Couples Who Kill

by Carol Anne Davis

  The police now brought Roy Norris in on a parole violation charge as they had seen him selling marijuana. After all, they couldn’t yet charge him with the murders as it was just one ex-con’s word. Equally keen to keep Lawrence Bittaker in custody, they charged him with raping the victim who had escaped. Bittaker kept quiet in jail as he had the classic psychopathic mindset and believed he was invincible – but Norris soon began to talk.

  Roy Norris’s slant on the case

  Norris portrayed himself as the terrified victim of his friend. He said that Lawrence Bittaker enjoyed being totally in control – and that he, Roy, was increasingly afraid of him. He allegedly feared for his life, saying that the man could strangle him at any time. Roy Norris admitted that he enjoyed the sex but said that it hadn’t been part of the original plan to kill the girls, that Bittaker had insisted on this after they’d raped Cindy Schaeffer, arguing that they must not leave any witnesses. Norris claimed that he’d argued in Cindy’s favour for an hour (which was remarkably brave, considering he was supposed to be terrified of Bittaker) and that he had vomited when ‘forced’ to help strangle the teenager. He added that he was still haunted by the victim’s face.

  But audiotapes were found which told a different tale. The victims were heard begging for mercy whilst Roy Norris tortured them with a hammer, making one of them pretend to be a cousin whom he’d had sexual fantasies about. He hit one victim repeatedly with a hammer on the elbow, urging her to ‘scream…keep it up, girl…scream till I say stop.’ Bittaker was also heard taunting a victim as he used pliers on her nipples whilst she screamed and begged to die. Hardened detectives were so shocked at what they heard on these tapes that they couldn’t stop shaking and some were sent home after becoming physically ill.

  Roy Norris now talked nonstop in an effort to save his own skin. He also took detectives to sites where they’d dumped the corpses. The first two victims had disappeared, probably eaten by animals, but they found the skeletons of Jackie Gilliam and Leah Lamp. (They already had Shirley Ledford’s body as it had been dumped on a suburban lawn.) Jackie Gilliam’s skull still had an icepick embedded in it which backed up Norris’s account.

  Bittaker and Norris were now jointly charged with five counts of murder, rape and kidnapping – but Norris testified against Bittaker in return for immunity from the death penalty. When Bittaker heard his friend’s confession on tape he was visibly shocked but told detectives that he had nothing to say to them. All that they could do for now was take him back to his cell. Whilst observing him there, they saw proof of his photographic memory for he could read and memorise an entire book in an hour. They also gave him the test that’s given to potential prison guards and he got the highest score in the history of the tests.

  Norris’s sentence

  Legal proceedings against Roy Norris were straightforward as he pleaded guilty. He was given forty-five years to life which he is currently serving at the Pelican Bay Maximum Security facility in California.

  Bittaker’s sentence

  At his trial on 5th February 1981, Lawrence Bittaker declared that Roy Norris had been the mastermind – but the tapes were played and they proved that Bittaker had been at least equally active. Incredibly, he suggested that the taped torture sessions were merely consensual rough play, in his own words ‘pillow talk’. The prosecutor broke down in tears twice whilst listening to the tapes and a female court reporter ran sobbing from the courtroom. The jury was also in tears. The only person unaffected by the tapes was Lawrence Bittaker who smiled throughout.

  One torture victim had screamed ‘kill me’ and he suggested that this was sexual role-play. There was disbelieving laughter in court at his assertion and after three days of deliberation (it took this long because there were so many charges against him) the jury recommended death. The judge agreed and Lawrence Bittaker received the death sentence on 24th March 1981. Shortly afterwards he joined several other torture-killers on California’s Death Row.

  The myths

  The Bittaker-Norris murders are amongst the most shocking of the twentieth century, but, as with most team killing cases, they have attracted their share of myths. Several reporters have written that the victims were tortured to death on tape, creating snuff tapes. This simply isn’t true – two of the victims were kept captive for three days, yet the longest torture tape lasts for eighteen minutes. None of the actual deaths were recorded on tape. Indeed, the couple tried to hide the torture evidence by recording it in the middle of music tapes, hoping that the casual listener wouldn’t play the tapes to the end.

  It’s also been said that all of the victims were hitchhikers; in other words, perfect victims. Again, this wasn’t true. Cindy Schaeffer was on her way back to her grandmother’s and vehemently refused a lift from the two men. She was portrayed in one documentary as wearing tiny shorts and a close-fitting T-shirt whereas in truth she was dressed conservatively as she was on her way home from a Christian youth group. And the youngest two victims, Jackie Gilliam and Leah Lamp, had just sat down near a bus stop to have a chat.

  However the most abiding myths are about which man did what – and why…

  The deadly dynamics

  Over the years many crime writers have portrayed Bittaker as the strong lead and Norris as his weak and reluctant follower. Superficially Bittaker was indeed the instigator in that he wrote to Norris suggesting they meet up again and it was he who bought the van. But Norris was the one with the history of sexual assaults who, as a solo rapist, didn’t take no for an answer. Prior to meeting Bittaker, he had tried to enter a woman’s apartment by ringing her bell and asking to use the phone but she refused him. Undaunted, he then began to batter at her lounge window, carrying out this violent act in broad daylight. By now the terrified woman had phoned the police. Meanwhile Roy Norris hurried to the rear of the house and entered through her kitchen window. Thankfully the San Diego police arrived before he could carry out a sexual assault.

  He showed further brutality during the rape at Redondo Beach, pouncing on a stranger in the street and using her scarf to semi-strangle her. And he’d battered a previous female victim about the head with a stone.

  In contrast, Lawrence Bittaker’s criminal career was mostly theft-based though he’d hit strangers with a speeding car and had stabbed a shop assistant who tried to prevent him stealing a packet of meat.

  And Roy Norris didn’t immediately confess when an ex-con told the authorities of the five murders. Instead, he initially played word games with the police. It was only when he realised they knew the full story that he confessed to being a reluctant participant – and he did so to save his own life. The police noted that he showed little emotion during these interviews, even when describing exactly what the victims had endured.

  The photo that is usually shown of Norris depicts a smiling, slightly boyish looking man with receding hair and a moustache – but his prison photo shows a cold-eyed man with a grim-set mouth and a shaved head. It’s a face devoid of humanity, the face that his victims saw before they died.

  Update

  FBI agents John Douglas and Mary Ellen O’Toole interviewed Lawrence Bittaker at San Quentin and noted that, throughout the lengthy interview, he refused to make eye-contact with the female Special Agent. He wept when describing the crimes – but John Douglas believes that he was weeping for himself.

  He continues to cost the taxpayer money, filing risible legal suits against the prison. One of his complaints was that he was given a soggy sandwich and that this constituted cruel and unusual punishment. On another occasion he sued after being given a broken cookie. As he’s entitled to legal aid, each of these lawsuits cost the state of California thousands of dollars and untold time.

  Unlikely as it may seem, both men have become pin-ups for the lost and the lonely. Lawrence Bittaker (now in his sixties) occasionally signs letters to fans with his self-chosen nickname, Pliers. A gifted artist (childhood trauma often shapes creative adults), he makes and sells intricate pop-up and pe
rsonalised greeting cards. Such is the demand for serial killer memorabilia that his toenail clippings were recently offered on an internet auction site. Bittaker remains bitter and cynical, offering to sell copies of his victims’ autopsy reports to the highest bidder and adding that he’ll autograph them.

  Not to be outdone, a dealer acting on behalf of Roy Norris has offered clippings of his hair, his handprints and his drawings on the same auction website. Roy Norris alleges he has yet to be paid by this man. Meanwhile, he tries to persuade his fans to send him videos of commercial films which include torture scenes.

  Andy Kahan, the director of a crime victims division in Texas, has written eloquently about the horrors of such murderabilia, urging ‘say no to killers making money off the innocent victims they brutally murdered.’ But so far it remains legal for serial killers to profit from their notoriety.

  It’s well over twenty years since Lawrence Bittaker was sentenced to death yet he’s still alive – and enjoying games of bridge with other serial killers – in San Quentin. He continues to extract money from the gullible by telling them that he’ll memorise messages to their dead loved ones and take them over to ‘the other side.’

  Meanwhile, Roy Norris continues to perpetuate the myth that he was a good guy terrorised by a bad man, proudly telling criminologists ‘I’m the one that fessed up.’ He will be eligible for parole in 2010.

  2 MOTHER KNOWS BEST

  FRANCES & MARC SCHREUDER

  It is rare for a middle-aged mother and her teenage son to conspire to commit a murder – especially when that murder is of the woman’s septuagenarian father. But in 1978 Frances and Marc Schreuder would do just that.

  Frances Bernice Schreuder

  Frances was born on 6th April 1938, the fourth child of Bernice and Franklin Bradshaw. Franklin, a self-made man, had worked both hard and smart for many years so now owned thirty-one auto-part stores plus oil and gas leases. Bernice wanted them to enjoy the money but Franklin preferred to save and bought himself thrift shop clothes. He loved the Wall Street Journal but wasn’t willing to pay for it so would drive to a friend’s house once a week and collect free back copies. She wanted to travel but he preferred to work a sixteen-hour day.

  Franklin was a Mormon who had located the family in Utah’s Salt Lake City. His wife was a freethinker who resented being surrounded by what she saw as a Mormon clique. They would argue, and Franklin, who hated discord, would rush off to the warehouse and not return until his wife was in bed asleep. As they rarely saw each other, the couple were reduced to writing each other acrimonious notes. Left alone most days with her equally unhappy offspring, Bernice frequently urged them to take her side rather than their absent father’s. She would later admit that she’d never wanted children and would have had all four aborted if it had been legal in those days.

  Bernice had a breakdown soon after giving birth to Frances, so Frances was initially raised by one of her older sisters. She would later tell friends that she was the child that no one wanted – but her siblings felt equally cut adrift. Her older brother was diagnosed as schizophrenic and became so violent that the couple arranged for him to have a frontal lobotomy which robbed him of his personality. They put him in a state home where he was rarely visited and would die at age thirty-nine.

  Frances was a prettily-dressed and intelligent child but she missed her mother. A neighbour would say that ‘her eyes never smiled’. She demanded attention from everyone she met but was never satisfied.

  With hindsight, it’s clear that she was beginning to suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, a syndrome which develops when a child is ignored by his or her parents. Such infants have been made to feel unimportant during the early months of life and this leaves them with a strong sense of injury. They have a desperate need to be recognised, to be someone, yet they retain the emotional age of a very young child.

  When her mother recovered she gave Frances gifts, probably to ameliorate the guilt she felt for not being there for her during her infancy. She hoped that Frances would become a famous child ballet dancer but Frances didn’t make the grade.

  The little girl had increasingly strong mood-swings and temper tantrums. Onlookers would later say that her whole body looked as if it was crying out to be hugged and nurtured. Her mother still suffered from depression and Frances had to go to her dad’s warehouse if she wanted to see him at all.

  As a teenager, she worked briefly for him before she started college and though her co-workers were impressed at the hours she worked, they also found her very domineering and somewhat strange.

  Frances went off to college where she bought endless clothes and makeup and went out to bars with friends. But an incident that has never been made public occurred at college and she was suspended. The college strongly recommended that she have psychiatric treatment but her parents hated doctors and tried to play down the situation. As an adult, she (and later her sons) would have psychiatric treatment on and off for many years.

  The first marriage

  On 9th January 1959 Frances married an older man named Vittorio Gentile who was a pearl magnate. The couple relocated to New York. But she was increasingly jealous about any time he spent away from the home and the marriage soon became violent on both sides. He would later admit to slapping her across the face when she went into hysterical convulsions. That summer she took an overdose, the first of many suicide attempts.

  Marc Schreuder

  On 6th February 1960 she gave birth to her first son, Lorenzo, who would become known as Larry. Six weeks later she was pregnant again and towards the end of December gave birth to a second son, Marco, whose name would later be shortened to Marc. He was a cute little child with blonde hair – but his increasingly disturbed and hard-hitting mother ensured that he had little to smile about.

  She remained deeply unhappy and her first husband would later note that she spent money like a maniac. Both parties accused the other of domestic violence and Frances convinced some of her relatives that she was a battered wife. After two and a half years of this marriage she scrawled swastikas on the walls of the marital home and fled with the children, setting them up in a new home. She didn’t work and now had no visible means of support so asked her parents to support her until the children went to school. (In reality, her parents also had to eventually fund the children’s schooling as she failed to find a job.)

  Frances remained violent. She beat Larry and Marc with a belt and a hairbrush and in December 1964 she assaulted their teenage babysitter and faced legal proceedings. Her parents, who were still writing each other acrimonious notes in Salt Lake City, knew little of this.

  By age four, Larry was diagnosed as having psychiatric problems and was sent to a special school. Marc looked less obviously ill – but neighbours noted that he often smelt bad as his mother hadn’t bathed him. He often bore the marks of her slapping palms and scratching nails and he was sometimes seen roaming the streets for food because he hadn’t been fed.

  One of Frances’ favourite ploys was to lock both children out of the house for hours at a time. Larry sometimes slept on the landing overnight – and Marc once had to defecate on the common stairway because he was very distressed and had no access to a toilet. He would later tell a psychiatrist that he preferred it when his mother beat him as this was better than being locked out.

  Frances soon noted that Marc was easier to manipulate than Larry, so at one stage she sent the latter to her parents in Salt Lake City and he lived there for six months before asking to go home as he missed his mum. He didn’t miss Marc for there was little love between the two brothers. Marc envied Larry as he seemed more capable of fending for himself during their frequent lock-outs from home.

  As Marc matured, he put on weight and his nickname became Butterball. He tried to liken himself to the Incredible Hulk, but in truth he was physically weak. He was also very scruffy as his clothes were often unlaundered and unironed. It was hard to believe that he was the grandson of a multi-millio
naire.

  Yet he was an intelligent child who enjoyed playing chess, collecting stamps and rare coins. (Larry also collected rare coins but Frances had been known to sell them to raise money.) He grew up and went away to college, but like his mother before him, he became increasingly strange. He stole various items from his college and talked about suicide to the extent that a college friend would note that Marc was ‘notably and demonstrably insane’.

  Frances’ second marriage

  In February 1969 Frances married for a second time and took her new husband Fred’s surname of Schreuder. He was nine years her senior. Both Larry and Marc liked him but before long he, too, was subject to Frances’ wild mood-swings. In time, they began to have physical fights.

  The family went to Brussels as Fred’s firm relocated him there but it was soon apparent that Frances’ mental illness was worsening. One night she was found wandering the streets in her nightdress threatening to commit suicide. She also spent so much money on designer clothes and jewels that he had to write to her parents asking them to financially help their daughter. Eventually Frances became so disturbed that she was admitted to a psychiatric institution for several weeks.

  End of Frances’ second marriage

  In April 1973, she gave birth to her third child, Lavinia Schreuder. Ten months later Frances threw her husband Fred out of their apartment. Larry was often away at school but she now kept twelve-year-old Marc with her as her special ‘friend’. She would keep him up half the night telling him about her problems. These problems were often financial but when she did have money she spent it on overpriced jewellery.