The Horrific Bitteker-Norris Murders

In 1979, like most residents of Los Angeles, I was horrified by the details of the Bitteker-Norris murders. Twenty years later, I found myself in Hermosa Beach, California. I presumed that Lawrence Bitteker must have died in prison or been executed. I was stunned to find out that Bitteker was very much alive on death row at San Quentin. After hearing more details about Norris and Bitteker, I decided to find out exactly why Bitteker's sentence had never been carried out. Even then, it would take many years before someone, anyone, would talk to me about the crimes and punishment of Lawrence Bideker. Having been part of this trial is a painful experience, and people have asked me, well, you were on the Manson case. That has to be the worst ever. No, this is the worst ever, because these were children. These girls were all nice girls. Nobody had a criminal record or anything. They were girls that you would be proud of to have as your daughter. His opening argument, Kay described the defendant as a brilliant man with an IQ of 138, but an extremely violent man. He told the jury that Bitteker was the mastermind behind the kidnapping, rape, and murder of the five girls. Kay also described in detail how Bitteker tortured some of his victims with pliers and ice picks. Two of the bodies never were found. Defense attorney Albert Garber claimed that Roy Norris, the chief prosecution witness, should be on trial, not Bitteker. Garber claimed that Norris is a sex deviant who derives sexual pleasure from terrorizing his victims. Norris has pleaded guilty to the same charges, but agreed to testify against Bitteker to escape the death penalty. November 1st, 1979, in the early morning hours, a jogger got to this spot where she discovered the nude, lacerated body of a teenage female. This discovery would lead to the arrest and investigation of two ex-convicts for her murder and the murder of four other young girls. Of course, the only body we had in this case that was found right off the bat was Lynette Ledford because... Bitteker wanted to see the reaction of the press. While serving time in prison, Norris and Bitteker came up with the idea of murdering and raping young girls, one for each year, ranging from 12 to 18. Lawrence Sigmund Bitteker was a 39-year-old parolee who had been released from the California men's colony at San Luis Obispo in November of 1978. He had served less than four years after pleading guilty to the lesser charge of assault with a deadly weapon, after stabbing a supermarket employee in the chest in an attempt to avoid an arrest for shoplifting. Bitteker had an extensive criminal record, having spent 18 of the prior 20 years in state custody for 11 separate convictions. Despite an IQ of 138, A $1,000 a week job as a skilled machinist, a psychiatric examination in 1975, had diagnosed Norris Bitteker with personality disorder, antisocial personality, severe. Joseph Jackson was a friend of both Norris and Bitteker. Norris met Jackson while both were confined for rape convictions at a Tuscadero State Mental Hospital. After Norris and Bitteker got out of prison, they got together with Jackson. They started going around photographing young teenage girls, especially down in the Strand area. Always crowded with teenage women, it would be the perfect location for Norris, Bideker, and Jackson to search out potential victims. In early November, Norris confided in Jackson that Norris and Bideker had actually murdered some of these young girls. Jackson became afraid for both his 13 and 17 year old daughters and for his own life. He went to various law enforcement entities. Sheriff's Homicide had the position, please. Because Jackson couldn't provide the locations of any bodies. Most of the law enforcement entities had no interest in his information. But the LAPD detective that was meeting with him said, well, look, you say these murders happened in the South Bay. Why don't you call the South Bay agencies and see if any of the police out there are interested? Finally, he went to Paul Bynum of the Hermosa Beach Police Department. He was the first person to take Joseph Jackson's information seriously. The first thing that he did was that he decided to place Roy Norris under surveillance. And within a matter of days, Norris was observed loading baggies with marijuana in his Redondo Beach apartment. Because that was a parole violation, Norris was placed under arrest. After Bitteker's arrest, his van was impounded. and an exhaustive search turned up numerous items of evidence, including a cassette tape. Norris presumed that he would eventually be charged with these crimes, so partially out of fear of the death penalty and partially out of guilt for what he had done, he agreed to accept a plea deal and testify against Lawrence Bitteker. On the 28th of November, I received a call, and... Bynum told me that Roy Norris wanted to talk to me about some murders. I said, Roy Norris? I know that name. And I said, let me see his rap sheet. And I looked at his rap sheet and I said, this is the guy that I convicted of forcible rape of a Torrance housewife in January of 1976. And he got a sentence of three years to life. And that means they let him out after three years. He was in Atascadero State Mental Hospital for five years and was let out three months before raping the Torrance housewife. And the psychiatrist at Atascadero said, oh, he was fine, no problem, and so they let him out. Now, the reason he was in Atascadero, he had accosted a female student on the campus of San Diego State, didn't say a thing to her, walked up to her, knocked her to the ground, got on top of her, Took, grabbed her by the hair and started bashing her head into the concrete. First words out of Norris'mouth were, I'm going to plead to a second degree murder. That told me he was guilty of murder and just wanted to make a deal. Went into the jury room, tape recorded about a three hour. The statement of Roy Norris, he proceeded to tell us about five murders. It was, you know, so detailed and so horrendous. You have to understand in cases like this when you have two people that are participating in murder, I mean, who else is there? But those two people, and sometimes you have to rely on one of them and try and make your best determination as to which one is the least culpable and which one's telling the truth. The details of Norris'confession finally allowed Steve K. to receive full support from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. I said, I've got to bring Sheriff's Homicide in on this. This is just too big a case for you guys that are most at the handle. This was a completely different type of murder case. Here, we knew who the guilty parties were, but we didn't have any bodies. We found out, yeah, okay, we did have a body, Lynette Ledford, out in the Sunland Tujunga area. Notorious tape of Lynette Ledford was an actual recording of Norris and Bitteker violently assaulting her. This tape was so graphic that when Steve K. played it for each of Roy Norris'attorneys, one demanded that he shut it off. And the other ran out of his office. One of the attorneys got up and ran out of the library, and I didn't see him for three months afterwards. And the other one asked me to please turn off the tape. I feel that he did come forward and tell Joseph Jackson about the murders because he was feeling guilty, remorseful. So I took a plea to Norris, to all the charges. I wanted 50 to life. Of course, there was no question that if Norris testified that he was going to get out of the death penalty. As the result of his plea deal, Norris was willing to lead law enforcement to the locations of the bodies. There are a lot of jurors that, if you're trying a murder case, they want to see the body of the victims. I went to Glendora Ridge Motorway and wanted Norris to point out where he and Bitteker had thrown Cindy Schaefer. Well, we didn't find anything as far as Cindy was concerned. We went down with members of the Sierra Madre search and rescue team and the area was overgrown and I had a doctor next to me and there was a trail of bones. He would say okay that's a femur here is a arm bone and there was a skull missing the lower jaw but had the upper teeth. That turned out to be Leah Lamp, and we identified that from dental records. Then we found another skull. It was missing all teeth, but it had an ice pick embedded in it through where the ear canal would be. I figured after the mountain searches that we really weren't going to find anything more because we were having torrential rains. Part of Glendora Mountain Road had even been washed out. There is no way that if we had come up a week later that we would have ever found the remains of Jackie and Leah because they just would have been washed away. After that, at the end of February, I filed all the murder charges. Because of a conflict with the Public Defender's Office, Judge Thomas Fredericks asked Albert Garber, a prominent lawyer, to defend Lawrence Bitteker. Garber was the president of a local criminal defense attorneys association. This case is based primarily on the testimony of the co-defendant who obviously made a deal. She spent the whole summer with us. Very warm. Very loving. He thought Cindy was just tops. She told me when I invited her to come that she would like to be able to get a job and work through the summer. She interviewed for the job that she took. I drove her to St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church at the corner of Avenue D and Pacific Coast Highway to attend the Senior High Fellowship meeting. I let her out of the car in front of the church at 7.25. As he was driving around the block, right, he told me about this young blonde walking up the northbound on the Pacific Coast Highway. She looked cute to him, about the right age and all. 16 or 17, and blonde. I prefer blondes. So Cindy Schaefer, after leaving the church, proceeded to this street, where she made a right turn. Bitteker and Norris basically proceeded to follow her. They figured out the pathway she was taking. They parked at the bottom of the hill. So this is a police photograph of the site where Roy Norris actually abducted Cindy Schaefer. Basically, the van was probably parked somewhere along here. Sure enough, a few minutes later, Cindy Schaefer proceeded down the sidewalk. Norris pretended to be working on a light switch, and Bittaker sat at the wheel of the van. Well, it was my decision on whether or not to try and grab her and make her a victim. I waited for her to walk past me. She didn't, of course, didn't expect anything. She just walked right on by, ran behind her and grabbed her mouth. It's kind of eerie to look at this photograph and know that you're standing on the spot of something that's so terrible that happened. The moment we were inside the van, Larry drove off in a hurry. Larry turned up the volume of the radio so that any screams would be drowned out by the radio itself. Norris taped her wrist to her ankle so she was face down on her stomach. She said her name was Cindy. I asked how old she was. She said she was 15. I asked where she lived. She said she lived in Redondo Beach with her grandmother, and that her mother was in Mexico City. We're heading up into the Angeles National Forest, above the city of Glendora, California. We're on the route that Bideker and Norris took to the sites where they murdered four out of five of their victims. Today we'll go to the exact spots and literally walk in the footsteps of not only Roy Norris and Lawrence Bitteker, but also their victims as well. Go to the sites themselves and you begin to wonder what was it like for them to actually go through this whole process. We initially pulled up to the gate. Larry got out and unlocked the gate. I drove the van through the gate and around the first bend and stopped. So this is the fire road that Norris and Bitteker drove the van. Norris said they took her out to the San Gabriel Mountains and they held her prisoner for the rest of the evening. By the time I thought she really ought to be home... It was late enough that I didn't call anyone because there wasn't anything they could do about it anyway at that time of the night. Imagine for a moment you're Cindy Schaefer. You're headed down this very fire road in the back of Lawrence Bitteker's van. You're bound and gagged, and you have no idea what's going to happen to you. He came back to the van and told me to get in the back and get the girl ready. Well, undress her and tell her that she was going to get raped. She said she would do anything as long as we didn't hurt her. I finally started to delve more into the case. I actually got a court transcript. None of it ever really seemed real to me until I got to this spot, this yellow firebox, which is described specifically in the court testimony. A small clearing near a yellow box, a metal box, I believe. I think it's a fire hydrant. I'm not sure. He backed the van up, backed it up against this yellow firebox. It was facing out on the fire road in case they had to make a rapid exit. They had a lengthy discussion as to who would be the first person to rape Cindy Schaefer. He suggested that I did because I was the one who took all the risk. I began my rape of Cindy. The rest of the evening, they both raped her multiple times, and at some point, she figured that she was in deep trouble and asked Norris, are you going to kill me? Norris said, oh, no, no, no, we're going to give you some marijuana and everything will be cool. I tried to tell her I was sorry for what I had done or what we had done. I told her that we would pay her. I wrote down my name on a sheet of paper and my address and phone number in case she would ever want anything that I could do to pay her back, you know. Norris and Bitteker got out of the van again, and together they had a 90-minute discussion, ultimately with Bitteker convincing Norris that, no, they couldn't spare Cindy Schaefer, they would have to kill her. She said... If you're going to kill me, will you let me pray before you kill me? Well, they didn't even let her pray. The ticker lifted her off the ground so she couldn't get traction, and Norris came up and strangled her. He saw her crying and gasping for breath, and he couldn't do it any longer, and he went over and threw up and had to pick up his false teeth out of his vomit. Whitaker got a coat hanger out of the back of the van, wrapped it around her neck, and then tightened it with vice grips to the point where he killed her, and the hanger cut into her throat. She had a guitar and was actually taking guitar lessons and had that Sunday during the day. She had practiced her guitar and was on the bed with her music just as she had left it when she finished her practicing. She had a quart fruit jar almost full of nickels and dimes and pennies and even dollars that was on the top shelf in the closet of her bedroom. They drove the van to this spot. They opened the door, grabbed Cindy Schaefer's body, and with a heave-ho motion, tossed her into this canyon. Norris all of a sudden stopped. And said, oh no, there was a girl and I don't even remember her name, but she didn't turn me on that much, so I don't even remember her name, but she was second. Norris and Bittaker's second victim was a girl by the name of Andrea Hall, who they picked up hitchhiking. On July 8th, we were on our way to the beach. Manhattan Beach at McDonald's is where we stopped and parked. Andrea was going to go to Redondo Beach after we'd eaten. She was going to hitchhike. She was going to go on to Ray's house, her boyfriend's. They were out looking for victims again, and they saw this blonde hitchhiking on the other side of the street in front of a Kentucky colonel. This is the spot where Lawrence Bideker decided that he wanted to get Andrea Hall into his van. Bideker and Norris were heading south on Sepulveda towards Manhattan Beach, and they spotted Andrea Hall standing right there in front of the Kentucky Fried Chicken, which is long gone. He told me to go and get in the back at that point. I went to the rear of the van, hid underneath the bed in the van, behind the green bedspread that was hanging all the way down to the floor. Larry continued to pull over and ask Andrea if she wanted a ride. She said yes and got in. To signal Norris to take action, Bitteker would ask a potential victim if she wanted a cold drink from a cooler at the rear of the van. He finally asked her if she wanted something cold to drink. Well, do you want to go back and get a cold drink? I got a cooler back there, and just help yourself. And she said, sure. I was looking through the bedspread as much as I could see through it, and she opened the cooler and grabbed a drink of some type. I came from underneath the bedspread. She saw me. She began to scream and made a mad dash for the front of the van. And she was fighting furiously, but Norris was large. She finally quit struggling, and she said she would do anything we wanted, as long as we didn't hurt her. They took her up again to the Glendora Mountain Road, to the Upper Monroe Truck Trail. Bitteker said, well, you know, since you were first last time, I want to be first this time. Andrea Hall was raped in two separate locations in the hills above Glendora. Initially, Norris and Bitteker raped her while Bitteker photographed her with a Polaroid camera. He said he wanted to rape her again and take some more photos. I told him I wanted to get home earlier that night. I had the night with Cindy. Norris was not happy about how late they were getting back sometimes because he said he would be really tired when he would go to work. Bitteker said, well, I'm not finished yet. Norris drove Bitteker to another location. So drop me off here, and I'll call you on the walkie-talkie when I'm ready to have you pick me up. He told me to pull into a spot where you would park on the right side of the road. This is the mound where Norris left Lawrence Bitteker and Andrea Hall. He proceeded back down the road towards town while Andrea Hall and Lawrence Bitteker made their way up the side of this mound. He got Andrea outside of the van and had her holding a lot of items. He opened up his toolbox and... took out the ice pick. He made a motion for me to look at it, but not to say anything. He turned around and let her into a spot. Because she knew I worried about her and where she went to hitchhike, so she always called and let me know that she was okay, what she was doing. She didn't call. This is the exact spot where Lawrence Bitteker took Andrea Hall, raped her again, and then killed her. He told me he was ready to be picked up, and he had already taken care of business. This time, when he came down to the van, Andrea wasn't with him. Bideker showed Norris some more photographs that he had taken. It was on this spot that Lawrence Bitteker took his last two photographs of Andrea Hull. One of them looked like Andrea with a terrified expression on her face. He was showing me that one and said, this is when I told her I was going to kill her. Another identically the same without the gag, and she had a look of desperation, I guess, on her face. Nora said, well, how did you get that expression on her face? And Bitteker said, well, I told her that I was going to kill her, but that I would listen to any reasons that she gave why I shouldn't. He said she couldn't come up with too many reasons. After Lawrence Bitteker killed Andrea Hall, he picked up her body, walked to the edge of the canyon, and tossed her off the cliff. August 29th was my daughter's 14th birthday. And we took all the kids and we went to Shakey's Pizza and then we came back to the house and Jackie and Leah were arguing over this little boy. So I finally went in the room and I said, Leah, honey, I said, you're going to have to go home because you guys are arguing. And she lived two doors away. And then I felt so bad and I walked over to see Leah and I gave her a hug and a kiss. And I said, I love you, honey. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. And then also the same night, Jackie comes up to Chuck and I, and she gave us a hug, and she says, I love you guys. She said, I wish you were my parents. They were just wonderful, sweet girls. My wife, Terri, talked about her friend Ingrid before we ever moved to California. Jackie was staying with those people because Terri Dichtel and Jackie's mom were best friends. So this was like a pre-starting high school vacation. Jackie and Leah had been staying with us for a while. That particular morning, Jackie and Leah asked me if they could go head down to the beach. And I asked them, I said, well, how are you going to get there? And they said, well, we'll take the bus. That was the last time I saw Jackie and Leah alive. They were in front of a bus stop bench on Pier Avenue. They were obviously going to the beach. One had a beach towel, the other had a tapestry. The bus bench where Jackie and Leo were sitting was probably somewhere... right along here in this location. And Norris and Bitteker were parked at that stoplight right over there on Pacific Coast Highway when they spotted Leah and Jackie. They pulled up, asked them if they wanted a ride down to the beach in their van. We pulled over to the bus stop where these girls were standing. I asked them if they wanted a ride, and they said yes. They got in the van right here, and they thought they were going down to the beach in that direction, but instead they were headed for something very different. different. I got out of the van, opened the sliding door on the side, and they both jumped in on the floor. I shut the door. Bitteker pulled away from the curb and started toward the beach on Pier Avenue. And when I lived in Hermosa Beach on my way to work, I would pass the spot every day and It would never fail to make me think about Jackie and Leah He nodded to me that the littlest one which was Jackie of course. He wanted her as a victim I wanted her as a victim. Also. She looked young and cute. I asked the girls if they wanted anything to drink So I got out of the passenger seat Walked to the rear of the van where the cooler was at picked up up a homemade sap and struck Leah Lamp on the right side of her head. I swung pretty hard, I thought, and I expected her to be knocked out for a couple of hours, so I didn't put any real value on her at all as far as causing any problems, and I immediately grabbed Jackie. He turned the radio up. Just in case, he stepped on the gas, turned a few corners I believe. Leah got up and made a mad dash for the side door. I yelled to Bitteker. He hit the brakes on the van and ran around the front of the van. By that time, Leah had had the side door of the van open and... and was getting ready to jump out, and he hit her, punched her. She fell back inside. She was screaming. I mean, she was hysterical. He told me when he got back in the van that he told these people that were watching from a tennis court that she was having a bad trip on acid. She said, don't hurt me. I don't want to be hit again. I taped up Jackie and gagged her, and then I taped up Leah, and I gagged her. When... When Bitteker and Norris kidnapped Leah and Jackie, it was a hot summer day. They drove back up into the mountains. Because it was so hot, they searched this road for a long period of time. The van's air conditioning was on, but you wouldn't know it. We were looking for some shade, if possible. There was a large tree that gave shade in the early morning and part of the afternoon. After hours of heading up Glendora Mountain Road, finally Bitteker and Norris came to this large shade tree. Bitteker backed up the van as far as he could in an attempt to get out of the hot sun. Here he would rape Jackie for the next two and a half hours while Norris photographed him with a Polaroid camera. Jackie had a black eye and a swollen side of the face where Bittiger had hit her. He slapped her hard enough to leave a red impression on the side of her face. He told her that that was kind of to give her an idea of what would happen if he caught her in a lie. At that point, she said she wasn't 13, but 15. Bitteker said to her, well, I can see that you're in pain when I'm doing this, and, you know, feel free to express your agony. And she said, well, you told me that I was supposed to act like I was enjoying it. He said, oh, no, that's okay. You know, scream your head off. So Norris took these pictures, everything imaginable. I want you to take some pornographic pictures of me and Jackie. He just asked me to get the tape recorder, which I did. He said he wanted to tape the raping of a virgin. This poor 13 year old had to watch all of this that was happening to Jackie and she was just in tears and shaking but they didn't rape her. She was quiet and every time I looked at her she looked like she was pleading or something with me. I didn't like to look at her. My daughter comes to me and she says, Mom, can I go ahead down to the beach and meet the girls? I said, yeah, go ahead. We'll be right there. Well, she turns around and comes right back. I said, Mom, they're not there. I said, what do you mean they're not there? So immediately we went down and we're looking for the girls. We looked all over. We couldn't find them. We came back. We called the police. And they wouldn't do anything. So again, at midnight, we called the police. They still wouldn't do anything. So I called Ingrid the next morning and I told her. that her daughter was missing, and she came out, and her and I went to all the beaches, everywhere, looking. And I almost had a nervous breakdown. My in-laws were there, my ex-in-laws were coming to visit to see their grandchildren, and they were there, and I was just a total, I was a disaster. They were like my own children. With the sun going down.... Lawrence Bideker proceeded down this road. In the back, Jackie, her ankles bound, sat on a bed. Next to her was Leah, who had already watched Lawrence Bideker rape Jackie for several hours while Roy Norris photographed her with a Polaroid camera. So these two decided that they were going to spend the night there and take turns sleeping and standing guard. We talked about her, the pain she had gone through, and we'd give her a period of time to rest. ...best before we raped her again. We would get some sleep and he would sleep next to Jackie. He was testifying as if he was a mechanic changing the oil on your car. The girls disappeared. I had a horrible dream. I saw the devil, and I never had a dream like that. Thinking they were only a couple hours from returning home, suddenly Jackie Gilliam and Leah Lamp got to this spot on the Upper Monroe Truck Trail. He told Bitteker, she's really tried to be very cooperative after you hit her, and we ought to let her go. He tried to talk him out of killing Jackie Gilliam. As a matter of fact, Norris promised Jackie that he was going to buy her a moped so that she wouldn't have to hitchhike anymore and give her some money. He said he even wrote down his phone number for her to call. At one point in the evening, I suggested that if and when he killed her, to do it quickly, because she'd been so helpful. in this whole thing. He said he didn't really see any reason for doing it quickly since they only die once anyway. This is where Bitteker parked the van. Norris, knowing what was going to happen next, got out of the van, headed down the road in this direction. Bitteker got a pair of vice grips and an ice pick and started to torture Jackie Gilliam. Norris was able to hear Jackie scream almost 50 feet away from the van. Norris returned to the van. And saw Bideker would remove Jackie to the side of the road, strangling her. After Jackie had died, Bideker returned, opened the door of the van, and got Leah, who had been passed out on the bed from sleeping pills, and escorted her, saying that this is the last time you'll leave the van before we take you home. Instead, Bitteker took a sledgehammer and hit her in the back of the head. When she fell down, he picked her up and started to strangle her. Norris continued to hit her with the sledgehammer. Bitteker and Norris took Leah to the edge of this cliff and threw her. They then returned to Jackie's body, dragged her over, and threw her off. Norris and Bitteker then got back into the van and returned to their homes. The next day, they would return to work after their Labor Day holiday. The last victim was on Halloween. She worked at McDonald's up on Foothill Boulevard. Her and her brother had dinner up there, and then I brought her home. It was Halloween night, and she was going to a Halloween party. She'd been dressed in a Halloween costume, but didn't want to wear one at night. So she just wore her Levi's and a dark long-sleeve shirt. At about seven o'clock, I took her over to her friend Ruth Torres'house. We went to a party around 8 o'clock for two hours, and we got a ride with some people at the party, two boys. They went to the gas station. They asked for money, so I gave it to them. They wanted money from Lynette, but she didn't have any money, so they got into an argument, and she left the car. Lynette Ledford was hitchhiking home from a Halloween party when she was picked up by Lawrence Bitteker. Then we were on our way back to the motel and some girl yelled out, Hey, and Larry looked out of his driver's window because she was on that side of the road, slowed down real fast and burned a U-turn and we went back. Asked if she wanted a ride and she said, yeah. Lynette told him where she lived, then at some point, instead of going that direction, Bideker pulled off of the main street. We continued the same direction she was going. She told him to turn left at one point at an intersection, which we did. The pavement ran out, and it became a dirt road. And almost immediately as we got onto the dirt, Larry hit the brakes on the van. They ended up in a dirt field. Bitteker grabbed her from the passenger seat and threw her in the back on top of Norris, knocking Norris over. And then Bitteker followed. Bitteker had a knife out, pounced on her, told Norris to go up and drive. I was told to get into the driver's seat and drive. Try to get onto freeway. I got on the freeway. I turned the radio on and he came up front a few minutes after I had done that and turned the radio down real low and he got his tape recorder. He raped her, tape recording a lot of it, and she said, please don't hurt me anymore, please don't hit me. And then he traded places with Norris, and Norris raped her. Norris wanted to know why she wasn't screaming the way she was with Bitteker, so Norris took that sledgehammer that he had used on Leah, started hitting Lynette in the elbow. Making her scream, constantly hitting her like as hard as he could. Bitteker said to Norris, well look, I've really killed all the others and you haven't killed anybody so why don't you kill her? Norris agreed and he took a coat hanger the way Bitteker had used it around Cindy's neck and tightened it. And when we found her body... We could see that the coat hanger was tightened to about the size of a silver dollar. Bitteker said, hey, wouldn't it be cool to throw her body in somebody's front yard? They came to this spot where they then dumped her body to see how the local media would react. Norris pulled Lynette's nude body out and threw it into the front ivy bed. Now Norris, in talking to us that first time, told us that he and Bitteker killed Lynette together. That they both choked her. tighten the coat hanger around Lynette's neck. But later on, he admitted that, no, really, he had killed her. The tape that we found in Bideker's van, which is just the most awful thing that you could ever hear, the tape reaches down inside you and pulls out your insides, listening to a 16-year-old girl getting tortured. It's just so haunting. The jurors were just in absolute shock. It was the most devastating testimony the jury has heard, the agonizing screams of teenager Lynette Ledford as she was being tortured in a moving van. A spectator rushed from the courtroom. It was more than she could stand. I remember there was a courtroom artist got up and ran out of the courtroom. The tape recording lasted 11 minutes. I've heard screams before, but I've never heard anything like that in my life. My most prominent memory was of Paul Bynum being on the witness stand. Paul was a man who loved women. He put women on a pedestal. He had a mental breakdown because of the brutality of this case, and he was just ashamed to be a man. You've heard it, obviously, several times before, and it still seems to affect you, obviously, quite deeply. I went out into the hallway, the cameras came up, and just in my head, Paul and the poor girls... And I knew that they were all tortured, but... So I just, I lost it. I broke down. I just pictured those girls and how alone they were when they died. I'm sorry. In his opening statement, the prosecutor told the jurors the tape would give them some idea of what hell is like. He was right. There were two highlights of the cross-examination, and I was worried about the cross-examination because here was a guy with 138 IQ, and I thought, oh, this is going to be tough. But it turned out he has 138 IQ, but he has no common sense. So I asked him the question. I said, well, now, Mr. Bitteker, you've been in court and you heard the tape of Lynette Ledford. What was happening to cause her to scream? He said, oh, that was just pillow talk. Did he say that was just pillow talk? And, of course, there were catcalls from the audience, like, you've got to be kidding. He was saying that, in effect, this was foreplay. And then the second thing, Nora said that Bitteker told him that he buried some tapes. So I figured that probably was the tape involving Jackie. I wanted to get those. And I said, okay, Mr. Bitteker, I want you to show us on the map where you buried the tape or tapes and the photographs. And Bitteker then said, well, I'm going to take the fifth. The judge says, well, if you take the fifth, I'm going to strike all of your testimony. So you better decide if you're going to answer the question. Of course, I didn't want his testimony stricken, especially not with the cross-examination. He looked at the map again, and he said, I don't remember. He was a dead duck after that. The cross-examination of Bitteker, if I had any doubt about what the jurors were going to do before, after the cross-examination, I had no doubt that they were going to convict him. Like all new arrivals to death row, Lawrence Bitteker would spend several weeks in one of the three structures that houses condemned prisoners, the Adjustment Center. Here he was classified for permanent assignment and not deemed a serious security threat or a senior member of a criminal gang. Permanent assignment to the Adjustment Center involves residents in 5 by 9 foot cells that are enclosed with wire mesh. No natural lighting and very limited contact with other human beings. Allow for only three showers and two hour-long exercise periods a week in 12 by 8 foot wire enclosed cages. Although it is possible to eventually be sent to the North Segregation Unit, an area housing approximately 100 of the least troublesome condemned, like most inmates, Bitteker was sent to the 500-cell East Block, a modest improvement over the Adjustment Center. Every morning at approximately 6 a.m., Lawrence Bitteker will be awakened by the sounds of guards serving breakfast from a metal cart on each of the East Block's five tiers. Prisoners eat breakfast and dinner in their cells. Lunch is a paper sack containing a sandwich and sandwich. some type of fruit served at about 11 o'clock. At approximately 7 a.m., those prisoners who wish to may ask to be allowed out into one of six exercise yards. They must first be strip-searched and shackled, a condition which causes many prisoners to remain in their cells. Because of hostility from other inmates, Bitteker never leaves his cell, except for a shower in a converted area of his tier. If and when he does leave, he is classified as a walk-alone. a prisoner who was escorted by two armed guards because of notoriety among the prison population. Usually, he will spend his time with books from the prison library, legal documents, or mostly watching a 13-inch Zenith color television purchased for him from a prison-approved vendor. Death row prisoners are not allowed to work and do not engage in any form of rehabilitation. They may spend up to $190 a month in the prison canteen, but this money can only be provided by outsiders, typically friends or family. Bitteker's parents died in the 80s, and he has no family, so any visits are an extremely rare occurrence. There is no air conditioning, internet, or conjugal visits, and although Bitteker was legally married early in his confinement, his spouse filed for a divorce four years later. Regulations and a physical description cannot really adequately describe Lawrence Bitteker's current residence. An inmate once commented, imagine a place that reeks of stale sweat, echoes with constant yelling, and swarms with anger. This is a madhouse. This is insane. There's no warmth and there's no emotion, only hatred. By the end of 1981, when Lawrence Bitteker arrived on death row, there were 80 condemned inmates in California. By 1989, the year his appeal was finally adjudicated. This number had increased to 247. By 1992, the year that California carried out its first execution in 25 years, this number had swelled to 345. This accumulation was the result of an ongoing struggle between the general public and various elements within the judicial process. Twice, in 1972 and 1976, the California Supreme Court invalidated the state's death penalty, permanently overturning death sentences for 177 individuals, including Charles Manson and Sirhan Sirhan. Both times, the public overwhelmingly approved referendums, restoring capital punishment in a legally acceptable form. While the voting public had made its preference clear, the California Supreme Court continued to generate controversy over appeals involving capital punishment. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Rose Byrd, became a lightning rod for controversy and for public outrage concerning the death penalty. Of the 61 death penalty cases reviewed during her tenure, 58 were overturned with Chief Justice Byrd voting to overturn all 61. Because of the circumstances of her appointment by Governor Jerry Brown, Rose Byrd had to stand for re-approval by the voters in 1986, an election that effectively became a referendum on the death penalty. The voters not only voted to remove Justice Byrd by a landslide, they also voted to remove two other justices who had routinely voted with her to overturn death sentences. Unfortunately for Lawrence Bideker, his automatic appeal to the Supreme Court was not heard until after Rose Byrd had been removed. On June 22, 1989, the court unanimously affirmed Bideker's conviction and death penalty, and an execution date was set for December 29, 1989. When Bideker appealed his conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court, this execution date was automatically stayed. After the Supreme Court refused to hear his case, another execution date was set for July 23, 1991, but this would be stayed when Bitteker petitioned the U.S. Federal District Court for the opportunity to find another attorney. In all, Bitteker would have three execution dates set for him, but he would successfully avoid all three. Lawrence Bitteker was now firmly ensconced in the Twilight Zone process between the state and federal courts relative to the death penalty. Once a convicted criminal had had his conviction affirmed at the state level, he could then file what is known as a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. It's the ability of a person who's been convicted to get relief on the grounds that they're being held in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States. I've been teaching for 32 years. I've written many things about habeas corpus. I also continue to handle appellate cases and have frequently argued appeals in the context of people whose habeas corpus petitions were denied. The California Supreme Court has discretionary jurisdiction, except in death penalty cases. Death cases go right from the California Superior Court to the California Supreme Court. After the California Supreme Court decides, a matter can go to the U.S. Supreme Court. But you've also got the federal court system. And somebody who's been convicted in state court and exhausted their state appeals can go to federal district court and file a writ of habeas corpus. If they lose in the federal district court... And they get a certificate of appealability, they can go to the United States Court of Appeals, and then they can ask the Supreme Court review. Lawrence Bitteker would not restrict himself to merely pursuing his criminal appeal. Beginning in 1983, representing himself, he would begin filing numerous civil lawsuits, typically against prison authorities for what were ostensibly constitutional infringements. This continued litigation would draw the attention of at least one national publication and cause the trial court in 1993 to impose upon Lawrence Bittaker the official status of vexatious litigant. Bitteker appealed that ruling to the California State Appeals Court, claiming that his status as a vexatious litigant had nothing to do with his criminal appeal. Since this was an important legal issue, nothing could proceed regarding Bitteker's execution until this appeal was considered. It would not be until 1997 that, in fact, Bitteker would be allowed to continue his criminal appeals, the appellate court ruling that the status of vexatious litigant only applies to civil and not criminal proceedings. Bitteker would not fully exhaust his state habeas corpus remedies for his criminal appeal until November 29th, 2000. By the end of 2000, 589 condemned prisoners would reside on California's death row. Bitteker's federal habeas corpus appeal, now essentially riding on issues involving ineffective counsel in his original trial, could then continue. But this presented another complicated legal circumstance when the state of California unsuccessfully attempted to void Bitteker's attorney-client privilege in any retrial. It would not be until late 2003 that Albert Garber, Steve Kay, and several other individuals would even be deposed on the ineffective counsel issues. Al Garber was a very talented criminal defense attorney, very well respected in the legal community. I thought he was excellent in the trial. I mean, he really held my feet to the fire. The problem that we have now is the defense in federal court, they're trying to say that Mr. Garber was incompetent. Well, he clearly wasn't incompetent. He was more than competent. When they took his deposition, Mr. Garber was 88 years old at the time. He didn't even remember who Lawrence Bitteker was. For two years, even the contents of these depositions would be the subject of legal bickering. But throughout this process, the federal district court judge, William M. Byrne, seemed determined to bring this lengthy case to a logical conclusion. Although the Bitteker process crept along slowly, there was activity. This would all change suddenly. On January 12, 2006, Judge William Matthew Byrne died at the age of 75. This meant that Lawrence Bitteker's appeals in the federal court system would have to be assigned to a new judge, and lawyers for the defense and the state of California would have to resubmit legal briefs summarizing the case. Once again, the process ground to a halt. Only a month later, another death row inmate's case would have an even greater impact on capital punishment in the state of California. On February 21st, 2006, a convicted rapist and killer named Michael Morales was scheduled to be executed by the state of California. Only hours away from the lethal injection process, the state announced that it could not comply with the medical guidelines imposed upon it by a federal district judge, and the execution was canceled. Following several hearings in 2006, this judge, Jeremy Fogle, citing concerns over the lethal injection process, issued a moratorium on all executions in the state of California. He demanded, among other things, that the state commission and pay for a scientific study to determine if lethal injection causes any pain to the individual being executed. Although this moratorium was officially only decreed for several months, it would be periodically extended and clearly would halt any executions in California for many years. Despite several death row inhabitants having already exhausted their appeals, They cannot be executed as long as Judge Vogel's moratorium remains in place. Since the reintroduction of capital punishment in 1978, only 13 individuals have been executed in California. I would strongly support an initiative to repeal the death penalty in California. I think that one of the key problems is administered in such an arbitrary and equitable way. Where did the crime happen? What was the race of the defendant? What was the race of the victims? I don't think who lives and who dies should be... Also, we know of so many errors in the criminal justice system. People being wrongly convicted and sentenced to death, even though they were actually innocent. We shouldn't impose the ultimate punishment when it's irreversible, and we know the system is so often flawed. You have to remember that the voters of California in 1978 voted in the death penalty law by a wide margin and that's the death penalty law that's still in effect today. So for me... It's not a question of expense. It's a question of justice. I don't think that you can take it away from the voters. My position on the death penalty is a little different from a lot of... of prosecutors, I believe that the death penalty should be used only in a small number of cases that are so horrible that for us to exist as a society, we have to say that we absolutely will not condone this activity. People like Bitteker and Manson, they don't deserve to spend their last years in a retirement community at the taxpayers'expense. As of February 2012, there are 722 condemned inmates on death row at San Quentin. Because the death penalty was reinstated in California by a popular referendum... It can only be repealed by another referendum. In 2012, a petition drive began to place such a referendum on the November 2012 ballot to repeal the death penalty. The 2012 referendum would convert all death sentences, including Lawrence Bitteker's, retroactively to life without parole. In 2009, Roy Norris received his first mandatory parole hearing. Because he opted not to attend, he is not eligible for another parole hearing until the year 2019. Currently, he is incarcerated at the state prison facility at Corcoran, California. In 2006, a new judge, Federal District Court Judge Terry Hatter, was appointed to handle the federal habeas corpus appeal of Lawrence Bitteker. The state of California and Bitteker's publicly funded defense attorneys had to take an entire year to resubmit legal briefs. As of February 2012, almost six years later, Justice Hatter has not held a single meaningful proceeding in the Bitteker case. Even if a referendum changing Bitteker's death sentence to life without parole fails, Most court observers believe that Lawrence Bitteker will die of natural causes long before he is even close to execution. I didn't, wasn't sleeping much in the trial and when I did sleep I would have this recurring nightmare. I would hear the girls screaming and I would be running to save them and I would always get there too late. I'd wake up and I'd be in a cold sweat and I had that same recurring nightmare for two years after the trial. I, you know, it's still hard to this day to relive it. Five years after the case was over, Paul Bynum committed suicide, and he left a note saying that he felt that someday Norris and Bideker would get out, that Bideker would come after him. He thought that if he killed himself, that they would leave his wife and daughter alone.

I was stunned to find out that Bitteker was very much alive on death row at San Quentin. After hearing more details about Norris and Bitteker, I decided to find out exactly why Bitteker's sentence had never been carried out. Even then, it would take many years before someone, anyone, would talk to me about the crimes and punishment of Lawrence Bideker.

Having been part of this trial is a painful experience, and people have asked me, well, you were on the Manson case. That has to be the worst ever. No, this is the worst ever, because these were children.

These girls were all nice girls. Nobody had a criminal record or anything. They were girls that you would be proud of to have as your daughter.

His opening argument, Kay described the defendant as a brilliant man with an IQ of 138, but an extremely violent man. He told the jury that Bitteker was the mastermind behind the kidnapping, rape, and murder of the five girls. Kay also described in detail how Bitteker tortured some of his victims with pliers and ice picks.

Two of the bodies never were found. Defense attorney Albert Garber claimed that Roy Norris, the chief prosecution witness, should be on trial, not Bitteker. Garber claimed that Norris is a sex deviant who derives sexual pleasure from terrorizing his victims.

Norris has pleaded guilty to the same charges, but agreed to testify against Bitteker to escape the death penalty. November 1st, 1979, in the early morning hours, a jogger got to this spot where she discovered the nude, lacerated body of a teenage female. This discovery would lead to the arrest and investigation of two ex-convicts for her murder and the murder of four other young girls.

Of course, the only body we had in this case that was found right off the bat was Lynette Ledford because... Bitteker wanted to see the reaction of the press. While serving time in prison, Norris and Bitteker came up with the idea of murdering and raping young girls, one for each year, ranging from 12 to 18. Lawrence Sigmund Bitteker was a 39-year-old parolee who had been released from the California men's colony at San Luis Obispo in November of 1978. He had served less than four years after pleading guilty to the lesser charge of assault with a deadly weapon, after stabbing a supermarket employee in the chest in an attempt to avoid an arrest for shoplifting. Bitteker had an extensive criminal record, having spent 18 of the prior 20 years in state custody for 11 separate convictions. Despite an IQ of 138, A $1,000 a week job as a skilled machinist, a psychiatric examination in 1975, had diagnosed Norris Bitteker with personality disorder, antisocial personality, severe.

Joseph Jackson was a friend of both Norris and Bitteker. Norris met Jackson while both were confined for rape convictions at a Tuscadero State Mental Hospital. After Norris and Bitteker got out of prison, they got together with Jackson. They started going around photographing young teenage girls, especially down in the Strand area.

Always crowded with teenage women, it would be the perfect location for Norris, Bideker, and Jackson to search out potential victims. In early November, Norris confided in Jackson that Norris and Bideker had actually murdered some of these young girls. Jackson became afraid for both his 13 and 17 year old daughters and for his own life.

He went to various law enforcement entities. Sheriff's Homicide had the position, please. Because Jackson couldn't provide the locations of any bodies.

Most of the law enforcement entities had no interest in his information. But the LAPD detective that was meeting with him said, well, look, you say these murders happened in the South Bay. Why don't you call the South Bay agencies and see if any of the police out there are interested?

Finally, he went to Paul Bynum of the Hermosa Beach Police Department. He was the first person to take Joseph Jackson's information seriously. The first thing that he did was that he decided to place Roy Norris under surveillance. And within a matter of days, Norris was observed loading baggies with marijuana in his Redondo Beach apartment. Because that was a parole violation, Norris was placed under arrest.

After Bitteker's arrest, his van was impounded. and an exhaustive search turned up numerous items of evidence, including a cassette tape. Norris presumed that he would eventually be charged with these crimes, so partially out of fear of the death penalty and partially out of guilt for what he had done, he agreed to accept a plea deal and testify against Lawrence Bitteker.

On the 28th of November, I received a call, and... Bynum told me that Roy Norris wanted to talk to me about some murders. I said, Roy Norris?

I know that name. And I said, let me see his rap sheet. And I looked at his rap sheet and I said, this is the guy that I convicted of forcible rape of a Torrance housewife in January of 1976. And he got a sentence of three years to life. And that means they let him out after three years.

He was in Atascadero State Mental Hospital for five years and was let out three months before raping the Torrance housewife. And the psychiatrist at Atascadero said, oh, he was fine, no problem, and so they let him out. Now, the reason he was in Atascadero, he had accosted a female student on the campus of San Diego State, didn't say a thing to her, walked up to her, knocked her to the ground, got on top of her, Took, grabbed her by the hair and started bashing her head into the concrete. First words out of Norris'mouth were, I'm going to plead to a second degree murder. That told me he was guilty of murder and just wanted to make a deal.

Went into the jury room, tape recorded about a three hour. The statement of Roy Norris, he proceeded to tell us about five murders. It was, you know, so detailed and so horrendous.

You have to understand in cases like this when you have two people that are participating in murder, I mean, who else is there? But those two people, and sometimes you have to rely on one of them and try and make your best determination as to which one is the least culpable and which one's telling the truth. The details of Norris'confession finally allowed Steve K.

to receive full support from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. I said, I've got to bring Sheriff's Homicide in on this. This is just too big a case for you guys that are most at the handle. This was a completely different type of murder case. Here, we knew who the guilty parties were, but we didn't have any bodies.

We found out, yeah, okay, we did have a body, Lynette Ledford, out in the Sunland Tujunga area. Notorious tape of Lynette Ledford was an actual recording of Norris and Bitteker violently assaulting her. This tape was so graphic that when Steve K. played it for each of Roy Norris'attorneys, one demanded that he shut it off.

And the other ran out of his office. One of the attorneys got up and ran out of the library, and I didn't see him for three months afterwards. And the other one asked me to please turn off the tape.

I feel that he did come forward and tell Joseph Jackson about the murders because he was feeling guilty, remorseful. So I took a plea to Norris, to all the charges. I wanted 50 to life. Of course, there was no question that if Norris testified that he was going to get out of the death penalty. As the result of his plea deal, Norris was willing to lead law enforcement to the locations of the bodies.

There are a lot of jurors that, if you're trying a murder case, they want to see the body of the victims. I went to Glendora Ridge Motorway and wanted Norris to point out where he and Bitteker had thrown Cindy Schaefer. Well, we didn't find anything as far as Cindy was concerned. We went down with members of the Sierra Madre search and rescue team and the area was overgrown and I had a doctor next to me and there was a trail of bones. He would say okay that's a femur here is a arm bone and there was a skull missing the lower jaw but had the upper teeth.

That turned out to be Leah Lamp, and we identified that from dental records. Then we found another skull. It was missing all teeth, but it had an ice pick embedded in it through where the ear canal would be. I figured after the mountain searches that we really weren't going to find anything more because we were having torrential rains.

Part of Glendora Mountain Road had even been washed out. There is no way that if we had come up a week later that we would have ever found the remains of Jackie and Leah because they just would have been washed away. After that, at the end of February, I filed all the murder charges.

Because of a conflict with the Public Defender's Office, Judge Thomas Fredericks asked Albert Garber, a prominent lawyer, to defend Lawrence Bitteker. Garber was the president of a local criminal defense attorneys association. This case is based primarily on the testimony of the co-defendant who obviously made a deal.

She spent the whole summer with us. Very warm. Very loving. He thought Cindy was just tops.

She told me when I invited her to come that she would like to be able to get a job and work through the summer. She interviewed for the job that she took. I drove her to St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church at the corner of Avenue D and Pacific Coast Highway to attend the Senior High Fellowship meeting.

I let her out of the car in front of the church at 7.25. As he was driving around the block, right, he told me about this young blonde walking up the northbound on the Pacific Coast Highway. She looked cute to him, about the right age and all.

16 or 17, and blonde. I prefer blondes. So Cindy Schaefer, after leaving the church, proceeded to this street, where she made a right turn. Bitteker and Norris basically proceeded to follow her.

They figured out the pathway she was taking. They parked at the bottom of the hill. So this is a police photograph of the site where Roy Norris actually abducted Cindy Schaefer.

Basically, the van was probably parked somewhere along here. Sure enough, a few minutes later, Cindy Schaefer proceeded down the sidewalk. Norris pretended to be working on a light switch, and Bittaker sat at the wheel of the van.

Well, it was my decision on whether or not to try and grab her and make her a victim. I waited for her to walk past me. She didn't, of course, didn't expect anything. She just walked right on by, ran behind her and grabbed her mouth. It's kind of eerie to look at this photograph and know that you're standing on the spot of something that's so terrible that happened.

The moment we were inside the van, Larry drove off in a hurry. Larry turned up the volume of the radio so that any screams would be drowned out by the radio itself. Norris taped her wrist to her ankle so she was face down on her stomach. She said her name was Cindy. I asked how old she was.

She said she was 15. I asked where she lived. She said she lived in Redondo Beach with her grandmother, and that her mother was in Mexico City. We're heading up into the Angeles National Forest, above the city of Glendora, California.

We're on the route that Bideker and Norris took to the sites where they murdered four out of five of their victims. Today we'll go to the exact spots and literally walk in the footsteps of not only Roy Norris and Lawrence Bitteker, but also their victims as well. Go to the sites themselves and you begin to wonder what was it like for them to actually go through this whole process.

We initially pulled up to the gate. Larry got out and unlocked the gate. I drove the van through the gate and around the first bend and stopped. So this is the fire road that Norris and Bitteker drove the van.

Norris said they took her out to the San Gabriel Mountains and they held her prisoner for the rest of the evening. By the time I thought she really ought to be home... It was late enough that I didn't call anyone because there wasn't anything they could do about it anyway at that time of the night. Imagine for a moment you're Cindy Schaefer. You're headed down this very fire road in the back of Lawrence Bitteker's van.

You're bound and gagged, and you have no idea what's going to happen to you. He came back to the van and told me to get in the back and get the girl ready. Well, undress her and tell her that she was going to get raped. She said she would do anything as long as we didn't hurt her. I finally started to delve more into the case.

I actually got a court transcript. None of it ever really seemed real to me until I got to this spot, this yellow firebox, which is described specifically in the court testimony. A small clearing near a yellow box, a metal box, I believe.

I think it's a fire hydrant. I'm not sure. He backed the van up, backed it up against this yellow firebox.

It was facing out on the fire road in case they had to make a rapid exit. They had a lengthy discussion as to who would be the first person to rape Cindy Schaefer. He suggested that I did because I was the one who took all the risk. I began my rape of Cindy.

The rest of the evening, they both raped her multiple times, and at some point, she figured that she was in deep trouble and asked Norris, are you going to kill me? Norris said, oh, no, no, no, we're going to give you some marijuana and everything will be cool. I tried to tell her I was sorry for what I had done or what we had done. I told her that we would pay her.

I wrote down my name on a sheet of paper and my address and phone number in case she would ever want anything that I could do to pay her back, you know. Norris and Bitteker got out of the van again, and together they had a 90-minute discussion, ultimately with Bitteker convincing Norris that, no, they couldn't spare Cindy Schaefer, they would have to kill her. She said...

If you're going to kill me, will you let me pray before you kill me? Well, they didn't even let her pray. The ticker lifted her off the ground so she couldn't get traction, and Norris came up and strangled her.

He saw her crying and gasping for breath, and he couldn't do it any longer, and he went over and threw up and had to pick up his false teeth out of his vomit. Whitaker got a coat hanger out of the back of the van, wrapped it around her neck, and then tightened it with vice grips to the point where he killed her, and the hanger cut into her throat. She had a guitar and was actually taking guitar lessons and had that Sunday during the day.

She had practiced her guitar and was on the bed with her music just as she had left it when she finished her practicing. She had a quart fruit jar almost full of nickels and dimes and pennies and even dollars that was on the top shelf in the closet of her bedroom. They drove the van to this spot. They opened the door, grabbed Cindy Schaefer's body, and with a heave-ho motion, tossed her into this canyon. Norris all of a sudden stopped.

And said, oh no, there was a girl and I don't even remember her name, but she didn't turn me on that much, so I don't even remember her name, but she was second. Norris and Bittaker's second victim was a girl by the name of Andrea Hall, who they picked up hitchhiking. On July 8th, we were on our way to the beach. Manhattan Beach at McDonald's is where we stopped and parked.

Andrea was going to go to Redondo Beach after we'd eaten. She was going to hitchhike. She was going to go on to Ray's house, her boyfriend's. They were out looking for victims again, and they saw this blonde hitchhiking on the other side of the street in front of a Kentucky colonel.

This is the spot where Lawrence Bideker decided that he wanted to get Andrea Hall into his van. Bideker and Norris were heading south on Sepulveda towards Manhattan Beach, and they spotted Andrea Hall standing right there in front of the Kentucky Fried Chicken, which is long gone. He told me to go and get in the back at that point. I went to the rear of the van, hid underneath the bed in the van, behind the green bedspread that was hanging all the way down to the floor. Larry continued to pull over and ask Andrea if she wanted a ride.

She said yes and got in. To signal Norris to take action, Bitteker would ask a potential victim if she wanted a cold drink from a cooler at the rear of the van. He finally asked her if she wanted something cold to drink.

Well, do you want to go back and get a cold drink? I got a cooler back there, and just help yourself. And she said, sure.

I was looking through the bedspread as much as I could see through it, and she opened the cooler and grabbed a drink of some type. I came from underneath the bedspread. She saw me.

She began to scream and made a mad dash for the front of the van. And she was fighting furiously, but Norris was large. She finally quit struggling, and she said she would do anything we wanted, as long as we didn't hurt her. They took her up again to the Glendora Mountain Road, to the Upper Monroe Truck Trail. Bitteker said, well, you know, since you were first last time, I want to be first this time.

Andrea Hall was raped in two separate locations in the hills above Glendora. Initially, Norris and Bitteker raped her while Bitteker photographed her with a Polaroid camera. He said he wanted to rape her again and take some more photos. I told him I wanted to get home earlier that night.

I had the night with Cindy. Norris was not happy about how late they were getting back sometimes because he said he would be really tired when he would go to work. Bitteker said, well, I'm not finished yet.

Norris drove Bitteker to another location. So drop me off here, and I'll call you on the walkie-talkie when I'm ready to have you pick me up. He told me to pull into a spot where you would park on the right side of the road. This is the mound where Norris left Lawrence Bitteker and Andrea Hall. He proceeded back down the road towards town while Andrea Hall and Lawrence Bitteker made their way up the side of this mound.

He got Andrea outside of the van and had her holding a lot of items. He opened up his toolbox and... took out the ice pick.

He made a motion for me to look at it, but not to say anything. He turned around and let her into a spot. Because she knew I worried about her and where she went to hitchhike, so she always called and let me know that she was okay, what she was doing.

She didn't call. This is the exact spot where Lawrence Bitteker took Andrea Hall, raped her again, and then killed her. He told me he was ready to be picked up, and he had already taken care of business. This time, when he came down to the van, Andrea wasn't with him.

Bideker showed Norris some more photographs that he had taken. It was on this spot that Lawrence Bitteker took his last two photographs of Andrea Hull. One of them looked like Andrea with a terrified expression on her face.

He was showing me that one and said, this is when I told her I was going to kill her. Another identically the same without the gag, and she had a look of desperation, I guess, on her face. Nora said, well, how did you get that expression on her face?

And Bitteker said, well, I told her that I was going to kill her, but that I would listen to any reasons that she gave why I shouldn't. He said she couldn't come up with too many reasons. After Lawrence Bitteker killed Andrea Hall, he picked up her body, walked to the edge of the canyon, and tossed her off the cliff.

August 29th was my daughter's 14th birthday. And we took all the kids and we went to Shakey's Pizza and then we came back to the house and Jackie and Leah were arguing over this little boy. So I finally went in the room and I said, Leah, honey, I said, you're going to have to go home because you guys are arguing.

And she lived two doors away. And then I felt so bad and I walked over to see Leah and I gave her a hug and a kiss. And I said, I love you, honey.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. And then also the same night, Jackie comes up to Chuck and I, and she gave us a hug, and she says, I love you guys.

She said, I wish you were my parents. They were just wonderful, sweet girls. My wife, Terri, talked about her friend Ingrid before we ever moved to California. Jackie was staying with those people because Terri Dichtel and Jackie's mom were best friends.

So this was like a pre-starting high school vacation. Jackie and Leah had been staying with us for a while. That particular morning, Jackie and Leah asked me if they could go head down to the beach.

And I asked them, I said, well, how are you going to get there? And they said, well, we'll take the bus. That was the last time I saw Jackie and Leah alive. They were in front of a bus stop bench on Pier Avenue.

They were obviously going to the beach. One had a beach towel, the other had a tapestry. The bus bench where Jackie and Leo were sitting was probably somewhere... right along here in this location.

And Norris and Bitteker were parked at that stoplight right over there on Pacific Coast Highway when they spotted Leah and Jackie. They pulled up, asked them if they wanted a ride down to the beach in their van. We pulled over to the bus stop where these girls were standing. I asked them if they wanted a ride, and they said yes. They got in the van right here, and they thought they were going down to the beach in that direction, but instead they were headed for something very different.

different. I got out of the van, opened the sliding door on the side, and they both jumped in on the floor. I shut the door.

Bitteker pulled away from the curb and started toward the beach on Pier Avenue. And when I lived in Hermosa Beach on my way to work, I would pass the spot every day and It would never fail to make me think about Jackie and Leah He nodded to me that the littlest one which was Jackie of course. He wanted her as a victim I wanted her as a victim.

Also. She looked young and cute. I asked the girls if they wanted anything to drink So I got out of the passenger seat Walked to the rear of the van where the cooler was at picked up up a homemade sap and struck Leah Lamp on the right side of her head. I swung pretty hard, I thought, and I expected her to be knocked out for a couple of hours, so I didn't put any real value on her at all as far as causing any problems, and I immediately grabbed Jackie. He turned the radio up.

Just in case, he stepped on the gas, turned a few corners I believe. Leah got up and made a mad dash for the side door. I yelled to Bitteker. He hit the brakes on the van and ran around the front of the van.

By that time, Leah had had the side door of the van open and... and was getting ready to jump out, and he hit her, punched her. She fell back inside.

She was screaming. I mean, she was hysterical. He told me when he got back in the van that he told these people that were watching from a tennis court that she was having a bad trip on acid.

She said, don't hurt me. I don't want to be hit again. I taped up Jackie and gagged her, and then I taped up Leah, and I gagged her.

When... When Bitteker and Norris kidnapped Leah and Jackie, it was a hot summer day. They drove back up into the mountains. Because it was so hot, they searched this road for a long period of time.

The van's air conditioning was on, but you wouldn't know it. We were looking for some shade, if possible. There was a large tree that gave shade in the early morning and part of the afternoon.

After hours of heading up Glendora Mountain Road, finally Bitteker and Norris came to this large shade tree. Bitteker backed up the van as far as he could in an attempt to get out of the hot sun. Here he would rape Jackie for the next two and a half hours while Norris photographed him with a Polaroid camera.

Jackie had a black eye and a swollen side of the face where Bittiger had hit her. He slapped her hard enough to leave a red impression on the side of her face. He told her that that was kind of to give her an idea of what would happen if he caught her in a lie. At that point, she said she wasn't 13, but 15. Bitteker said to her, well, I can see that you're in pain when I'm doing this, and, you know, feel free to express your agony.

And she said, well, you told me that I was supposed to act like I was enjoying it. He said, oh, no, that's okay. You know, scream your head off.

So Norris took these pictures, everything imaginable. I want you to take some pornographic pictures of me and Jackie. He just asked me to get the tape recorder, which I did.

He said he wanted to tape the raping of a virgin. This poor 13 year old had to watch all of this that was happening to Jackie and she was just in tears and shaking but they didn't rape her. She was quiet and every time I looked at her she looked like she was pleading or something with me. I didn't like to look at her. My daughter comes to me and she says, Mom, can I go ahead down to the beach and meet the girls?

I said, yeah, go ahead. We'll be right there. Well, she turns around and comes right back.

I said, Mom, they're not there. I said, what do you mean they're not there? So immediately we went down and we're looking for the girls.

We looked all over. We couldn't find them. We came back. We called the police.

And they wouldn't do anything. So again, at midnight, we called the police. They still wouldn't do anything. So I called Ingrid the next morning and I told her.

that her daughter was missing, and she came out, and her and I went to all the beaches, everywhere, looking. And I almost had a nervous breakdown. My in-laws were there, my ex-in-laws were coming to visit to see their grandchildren, and they were there, and I was just a total, I was a disaster. They were like my own children. With the sun going down....

Lawrence Bideker proceeded down this road. In the back, Jackie, her ankles bound, sat on a bed. Next to her was Leah, who had already watched Lawrence Bideker rape Jackie for several hours while Roy Norris photographed her with a Polaroid camera.

So these two decided that they were going to spend the night there and take turns sleeping and standing guard. We talked about her, the pain she had gone through, and we'd give her a period of time to rest. ...best before we raped her again.

We would get some sleep and he would sleep next to Jackie. He was testifying as if he was a mechanic changing the oil on your car. The girls disappeared. I had a horrible dream. I saw the devil, and I never had a dream like that.

Thinking they were only a couple hours from returning home, suddenly Jackie Gilliam and Leah Lamp got to this spot on the Upper Monroe Truck Trail. He told Bitteker, she's really tried to be very cooperative after you hit her, and we ought to let her go. He tried to talk him out of killing Jackie Gilliam.

As a matter of fact, Norris promised Jackie that he was going to buy her a moped so that she wouldn't have to hitchhike anymore and give her some money. He said he even wrote down his phone number for her to call. At one point in the evening, I suggested that if and when he killed her, to do it quickly, because she'd been so helpful.

in this whole thing. He said he didn't really see any reason for doing it quickly since they only die once anyway. This is where Bitteker parked the van.

Norris, knowing what was going to happen next, got out of the van, headed down the road in this direction. Bitteker got a pair of vice grips and an ice pick and started to torture Jackie Gilliam. Norris was able to hear Jackie scream almost 50 feet away from the van. Norris returned to the van.

And saw Bideker would remove Jackie to the side of the road, strangling her. After Jackie had died, Bideker returned, opened the door of the van, and got Leah, who had been passed out on the bed from sleeping pills, and escorted her, saying that this is the last time you'll leave the van before we take you home. Instead, Bitteker took a sledgehammer and hit her in the back of the head. When she fell down, he picked her up and started to strangle her. Norris continued to hit her with the sledgehammer.

Bitteker and Norris took Leah to the edge of this cliff and threw her. They then returned to Jackie's body, dragged her over, and threw her off. Norris and Bitteker then got back into the van and returned to their homes. The next day, they would return to work after their Labor Day holiday.

The last victim was on Halloween. She worked at McDonald's up on Foothill Boulevard. Her and her brother had dinner up there, and then I brought her home.

It was Halloween night, and she was going to a Halloween party. She'd been dressed in a Halloween costume, but didn't want to wear one at night. So she just wore her Levi's and a dark long-sleeve shirt. At about seven o'clock, I took her over to her friend Ruth Torres'house.

We went to a party around 8 o'clock for two hours, and we got a ride with some people at the party, two boys. They went to the gas station. They asked for money, so I gave it to them. They wanted money from Lynette, but she didn't have any money, so they got into an argument, and she left the car.

Lynette Ledford was hitchhiking home from a Halloween party when she was picked up by Lawrence Bitteker. Then we were on our way back to the motel and some girl yelled out, Hey, and Larry looked out of his driver's window because she was on that side of the road, slowed down real fast and burned a U-turn and we went back. Asked if she wanted a ride and she said, yeah.

Lynette told him where she lived, then at some point, instead of going that direction, Bideker pulled off of the main street. We continued the same direction she was going. She told him to turn left at one point at an intersection, which we did. The pavement ran out, and it became a dirt road.

And almost immediately as we got onto the dirt, Larry hit the brakes on the van. They ended up in a dirt field. Bitteker grabbed her from the passenger seat and threw her in the back on top of Norris, knocking Norris over.

And then Bitteker followed. Bitteker had a knife out, pounced on her, told Norris to go up and drive. I was told to get into the driver's seat and drive. Try to get onto freeway. I got on the freeway.

I turned the radio on and he came up front a few minutes after I had done that and turned the radio down real low and he got his tape recorder. He raped her, tape recording a lot of it, and she said, please don't hurt me anymore, please don't hit me. And then he traded places with Norris, and Norris raped her.

Norris wanted to know why she wasn't screaming the way she was with Bitteker, so Norris took that sledgehammer that he had used on Leah, started hitting Lynette in the elbow. Making her scream, constantly hitting her like as hard as he could. Bitteker said to Norris, well look, I've really killed all the others and you haven't killed anybody so why don't you kill her? Norris agreed and he took a coat hanger the way Bitteker had used it around Cindy's neck and tightened it. And when we found her body...

We could see that the coat hanger was tightened to about the size of a silver dollar. Bitteker said, hey, wouldn't it be cool to throw her body in somebody's front yard? They came to this spot where they then dumped her body to see how the local media would react.

Norris pulled Lynette's nude body out and threw it into the front ivy bed. Now Norris, in talking to us that first time, told us that he and Bitteker killed Lynette together. That they both choked her.

tighten the coat hanger around Lynette's neck. But later on, he admitted that, no, really, he had killed her. The tape that we found in Bideker's van, which is just the most awful thing that you could ever hear, the tape reaches down inside you and pulls out your insides, listening to a 16-year-old girl getting tortured.

It's just so haunting. The jurors were just in absolute shock. It was the most devastating testimony the jury has heard, the agonizing screams of teenager Lynette Ledford as she was being tortured in a moving van.

A spectator rushed from the courtroom. It was more than she could stand. I remember there was a courtroom artist got up and ran out of the courtroom.

The tape recording lasted 11 minutes. I've heard screams before, but I've never heard anything like that in my life. My most prominent memory was of Paul Bynum being on the witness stand. Paul was a man who loved women. He put women on a pedestal.

He had a mental breakdown because of the brutality of this case, and he was just ashamed to be a man. You've heard it, obviously, several times before, and it still seems to affect you, obviously, quite deeply. I went out into the hallway, the cameras came up, and just in my head, Paul and the poor girls...

And I knew that they were all tortured, but... So I just, I lost it. I broke down.

I just pictured those girls and how alone they were when they died. I'm sorry. In his opening statement, the prosecutor told the jurors the tape would give them some idea of what hell is like.

He was right. There were two highlights of the cross-examination, and I was worried about the cross-examination because here was a guy with 138 IQ, and I thought, oh, this is going to be tough. But it turned out he has 138 IQ, but he has no common sense. So I asked him the question.

I said, well, now, Mr. Bitteker, you've been in court and you heard the tape of Lynette Ledford. What was happening to cause her to scream? He said, oh, that was just pillow talk. Did he say that was just pillow talk?

And, of course, there were catcalls from the audience, like, you've got to be kidding. He was saying that, in effect, this was foreplay. And then the second thing, Nora said that Bitteker told him that he buried some tapes.

So I figured that probably was the tape involving Jackie. I wanted to get those. And I said, okay, Mr. Bitteker, I want you to show us on the map where you buried the tape or tapes and the photographs. And Bitteker then said, well, I'm going to take the fifth. The judge says, well, if you take the fifth, I'm going to strike all of your testimony.

So you better decide if you're going to answer the question. Of course, I didn't want his testimony stricken, especially not with the cross-examination. He looked at the map again, and he said, I don't remember.

He was a dead duck after that. The cross-examination of Bitteker, if I had any doubt about what the jurors were going to do before, after the cross-examination, I had no doubt that they were going to convict him. Like all new arrivals to death row, Lawrence Bitteker would spend several weeks in one of the three structures that houses condemned prisoners, the Adjustment Center. Here he was classified for permanent assignment and not deemed a serious security threat or a senior member of a criminal gang. Permanent assignment to the Adjustment Center involves residents in 5 by 9 foot cells that are enclosed with wire mesh.

No natural lighting and very limited contact with other human beings. Allow for only three showers and two hour-long exercise periods a week in 12 by 8 foot wire enclosed cages. Although it is possible to eventually be sent to the North Segregation Unit, an area housing approximately 100 of the least troublesome condemned, like most inmates, Bitteker was sent to the 500-cell East Block, a modest improvement over the Adjustment Center. Every morning at approximately 6 a.m., Lawrence Bitteker will be awakened by the sounds of guards serving breakfast from a metal cart on each of the East Block's five tiers. Prisoners eat breakfast and dinner in their cells.

Lunch is a paper sack containing a sandwich and sandwich. some type of fruit served at about 11 o'clock. At approximately 7 a.m., those prisoners who wish to may ask to be allowed out into one of six exercise yards.

They must first be strip-searched and shackled, a condition which causes many prisoners to remain in their cells. Because of hostility from other inmates, Bitteker never leaves his cell, except for a shower in a converted area of his tier. If and when he does leave, he is classified as a walk-alone.

a prisoner who was escorted by two armed guards because of notoriety among the prison population. Usually, he will spend his time with books from the prison library, legal documents, or mostly watching a 13-inch Zenith color television purchased for him from a prison-approved vendor. Death row prisoners are not allowed to work and do not engage in any form of rehabilitation.

They may spend up to $190 a month in the prison canteen, but this money can only be provided by outsiders, typically friends or family. Bitteker's parents died in the 80s, and he has no family, so any visits are an extremely rare occurrence. There is no air conditioning, internet, or conjugal visits, and although Bitteker was legally married early in his confinement, his spouse filed for a divorce four years later. Regulations and a physical description cannot really adequately describe Lawrence Bitteker's current residence. An inmate once commented, imagine a place that reeks of stale sweat, echoes with constant yelling, and swarms with anger.

This is a madhouse. This is insane. There's no warmth and there's no emotion, only hatred.

By the end of 1981, when Lawrence Bitteker arrived on death row, there were 80 condemned inmates in California. By 1989, the year his appeal was finally adjudicated. This number had increased to 247. By 1992, the year that California carried out its first execution in 25 years, this number had swelled to 345. This accumulation was the result of an ongoing struggle between the general public and various elements within the judicial process. Twice, in 1972 and 1976, the California Supreme Court invalidated the state's death penalty, permanently overturning death sentences for 177 individuals, including Charles Manson and Sirhan Sirhan.

Both times, the public overwhelmingly approved referendums, restoring capital punishment in a legally acceptable form. While the voting public had made its preference clear, the California Supreme Court continued to generate controversy over appeals involving capital punishment. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Rose Byrd, became a lightning rod for controversy and for public outrage concerning the death penalty. Of the 61 death penalty cases reviewed during her tenure, 58 were overturned with Chief Justice Byrd voting to overturn all 61. Because of the circumstances of her appointment by Governor Jerry Brown, Rose Byrd had to stand for re-approval by the voters in 1986, an election that effectively became a referendum on the death penalty.

The voters not only voted to remove Justice Byrd by a landslide, they also voted to remove two other justices who had routinely voted with her to overturn death sentences. Unfortunately for Lawrence Bideker, his automatic appeal to the Supreme Court was not heard until after Rose Byrd had been removed. On June 22, 1989, the court unanimously affirmed Bideker's conviction and death penalty, and an execution date was set for December 29, 1989. When Bideker appealed his conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court, this execution date was automatically stayed. After the Supreme Court refused to hear his case, another execution date was set for July 23, 1991, but this would be stayed when Bitteker petitioned the U.S.

Federal District Court for the opportunity to find another attorney. In all, Bitteker would have three execution dates set for him, but he would successfully avoid all three. Lawrence Bitteker was now firmly ensconced in the Twilight Zone process between the state and federal courts relative to the death penalty. Once a convicted criminal had had his conviction affirmed at the state level, he could then file what is known as a petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

It's the ability of a person who's been convicted to get relief on the grounds that they're being held in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States. I've been teaching for 32 years. I've written many things about habeas corpus. I also continue to handle appellate cases and have frequently argued appeals in the context of people whose habeas corpus petitions were denied. The California Supreme Court has discretionary jurisdiction, except in death penalty cases.

Death cases go right from the California Superior Court to the California Supreme Court. After the California Supreme Court decides, a matter can go to the U.S. Supreme Court. But you've also got the federal court system.

And somebody who's been convicted in state court and exhausted their state appeals can go to federal district court and file a writ of habeas corpus. If they lose in the federal district court... And they get a certificate of appealability, they can go to the United States Court of Appeals, and then they can ask the Supreme Court review. Lawrence Bitteker would not restrict himself to merely pursuing his criminal appeal.

Beginning in 1983, representing himself, he would begin filing numerous civil lawsuits, typically against prison authorities for what were ostensibly constitutional infringements. This continued litigation would draw the attention of at least one national publication and cause the trial court in 1993 to impose upon Lawrence Bittaker the official status of vexatious litigant. Bitteker appealed that ruling to the California State Appeals Court, claiming that his status as a vexatious litigant had nothing to do with his criminal appeal. Since this was an important legal issue, nothing could proceed regarding Bitteker's execution until this appeal was considered.

It would not be until 1997 that, in fact, Bitteker would be allowed to continue his criminal appeals, the appellate court ruling that the status of vexatious litigant only applies to civil and not criminal proceedings. Bitteker would not fully exhaust his state habeas corpus remedies for his criminal appeal until November 29th, 2000. By the end of 2000, 589 condemned prisoners would reside on California's death row. Bitteker's federal habeas corpus appeal, now essentially riding on issues involving ineffective counsel in his original trial, could then continue. But this presented another complicated legal circumstance when the state of California unsuccessfully attempted to void Bitteker's attorney-client privilege in any retrial.

It would not be until late 2003 that Albert Garber, Steve Kay, and several other individuals would even be deposed on the ineffective counsel issues. Al Garber was a very talented criminal defense attorney, very well respected in the legal community. I thought he was excellent in the trial.

I mean, he really held my feet to the fire. The problem that we have now is the defense in federal court, they're trying to say that Mr. Garber was incompetent. Well, he clearly wasn't incompetent.

He was more than competent. When they took his deposition, Mr. Garber was 88 years old at the time. He didn't even remember who Lawrence Bitteker was. For two years, even the contents of these depositions would be the subject of legal bickering. But throughout this process, the federal district court judge, William M. Byrne, seemed determined to bring this lengthy case to a logical conclusion.

Although the Bitteker process crept along slowly, there was activity. This would all change suddenly. On January 12, 2006, Judge William Matthew Byrne died at the age of 75. This meant that Lawrence Bitteker's appeals in the federal court system would have to be assigned to a new judge, and lawyers for the defense and the state of California would have to resubmit legal briefs summarizing the case.

Once again, the process ground to a halt. Only a month later, another death row inmate's case would have an even greater impact on capital punishment in the state of California. On February 21st, 2006, a convicted rapist and killer named Michael Morales was scheduled to be executed by the state of California.

Only hours away from the lethal injection process, the state announced that it could not comply with the medical guidelines imposed upon it by a federal district judge, and the execution was canceled. Following several hearings in 2006, this judge, Jeremy Fogle, citing concerns over the lethal injection process, issued a moratorium on all executions in the state of California. He demanded, among other things, that the state commission and pay for a scientific study to determine if lethal injection causes any pain to the individual being executed. Although this moratorium was officially only decreed for several months, it would be periodically extended and clearly would halt any executions in California for many years.

Despite several death row inhabitants having already exhausted their appeals, They cannot be executed as long as Judge Vogel's moratorium remains in place. Since the reintroduction of capital punishment in 1978, only 13 individuals have been executed in California. I would strongly support an initiative to repeal the death penalty in California.

I think that one of the key problems is administered in such an arbitrary and equitable way. Where did the crime happen? What was the race of the defendant? What was the race of the victims? I don't think who lives and who dies should be...

Also, we know of so many errors in the criminal justice system. People being wrongly convicted and sentenced to death, even though they were actually innocent. We shouldn't impose the ultimate punishment when it's irreversible, and we know the system is so often flawed. You have to remember that the voters of California in 1978 voted in the death penalty law by a wide margin and that's the death penalty law that's still in effect today. So for me...

It's not a question of expense. It's a question of justice. I don't think that you can take it away from the voters.

My position on the death penalty is a little different from a lot of... of prosecutors, I believe that the death penalty should be used only in a small number of cases that are so horrible that for us to exist as a society, we have to say that we absolutely will not condone this activity. People like Bitteker and Manson, they don't deserve to spend their last years in a retirement community at the taxpayers'expense. As of February 2012, there are 722 condemned inmates on death row at San Quentin.

Because the death penalty was reinstated in California by a popular referendum... It can only be repealed by another referendum. In 2012, a petition drive began to place such a referendum on the November 2012 ballot to repeal the death penalty. The 2012 referendum would convert all death sentences, including Lawrence Bitteker's, retroactively to life without parole. In 2009, Roy Norris received his first mandatory parole hearing.

Because he opted not to attend, he is not eligible for another parole hearing until the year 2019. Currently, he is incarcerated at the state prison facility at Corcoran, California. In 2006, a new judge, Federal District Court Judge Terry Hatter, was appointed to handle the federal habeas corpus appeal of Lawrence Bitteker. The state of California and Bitteker's publicly funded defense attorneys had to take an entire year to resubmit legal briefs.

As of February 2012, almost six years later, Justice Hatter has not held a single meaningful proceeding in the Bitteker case. Even if a referendum changing Bitteker's death sentence to life without parole fails, Most court observers believe that Lawrence Bitteker will die of natural causes long before he is even close to execution. I didn't, wasn't sleeping much in the trial and when I did sleep I would have this recurring nightmare. I would hear the girls screaming and I would be running to save them and I would always get there too late. I'd wake up and I'd be in a cold sweat and I had that same recurring nightmare for two years after the trial.

I, you know, it's still hard to this day to relive it. Five years after the case was over, Paul Bynum committed suicide, and he left a note saying that he felt that someday Norris and Bideker would get out, that Bideker would come after him. He thought that if he killed himself, that they would leave his wife and daughter alone.

Transcript for:The Horrific Bitteker-Norris Murders

Transcript for:
The Horrific Bitteker-Norris Murders