Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris

Lawrence Sigmund Bittaker (September 27, 1940 – December 13, 2019) and Roy Lewis Norris (February 5, 1948 – February 24, 2020), also known as the Tool Box Killers, were American serial killers and rapists who kidnapped, raped, tortured, and killed five teenage girls in Southern California over a period of five months in 1979.

Bittaker was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Norris was born in Greeley, Colorado.

Norris accepted a plea bargain whereby he agreed to testify against Bittaker and was sentenced to life imprisonment on May 7, 1980, with possibility of parole after serving 30 years. He was incarcerated at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego County, California.^[1] He died there on February 24, 2020 at the age of 72.^[2]

Bittaker was sentenced to death and was imprisoned at San Quentin State Prison in Marin County, California. He died in prison on December 13, 2019 at the age of 79.^[3]

Bittaker and Norris became known as the "Tool Box Killers" due to the fact the majority of instruments used to torture and murder their victims, such as pliers, ice picks, and sledgehammers, were items normally stored inside a household toolbox.^[4]

Lawrence Bittaker And Roy Norris Media

The GMC Vandura van Bittaker and Norris purchased to use when committing their abductions
Lucinda Schaefer, first victim of Toolbox Killers. Published 16 February 1980 edition of The Nashua Telegraph
San Bernardino County Sun. Saturday 16 February edition. Direct link is here
Mug shots of Bittaker (left) and Norris (right), taken shortly after their November 1979 arrest
Rear view of the GMC Vandura van Bittaker and Norris used to abduct their victims
The San Gabriel Mountains. Bittaker and Norris murdered and discarded the bodies of four of their victims at this location. Norris led investigators to the bodies of two of the four victims he and Bittaker murdered at this location.