SundanceTV begins a chilling exploration into one of California’s darker criminal histories with the premiere of Butchers of L.A. on Thursday, June 26, at 10:00 PM ET. The first episode, Trash Bags, focusing on the disturbing pattern of murdered hitchhikers and young men whose remains began turning up in garbage bags across Southern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The initial investigation into these gruesome discoveries quickly pointed to a single perpetrator, given the shocking similarities in the crimes. However, the truth that slowly came to light was far more disturbing. Detectives soon found themselves facing not one, but three distinct serial killers operating independently in the same vicinity: Patrick Kearney, William Bonin, and Randy Kraft.
Trash Bags sets out to examine how the tangled threads of these three separate crime sprees became intertwined in the public imagination and the police files. The episode also focuses on one of the most unexpected revelations: the discovery that an unassuming aerospace engineer was leading a double life as a sadistic killer.
For true crime enthusiasts, this series promises an in-depth, unsettling look at a particularly grim chapter in American criminal history, aiming to make clear the methods and motives of these notorious “Freeway Killers.”
