WALLA WALLA, WA – Washington state’s parole board this week will hear the case of one of the so-called “Hillside Stranglers” who murdered numerous women and girls, including two in Washington, in the late 1970s.

Anthony D’Amato and his cousin, Angelo Buono, were convicted of strangling five people to death in southern California. D’Amato, who was suspected of several other murders but never convicted, killed two more women by himself in the Bellingham area. D’Amato, now 74, changed his name from Kenneth Bianchi in 2023.

Washington’s Indeterminate Sentence Review Board will consider parole for D’Amato on Wednesday. He’s currently held at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.

The hearing was previously scheduled for late May, but postponed. As is standard, it will be closed to the general public. The result of the hearing will be posted online by July 23, according to the board.

After raping and killing women in the Los Angeles area, D’Amato was working as a security guard in Bellingham in January 1979. While there, he lured two Western Washington University students, Karen Mandic and Diane Wilder, into a home and strangled them to death. Their murders led police to connect D’Amato to around 10 similar cases in California.

D’Amato pleaded guilty to the killings in Washington state court to escape the death penalty. He was sentenced to two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.

In 1990, the review board revised his life imprisonment to a sentence of more than 118 years due to a change in state law. With credit for good behavior, his release is set for 2065, when he would be 114 years old, according to the state Department of Corrections.

If the board decides against parole, more time could be added to his sentence.

In his decades incarcerated, D’Amato has challenged his Washington convictions on numerous grounds, including by claiming his confession was the product of hypnosis. He’s repeatedly maintained he’s innocent.

The board has denied D’Amato’s parole requests multiple times in recent years.

If ever released from Washington custody, D’Amato would serve separate life sentences in California. He is also set for a parole hearing in California next month for the five murder charges to which he pleaded guilty there, where he has previously been denied relief.

Buono, his co-conspirator, died in prison in California in 2002.

This story first appeared on Washington State Standard.