Lawrence Sigmund Bittaker is
an American
serial killer who, in
1979, kidnapped, tortured, raped, and murdered five young women over a period of five
months. He committed his crimes in California
with the help of his accomplice, Roy
Norris.
Before they met
Lawrence Bittaker
Shortly after his birth Lawerence was
adopted by Mr. and Mrs. George Bittaker.
George
worked in aircraft factories, which required the family to move
often, from Pennsylvania
to Florida
to Ohio
and lastly
to California.
After several run-ins with juvenile authorities and police,
Bittaker who had a tested
I.Q. of 138, dropped
out of high school, ending his school career in 1957. Shortly
thereafter he was picked up for car theft, leaving the scene of a
hit-and-run accident, and evading arrest. He was imprisoned in the
California Youth
Authority until he was 19.
The
FBI
arrested
Bittaker in Louisiana
several days after his release for violating the
Interstate Motor Vehicle Theft Act. Convicted in August
1959, he was sentenced to 18 months in an Oklahoma
federal
reformatory. His behavior there soon got him transferred
to a Missouri
medical
center. He was released after serving six months of his
sentence.
In
December 1960 he was arrested in Los Angeles
, and in May 1961 was sentenced to 1-15 years in a
state prison. A psychiatric evaluation determined Bittaker
to be
paranoid and borderline
psychotic, with little control over his impulses.
Despite these findings, he was released in 1963.
He was picked up two months later for parole violation and
suspected robbery, and again in October 1964. While in prison he
was again given a psychiatric evaluation, and again determined to
be borderline psychotic.
In July 1967 he was arrested and convicted of theft and leaving a
hit-and-run accident. He was sentenced to five years, but was
released in April 1970. However, in March 1971 he was picked up for
burglary and parole violation. He was sentenced to six months to 15
years in October. He served only three years of that
sentence.
He was arrested again when he stabbed a supermarket employee in the
parking lot of the business. Bittaker had stuffed a steak down his
pants and the employee had followed him outside and tried to stop
him.The man survived and Bittaker was convicted of
attempted murder.
While in prison at the
California
Men's Colony
in San Luis Obispo,
he met Norris.
In 1976 Bittaker was hired as the manager for the Holiday Theater
in the Reseda area of the San Fernando Valley. Bittaker had a rough
demeanor, hot temper, and some employees, as it turns out, were
right about being cautious of him.
He was given another psychiatric evaluation, which rejected the
borderline psychotic finding, saying instead that he was a classic
sociopath. Another
psychiatrist called Bittaker a sophisticated
psychopath.
Despite the psychiatrists' warnings, he was
released in November 1978 and moved to Los Angeles.
Roy Norris
At 17, Norris dropped out of school and joined the
Navy.
He spent most of his service stationed in
San
Diego
, and served four months in Vietnam
. He saw no combat while there.
Back in San Diego, Norris was arrested on November 1969 for
attempted rape. Three months later, out on
bail
before his trial, he was arrested again. He had tried to attack a
woman in her home, but police arrived before he could harm her. At
this point Norris was discharged from the Navy for psychological
problems.
Still out
on bail, in May 1970 he attacked a female student on the San Diego
State University
campus. He had jumped the woman from behind,
hit her on the head with a rock, then slammed her head several
times on the concrete. The woman survived, so Norris was only
charged with
assault with a deadly weapon.
He was sent to
Atascadero
State Hospital as a
sex offender
and spent five years there. When released he was considered no
further danger to others.
Three months after his release Norris attacked and raped a
27-year-old woman.
Convicted of forcible rape, he was sent to
the California
Men's Colony in San Luis
Obispo. While there he met and befriended Bittaker.
Norris claims Bittaker saved his life twice in prison, which bound
him to Bittaker according to the "prisoner's code".
Norris
was released on January 15, 1979 and moved in with his mother in
Los
Angeles. Bittaker contacted Norris and they
continued their prison friendship on the outside.
Murders
Bittaker and Norris hatched a plan to rape and kill local girls.
Bittaker bought a 1977
GMC cargo van, which they
came to call 'Murder Mack', because it had no side windows in the
back and a large passenger side sliding door. From February to June
1979, they gave their plan a test run. They drove along the
Pacific Coast
Highway, stopped at beaches, talked to girls and took their
pictures. When arrested police found close to 500 pictures among
Bittaker's possessions.
On June 24, 1979 they claimed their first real victim, 16-year-old
Cindy Schaeffer.
They picked her up near Redondo
Beach
, Norris forcing her into the van. He duct
taped her mouth and bound her arms and legs.
Bittaker drove the
van to a fire road on San Gabriel
Mountains
out of sight of the highway. Both men raped
the girl, and then Bittaker wrapped a straightened wire coat hanger
around her neck. He tightened the wire with vise-grip pliers,
strangling her to death. They wrapped her body in a plastic shower
curtain and dumped it in a nearby canyon.
They picked up 18-year-old Andrea Hall hitchhiking on July 8.
Norris hid in the back of the van and Bittaker talked her into the
van. After she had gotten in Bittaker offered her a drink from a
cooler in the back. When she went to the cooler Norris jumped her,
bound her arms and legs, and taped her mouth. They took her to the
fire road and raped her several times. Bittaker dragged her from
the van, and Norris left to get beer. When he returned Andrea was
gone and Bittaker was looking at
Polaroid pictures of her. He had stabbed her
with an ice pick in both ears and when she wouldn't die fast
enough, strangled her. He threw her body over a cliff.
On
September 3, while driving near Hermosa Beach
, the pair spotted two girls on a bus stop bench and
offered them a ride. Jackie Gilliam, 15, and Leah Lamp,13,
accepted their offer. The girls became suspicious when Bittaker
parked the van near a suburban tennis court. Leah went for the back
door and Norris hit her in the head with a bat. A short scuffle
broke out, but with Bittaker's help Norris subdued the teens and
bound them both in the usual fashion. Bittaker then drove them to
the fire road. They kept the girls alive for two days, raping and
torturing them the whole time with a wire hanger and pliers. They
even made an audio recording of the events. Eventually Bittaker
stabbed Jackie in both ears with an ice pick. Like Andrea Hall she
didn't die, and the men took turns strangling her until she died.
Bittaker then strangled Leah while Norris hit her in the head with
a sledgehammer seven times. They dumped the bodies over a cliff,
the ice pick still in Jackie's head.
They kidnapped Shirley Sanders on September 30, macing her and
forcing her into the van. Both raped her, but she escaped.Police
had showed Shirley pictures of the men and she had identified the
men as Lawrence and Roy.
They kidnapped 16-year-old Lynette Ledford on October 31, raping
her and torturing her with a pair of pliers, while driving around
Los Angeles instead of heading to their usual mountain spot. Again
they tape recorded the whole thing, eventually strangling her with
a wire hanger and pliers. Instead of tossing her body over a cliff,
they left it on a random lawn in Hermosa Beach to see local
reaction in the newspaper. The body was found the next day and
caused quite a stir, being only days since the arrest of "
Hillside Strangler"
Angelo Buono.
Arrest, trial, sentence
Norris had been telling prison friend Jimmy Dalton all about the
murders. Dalton thought the stories were lies until Ledford's body
was found. He talked to his lawyer and they went to the
Los Angeles Police Department
with the information about Norris.
Bittaker was convicted of rape, torture, kidnapping, and murder on
February 17, 1981 and
sentenced to
death. As of
February 2008, he is
still on
Death Row, where he still
receives mail, which he signs using his nickname "Pliers" Bittaker.
Norris was also sentenced, but was guaranteed not to serve a
life sentence or be executed for his
testimony against Bittaker. Norris will be eligible for
parole in 2010.
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