He also denied any other memories of the alleged abuse he and other orphans may have been subjected to. Īlthough Bonin later freely discussed many aspects of his childhood, he largely refused to discuss his memories of the three years he spent at this convent beyond divulging on one occasion that by 1955, he had become fearful of an older boy and had consented to his sexual advances only by allowing him to first tie his (Bonin's) hands behind his back.
Despite these forms of mistreatment, contemporary records indicate Bonin-a typically troublesome child-was observed by officials to function well under the controlled environment of this convent. In more extreme cases, orphans are alleged to have faced assaults which included having their heads dunked in toilets, being beaten until bloodied, and being threatened with knives. This convent was known to severely discipline the children it housed for major and minor breaches of conduct, with punishments administered including harsh beatings, enduring various stress positions, repeatedly pacing staircases until exhausted, and partial drowning in sinks filled with ice water. In 1953, Bonin's mother placed Bonin and his younger brother in a Catholic convent in an apparent effort to protect her children from the ongoing domestic violence within the family home. Bonin was housed in this convent between 19.
Joseph's Convent, Willimantic, Connecticut. In spite of this dysfunctional environment, Bonin and his brothers were actively raised Catholic by their parents and baptized according to church doctrine. Consequently, the siblings were severely neglected as children, with their parents seldom present in the household.
In contrast, his mother was an overbearing, co-dependent and passive woman who suffered from wild mood swings and who spent much of her free time at a bingo parlor-often as her sons remained unattended at the family home. Bonin's parents were both alcoholics his father was an ill-tempered war veteran and gambling addict who was frequently physically abusive toward his wife in the presence of his children, and who is known to have occasionally beaten his sons during his wife's absence. William George "Bill" Bonin was born in Willimantic, Connecticut, on January 8, 1947, the second of three sons-each of whom were three years apart -born to Robert Leonard Bonin Sr.
He shares this epithet with two separate and unrelated serial killers active in and around southern California in the 1970s: Patrick Kearney and Randy Kraft. īonin became known as the "Freeway Killer", as well as the Freeway Strangler, due to the fact that the majority of his victims' bodies were discovered alongside numerous freeways in southern California. Bonin was the first inmate in California to die by this method. He spent fourteen years on death row before he was executed by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison in 1996.
ĭescribed by the prosecutor at his first trial as "the most arch-evil person who ever existed", Bonin was convicted of fourteen of the murders linked to the "Freeway Killer" in two separate trials in 19.
On at least twelve occasions, Bonin was assisted by one of his four known accomplices he is also suspected of committing a further fifteen murders.
William George Bonin (Janu– February 23, 1996), also known as the Freeway Killer, was an American serial killer, pederast and twice-paroled sex offender who committed the rape, torture, and murder of a minimum of twenty-one young men and boys in a series of killings in southern California from May 1979 to June 1980.