The Toolbox Killers: A Match Made in Hell (Part 1)

October 3, 2022
Episode 50

Marked explicit for graphic details of sexual assault and the murders.

 

Lawrence Sigmund Bittaker

❖Born Sep 27, 1940 in Pittsburgh, PA

❖His parents were teenagers and weren’t in a place to have a kid, so they had him adopted

❖He had a lot of resentment toward his mother

❖He was adopted by the Bittakers

❖His adoptive father, George Bittaker worked in the aviation industry so they moved around the U.S.

❖Liked fire and burned down a couple of sheds

❖First arrested for shoplifting at the age of 12

❖Over the next 4 years he continued shoplifting and petty theft

❖He was a peeping tom and would break into people’s home and mess with things just to freak them out

❖Talk about high school girlfriend

❖He later claimed he acted out in this way to compensate for the lack of love he received from his parents

❖Reportedly had an IQ of 138

❖Didn’t see the point of HS and dropped out in ‘57

Life After Dropping Out

❖He and his parents were living in CA

❖Within a year of dropping out he had numerous arrests

➢Car theft

➢A hit and run (left the scene)

➢Evading arrest

❖Was imprisoned at CA Youth Authority for two years

❖Days later, arrested by FBI in LA for violating the Interstate Motor Vehicle Theft Act

❖Over the next 15 years he continued to get in trouble with the law

 

Roy Lewis Norris

❖Born Feb 5, 1948 in Greeley, CO

❖His mother got pregnant out of wedlock, so his parents got married to avoid the stigma of having a kid out of wedlock

❖His father worked in a scrapyard

❖His mother was a housewife and was addicted to drugs

❖He went back and forth between living with his parents and being placed in foster homes

❖Things were rough when staying with his bio parents

❖When in the foster homes, he was often denied food and clothing

❖He also made claims that he was sexually assaulted by one of the foster families

❖When he was 16, he was at the home of a female relative in her early 20s and he started talking to her in a “sexually suggestive manner”

❖She kicked him out and told his dad who threatened to beat him

❖Then he stole his father’s car and ran away

Roy Drops Out

❖A year later (17), Roy dropped out of HS

❖Joined the US Navy

❖Deployed to the Vietnam War in ‘69, but didn’t see any active combat

❖In November ‘69, he was arrested for attempted rape

❖3 months after being released for that he was arrested again

❖Discharged from the Navy

❖Continued to get in trouble with the law

 

A Match Made in Hell

❖While Norris was serving his sentence in San Luis Obispo, he met Bittaker

❖Norris claimed that Bittaker saved his life twice

❖They made jewelry together and in the documentary on Peacock they showed pictures of some of this jewelry

➢Cross Necklaces (24:30)

❖They would share their fantasies with each other

❖The had a teacher/student vibe (Bittaker the teacher, Norris the student)

❖Both have antisocial personality disorder

❖Bittaker was released October 15, 1978

❖They bought a van with a sliding door and decked it out

➢Named it Murder Mack

❖They would drive around and take pictures of young girls in bikinis

 

Lucinda (Cindy) Lynn Schaefer

❖Described as the “sweetest and nicest” girl

❖She was very smart and tutored Spanish, algebra and geometry

❖She wanted to go to college to study and teach language

❖Unfortunately there isn’t a ton of stuff out there about her which is disappointing considering how much there is about Bittaker and Norris

❖5’4” 115 lbs

June 24, 1979

❖Cindy was walking to her grandmother’s house after a Christian youth meeting at St. Andrew’s Presbytarian Church in Redondo Beach, CA

❖Bittaker and Norris were hanging out at the beach “drinking beer, smoking grass, and flirting with girls”

❖As she was walking, Norris saw her and said to Bittaker, “there’s a cute little blonde”

❖They tried to get her into the van by offering her a ride and marijuana

She refused

They Wouldn’t Take No for an Answer

❖Since she refused to get in voluntarily, they drove ahead and parked along a driveway

❖Norris got out of the car and opened the sliding door and stood there leaning into the van

❖When Cindy passed the van he said something to her before forcing her into the van

❖Bittaker turned the radio all the way up while Norris bound her arms and legs and gagged her with duct tape

❖Bittaker then drove to a fire road in the San Gabriel mountains

❖According to records Bittaker kept, Cindy had initially screamed when they abducted her but said she – read quote

❖Norris then raped her while Bittiker “took a walk”

❖An hour later he returned and they swapped places

❖They each raped her twice

Deciding to Kill Cindy

❖Cindy asked if they were going to kill her and they initially responded no

❖She requested a chance to pray first if they did intend to kill her

➢Bittaker laughed and said God isn’t here, only devils

❖They realized that if they wanted to avoid getting caught, they would have to kill her

➢It would’ve been Norris’ 3rd rape offense and he could easily be identified since they hadn’t made any effort to conceal themselves and they were already in the system

The First Murder

❖Originally, Norris was the one doing the murdering

❖He attempted to manually strangle her, but like we’ve discussed before this isn’t as easy as a lot of people expect it to be

❖Norris lasted less than a minute before he “became disturbed at the look in her eyes” and ran to the front of the van, vomiting

❖Bittaker then took over and started to manually strangle her before she collapsed and started convulsing

❖At this point he twisted a wire coat hanger around her neck with vise-grip pliers until the convulsions stopped

What Happened Next?

❖They wrapped her body in a shower curtain and threw her over a steep canyon into an area full of shrubs

❖Bittaker assured Norris that the animals would eat the body, so there wouldn’t be any evidence left

❖In the interviews, Bittaker said that he didn’t feel any panic afterward – he just “put it out of his mind”

❖They explain that this is because he is a dominant sexual sadist

➢He is sexually aroused by the infliction of physical or emotional pain on nonconsenting partners

❖He also said that the killing was never planned

***End of Part 1***

 

 

Sources:

Accessed September, 2022. The Toolbox Killer on Peacock https://www.peacocktv.com/watch/playback/vod/GMO_00000000389047_01/4d03fda3-68c7-3222-b857-a3f75e99ec46?paused=true

Accessed September, 2022. Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris https://criminalminds.fandom.com/wiki/Lawrence_Bittaker_and_Roy_Norris

Accessed September, 2022. IQ Percentile Calculator https://www.gigacalculator.com/calculators/iq-percentile-calculator.php

Accessed September, 2022. Antisocial Personality Disorder https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/antisocial-personality-disorder/#:~:text=Antisocial%20personality%20disorder%20is%20a,care%20for%20other%20people’s%20feelings.

Accessed September, 2022. THEY WERE 2 OF CALIFORNIA’S MOST DEPRAVED SERIAL KILLERS EVER. HOW DID THE TOOLBOX KILLERS GET CAUGHT? https://www.oxygen.com/crime-news/toolbox-killers-how-lawrence-bittaker-roy-norris-got-caught

Accessed September, 2022. Lucinda Lynn “Cindy” Schaefer https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6681844/lucinda-lynn-schaefer

Accessed September, 2022. NamUs https://namus.nij.ojp.gov/case/MP4571

Accessed September, 2022. Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Bittaker_and_Roy_Norris#Lucinda_Lynn_Schaefer

Accessed September, 2022. https://www.reference.com/world-view/starburst-slogan-9faf7215056ecdb7