Killers: Behind the Myth

The Freeway Killer 2 Season 5 Episode

William Bonin was the first man in California to be executed by lethal injection. His death in 1996 followed a conviction for the murder of 21 boys aged between 12 and 19 in just one frenzied year. He is estimated to have killed as many as double that. A truck driver and son of a bingo-addicted, alcoholic mother and compulsive gambling father, he was incarcerated in juvenile detention at a young age where he suffered his first rape. On his release he began molesting young boys - a crime that would see him imprisoned and consigned to a mental institution. He met a part-time magician, Vernon Butts, and struck up a deadly friendship that would see them recruit a small gang of accomplices and go on to rape and murder lone boys, often hitch-hiking in the southern Californian sunshine. His victims were attacked in the back of his van, named by investigators as "the Death Wagon" and dumped by the side of the freeway, earning him the title; "The Freeway Killer".