In the mid-70s, Lawrence Bittaker stabbed a store employee who accused him of snooping.
He was convicted, and in a California prison, he met Roy Norris, who was raped. There they planned several murders.
After their release, the two killed at least five teenage girls with a variety of weapons, including screwdrivers, pliers and ice spikes. As a result, they were nicknamed the Tool Box Killers.
Now the story of the murder duo becomes a film. Criminologist Laura Brand interviewed Bittaker over five years before he died. It is these interviews that have now become films.
Psycho
TOLD: Laura Brand spoke with serial killer Lawrence Bittaker many times over the last five years of his life. Photo: Siren of San Quentin
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Psychiatric reports have established that Bittaker was a psychopath and he has repeatedly explained that he did not feel anything when he carried out the killings.
On the trailer to the film you can hear Bittaker tell about several of the murders.
– I had to hit to make her scream, because she did not want to scream, you hear the serial killer say before he starts laughing.
He has been convicted of killing, raping and torturing Lucinda Lynn Schaefer, (16), Andrea Joy Hall (18), Jacqueline Doris Gilliam, (15), Jacqueline Leah Lamp (13) and Shirley Lynette Ledford (16).
Bittaker was sentenced to death in California in 1981, but the state has suspended all executions. He died in prison in 2019.
– Oh my God
New turn in murder mystery
During the trial, such gruesome details emerged that several members of the jury and lawyers began to cry, writes The Independent.
Brand tells The Independent that she has been interested in serial killers for many years, and that that interest was aroused by a book she read.
– I first read about it when I was studying, and I lost the book out of my hands and just thought “oh my god, are these people human at all?”, She tells the newspaper.
Brand also says that her best friend was killed right after she turned 27.
– The only thing I asked the investigators was if she was suffering. Investigators said “no, she did not suffer”. The relatives of the victims of Bittaker and Norris never got that insurance, she says.
– Shy
The crime doctor says that she has interviewed over 50 serial killers, and that Bittaker initially did not want to talk to her.
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She had tried to contact him for a long time, and he refused to answer her phones, letters and inquiries, until she showed up at the prison where he was serving his sentence. She actually had an appointment with another serial killer, but asked if he would meet her when she was first there. Then he said yes.
– He was so jealous and careful. He would not even look me in the eye for the first two hours. I remember thinking “is this really a serial killer”, she says.
– I could not believe that it was the country’s most sadistic serial killer who sat in front of me, she says.
– Do you want to kill?
She about one of the conversations she had with Bittaker over the years they knew each other.
– The most soulful thing I have ever heard was when I asked him the question «why are you a serial killer, and why am I not? What is the difference between us “, says Brand.
– Then he saw me right in the eyes, and said “well, do you want to kill?”. I said “no”, she says. Then the killer replied:
– «There is your answer. “Some people want to eat broccoli, others do not,” he said.
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