Bianchi was deeply troubled from a young age, with his adoptive mother describing him as "a compulsive liar" from the time he could talk.

[2] Bianchi had many behavioural problems and was prone to fits of anger as well as bouts of insomnia and habitually urinating in his own bed constantly when he was young.

His mother, in an attempt to change his ways, sent him to a private Catholic elementary school and also responded by taking him to a psychiatrist multiple times, with Bianchi being diagnosed with a passive-aggressive personality disorder at the age of ten.

After his adoptive father died suddenly from pneumonia in 1964, the teenaged Bianchi refused to cry or show any other signs of grief.

He dropped out of college after just one semester, however, and drifted through a series of menial jobs, finally ending up as a security guard at a jewelery store.

Shortly after Bianchi committed the eleventh and twelfth murders, he revealed to Buono that he had gone on LAPD police ride-alongs and that he was currently being questioned about the Strangler case.

Buono flew into a rage and threatened to kill Bianchi if he did not move to Bellingham, Washington, which he did in May 1978, thereby ending their criminal partnership.

[10] To prove that Bianchi had lied about having multiple personalities to avoid being prosecuted, Orne tested him by introducing him to his lawyer, who was not present.

Eventually, investigators discovered that the name "Steven Walker" came from a student whose identity Bianchi had previously attempted to steal for the purpose of fraudulently practicing psychology.

Police also found a small library of books in Bianchi's home on topics of modern psychology, further suggestion of his ability to fake the disorder.

However, in giving his testimony, he made every effort to be as uncooperative and self-contradictory as possible, apparently hoping to avert Buono's conviction.

During his trial, she testified for the defense, telling the jury a false, vague tale about the crimes in an attempt to exculpate Bianchi.

The judge dismissed the case after ruling that, if Bianchi had been using his face as a trademark when he was killing women, he would not have tried to hide it from the police.