“After this, it was like the whole world fell apart.” “I had the perfect happy family,” said Miller, now 49 and living in Riverside with her husband. When Miller sought relief in the bottle, it brought only new sorrows. Biehn started Voting Initiative Concerning Tougher Imprisonment of Molesters and Sex Offenders, or VICTIMS, and spent the first two years on a successful push to end an outpatient program for convicted sex offenders.īut such efforts soon became “too overwhelming,” said Sandra Miller, whose 15-year-old son, Russell Duane Rugh, was slain in 1980. Some parents threw themselves into political action, founding or joining groups that sought harsher treatment of criminals. Other families have coped in silence, forbidding any mention of the murders that were splashed all over the news.
A teen-aged boy who survived being raped by Bonin the day before starting high school lost interest in books and dropped out, and still has trouble spelling some basic words. The mother of another victim succumbed to cancer that relatives say was hastened by the emotional strain her deathbed regret was not surviving to see Bonin executed. One mother fell into a decade-long battle with alcohol. The sheer scale of Bonin’s crimes-he was convicted of the murders of 14 young men in 19 in Los Angeles and Orange counties-represents a monumental toll when measured by the dozens of parents, siblings and friends whose loved ones fell prey to the so-called “Freeway Killer.”īut the loss is more completely gauged by the many ways the tragedy spun off troubles over the years. “I live in a different world now,” said Biehn, 57. She lives a hermit’s life now, passing her days working on crafts projects under the gaze of a giant photograph of Steven.
Overcome with horrible memories, Biehn and her husband fled their Bellflower home for rural Arizona four years ago.
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