Megan Hutchinson
Staff Reporter
This article will contain mentions of rape, abuse, and the murders of women and young girls. If these topics bring any type of discomfort to you, reader’s discretion is advised.
“If this person is more real than just my dream, and if this is the same person haunting me, which is more likely, this person could have been responsible for the uncontrollable violence in my life, the investigator of the lies I've done. The blank spots, amnesia, I can't account for, and the deaths of the girls, all the ones in California, and the two here. But if he is in me, then he killed them using me- why can’t I remember for sure? I want to know if this is so- what if?- KENNETH BIANCHI IN HIS PRISON DIARY, gathered from Christopher Berry- Dee in “ Serial Killers: Up Close and Personal.”
Kenneth Bianchi was born May 22, 1951, in Rochester, New York to a seventeen-year-old alcoholic, a sex worker who had given him up at birth. Kenneth Bianchi had never known his biological father, through his life he suffered from the stigma of knowing he was a bastard. Similarly, to other serial killers, he was emotionally deprived and damaged. At three months old in August of 1951 he was adopted by Frances and Nicholas Bianchi after being shuffled from home to home. Mr. and Mrs. Bianchi both held a job at the American Brake Shoe Factory.
Frances Bianchi, his adopted mother, was a hypochondriac and emotionally insecure, and suffered from frequent bouts of depression. Mrs. Bianchi was described by Kenneth as, “over solicitous.” Nicholas Bianchi, his adopted father, was a weak-willed man who was described as, “quiet, unassuming, but very friendly,” and had inveterate gambling issues. Mr. Bianchi had lost most of his wages to the bookies, further aggravating the family’s weak infrastructure.
As a direct result of him being unable to pay off his debts, the family was forced to continuously move because loan sharks threatened to shoot him if he could not pay back the money owed. For that reason, financial and mental instability poured into the Bianchi home every day. Eventually, Frances Bianchi was at her worst with her paranoia soon rubbing off on her adopted son.
In 1953, the loan sharks who would be forever chasing Mr. Bianchi for his gambling debts forced the family to move from Saratoga Ave in Rochester, New York to Glide Street in order to keep a low profile. In time, the loan sharks had caught up. In 1954, the Bianchi family relocated to Los Angeles, where they had stayed with Frances Bianchi’s sister, Jennifer Buono.
As of now, Kenneth developed asthma. At the age of five, Kenneth had suffered two bad falls. The first incident occurred when he tripped while running up a flight of concrete steps, cracking his head open. One month later, he fell headfirst off playground equipment, hitting numerous steel rungs, breaking his nose, and hitting the floor. After both accidents, he developed a facial tic and began wetting his pants during the daytime. As far back as nine years old, Kenneth Bianchi had two opposing attitudes and emotions. He echoed the psychopathy of his mother, whom he, like John Wayne Gacy, was mentally splitting in two. For years, he had endured subtle forms of child abuse, unless something was to change he would be permanently damaged.
Finally, Mr. Bianchi had paid off his gambling debts and moved his family safely back to Rochester. He quickly became withdrawn, spending hours in the attic watching trains pass by their home. Mr. Bianchi had again run up gambling debt.
In June of 1965, Nicholas Bianchi suddenly died of a heart attack at work while on the phone with Mrs. Bianchi. In an unpublished manuscript, Kenneth Bianchi spoke of his father and how much he ‘adored’ him.
In 1970, Kenneth set sights on joining the police academy. He enrolled in college. Now, at age 19 he lived with his mother at 105 Glenda Park. While enrolled Kenneth struggled immensely, failing to obtain his degree and deemed unsuitable to become a police officer. However, he was offered the job of jail deputy, which he turned down.
Upon leaving school in 1971, Kenneth Bianchi married Brenda Beck. Beck was an extremely attractive woman. Bianchi took a part-time job at the Two Guys Store while furthering his education at Rochester Monroe Community College. There, he reviewed plays and films for their college newspaper, The Monroe Discipline. After some time, his enthusiasm faltered and drew incompletes in many classes, including psychology. Nonetheless, Bianchi would later return to psychology under dishonest circumstances eight years later. Eventually, his personal and academic life collapsed after his wife had caught him cheating with Janice Tuschong. The collapse of Bianchi’s self-esteem during this period of time demonstrated how precarious his self-image had been hanging by a thread. According to Dr. Alice Miller states, “The grandiose person is never really free. First, because he is so excessively dependent on admiration from others; and second, because his self-respect is dependent on qualities, functions, and achievements that can suddenly fail”.
Out of the blue, numerous child murders shocked his hometown of Rochester. These murders took place within a mile radius of Kenneth’s front door, soon finding himself a person of interest and a suspect. The media had dubbed the cases as “The Alphabet Murders” or “ The Double Initial Murders” because each victim's forename and surname began with the same letter.
To be continued...
Image Credit: Etsy
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