It’s so cliché to talk about the serial killer’s van, the stereotypical “white van” used to pick up unsuspecting victims. In this story, the killers used a van, only theirs was silver-gray. Was that one tiny detail enough to give women the tiniest sense of relief when it pulled up beside them? Color of the van aside, Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris still claimed their fair share of victims. Together they became known as the Toolbox Killers and are regarded to this day as having committed the most atrocious crimes.
Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris first met in 1977, at the California Men’s Colony, a prison in San Luis Obispo, California. On at least two occasions, Bittaker saved Norris from attack by fellow inmates and by 1978, they had become close acquaintances. During their conversations, they discovered they had several things in common, most notably their interest in sexual violence and misogyny.
Norris had accumulated a lengthy record for sexual offenses over the years, while Bittaker had none. When Norris admitted to him that the biggest stimulation for him was of seeing frightened young women, Bittaker told him that if he ever raped a woman, he would kill her, leaving no witness behind. This conversation led to more, detailed discussions where they made plans to assault and murder teenage girls once they were free men.
Their discussions, their fantasies, led to them making a plan to murder at least 7 girls, one of each age, 13 through 19.
When Bittaker was released from prison on October 15, 1978, the man once known as a loner, was like a different person. He returned to Los Angeles and took on a job as a skilled machinist. He became friendly with several people in the area around the Burbank motel, where he lived. He donated to charity and earned himself a reputation as a caring, helpful, and generous person.
Part of this new persona, he wanted to be popular. He kept marijuana and beer on hand in his room, and became quite popular among the local teenagers. His goal? Make his place the spot where teens would go to socialize.
Three months later, Roy Norris was released from prison and moved back in with his mother in Redondo Beach, California. He took on a job as an electrician in Compton, which was approximately a 30 minute drive to Los Angeles. Then he received a letter from Bittaker.
In late February Bittaker and Norris were reunited and decided that it was time to put all their ideas and planning into action.
First, they needed a vehicle; Bittaker purchased a silver-gray 1977 GMC Vandura. The van was windowless on one side and had a large passenger side sliding door. The idea was for Norris to pull up next to their victim and he could grab her quickly and quietly without having to open the door all the way.
They installed a bed in the rear of the van, and constructed an area beneath it where they stored tools, clothes, and a cooler that they kept filled with beer and soft drinks. From this point forward, their van would be nicknamed “Murder Mac.”
The pair did not start killing right away. They needed to prepare, needed to practice. From February to June 1979, they would go on to pick up over 20 female hitchhikers. These girls were never harmed, merely targets for practice. They developed ways to lure girls into the van voluntarily. The seeked out secluded locations, and in April, they located an isolated fire road in the San Gabriel Mountains. The gate was locked, but to a criminal, that wasn’t deterring.
June 24, 1979, was the day they put their ideas and plans into action.
16
They spent the day on the beach where they hung out, smoked weed, drank beer, and flirted with girls. They left around 7:46 pm, and spotted 16 year old Lucinda Lynn Schaefer, walking down a side street after leaving a Presbyterian Church meeting. “There’s a cute little blonde.” Norris said.
Their efforts to entice her into their van failed entirely. They offered her marijuana, a drink, and even a ride home, but she declined every time. Not ready to give up, they drove on ahead and parked alongside a driveway. Norris got out, opened the passenger-side sliding door and leaned in. He kept his head and shoulders obscured from view, and as soon as Lucinda passed by, he spoke to her for a moment and dragged her into the van.
Norris quickly slid the door shut while Bittaker turned the radio volume all the way up. Using duct tape, he bound her arms and legs, and even gagged her as they drove to the fire road they had found just months before.
Lucinda was brave, and while she had screamed when she was kidnapped, she calmed herself down and resolved herself to her fate. Bittaker later wrote that she “displayed a magnificent state of self-control and composed acceptance of the conditions of which she had no control. She shed no tears, offered no resistance, and expressed no great concern for her safety … I guess she knew what was coming.”
Norris told Bittaker to “go take a walk” and return in one hour. During that time, Norris raped Lucinda, and when he returned, Bittaker took his turn. Norris took another turn, and this time she asked him if they were going to kill her. Norris replied, “No.” Her response was to ask if they would allow her time to pray before they killed her, if that became their plan.
In their accounts of that day’s activities, Norris and Bittaker related conflicting information. Both claimed that the other argued that they should kill her rather than release her. Regardless, in the end she pleaded for “only a second, to pray,” before Norris attempted to manually strangle her.
After about 45 seconds of trying to strangle Lucinda, Norris became disturbed at “the look in her eyes.” He ran to the front of the van to vomit, leaving Bittaker to strangle her until she collapsed into the ground and began convulsing. While she lay on the ground, he took a wire clothes hanger and placed it around her neck. Using vise-grip pliers, he twisted it until her convulsions ceased.
They never allowed her time to pray.
They wrapped her body in a plastic shower curtain and threw her over a steep canyon that Bittaker had selected. Bittaker assured Norris that, “the animals would eat her up, so there wouldn’t be any evidence left.”
18
Two weeks passed when Bittaker and Norris came across 18-year-old Andrea Joy Hall. She was hitchhiking along the Pacific Coast Highway. Before they had pulled over and slowed enough to offer her a lift, another vehicle picked her up. They didn’t give up though and followed the vehicle from a safe distance all the way to Redondo Beach, where Andrea exited the vehicle.
This time, Norris hid in the back of the van, hoping to trick her into believing Bittaker was traveling alone. Bittaker offered her a cold drink from the cooler in the back of the van. Norris hid behind a bedspread and once she had entered the van and attempted to get a drink, he was on her. She didn’t go down easy, she put up a fight, but Norris was able to subdue her by twisting her arm behind her back, causing her to scream in pain. He gagged her with tape and bound her wrists and ankles.
As they had with Lucinda, they drove Andrea to a spot in the San Gabriel Mountains, this time heading out a little further.
Andrea was raped twice by Bittaker and once by Norris. During Bittaker’s second go, Norris thought he saw vehicle headlights approaching. Bittaker clasped his hand over her mouth and dragged her into the nearby bushes. Norris jumped into the van and drove off, looking for the vehicle he thought he had seen. Unsuccessful, he returned, and they drove even further into the mountains.
Andrea was forced to walk uphill, naked, alongside the road. He made her perform oral sex on him before ordering her to pose for several Polaroid photos.
They drove to a third location, where again, Bittaker walked Andrea up a nearby hill while Norris drove to a nearby store to buy alcohol. Upon his return, he found Bittaker alone with 2 new polaroid’s. The pictures, as described by Norris, were of Andrea with a look of “sheer terror” on her race as she begged for her life. Bittaker had told her that he was going to kill her, and she needed to give him as many reasons as she could come up with as to why she should be spared.
Bittaker thrust an ice pick through her ear and into her brain. He turned her body over and thrust the ice pick through her other ear, this time stomping on it until the handle broke. She wasn’t dead yet, so he strangled her and threw her body off the cliff.
13, 15
On September 3, Bittaker and Norris Came upon Jackie Dorris Gilliam, 15, and Jacqueline Lea Lamp, 13, sitting on a bus stop bench near Hermosa Beach. The girls had been hitchhiking along the Pacific Coast Highway before they were spotted resting.
Bittaker and Norris offered the girls a ride, which they accepted as easily as they did the marijuana they were offered. However, they quickly realized that the van had steered off the highway and was heading in the direction of the San Gabriel Mountains. The girls questioned them, confronting them about heading in the wrong direction, Bittaker and Norris gave them multiple excuses, but the girls were not convinced.
Jacqueline tried to open the sliding door but was stopped when Norris hit her on the back of the head with a bag full of lead weights, knocking her unconscious. He proceeded to bind and gag Jackie when Jacqueline regained consciousness and, again, tried to escape. She was unsuccessful; Norris twisted her arm behind her back and dragged her back into the van.
As the struggle continued, Bittaker pulled the van over. There were too many witnesses in the area, and they couldn’t be seen. Stopped, he punched Jackie in the face and helped Norris bind and gag both girls.
The continued their drive into the San Gabriel Mountains where they held the girls captive for nearly two days. The girls were repeatedly attacked, both sexually and physically. The men slept in the van with the girls, one at a time, while the other stayed on the lookout.
As he had with Andrea, Bittaker took Jacqueline to a nearby hill and forced her to pose for his twisted pornographic pictures. He even asked Norris to take pictures of himself with Jackie, with clothes on, and off.
During one of the occasions, he was raping Jackie, believed to be the first, Bittaker made a tape recording. He made her pretend she was his cousin. He told her to feel free to express her pain. Bittaker is also known to have tortured her, stabbing her breasts with an ice pick, and using vice grip pliers to rip off part of one of her nipples.
At the end of the nearly two days, both girls were murdered. Bittaker stabbed an ice pick through each of Jackie’s ears before finally strangling her to death. As for Jacqueline, Bittaker reportedly shouted, “You wanted to stay a virgin; now you can die a virgin!” Norris hit her in the head with a sledgehammer before Bittaker strangled her. Jacqueline wasn’t that easy to kill though, and when she opened her eyes, they had to try again. Bittaker strangled her while Norris bludgeoned her to death with the sledgehammer.
Later, at Bittaker’s trial, Norris claimed that he had suggested Jackie be killed quickly, because she had been largely cooperative. Bittaker supposedly replied, “No, they only die once anyway.”
Both girls’ bodies were thrown over an embankment into the chaparral, a shrubland plant community.
16
Halloween 1979, Shirley Lynette Ledford was standing outside of a gas station. She was hitchhiking home from a Halloween party in the Sunland-Tujunga suburb of Los Angeles. It is believed that she recognized Bittaker, as he had been a regular at the restaurant where Shirley worked part-time as a waitress. She accepted the ride and when she got into the van, Norris immediately offered her marijuana, which she refused.
Bittaker drove to a secluded street, then Norris brought out his knife and bound and gagged her with construction tape. The men traded places, Norris driving while Bittaker sat in back with Shirley. He took the tape off her mouth and legs. He slapped and mocked her. He beat her with his fists while shouting for her to “say something.” When she began to scream, he shouted, “scream louder.” She continued to scream, and he continued hitting her. “What’s the matter? Don’t you like to scream?”
Shirley began to cry, pleading with Bittaker, “No, don’t touch me.” Bittaker responded by ordering her to scream as loud as she wished, then began striking her with a hammer, and beating her breasts with his fists. He tortured her with pliers between and during the times he raped and sodomized her.
Shirley’s attack, like Jackie’s, was tape recorded. She can be heard pleading for the abuse to end, and crying out, “Oh no! No!” as the sound of Bittaker pulling the sledgehammer or pliers from his toolbox.
Norris later reported hearing “screams… constant screams” from the rear of the van as he drove.
The men again traded places, and now Norris could be heard on the tape recorder shouting at Shirley to “Go ahead and scream or I’ll make you scream.”
Shirley is heard pleading, “I’ll scream if you stop hitting me.” then let out several high-pitched screams that Norris encouraged her to continue, until he ordered her to stop.
Shirley can be heard screaming, “Oh no!” when Norris grabbed the sledgehammer. He hit her once in the left elbow. She told him he had broken her elbow before pleading, “Don’t hit me again.” Norris liked her cries and raised the sledgehammer up. She screamed, “No!” while he proceeded to hit her 25 consecutive times in that same elbow.
“What are you sniveling about?” Norris asked as she continued screaming and crying.
“We’ve all heard women scream in horror films… still, we know that no-one is really screaming. Why? Simply because an actress can’t produce some sounds that convince us that something vile and heinous is happening. If you ever heard that tape, there is just no possible way that you’d not begin crying and trembling. I doubt you could listen to more than a full sixty seconds of it.” – Roy Norris, describing his recollections of the audio tape they had made of Shirley Ledford’s rape and torture – April 1997.
After about two hours of captivity – rape and torture, Norris placed a wire hanger over Shirley’s head and strangled her -tightening the hanger with pliers. She had given up, and didn’t even react much to the strangulation, though she died with her eyes open.
This time, Bittaker and Norris were sloppy. They didn’t even try taking her up to the San Gabriel Mountains. They dumped her body in a bed of ivy on a random front lawn in Sunland, curious to see the reaction of the press.
The body of Shirley Ledford was found by an early morning jogger the next day. An autopsy was performed, and it revealed that had been sexually assaulted, suffered blunt-force trauma to the face, head, breasts, and left elbow. The olecranon, the bone that projects behind the elbow, had sustained multiple fractures. Her left hand bore a puncture wound and a finger on her right hand had been slashed. Last, her genitalia and rectum had been torn, most likely a result of Bittaker inserting pliers inside her body.
Bittaker would later claim that the tape recording made of Shirley’s torture and murder was nothing more than evidence of a threesome, and in the end, she was screaming for the men to kill her.
After the death of Shirley Ledford, Roy Norris became reacquainted with Joseph Jackson, a friend he had made while incarcerated at the California Men’s Colony. Norris had become cocky and confided in Jackson the details of his and Bittaker’s adventures over the past several months. He told him about the murder of Shirley Ledford, in graphic detail. He told him they had raped another girl, whom they let go, and at least two other girls they were unsuccessful in abducting.
Jackson went straight to his attorney, who advised him to contact authorities. Together, they informed the Los Angeles Police Department, who then relayed the men to the Hermosa Beach Police.
Paul Bynum, a detective for Hermosa Beach Police, was assigned to investigate Jackson’s claims. He couldn’t deny that the statement provided by Jackson lined up with reports of several missing teenage girls, who had disappeared over the past five months.
One incident that had been filed was from September 30, reported that Robin Robeck had been maced then dragged into a van and raped by two Caucasian men in their mid-30’s before being released. Police at the time were unable to identify her assailants and the case was cold.
Bynum sent an investigator to Robin’s home in Oregon, with a series of mug shots. From those, she was able to identify two men, without hesitation. The two men who had kidnapped and raped her were Bittaker and Norris.
Now that they had a witness tying them to a crime, the Hermosa Beach Police placed Norris under surveillance. Within days they had witnessed him selling marijuana. That was enough to arrest him on a parole violation. On November 20, 1979, Norris was arrested for his parole violation, and Bittaker was arrested for the rape of Robin Robeck.
In custody, the men were placed in a police line-up. Unfortunately, Robin was unable to positively identify the men who had attacked her. Fortunately for police, they were able to hold the men on charges of parole violation – as Norris had been dealing and Bittaker was in possession at the time of his arrest.
The police searched Bittaker’s room, and that’s where they found several polaroid’s, of Andrea Joy Hall, and Jackie Dorris Gilliam; two women who had been reported missing earlier that year. They also found seven bottles of various acidic materials (items, Bittaker revealed, he had planned on using on his next victim).
Searching Norris’ apartment, police found a bracelet that had belonged to Shirley. They found more polaroid’s; photos of nearly 500 teenage girls and young women, mostly taken at Redondo Beach and Hermosa Beach. Some were from Burbank High School. Most of the photos were taken without knowledge or consent.
A search of the van turned up a sledgehammer, a plastic bag filled with lead weights, a book on how to locate police radio frequencies, a jar of Vaseline, two necklaces – later confirmed to have belonged to two victims, and a tape recording. A highly incriminating tape recording.
Police, knowing Shirley Ledford had been a victim, took the tape recording to her mother. The poor woman had to listen to her daughter’s screaming, pleading for mercy, and being assaulted. She positively identified the voice on the recording as belonging to her daughter. The other two voices were positively identified as Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris.
At a preliminary hearing on November 30, 1979, regarding the rape of Robin Robeck, Norris waived his Miranda rights before Detective Bynum and Deputy District Attorney, Stephen Kay began questioning him.
Initially, Norris denied. Denied everything from rape, to murder, to disappearances. When confronted with the evidence, he caved in and confessed. In his confession, he tried to play the finger pointing game – portraying Bittaker as being more culpable in the murders than himself. He told them about how he and Bittaker would drive around areas, such as the Pacific Coast Highway, and randomly approach girls with offers for a ride, posing with them for photographs, offering them marijuana in a “casual, unconcerned manner,” as described by Bynum and Kay.
He admitted that once in the van, girls would typically be overpowered, bound hand and foot, gagged, and driven deep within the San Gabriel Mountains, where they would be sexually assaulted, and killed, generally by strangulation with a wire coat hanger. He admitted that the torture and humiliation was just “for fun.”
His confession provided investigators with more corroborating evidence, such as his statement that their first victim had just left a meeting at a Presbyterian Church and had lost one of her shoes when she was dragged into the van. He admitted that Shirley had rejected Bittaker when he asked her for a date before her subsequent kidnapping.
On February 7, 1980, Los Angeles County Sheriff, Peter Pitchess, stated that the victims had been subjected to “sadistic and barbaric abuse.” Five charges of first-degree murder would be sought against both men. He reported that in the mass of polaroid pictures taken, 60 of the young women were found, and had not been harmed. Another 19 had been reported missing, and it is possible that they may have been murdered, yet there was no conclusive evidence that it was the men they had in custody.
Norris agreed to return to the San Gabriel Mountains to search for the bodies of the girls he had confessed to assisting with the kidnap and murder. Two bodies were found. The bodies of Lucinda and Andrea have never been recovered.
February 9, 1980, the skeletal remains of Jackie and Jacqueline were found at the bottom of a canyon, alongside a dry riverbed. The ice pick was still lodged in Jackie’s skull. Jacqueline’s skull was covered in indentations – evidence of the multiple hammer blows she had sustained.
February 1980, both men were formally charged with the murders of the five girls. At the arraignment, Bittaker was denied bail, yet Norris received a bail of $10,000. Within just a month, Norris accepted a plea bargain, in which he would testify against Bittaker in retorn for the prosecution not seeking the death penalty.
Norris pled guilty to four counts of first-degree murder, one count of second-degree murder (for Andrea Hall), two counts of rape, and one count of robbery.
Prior to his sentencing, he was reviewed by a probation officer who testified that he had accused Bittaker of the actual torture, and that for him, he enjoyed the feeling of dominance and power. The parole officer said Norris “never exhibited any remorse or compassion about his brutal acts toward the victims… the defendant appears compulsive in his need to inflict pain and torture upon women.” He testified that Norris “can realistically be regarded as an extreme sociopath, whose depraved pattern of behavior is beyond rehabilitation.”
On May 7, 1980, Norris was sentenced to 45 years to life imprisonment, with eligibility for parole from 2010.
On April 24, 1980, Bittaker was arraigned on 29 charges of kidnapping, rape, sodomy, and murder in addition to various charges of criminal conspiracy and possession of a firearm. He was also charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit murder – in December 1979, he had tried to persuade two inmates, who were due to be released, to kill Robin Robeck to keep her from testifying against him.
The inmates weren’t persuaded, and if Bittaker had just left it alone, he wouldn’t have been charged with conspiracy to commit murder. The charges for the rape of Robin were dropped due to a lack of physical evidence, and her inability to identify the men in a lineup.
When Judge William Hollingsworth asked Bittaker how he pleaded, he remained silent, refusing to answer any questions. The judge had no choice but to enter a plea of not guilty on his behalf.
Lawrence Bittaker’s trial began on January 19, 1981. Norris was the prosecutions star witness, and testified as to how they had become friends in prison, and how they had made plans to kidnap, rape, and kill teenage girls. He chronologically recounted the details of each of the five murders they had committed as well as the details of the rape of Robin Robeck. He spoke of the attempted abduction of a woman named Jan Malin on September 30, and the attempted abduction of an unidentified young woman on September 27.
There were several witnesses who testified that Bittaker had shown the polaroid’s he had taken with the victims. Photos that were found in his motel room. One witness, a 17-year-old Christina Dralle, a neighbor of his, testified that he had shown her a Polaroid picture he had taken of Jackie before stating, “The girls I get won’t talk anymore.”
Former cellmate, Lloyd Douglas, testified that Bittaker had discussed in detail the torture he had inflicted on Jackie and Shirley. He testified that Bittaker confessed to stabbing one of Jackie’s breasts with an ice pick, which he then twisted as the tool remained inserted into the wound. He confessed to pinching Jackie’s legs and breasts with a vise grip before he tore off part of one nipple.
Douglas also testified that Bittaker had informed him that he had “pulled on” the genitals and breasts of Shirley Ledford with the same instrument, and that he had attempted to beat her breasts “back into her chest.”
Perhaps the most damning evidence of all was the audio tape the pair had created of Shirley’s rape and torture. During his testimony, Norris claimed Bittaker had played the tape repeatedly over the weeks before his arrest. He claimed Bittaker found it to be “real funny.”
Though defense had filed motions to keep the tape from being admitted as evidence, the judge denied them. The tape was presented to the jury on January 29, with Kay, the Deputy District Attorney, warning the jury, “For those of you who do know what hell is like, you will find out.”
The courtroom was silent, aside from the tears and weeping from the jury and the audience. More than 100 people listened, some burying their heads in their hands, wiping tears from their eyes, and some even rushed to escape the court room before the recording had finished.
WARNING – DISTURBING CONTENT: This is an authentic transcript from the audio recording of Shirley Ledford’s rape and torture. This transcript has been copied from Parkaman Magazine.
Bittaker: (Slapping Shirley) Say something girl, huh? Huh?
Ledford: What do you want me to say?
Bittaker: Huh, huh? Say something, girl! Don’t you hit me? Huh, huh?
Bittaker: Say something girl. Huh?
Ledford: Ouch! (Shirley begins to scream)
Bittaker: Say something! C’mon! You can scream louder than that, can’t you? Huh? What’s the matter, don’t you like to scream? (Slapping sounds can be heard).
Ledford: (Screams) Oh no!
Bittaker: What’s the matter, huh? You want to try again?
Ledford: (Screams) Oh no! Don’t touch me! No!
Bittaker: Huh? You want to try again?
Ledford: On no, don’t touch me! No don’t touch me. No! No! No! No! No!
Bittaker: Want to try again?
Ledford: No, no, no, no, no, no, no!
At this point, Shirley begins to cry profusely. She begs Bittaker to stop hitting her, saying again, “No, don’t touch me!” Given what Bittaker next says, it is likely Shirley curls into a ball and turns away from him as she weeps.
Bittaker: Roll over girl.
Ledford: No don’t touch me!
Bittaker: Roll over!
Ledford: (Pleading tone in voice) Don’t touch me.
Bittaker: (Slapping Shirley) Start getting to work, girl!
Ledford: Don’t touch me!
Bittaker: Start getting to work girl!
Ledford: (Crying) Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!
Bittaker: Get to work, girl!
Ledford: Don’t touch me.
Bittaker: Roll over. I’m not asking you; I’m telling you!
Bittaker: Roll over.
Ledford: (Crying sounds can be heard).
Bittaker: C’mon, C’mon, C’mon!
Bittaker: What are you doing? What are you doing?
Ledford: Huh?
Bittaker: What are you doing?
Ledford: I’m not doing anything; I’m trying to do what you wanted me to do.
Bittaker: What did I want you to do?
Ledford: Suck on it.
Bittaker: Suck on what?
Ledford: This.
Bittaker: What’s this?
Ledford: Your dick.
Bittaker: Yeah? Say it.
Ledford: Your dick.
Bittaker: You’re sucking on my dick?
Ledford: That’s what you wanted me to do?
Bittaker: Is that what you’re doing?
Ledford: Yes, I was.
Bittaker: Tell me.
Ledford: Yes.
Bittaker: Tell me what are you doing?
Ledford: I’m sucking on your dick.
Bittaker: Do you want to do it?
Ledford: You want me to?
Bittaker: You want to, girl? Do you want to suck my dick baby? Huh, huh, hey? Start answering me! (Beating sounds can be heard).
Ledford: Yes.
Bittaker: Tell me.
Ledford: Yes.
Bittaker: Beg me.
Ledford: Yes.
Bittaker: What, hey what do you want girl?
Ledford: I want to suck on your dick.
Bittaker: You don’t sound like you really mean it. (Slapping sounds)
Ledford: I do.
Bittaker: (Laughing) Suck on it then! C’mon start sucking on it. No matter what you can do, squeeze hard you understand and if it hurts any time you want to scream, go ahead and scream.
Ledford: Oh no! (Screams)
Bittaker: Scream, baby! Go ahead and scream! Scream, baby!
At this point, after Bittaker had forced Shirley to fellate him, repeated sounds of an administered beating, interspersed with loud screams can be heard as Bittaker savagely beat Shirley about the breasts. Bittaker then extracted his pliers from the tool box. Shirley then emits several high-pitched, prolonged screams and cries of agony as Bittaker alternately squeezes and twists her labia, nipples and breasts with the pliers. Bittaker then returns the pliers to the tool box. Banging sounds can also be heard throughout, which are believed to have been made as Shirley came into contact with the walls and inner contents of the van as she writhed and flailed.
Ledford: My God! Please stop it! (Screams)
Bittaker: Is the recorder going?
Norris: Yeah!
Bittaker: Scream baby! Scream some, baby.
Ledford: I can’t!
Bittaker: Scream some more baby. Come baby. Come on. Nobody is going to hurt you. Turn over and talk to me nice. Love me. You want nothing more in the world than to make me cum. Huh?
Ledford: (Still crying, says something unintelligible which ends with her saying “that’s right.”)
Bittaker: Say it again baby. What do you want huh? What do you want?
Ledford: Your cock.
Bittaker: Where do you want it baby, huh?
Ledford: I want to hold it and squeeze it.
Bittaker: Why?
Ledford: It feels good, cause you like it and I like it.
Bittaker: You want me to cum baby.
Ledford: Oh yeah.
Bittaker: You want me to cum, yeah? Want me to come, tell me baby. (Beating and slapping sounds)
Ledford: Yeah.
Bittaker: Tell me!
Ledford: Yeah.
Bittaker: Huh?
Ledford: Oh yeah.
Bittaker: Hey girl, you want me to put a pair of pliers up your cunt?
Ledford: What?
Bittaker: You want to make me cum huh? You want to make me cum huh?
Bittaker: Huh? Want to make me cum girl, huh?
Ledford: Oh yes (Scream)
Bittaker: Yes what?
Ledford: I want you to cum. Cum. (Scream). Come on.
Shirley Ledford then screams in agony as Bittaker inserts the pliers inside her vagina and twists them, tearing her.
Bittaker: Stop screaming at me, come on talk to me!
Ledford: Cum, cum, cum. Please cum, cum, cum, cum.
Bittaker: Where do you want me to cum, baby?
Ledford: I want you to cum.
Bittaker: Where do you want me to cum?
Ledford: I want you to cum.
Bittaker: Where do you want me to cum?
Ledford: Your cock. I want you to cum.
Bittaker: Cum where?
Ledford: Cum.
Bittaker: Cum where? Where do you want me to cum?
Ledford: In me.
Bittaker: Where?
Ledford: Cum.
Bittaker: Where?
Ledford: All over. All over.
Ledford: (Scream). No, no, no, no, no, no. (Scream)
Bittaker: Is the recorder going?
Norris: What?
Bittaker: Is the recorder going?
Norris: (Emphasis) Yeah!
Ledford: Oh no, no, no! Oh no! (Sobbing sounds)
A sharp, shrill scream, followed by wailing sounds follow. It is believed to be at this point when Bittaker, having already sodomized Shirley, inserted the pliers into her rectum and twisted them, tearing her. Banging sounds can again be heard as Shirley came into contact with the walls and inner contents of the van as she again writhed and flailed.
Ledford: (Screaming). No! No! No! Oh, oh! (Screaming)
At this point, Norris traded places with Bittaker as Shirley lay crying and moaning in the back of the van. Three of the four victims previously killed had all been vaginally raped by Norris, but as Bittaker had viciously torn Shirley’s genitals and rectum with his pliers, causing her to bleed, Norris did not vaginally or anally rape her. Instead, Norris forced the already agonized girl to fellate him, then switched on the tape recorder himself:
Norris: Make noise there, girl. Go ahead and scream or I’ll make you scream!
Ledford: (Pleading tone) I’ll scream if you stop hitting me.
Norris: (Enthusiastic tone in voice) Oh yeah?
Ledford: (Screaming)
Norris: Keep it up girl!
Ledford: (Screaming)
Norris: More!
Ledford: (Screaming)
Norris: ‘Till I say stop!
Ledford: (Screaming)
Unintelligible sounds are heard, interspersed with sounds of Shirley Ledford crying and moaning.
Sounds of Norris extracting the sledgehammer from the tool box can then be heard as Shirley, seeing him do this, again begins crying and shouts, “Oh no! No! Oh!” She then screams in fear, again shouts “Oh, no, no!” before again screaming.
Norris strikes Shirley on the elbow.
Ledford: You broke it!
Norris: I barely hit it.
Ledford: (Pleading and sobbing) Don’t hit me again!
Norris: Oh yeah?
Norris can be heard lifting the sledgehammer from either the floor of the van or, possibly, the wooden frame of the bed the two had constructed in the rear of the van.
Ledford: (Screaming) No! No! No! No! No! (Bludgeoning sounds can be heard, interspersed with repeated high-pitched screams)
Ledford: No! No! No! No! No! (Scream) Oh no! No! No! No!
Shirley is struck 25 times in succession on the left elbow by Norris, who repeatedly fractures her left elbow. Each time the hammer strikes her, a piercing scream can be heard. At one point, she may have tried to say something, but her voice had become an unintelligible mass of pain.
Norris: How’s that?
Bittaker: (Driving) What’s going on?
Norris: I was just beating on her elbows with this hammer.
Bittaker: Ah!
Ledford: Oh! (Screams as Norris again repeatedly strikes her elbow with the hammer).
Norris: What are you sniveling about?
Ledford: (Scream). No! Oh. Owww! I, (Repeated screams).
Ledford: (Screams).
The tape recorder is then switched off before Norris strangles Shirley. The last words Shirley Lynette Ledford spoke at the end of her short life were, “Do it. Just kill me!”
Upon hearing the tape, Bittaker was stoic, and even smiled while it played.
After, during recess, Kay left the room, crying openly. He told reporters who had gathered outside, “Everybody who has heard that tape has had it affect their lives. I just picture those girls… how alone they were when they died.”
When asked whether the tape should have been introduced as evidence and played in the courtroom, considering the emotional and psychological affects it had on those present, Kay simply stated, “You’re darn right it [the audio tape] should have been. The jury needs to know what these guys did.”
The only defense Bittaker had, was to claim that Norris was the one who committed the murders. He claimed he knew nothing until, shortly before his arrest, Norris told him he had killed several girls whom they had both engaged in sexual activities with.
The defense called a friend of Norris, Richard Shoopman, to the stand. Shoopman and Norris had become acquainted at the California Men’s Colony in 1977, and he testified that Norris had told him repeatedly of his desire to rape young girls. He testified that Norris had described the look of shock and fear on the face of a young girl, who excited him sexually. The defense also produced the polaroid’s taken of Andrea Hall, showing the exact facial expressions that Shoopman had described.
Then, on February 5, 1981, Bittaker took the stand. He denied any knowledge in the kidnapping of Lucinda Schaefer. He claimed he had paid Andrea to pose for his polaroid’s, and she had accepted $200 in return for sex. Then he added that Norris had walked Andrea into the San Gabriel Mountains, and returned alone, telling Bittaker that he had told her to “find her own way home.”
His defense for the double murder of Jackie Gilliam and Jacqueline Lamp was the same. He had paid Jackie for sex and to pose for pictures. The girls were last seen with Norris in the van. Also to the defenses benefit, all of Bittaker’s previous convictions, with the exception of one, were for nonviolent offenses.
Defending himself in the case of Shirley and the audio tape – well, he claimed she was theatrically screaming, and that she had not at all been tortured in his presence. But again, she had been left alone with Norris, prior to her disappearance.
As for his reaction to the tape being played, Michael Maloney, a psychologist, had this to offer: Bittaker had the inability to empathize with other people’s feelings and emotions. “They [Bittaker and Norris] lack the internal prohibitions, or conscience, that keep most of us from giving full expression to our most primitive, and sometimes violent, impulses.”
In his closing arguments on February 9, Kay apologized to the audience for only asking for the death penalty; he wished the law would allow him to request the same suffering be inflicted upon Bittaker that he had inflicted on those girls. “If the death penalty is not appropriate in this case, then when will it ever be?”
In his own closing argument, Deputy District Attorney, C. Randolph Ramsey, questioned Bittaker’s claim that Shirley had been acting, that she had agreed to scream, cry, plead for mercy. “You’ve heard the sounds on this tape… Ms. Ledford screaming, yelling, ‘Don’t touch me! No, no, no, no, no!’ That tape should be sufficient corroboration by itself!”
Bittaker’s defense attorney, Albert Garber, requested that the jury discount the testimony of Norris. He argued that Bittaker’s claims that Norris had committed the murders was true; the testimony from the prosecution was “bloodlust,” as evidenced with the prosecution using the “gory details” repeatedly to drive their point home. He also claimed there was insufficient corroborating evidence to convict Bittaker.
The jury deliberated for three days before returning a verdict of guilty. Guilty of five counts of first-degree murder, one charge of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, five charges of kidnapping, nine charges of rape, two charges of forcible oral copulation, one charge of sodomy, and three charges of unlawful possession of a firearm.
In regards to sentencing, the jury deliberated for only 90 minutes. Bittaker was sentenced to death for the five counts of first-degree murder. Bittaker showed no emotion as his fate was announced.
The formal sentencing happened on March 24, 1981 where he was formally sentenced to death. This sentence was backed up with an alternative sentence, should the death penalty ever be overturned and reverted to life imprisonment. This sentence would be 199 years, and 4 months.
Bittaker appealed his conviction and sentencing, claiming procedural errors. His appeal was dismissed on June 22, 1989 with the court ruling that any procedural errors were minor, and in view of the overwhelming evidence against him, the errors did not affect the verdict.
Lawrence Bittaker was scheduled for execution on December 29, 1989. He appealed; however the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the sentence, and a new execution date was set for July 23, 1991. He appealed again and was again granted a stay of execution on July 9.
In the end, he died on December 13, 2019 of natural causes while sitting on death row at San Quentin State Prison.
Roy Norris was incarcerated at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility. Though he had become eligible for parole in 2009, he declined to attend his own parole hearing which automatically deferred his parole eligibility for 10 years. He died at the California Medical Facility on February 24, 2020 at the age of 72. Although the world was seeing the beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic, Norris was spared that fate and died of natural causes.
Norris’ story never changed, he continued to blame Bittaker, claiming he was afraid of him.
Bittaker granted several interviews from death row. During these interviews he never expressed any remorse, aside from the remorse he felt for the fact that he and Norris had been arrested, thus “ruining” his own life. He replied to letters he received using the nickname “Pliers” Bittaker, in reference to his favored torture device.
While incarcerated, he filed more than 40 frivolous lawsuits over things like “crushed sandwiches by the prison cafeteria” and “being served a broken cookie,” both things he cited as examples of “cruel and unusual punishment.” As a result, he was declared a vexatious litigant, or someone who filed lawsuits for the purposes of harassment and was no longer allowed to file lawsuits without the express permission of an attorney or judge.
Paul Bynum, the detective who worked the case committed suicide in December 1987 at the age of 39. In a ten-page suicide note, he specifically referred to the Toolbox Murders, the crimes committed by Bittaker and Norris, as haunting him. He was afraid they would be released from prison.
The audio tape recording of Shirley Ledford’s rape and torture remains in possession of the FBI Academy and is used in training and desensitizing future FBI agents to the harsh reality of torture and murder.
The torture in this case has been compared to others, specifically the case of Sylvia Likens.
