by Shannon Hickey
During our team meeting this past week, we discussed one of the project’s newest variables under the umbrella of adult social embeddedness. The variable in question was social ostracization. We operationalize social ostracization in the Social Homicide Project as: “Did the person have strong or close adult friendships or relationships? Did they have good friendships? Close and lasting family relationships?” However, what happens if the serial killer in question is generally socially isolated from all but one person? What happens if they have a partner in crime?
This question was driven by research on the Hillside Stranglers, Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono Jr. These two men were adoptive cousins who lived in California during the 1970s. The two worked together to murder 10 women via strangulation (Bianchi also murdered 2 additional women on his own). According to an article in the Pittsburgh Post – Gazette, Bianchi and Buono would pose as police officers, kidnap, rape, and torture their victims ranging from ages 12-28 and dispose of their bodies on Los Angeles hillsides. Of the two killers, Bianchi was arrested by law enforcement first. He not only exposed the identity of his partner in crime, but agreed to testify against him for a shorter sentence.
This brings us to our question. Were Bianchi and Buono socially ostracized? Did they have a strong or close adult friendship? They were obviously close enough to collaborate in the gruesome murders of 10 women and trust each other with the burden of silence. Their partnership, although in crime, is a significant social relationship (which Bianchi eventually betrayed).
The Hillside Strangers are not the only duo in the world of serial homicide. There are many examples of serial killers who worked in pairs to be considered in the question of social ostracization. For example, the Toolbox Killers of the 1970s, Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris met in a prison cell where they discovered their shared “damaged sexual tendencies”. They then plotted to facilitate the torture, rape, and murders of teenage girls. The manner in which these men shared and partook in their warped and dangerous fantasies together signifies a dysfunctional social relationship, but a relationship nonetheless. According to a Los Angeles Times report, Norris stated during his testimony he was “sorry he had to rat on his partner to save his own neck”, demonstrating guilt for betraying his partner.
When we discussed the variable as a team, we determined we could define social ostracization in two ways. We could limit the parameters of social ostracization by including strictly “healthy” or “non-dysfunctional” relationships, or we could expand the variable by including relationships even if they promote unhealthy, criminal behavior. In this way, the partner-in-crime relationship can either be a source of social embeddedness or a cause of further isolation. Can partners in crime still be socially ostracized even if they maintain a close (albeit dysfunctional) social relationship? Perhaps these types of “partners in crime” can promote a twisted version of “us against the world”.