The two were arrested for unrelated crimes and held without bail for violating their probations.

Charles Montaldo is a writer and former licensed private detective who worked with law enforcement and insurance firms investigating crime and fraud. Norris later expressed remorse for his crimes, but Lawrence Bittaker was wholly unrepentant; when the tape of Lynette’s torture was played for the jury, he actually smiled.

In 1978, Lawrence Sigmund Bittaker, age 38, and Roy L. Norris, age 30, met while in the California State Prison at San Luis Obispo. Her attempts to ignore the two failed. During Bittaker's and Norris' trial, the disturbing pictures of their crimes and the tape-recording of Lynette Ledford's final painful hours was shared with the jury. A parole officer who spoke with him said Norris “never exhibited any remorse or compassion about his brutal acts towards the victims . Within minutes after she entered the van, Bittaker attacked, raped and took pictures of her bound and in fear.

Overall, police found over 500 photos of teenaged girls, 19 of which were listed as missing. Norris was the murderous pair's downfall. On July 8, 1979, the duo went hunting for their second victim and found 18-year-old Andrea Hall hitchhiking on the Pacific Coast Highway. With Bittaker hiding in the back, Norris stopped and offered Hall a ride. Lawrence Sigmund Bittaker and Roy Lewis Norris, a.k.a. “Go ahead and scream, or I’ll make you scream.”Shirley, desperate for her pain to end, begs, “I’ll scream if you stop hitting me.” Norris encouraged her to continue until he tells her to stop.The next sound that can be heard on the recording is Norris grabbing the sledgehammer from the toolbox. He was denied parole.Lawrence Bittaker went to trial for 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. During an interrogation, Norris began admitting details about the pair's

Bittaker was sentenced to death and the judge included an extra 199-year life sentence just in case his death sentence was ever commuted to life. How Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris Became the Toolbox Killers They found a house in Sunland and discarded her body in a bed of ivy on the front lawn. Norris takes a wire coat hanger and wraps it around her neck, tightening it with pliers.Norris would say later that Shirley hardly responded to the strangulation, but she did die with her eyes wide open.Bittaker decided they should dump her body in someone’s yard so that they could enjoy the press’s reaction to their work.

She had trauma to the face, head, breast, and her left elbow had multiple fractures. But Norris clammed up and would only tell investigators what happened to five of the 19 missing girls. On June 24, 1979, in Redondo Beach, Cindy Schaeffer, age 16, was walking to her grandmother’s house after attending a church program.

[44] The prosecutor argued without objection that "Bittaker was the one with the violent past" and that "Norris had been sent to prison on a rape by threat, not forcible rape, but a rape by threat." His adoptive father, George Bittaker, worked at aircraft factories, forcing him and his parents to move around often. Shirley recognized the one Lawrence Bittaker. There the two realized that they shared a common interest in sexual violence. The killer's last known victim was killed on Oct. 31, 1979. As is characteristic of And now her torturers seem to be done with her. “Don’t hit me again.” Then you can hear her yell, “No!”Norris then hits her in the elbow 25 times in a row before he asks, “What are you sniveling about?”It’s been nearly two hours since Shirley was standing in front of that gas station looking for a ride home.

. Not liking her answer, he stabbed her in the ear with an ice pick and choked her to death. As if playing a game, Bittaker then asked why she should be allowed to live. Bittaker was sentenced to death, and the judge included an extra 199-year life sentence just in case his death sentence was ever commuted to life. "The Toolbox Killer" were a pair of ephebophilic serial killers, rapists, and abductors.

Lawrence Sigmund Bittaker (born September 27, 1940) and Roy Lewis Norris (born February 2, 1948) are two American serial killers and rapists known as the Tool Box Killers, who together committed the kidnap, rape, torture and murder of five teenage girls over a period of five months in southern California in 1979.

An audio tape of Shirley Lynette Ledford’s final moments, found in Bittaker’s van, would be the most damning evidence at the trial. A 17-minute section of the recording of Shirley Ledford’s attack is the smoking gun that put Bittaker behind bars.

Norris was labeled as a mentally disordered