West German student named Markus Grabs attempting to hitchhike from Pacific Coast Highway. Grabs was bound with orange ignition wire and driven to Bonin's home where he was sodomized, beaten and stabbed a total of 77 times before his body was discarded alongside a Malibu freeway.

On August 27, Bonin and Butts abducted a 15-year-old Hollywood youth named Donald Ray Hyden. Hyden was last seen alive walking upon Santa Monica Boulevard at one a.m. His body was found the same morning in a dumpster located near the Ventura Freeway. The youth had been stabbed in the neck and the genitalia, strangled and bludgeoned about the skull.

Two weeks after the murder of Donald Hyden, on September 9, Bonin and Butts encountered a 17-year-old La Mirada youth named David Murillo cycling to a movie theater. The pair lured Murillo into Bonin's van where the youth was bound, raped, bludgeoned and strangled before his body was discarded alongside Highway 101. Eight days later, an 18-year-old Newport Beach youth named Robert Wirostek was abducted as he cycled to his job at a grocery store: his body was found on September 19 alongside the Interstate 10 Highway.

Bonin was not known to have killed again until on or about November 29, when he and Butts abducted and murdered an unidentified youth estimated to be around 19 years old. This victim was savagely beaten, then strangled to death before his body was discarded in Kern County. The following day, Bonin—operating alone—abducted and strangled a 17-year-old named Frank Dennis Fox; his nude body was found two days later alongside a highway five miles east of San Diego. Ten days after the murder of Frank Fox, a 15-year-old Long Beach youth named John Kilpatrick disappeared after leaving his parents' home to socialize with friends. Kilpatrick was strangled to death before his body was discarded in a remote area of Rialto.

On January 1, 1980, Bonin brutalized and strangled a 16-year-old Rialto youth named Michael Francis McDonald; his fully clothed body was found in San Bernardino County two days after his murder, although his body was not identified until March 24.