Born
7 May 1964, Santa Monica, Los Angeles County, California

Death
27 Aug 1979, Agoura Hills, Los Angeles County, California

Tragically, Donald Hyden is one of the victims of California serial murderer, William Bonin who was convicted of the rape, torture and murder of 14 boys and young men between 1968 and 1980. Known as “The Freeway Killer”, he was executed by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison in 1996. Prosecutors portrayed him as “the most arch-evil person who ever existed.” Although he was found guilty of 14 murders, he confessed to 21 and is suspected of even more.

Donald Jr was born in Cincinnati Ohio in 1963, the first child of Donald and Mary Hyden. After his parents divorced, Donald, with his younger brother and sister, moved to California with their mother. Donald was a troubled youth and lived for a time with his grandparents, in Westchester. He excelled in baseball and idolized Pete Rose. But Donald yearned to be with his mother and moved back in with his family, in an apartment in Hollywood, in 1977.

Donald, then 15, was last seen in Hollywood, California, at 1:00 a.m. on August 27, 1979. He was abducted by serial killer William George Bonin, “The Freeway Killer”, and one of his accomplices, Vernon Robert Butts. At 11:00 a.m., Donald’s ravaged and broken body was found in a trash bin at the Liberty Canyon offramp of the Ventura Freeway (Hwy. 101).