Strangler’s Biggest Fan Back In Jail

A woman who once professed her love for the Hillside Strangler and tried to murder a woman to give him an alibi was paroled two months ago and turned loose in Cheney.

Veronica Lynn Compton, 39, is in the Spokane County Jail today for reportedly violating her parole but could be set free again, said Stacey Vandemark of the Washington Department of Corrections.

Cheney police arrested Compton outside a house she was living in March 12, Sgt. Larry Smith said Friday.

The state parole board will decide this week whether Compton’s violation is severe enough to send her back to prison, said Vandemark, who refused to disclose the nature of the violation.

In February, Compton was released in Cheney, where authorities say she had family, after serving more than 14 years of a life prison sentence.

Compton gained notoriety in 1981 when she was convicted of attempted first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for trying to strangle a Bellingham, Wash., cocktail waitress.

A jury decided she was trying to provide a cover for Kenneth Bianchi, one of two men convicted in the Hillside Strangler killings of the late 1970s, when she attacked Kim Breed in a motel in 1980.

Bianchi and his cousin, Angelo Buono, eventually were convicted of killing nearly a dozen women in California and western Washington.

Prosecutors said Compton’s motive was this: If another strangulation fitting the Hillside Strangler’s pattern occurred while Bianchi was in custody, as he was in 1980, authorities would be forced to drop their case against him.

Compton said in a newspaper article after her arrest that she wanted to marry Bianchi and have his daughter. “He’s great with kids,” Compton said in the story.

Spokane Police Chief Terry Mangan, who was the top cop in Bellingham at the time of the strangulations, is credited with catching both Bianchi and Compton.

Mangan said Friday he knew Compton was going to be released in Spokane County. “I’m quite aware of where she is,” he said.

The chief said he put a picture of Compton on his refrigerator door so his wife would know what she looks like.

Compton and Bianchi made threats against him and his family, he said.

“There was always a concern about Bianchi and Compton threatening the safety of my family and the prosecutors’ families,” the chief said.

Mangan said he’s comfortable with where Compton is now.

“I’d rather have her sitting next door to me in the jail than have her wandering around where I don’t know where she is,” he said.

Kregg Sanders, who collects autographs of the famous and infamous and sells them, said Friday he corresponded with Compton for nearly six months last year while trying to convince her to sell him her signature.

“I know everything there is to know about her,” said Sanders, who also publishes a magazine about notorious criminals.

Sanders said Compton is dangerous and shouldn’t be let out of prison. The woman eventually agreed to send him her signature, he said, but she’s also threatened to hurt him.

“I found it incomprehensible that she was released the first time,” said Sanders, who gets $40 for a Compton autograph. “She should be locked up and the key thrown away and swallowed.”

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