Free The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers by Michael Newton Page A

State Prison, ture. Tape recordings of Jacqueline Lamp’s final in California’s Imperial County, on September 21, 2002.
    moments were recovered from Bittaker’s van, and detectives counted 500 photos of smiling young women among the suspects’ effects.
    BITTAKER, Lawrence Sigmund, and NORRIS,
    On February 9, 1980, Norris led deputies to shallow Roy Lewis
    graves in San Dimas Canyon and the San Gabriel Lawrence Bittaker was serving time for assault with a Mountains, where skeletal remains of Lamp and Jackie deadly weapon in 1978, when he met Roy Norris at the Gilliam were recovered. An ice pick still protruded from California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo. A con-Gilliam’s skull, and the remains bore other marks of victed rapist, Norris recognized a soul mate in Bittaker, and they soon became inseparable. While still confined, they hatched a grisly plot to kidnap, rape, and murder teenage girls “for fun,” as soon as they were freed. If all went well, they planned to kill at least one girl from each “teen” age—13 through 19—while recording the events on tape and film.
    Paroled on November 15, 1978, Bittaker began
    making preparations for the crime spree, obtaining a van that he dubbed “Murder Mack.” Norris was
    released on June 15, 1979, after a period of observation at Atascadero State Hospital, and he hurried to Bittaker’s side, anxious to implement their plan.
    Nine days later, on June 24, 16-year-old Linda Schaeffer vanished following a church service, never to be seen again. Joy Hall, 18, disappeared without a trace in Redondo Beach on July 8. Two months later, on September 2, 13-year-old Jacqueline Lamp and 15-year-old Jackie Gilliam were lost while thumbing rides in Redondo Beach. Shirley Ledford, 16, of Sunland, was Lawrence (“Pliers”) Bittaker takes the stand at his murder the only victim recovered by authorities, abducted on trial. (Wide World API)
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    “BLACK Widows”
    cruel mistreatment. Charging the prisoners with five counts of murder, Los Angeles County Sheriff Peter Pitchess announced that Bittaker and Norris might be linked to the disappearance of 30 or 40 more victims.
    By February 20, the stack of confiscated photographs had yielded 19 missing girls, but none were ever traced, and Norris had apparently exhausted his desire to talk.
    On March 18, Norris pled guilty on five counts of murder, turning state’s evidence against his confederate.
    In return for his cooperation, he received a sentence of 45 years to life, with parole possible in the year 2010.
    Bittaker, meanwhile—nicknamed “Pliers,” for his favorite instrument of torture—denied everything. At his trial, on February 5, 1981, he testified that Roy Norris first informed him of the murders after their arrest in 1979. A jury chose not to believe him, returning a guilty verdict on February 17. On March 24, in accordance with the jury’s recommendation, Bittaker was sentenced to die. The judge also imposed an alternate sentence of 199 years and four months in prison, to take effect in the event that Bittaker’s death sentence is ever commuted on appeal.
    “BLACK Widows”: Female serial-killer type Borrowed from the venomous spider that devours its mate after sex, this label is applied in criminology to female murderers who prey on their own husbands, relatives, or lovers. Monetary gain, through life insurance or inheritance, is frequently a motive in such Louise Peete was a classic black widow, motivated by crimes, although it may not be the only motive.
    profit. (Author’s collection)
    NANNY
    DOSS, according to her own confession, killed successive husbands in search of true romance, as she had seen that state of bliss portrayed in women’s maga-dismembered her victims, while Velma Barfield set one zines. When mothers kill their children—most particu-of her husbands on fire as he slept. In Texas, Betty Beets larly when the victims’ lives are not insured—there is preferred to make her husbands