Roy Norris

Case record: Roy Norris

Status and sentence

Roy Norris was sentenced to 45 years to life, with parole possible after thirty years, on March 18, 1980. Norris was denied parole in 2009 and was eligible again in another ten years.

Background

At 17, Roy Norris dropped out of school and joined the Navy. He spent most of his service stationed in San Diego and served four months in Vietnam, where he saw no combat. After returning to San Diego, Norris was arrested on November 1969 for attempted rape. Three months later, while out on bail before his trial, Norris was arrested again after he had tried to attack a woman in her home, with police arriving before he could harm her. Norris was discharged from the Navy for psychological problems.

In May 1970, while still out on bail, Norris attacked a female student on the San Diego State University campus. He had jumped the woman from behind, hit her on the head with a rock, and then slammed her head several times on the concrete. The woman survived, and Norris was only charged with assault with a deadly weapon. Norris was sent to Atascadero State Hospital as a sex offender and spent five years there. When released, he was considered no further danger to others.

Three months after his release, Norris attacked and raped a 27-year-old woman. Norris was convicted of forcible rape and was sent to the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo, where he met and befriended Lawrence Sigmund Bittaker.

Norris claims that Bittaker saved his life twice in prison, which bound him to Bittaker according to the “prisoner’s code”.

Investigation and arrests

Norris was told and supported the plan to kidnap, torture, rape, and murder teenage girls after meeting and befriending Bittaker at the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo. Bittaker bought a 1977 GMC cargo van, which they called “Murder Mack,” because it had no side windows in the back and a large passenger side sliding door.

From February to June 1979, the pair tested their plan by driving along the Pacific Coast Highway, stopping at beaches, talking to girls, and taking their pictures. When they were arrested, police found close to 500 pictures among Bittaker’s possessions. Two named victims from this period were victims of subsequent kidnappings and murders, and multiple victims were described as missing.

Victim incidents attributed to the pair

On June 24, 1979, the pair kidnapped and killed 16-year-old Cindy Schaeffer. Norris forced her into the van. They duct taped her mouth and bound her arms and legs. Bittaker drove the van to a fire road on San Gabriel Mountains out of sight of the highway. Both men raped the girl. Bittaker wrapped a straightened wire coat hanger around her neck and tightened it with vise-grip pliers, strangling her to death. They wrapped her body in a plastic shower curtain and dumped it in a nearby canyon.

On July 8, 1979, they picked up 18-year-old Andrea Hall hitchhiking. Norris hid in the back of the van and Bittaker talked her into the van. After she had gotten in, Bittaker offered her a drink from a cooler in the back. When she went to the cooler, Norris jumped her, bound her arms and legs, and taped her mouth shut. They took her to the fire road and raped her several times. Bittaker dragged her from the van, and Norris left to get beer. When Norris returned, Hall was gone and Bittaker was looking at Polaroid pictures of her. Bittaker had stabbed her with an ice pick in both ears and strangled her. He threw her body over a cliff.

On September 3, 1979, while driving near Hermosa Beach, the pair spotted two girls on a bus stop bench and offered them a ride. Jackie Gilliam, 15, and Leah Lamp, 13, accepted. The girls became suspicious when Bittaker parked the van near a suburban tennis court. Lamp went for the back door, and Norris hit her in the head with a bat. A scuffle broke out, and with Bittaker’s help Norris subdued the teens and bound them both. Bittaker then drove them to the fire road. They kept the girls alive for two days, raping and torturing them the whole time with a wire hanger and pliers. They made an audio recording of the events. Eventually Bittaker stabbed Gilliam in both ears with an ice pick. When she did not succumb, both men took turns strangling her until she died. Bittaker then strangled Lamp while Norris hit her in the head with a sledgehammer seven times. The bodies were dumped over a cliff with the ice pick still in Gilliam’s head.

On September 30, 1979, they kidnapped Shirley Sanders. They sprayed her with mace and forced her into the van. Both raped her, but she escaped. Police had showed her pictures of the men, and she identified the men as Lawrence and Roy.

On October 31, they kidnapped 16-year-old Lynette Ledford. They raped and tortured her while driving around Los Angeles instead of heading to their usual mountain spot. Bittaker stabbed the young girl several times and also tortured her with pliers. Her screams and pleas were tape-recorded as Bittaker repeatedly beat her elbows with a sledgehammer, demanding that she not stop screaming. He eventually strangled her with a wire hanger, using the pliers to twist a loop around her throat. Instead of tossing her body over a cliff, they left it on a random lawn in Hermosa Beach to see the local reaction in the newspaper. The body was found the next day.

At the time of the Ledford discovery, it occurred “only days since the arrest of ‘Hillside Strangler’ Angelo Buono.”

Arrest, trial, and plea

Roy Norris told prison friend Jimmy Dalton all about the murders. Dalton thought the stories were lies until Ledford’s body was found. Dalton talked to his lawyer and they went to the Los Angeles Police Department with information about Norris.

At the trial, both Norris and Bittaker were charged with murder, kidnapping, forcible rape, sexual perversion, and criminal conspiracy. Norris was sentenced after he cooperated.

At a preliminary hearing in Hermosa Beach, Norris offered an apology “for my insanity,” and he started telling officers tales of murder. Norris also told officers that girls had been approached at random, photographed by Bittaker, and offered rides, free marijuana, and jobs in modeling. Norris described that most turned the offers down, while others were abducted forcibly and driven to a remote mountain fire road for sessions of rape and torture. Norris also provided evidence through a tour with deputies and search and rescue personnel.

At one point in custody, Norris led Detective Bynum, Steve Kay, and members of the Sierra Madre Search and Rescue Team on a tour of the San Gabriel murder sites. They found Leah Lamp and Jackie Gilliam, with Bittaker’s ice pick still buried in Gilliam’s ear, but no trace was found of Cindy Schaeffer or Andrea Hall.

On March 18, 1980, Norris pled guilty on five counts of murder, turning state’s evidence against his friend. In return for his cooperation, Norris received a sentence of 45 years to life, with parole possible after thirty years.

Trial and sentencing of Lawrence Bittaker (context)

Bittaker was convicted on February 17, 1981 of rape, torture, kidnapping, and murder and was sentenced to death. At trial, on February 5, 1981, Bittaker testified that Norris first informed him of the murders after their arrest in 1979. A jury chose to disbelieve this testimony and returned a guilty verdict on February 17. On March 24, in accordance with the jury’s recommendation, Bittaker was sentenced to die. The judge imposed an alternate sentence of 199 years and four months, to take effect if Bittaker’s death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

Other details

Norris and Bittaker were described as having kidnapped, tortured, raped, and murdered five young women over a period of five months in California in 1979: Cindy Schaeffer, Andrea Hall, Jackie Gilliam, Leah Lamp, Shirley Sanders, and Lynette Ledford were named within the narrative of the murders, and a total of five counts of murder was used for Norris’s guilty plea.

The case description included discussion of parole and death row status for Bittaker. As of February 2008, Bittaker was still on death row and received mail, signing using his nickname “Pliers.”