Couples Who Kill

I’m deeply indebted to researcher and writer Paul A Woods for his insight into serial killers Leonard Lake and Charles Ng. Paul spent hours interviewing Ng for a documentary on the Lake-Ng murders and has a unique understanding of their increasingly deadly synergy.

I was also fortunate to interview Caroline Roberts, one of Fred & Rose West’s few surviving victims. Her autobiography
The Lost Girl
is one of the most honest books I’ve ever read.

I’m very grateful to crime correspondent Andrew Nott for answering my questions about the Trevor Hardy & Sheilagh Farrow murders. Andrew co-authored the book
Cause Of Death
with pathologist Dr Geoffrey Garrett and their writing made me aware of this particularly unusual and surprisingly little-known case.

Once again, I’m grateful to Lisa Dumond who took time out of her busy schedule to help with my American research. Lisa is especially interested in Anti-Social Personality Disorder, knowledge she incorporates in her short fiction and true crime. She’s also a prolific book reviewer and a novelist.

Equal thanks to David Mulcahy for sending me his thirty-nine page document
A Case For Innocence
and various forensic statements related to his trial. Thanks also to one of Mr Mulcahy’s friends for speaking to me about this controversial case.

Ask the British public about couples who kill and they’ll invariably name The Moors Murderers or Fred & Rose West. Canadians also opt for a heterosexual couple, Paul Barnardo & Karla Homolka, as do the Americans who tend to cite Charles Starkweather & Caril Fugate or Bonnie & Clyde. Australia’s best known deadly duo are David & Catherine Birnie whilst Daniel & Manuela Ruda recently made headlines in Germany.

But many killer couples aren’t heterosexual lovers, and some have far more complex relationships - herein you’ll find serial torture-killer cousins, an increasingly unbalanced mother-son duo, psychotic sisters and a
cult-based
brother and sister team. This isn’t to suggest that most deadly duos are related:
Couples Who Kill
also profiles gay team killers and equally sadistic friends.

Most of these partnerships arose out of the individuals shared love of cruelty, others were formed through jealousy or greed. What they all have in common is their effect on the victims: duped by two opponents rather than one, they had little chance.

The serial killer who kills alone often takes time out afterwards to mentally relive the murder and regroup his defences, but deviant duos immediately discuss the homicide and move on to the next victim and then the next. As such, several of the profiled couples were responsible for a death count that was into double figures, with one duo being responsible for over thirty sexually-motivated deaths. Couples who kill only comprise twenty per cent of serial killers, but they tend to be responsible for a much larger body count than men or women who kill alone.

Even when a couple ‘only’ murder once or twice, the results are particularly gruesome, with the individuals often stopping partway through the assault to find out exactly how their co-killer wants to proceed. With physical strength on their side, they don’t have to adopt the blitzkrieg methods of the solo attacker. Their duality also complicates matters during the subsequent trial when the jury has to ascertain who did what.

Many of these killers have similar characteristics in their backgrounds and these are summarised in the final chapter, the ‘Abuse Excuse’.

When former prison friends Bittaker and Norris were reunited in 1979, they decided to kidnap teenage girls for sexual pleasure. Within a four month period they would repeatedly rape five known victims, torture them for kicks and kill them in an especially brutal way.

Lawrence was born on 27th September 1940 to a
drug-addicted
single mother in Southern California. She soon put him into care, where he was moved from one home to another by families who were more interested in the foster-payment cheques than in their foster child. As such, he didn’t receive the nurturing that all babies require if they are to bond with others, and if they are to ultimately care about anyone other than themselves.

Lawrence had an IQ in the top one percent of the population and also had a photographic memory. But his foster families were often Spanish so couldn’t converse with him fluently even if they wanted to. He was invariably clothed in hand-me-downs, some of which were girl’s clothes and shoes. Alternately ignored and laughed at, he retreated into his own little world. He literally remained on the sidelines as his foster parents fed their natural children, only giving him the leftovers. He was also sexually molested and raped by some of his so-called carers during these desperately unhappy years.

At six he was adopted by a couple who gave him their surname, Bittaker. Unfortunately it was too little too late
as he was already a nascent psychopath. Young psychopaths can improve if given a consistently loving and stable environment – but George Bittaker’s work as an aircraft fitter meant that the family moved around the country so the child was uprooted again and again. He attended schools in Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio and California where he was always the new boy. It made Lawrence Bittaker feel even more of an outsider, alienated from his peers.

At seventeen he dropped out of high school and stole a car, was involved in a hit and run and fled to Long Beach to escape prosecution. But the police caught up with him and he was sent to a California Youth Authority home, where he remained until he was nineteen.

The rootless teenager now travelled to Louisiana, where the FBI charged him with a further motor theft. He was sent to a Oklahoma reformatory where he behaved so strangely that he was transferred to a Missouri medical centre. He’d later admit to forensic psychiatrist Dr Ronald Markman that he faked psychotic symptoms in order to get hospitalised. The medical centre found him to be hostile and manipulative, but he made sure that his conduct improved so that the staff believed they had cured him. As a result, he was released after a year.

The intelligent but self-destructive Lawrence now moved to Los Angeles and was arrested again almost immediately, this time for robbery. But he was let out on parole in 1963.

Lawrence Bittaker continued to cause havoc in the outside world. He again stole cars and was imprisoned, got out and burgled and was imprisoned, stabbed a shop assistant who tried to prevent him shoplifting and was
arrested again. He was consequently sent to the California Men’s Colony where he met Roy Lewis Norris, who had a history of sexual crime.

Roy was born on 2nd February 1948 in Colorado. He was an unwanted baby, the product of a very unhappy marriage which would end in recriminations and divorce. His increasingly lonely childhood included abuse and he turned to marijuana and beer to blot out the terrible memories. By his teens he was fantasising constantly about violent sex and saw women as objects to satisfy his lust.

At seventeen he joined the Navy. He was stationed in Vietnam, though he never saw combat. But his deviant sexual desires continued to build and in November 1969 he dragged a young woman from her car and attempted to rape her. He was arrested and given bail. Whilst on bail he forced his way into another woman’s flat but the police arrived before he could sexually assault her. As a result of these attacks, the Navy discharged him on mental health grounds.

Roy Norris’s violence escalated and he attacked a female stranger in the street and battered her with a brick. This time he was sentenced to an indeterminate time in a mental hospital. After five years they decided that they had cured him and let him out.

Within weeks he had proved them wrong, pulling a woman into a hedge at Redondo Beach, partially strangling her and raping her. (A classic fantasist, Roy Norris would later tell an author that the woman was his girlfriend and that the sex was consensual.) He was sent to prison where he met the equally dispossessed Lawrence Bittaker.

They began to share their sexual fantasies and Lawrence suggested that when they got out they should work through the teenage years by kidnapping a girl of thirteen, one aged fourteen and so on for every year up to nineteen. They also agreed that they’d torture their victims for fun.

In November 1978 Bittaker was given parole and found low level factory work that must have been
mind-numbingly
dull for a man of his intellect. Eight weeks later Norris got out and moved into his mother’s trailer and began work as an electrician. The following month he received a letter from Bittaker suggesting that they meet up in a hotel.

At the meeting they discussed kidnapping and raping young girls and the various ways that they could dominate them. But they needed a place to keep their captives so Lawrence bought a van. The vehicle had a bed so it became his new abode and he kept it parked outside Roy’s mother’s trailer. The silver cargo van had no side windows so was ideal for keeping sex slaves. Bittaker promptly named it the ‘Murder Mac’.

The next few months were the intense fantasy phase. The two men would flirt with girls on beaches and in bars and often take their photos. Some of the girls were given a lift but they weren’t harmed as the men were still searching for a safe place to park the van so that their eventual torture sessions wouldn’t be overheard.

Their sexual lives at this time were largely auto-erotic: Roy Norris would later admit that he could maintain an erection for hours by just staring at a girl and imagining what he’d do if he got her alone.

Finally the men found a locked fire road in the San Gabriel Mountains and, by smashing the lock, gained access. Bittaker replaced this with his own lock. They now had a secure location where no one could hear their victims’ screams.

Sixteen-year-old Cindy Schaeffer was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and became the men’s first victim. The devout young Christian was coming home from church on 24th June 1979 when Lawrence Bittaker offered her a ride. The pretty young blonde refused and increased her pace but he blocked her path and Roy Norris grabbed her. Within seconds they had bundled her into the van. They gagged and bound the teenager and drove her to the mountains, where Roy Norris raped her and forced her to fellate him. Later Lawrence Bittaker took his turn. After raping her vaginally and anally numerous times, the men tired of their traumatised victim and wrapped a wire coat hanger around her neck, taking turns to pull it tightly. Afterwards they drove her body to a canyon and dumped it for the animals to devour.

Incredibly, Roy Norris now returned to his mother’s trailer and went back to work. Lawrence Bittaker also went back to his day job. A fortnight later they grew tired of their day-to-day existence and succeeded in luring another victim into their mobile lair …

On 8th July eighteen-year-old Andrea Joy Hall was hitchhiking when Lawrence Bittaker offered her a lift. Meanwhile Roy Norris hid in the back of the van. When
she voluntarily entered the vehicle, he pounced on her and tied her up, covering her mouth with tape. He raped her and, once they’d parked at the fire road, Bittaker followed suit. They continued to sexually assault and torture the teenager for the next two days, with Lawrence Bittaker even using pliers on her genitals and nipples. Roy Norris also joined in the abuse, hitting her with a hammer again and again.

Eventually Lawrence Bittaker fetched an icepick and drove it deeply into one of Andrea’s ears. She screamed but didn’t die so he pulled it out and drove it into her other ear. Afterwards he strangled her to death. Like the previous victim, she was disposed of on the mountain in the hope that animals would ravage her corpse.

August apparently passed without incident – leastways the killer couple aren’t officially linked to any murders that month. But police believe they are responsible for up to forty-five deaths in total, especially as photographs of nineteen girls who remain missing were found in the Murder Mac van.

In September the couple found thirteen-year-old Leah Lamp and her fifteen-year-old friend Jackie Gilliam sitting on a bench beside a bus stop. The teenagers happily accepted a lift to Hermosa Beach. But they panicked when they realised that the men were driving in the wrong direction and Leah tried to get out of the van. Roy Norris hit her with a bat and both he and Bittaker trussed up the teens and gagged them. For the first time, they had a victim each.

Noting that the struggle had alerted the attention of
people on a nearby tennis court, the two killers drove off in a hurry. They were convinced that someone would call the police. Unfortunately no one did – and the two girls went on to meet hideous deaths.

This time Bittaker used a tape recorder to keep a permanent record of their torture and rape. He again used pliers on his victims’ breasts and on their genitals. They were raped and sodomised numerous times by both men. The girls’ ordeal lasted for a full three days as it was Labor Day weekend and the deviant duo didn’t have to go to work.

Eventually Lawrence Bittaker rammed his icepick into one of Jackie’s ears then into the other, after which he strangled her till she stopped breathing. Both men turned on her younger friend Leah and strangled and battered her to death.

The duo talked over their exploits and found further pleasure in replaying the tape. With four victims to their credit, they felt invincible. Later that same month they sprayed a woman with Mace on a Manhattan Beach street and dragged her into their van. Once she was inside the vehicle, they raped her, not bothering to drive to their isolated fire road. She escaped, reported the assault and would later identify them from police photographs.

The following month – on Halloween 1979 – the couple struck again, abducting Shirley Lynette Ledford. They tied her up but decided to torture her in the van rather than drive to the deserted mountain road.

This behaviour is typical of serial killers who become wilder and more violent as their killing spree goes on. Their kills follow the law of diminishing returns so they have to murder more quickly or more cruelly in order to still feel sated. At this stage some killers will opt to kill two girls at a time (assuming they haven’t done so already) or will prey upon an even more taboo victim such as a child.

In this case, the two men increased the sadism involved in the attack, with Lawrence Bittaker beating Shirley Ledford again and again, whilst urging her to scream more loudly. He also tortured her by clamping pliers around her nipples. Roy Norris joined in the atrocities, hitting her twenty-five times on the elbow with a hammer and instructing her to scream. The two men recorded part of the torture session, eighteen minutes of unendurable pain.

Two hours after they’d abducted the teenager, Bittaker strangled her with a wire coat hanger which he tightened, garrotte-style, with his pliers. They dumped the bruised and mutilated body in a random garden as Bittaker wanted to see what the press reaction would be like.

Her body, which was found the following morning, bore the numerous marks of their abuse – her arms slashed, her torso a mass of bruises. In a final act of rage they had also mutilated her most female features: her face, pubis and breasts.

The men had gotten away with at least five murders and would have gotten away with many more if Roy Norris hadn’t told a fellow ex-con about the killings. He thought that the ex-con would be impressed by his daring but the man went to his lawyer who contacted the police.

Surprisingly, it’s not unusual for a deadly duo to tell a third person about their crimes – Ian Brady, who killed with Myra Hindley, told teenager David Smith about their first four murders. After witnessing one such murder for himself, Smith went to the police. Diane Zamora told friends of her part in a co-killing, as did Marlene Olive. (They are profiled later in this book.)

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.

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.