Toolbox Killers tortured, raped and killed teen girls in horrifically brutal ways
WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT. Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris, known as the 'Toolbox Killers', tortured and raped teenage girls before brutally murdering them in one of the most horrific serial killing sprees
Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris can easily be branded as one of the most infamous serial killer partnerships to have ever lived.
The two offenders, who formed a friendship whilst behind bars, chose to unite their forces as they stalked female targets in a menacing van they dubbed the 'Murder Mac'.
The duo would target young women before kidnapping, sexually assaulting, and torturing them through "astonishing cruelty" prior to killing them.
The pair initially met whilst both were detained at the California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo for separate crimes. Bittaker had been jailed for stabbing a shop employee who challenged him over shoplifting in 1974, whilst Norris was completing a sentence for rape.
Following their connection and discovery they both harboured comparable sadistic desires, the pair devised a scheme to begin sexually assaulting and torturing girls together, ending in their deaths to avoid detection.
Bittaker gained parole first, securing employment in Los Angeles as a machinist. Two months afterwards, Norris also received parole and relocated to his mother's home in LA where he started work as an electrician.
The duo then established contact with one another in February of 1979, and started their horrific murder campaign as they put their terrifying scheme into action.
From February to June that year, the sadistic partnership approached more than 20 female hitchhikers - "dry runs" for their upcoming killing rampage, investigators suspected. Bittaker and Norris, together, kidnapped at least five teenagers aged between 13 to 18, subjecting them to unimaginable torture before ending their lives.
The gruesome duo systematically tortured and murdered their victims using tools such as screwdrivers, icepicks, and pliers - earning them the chilling nickname 'The Toolbox Killers'.
The killers became infamous for their reign of terror in southern California's San Gabriel mountains from June to October in 1979. Their victims were identified as: Lucinda Lynn "Cindy" Schaefer, 16; Andrea Joy Hall, 18; Jackie Doris Gilliam, 15; Jacqueline Leah Lamp, 13; and Shirley Lynette Ledford, 16.
Heartbreakingly, the bodies of Schaefer and Hall were never found. Their first victim was 16-year-old Lucinda Lynn Schaefer, who they murdered on June 24. Bittaker and Norris took turns raping the teenage girl before Bittaker strangled her to death.
Andrea Joy Hall became their next prey. After picking her up while she was hitchhiking, they transported her to the same remote location where they had previously killed Lucinda Schaefer.
Once again, they sexually assaulted their victim, forcing her to walk naked along the road before making her perform oral sex on Bittaker. They took photographs of Andrea, which captured an expression of "sheer terror".
A month later, the fiends brutally murdered two women on the same day. Jacqueline Leah Lamp and Jackie Doris Gilliam were hitchhiking together along California's Pacific Coast Highway when Bittaker and Norris offered them a lift.
The girls, aged just 13 and 15, were attacked, held captive for two days and subjected to horrifying torture.
Among their victims, 16-year-old Shirley Lennette Ledford was the fifth and final young woman to die at their hands. Ledford was leaving a Halloween party on October 31, 1979, and while hitchhiking, was picked up in the notorious Murder Mac by Bittaker and Norris.
Ledford was held captive by the Toolbox Killers for nearly two hours as she endured brutal and unspeakable torture, severe physical beatings, verbal abuse, and sexual assault. The teenager's cause of death was strangulation by a wire coat hanger and her lifeless body was left on someone's front lawn, discovered by a jogger the following morning.
The killers were finally apprehended after Norris boasted about their heinous acts to a friend of the two men, who promptly contacted the authorities. In a desperate bid to avoid the death penalty, Norris cooperated with the investigation and chose to plead guilty as he turned against Bittaker. He received a sentence of 45 years to life behind bars in April 1981, reports the Mirror US.
Bittaker was sentenced to death on March 22, 1981. However, he died of natural causes while on death row in 2019, having suffered multiple heart attacks that left him feeling "vulnerable".
"It's kind of a taste of maybe what my victims were going through," Bittaker admitted to criminologist Laura Brand during an interview for her documentary. Norris also died of natural causes two months later at the age of 72.
"So many people call them soulmates, and you've got to wonder," Brand said. "They died like an old married couple, like they couldn't live without each other."
The Toolbox Killers have been labelled as "beyond barbaric", with FBI Special Agent John E. Douglas describing Bittaker as "the most disturbing individual" he had ever profiled.