Rock Musician Tells Harrowing Life or Death Story Triggered by TV Docu "The Hillside Stranglers"

Richie Onori, Legendary Drummer of The Sweet Shares His True, Near Death Experience at a 1970s Drug Deal Gone Bad When the Real Hillside Stranglers Burst In

LOS ANGELES, CA, UNITED STATES, April 28, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- MUSICIAN GOES PUBLIC WITH HARROWING LIFE OR DEATH STORY TRIGGERED BY THE CURRENT TV DOCU ‘THE HILLSIDE STRANGLER’

Richie Onori, Legendary Drummer of The Sweet Shares His True Life, Near-Death Experience at a 1970’s Drug Deal Gone Bad When the Real Hillside Stranglers Burst In

Entertainer Richie Onori, (https://richieonori.com) best known as the drummer and member of the multi-platinum group The Sweet (Love Is Like Oxygen, Ballroom Blitz, Fox on the Run, Little Willie) and independent solo artist, decided to relate his brutal cautionary tale with the goal of encouraging others, especially the young to tell them what can really happen. “Playing in the dark world of drugs, criminals and dangerous people can get you killed,” says Onori. In his case, the assassins came in the forms of the real “Hillside Stranglers”, Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi.https://www.mgmplus.com/series/the-hillside-stranglerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillside_Strangler

Here’s What Went Down

It’s the late ‘70s in LA and the young Onori was enjoying local success with his group Satyr, co-managed with music icon Dick Broder (Tony Orlando, The Fifth Dimension, Phoebe Snow), which, for a time, outdrew another local favorite, Van Halen.

Onori explains, “Starting out, making money just as a musician was sketchy so some members of Satyr sold drugs as a sideline as we built our careers in the music business. Considering most of us came from low-income suburban communities in a setting known as the sprawling San Fernando Valley, we invested our gig money back into our stage show, etc. That was the most important thing to us and we’d do what it took to somehow get the money to keep the band going.”

Richie made friends with a shady drug dealer who followed the band and went by the name of Little John. They both had product to try, buy and sell. However, Onori’s visit at Little John’s home was interrupted by pounding feet coming up the wooden stairs to the house and right outside the window where they were sitting.

Ordinarily on a Friday night Little John’s house had a constant parade of customers coming to get their supply of drugs. However, on this night only Onori, Little John and a girlfriend partied by sampling Richie’s weed and John furnishing his high-grade cocaine.

Suddenly the Hillside Stranglers, Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi, slammed through the front door identifying themselves as plainclothes homicide detectives who claimed they were looking for a missing girl believed to have been killed. It quickly got ugly to the point where Onori found himself handcuffed and begging for his life. While Kenneth Bianchi shook down and argued with Little John for drugs and money in the other room, Angelo Buono firmly put his gun to Onori’s temple.

Back to now, Onori can be found as a guest speaker in schools and youth groups. “The impact of telling my story in person and through original songs can be seen on their faces as their eyes widen in a mix of curiosity and fear. I hope I can inspire and steer them away from a dead-end road that only leads to a difficult life..or worse.”

To help amplify and add strength to his message, Onori has written, performed and is about to a release a single entitled, "Runnin Down the Devil’s Road (the Ballad of the Hillside Stranglers)" a country tune available to the public next month. In addition to Oroni on guitar, vocals and drums, the track features Jenee Fleenor on fiddle, Dave Chamberlain, bass with Dave Jenkins as engineer and producer. https://richieonori.com/music

“I gotta say, just the title of that MGM+ documentary hit hard reminding me again, after all this time, how close I came to losing my life.” What’s more, Onori says, “Don’t mess around in that world and don’t think that it can’t happen again, considering the drug cartels of today are notoriously vicious killers who have no regard for your rank or status of anything.”

You can expect Richie Onori’s autobiography soon, along with several fully produced albums of material. Onori currently continues to tour with his band The Sweet and next month, The Sweet is set to offer an unreleased song co-written by David Arkenstone and The Sweet founder Steve Priest who also performs with vocals and bass on the track titled "Sweet Dream." In addition, Richie Onori recently teamed with Brasko on a songwriting collaboration for The Sweet with a track called "Cavity" to be released on The Sweet's new record due late 2026. Of note, Brasko is one of the co-writers of "The Funeral" by Yungblud.

Richie Onori Social Media FB, IG, X, YouTube.)

NOTE: Editors/Producers. Richie Onori is available for print and electronic interviews at mutually convenient dates and times. To hear "Runnin' Down the Devil's Road (the Ballad of the Hillside Stranglers)" go to https://richieonori.com, hit EPK (password: 1234) and it is the first song on the list.

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Thomas Tanno
Tom Tanno Publicity
+1 818-515-8079
tom.tanno@gmail.com
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