Lawrence Bittakers: The Tool Box Killers

There are many famous duos that are widely known. Everyone knows Mickie and Minnie Mouse, Barbie and Ken or Bonnie and Clyde. How about the Tool Box Killers or the Hillside stranglers? These twosomes are famous for quite the grim reason: the kidnapping, torture, rape, and murder of young women and children. Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris or the “Tool Box Killers” murdered over in the span of 5 months in 1979. Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono or the “Hillside Stranglers” also began their pursuit of murder the same year. Both ruthless cases have similarities within. Lawrence Bittaker (shown on the right), one half of The Toolbox Killers, was born on September 27, 1940 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As an infant, he was adopted by the Bittakers …show more content…
Their first victim was Cindy Schaeffer on June 24 1979, who was tortured before being strangled to death. The next victim was Andrea Hall who on July 8 1979 was raped and choked to death after Bittaker took photos of her tied up. Jaqueline Gilliam and Jaqueline Lamp, 15 and 13, were the youngest of the identified victims. The two were abducted on September 3, 1979 and raped and tortured for two days then strangled with coat hangers tightened with pliers, giving them the name “toolbox killers”. Their last known victim was Lynette Ledford October 31 and could be the most chilling of them all. The young girl’s pleas can be heard on tape while she is tortured with tools such as a sledgehammer and pliers. While Norris would only fess up to the torture of these five girls, about 500 photos of women were actually found. Nineteen of the identified women in the photos were reported missing prior to this discovery. One of Roy Norris’s friends told police a story that Norris had told him, and it matched up to what Shirley Sanders, a woman who had escaped the two killers after being raped and tortured had told them. Shirley identified Norris and Bittaker and they were taken into custody. Both were