The Hillside Strangler, later the Hillside Stranglers, is the media epithet for one, later two, American serial killers who terrorized Los Angeles between October 1977 and February 1978, with the nicknames originating from the fact that many of the victims' bodies were discovered in the hills surrounding greater Los Angeles. The most expensive trial in the history of the California legal system at that time followed, with Bianchi and Buono eventually being found guilty of these crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment.