Evil Personified: Lawrence Bittaker and the Failure of California’s Flawed Death Penalty

Warning: The following story contains graphic material, including descriptions of rape, torture, and murder, which some readers may find disturbing. Discretion is advised.

I have, for many years, read about a whole slew of disturbed serial killers and violent sadists. Having always had an interest in criminology and criminal profiling, I am no stranger to reading about horrifying cases of violence and death.

But of all the sadistic criminals I have read about, the one that I find the most disturbing in history is a man few people know about. No other individual I have read about is as vile, as sadistic, as twisted, and as depraved as this man. To this day, his case continues to haunt the state of California where, in 1979, he and a friend took the lives of five teenage girls in the most horrific circumstances imaginable.

This is the story of Lawrence Sigmund Bittaker, the literal personification of evil itself.

Lawrence Bittaker

Lawrence Sigmund Bittaker was born on September 27, 1940, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as an unwanted child to a couple who had chosen to not have children. Adopted as an infant, Bittaker, whose adoptive father worked as an aircraft mechanic, moved around the country throughout his life.

It wasn’t long before Lawrence Bittaker became involved in a life of crime. At the age of 12, Bittaker was arrested after he stole a glass necklace from a store, and for the next four years he would be periodically arrested for crimes such as theft, robbery, and shoplifting. Blaming his adoptive parents for his crimes, Bittaker gained a criminal record in juvenile court, and soon dropped out of high school. Bittaker and his family then moved to California.

At age 17, Bittaker was arrested again, this time for auto theft, hit and run, and resisting arrest. After serving time in prison, Bittaker, now 18, was released on parole in 1959, only to find that his adoptive parents had moved to another state.

Within days of being released, Bittaker again stole a vehicle and was arrested trying to cross state lines. He was sentenced to a further 18 months in prison. Released again in 1960, Bittaker yet again reverted to a life of crime. He was arrested for armed robbery and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Bittaker, now 20 years old, had already been arrested nearly a dozen times during his life. During his incarceration, a psychiatric examination found that Bittaker was unnaturally intelligent, having a genius-level IQ of 138, but also diagnosed him as being highly manipulative and hostile.

Bittaker was released in 1963 after serving two years in prison but, yet again, he was arrested in October of 1964 for parole violation. He underwent another psychiatric examination, and was diagnosed with numerous personality disorders. The prison psychiatrist wrote that Bittaker was “borderline psychotic” and refused to accept responsibility for his actions. Bittaker was further diagnosed with severe Antisocial Personality Disorder - the medical diagnosis for psychopathy.

Despite the diagnosis, Bittaker was released again in 1967. Yet again, as predicted, he was arrested for theft and hit-and-run. Serving three years in prison for that crime, Bittaker was arrested yet again in 1971 for burglary. Once again, Bittaker served three years in prison.

In 1974, Bittaker committed his most severe crime yet. After stealing a steak from a department store, a security guard, believing Bittaker had simply forgotten to pay for the item, followed him out to the parking lot and confronted him. Bittaker instead drew a knife and stabbed the guard in the chest, narrowly missing his heart (the guard survived). Bittaker was arrested and charged with attempted murder, but, as part of a plea deal, Bittaker was only convicted of the lesser charge of assault with a deadly weapon and sent to the prison at San Luis Obispo, California.

Roy Norris and the birth of a sadistic plan

While serving time in prison, Lawrence Bittaker became acquainted with another inmate, Roy Lewis Norris, who was five years younger than him.

A former naval officer, Roy Norris had been discharged from the navy for psychological problems. Like Bittaker, Norris had a long criminal record and had been diagnosed with numerous personality disorders. Norris had numerous arrests for assault and rape, and was serving a sentence of 3 years to life at San Luis Obispo for the rape of a Torrance, California, housewife.

Although Bittaker had no convictions for rape or sexual assault, he had developed a fantasy of kidnapping, raping, and murdering young girls, one for each year ranging from age 12 to 18 years old. He shared his fantasy with Norris, and both agreed to put the fantasy into action once they were released.

Norris and Bittaker were both released in 1979. Bittaker got a well paying job ($1000 a week) as a skilled machinist, while Norris worked as an electrician.

At a motel soon after their release, Norris and Bittaker rekindled their friendship and plan to rape and murder young girls. Bittaker purchased a 1977 GMC cargo van, which he and Norris nicknamed “the Murder Mac”, to be used as a mobile torture chamber for their victims.

Murder 1: Lucinda Lynn Schaefer, age 16

On the evening of June 24, 1979, sixteen year old Lucinda Lynn Schaefer, known as “Cindy” by her friends and family, was leaving a Presbyterian Church in Redondo Beach, California, planning to walk the several blocks back to her grandmother’s house.

Bittaker and Norris were cruising through Redondo Beach in their van when Bittaker spotted Schaefer walking on the sidewalk. Commenting “There’s a cute little blonde” to Norris, Bittaker pulled the van up alongside the young girl and asked her if she wanted a ride. Schaefer politely declined, but Bittaker was insistent, even offering the girl marijuana if she would get in the van with them. Wisely, Schaefer didn’t trust the men and refused their offer.
But Bittaker would not take no for an answer.

Bittaker pulled his van up a little ways ahead of Schaefer. Norris got out and pretended to be working on a light switch. When Cindy Schaefer walked by, Norris grabbed the young girl and put his hand over her mouth. He picked up the squirming Schaefer and threw her in the back of the van, climbed inside, and began to tie her up. Bittaker sped off quickly, turning up the radio to drown out any screams. As Norris tied up Schaefer, Bittaker drove up to a secluded fire road at the San Gabriel Mountains and parked the van at the top of the road.

Throughout the night, both Norris and Bittaker repeatedly raped Schaefer in the van. Afterwards, Norris began to feel horribly guilty for his actions. He gave Cindy some money, apologized to her, and even wrote down his phone number for her to call if she needed anything from him to pay her back. He promised Cindy that he would let her go.

But Bittaker was less compassionate. After arguing with Norris, Bittaker finally convinced his partner that Cindy Schaefer would have to die.

Bittaker then let Schaefer out of the van and lifted her up off the ground. Schaefer pleaded to Bittaker to be allowed to pray before she was killed, but Bittaker wouldn’t even allow that.  Norris, on Bittaker’s orders, then tried to manually strangle the young girl with his bare hands. Watching her gasp for air and struggle to breathe, Norris broke down, ran over to the bushes, and vomited.

As Norris got sick in the bushes, Bittaker took a coat hanger, wrapped it around Cindy Schaefer’s throat, and tightened it with a pair of pliers until the girl died and the coat hanger cut into her neck. Norris and Bittaker then wrapped Schaefer’s body in a shower curtain and hurled it into a nearby canyon.

The body of Cindy Schaefer was never found.

Murder 2: Andrea Joy Hall, age 18

Two weeks after the murder of Cindy Schaefer, Norris and Bittaker abducted their second victim, eighteen year old Andrea Joy Hall, on July 8, 1979. Hall was hitchhiking home from work along Pacific Coast Highway when Bittaker spotted her, and slowed the van down. While Norris hid under a makeshift bed in the back of the van, Bittaker offered Hall a ride, which she accepted. He then asked Hall if she wanted a “cold drink” from a cooler in the back of the van.

As Hall opened the cooler in the back, Norris emerged and pounced on Hall. After a violent fight, Norris managed to tie up Hall, who begged her kidnappers not to kill her.

Driving to the same location where the pair had murdered Cindy Schaefer, both Bittaker and Norris then proceeded to rape Hall for several hours. On Bittaker’s orders, Norris photographed the assaults with a polaroid camera.

Norris then asked Bittaker if he could purchase some alcohol at a nearby convenience store. Bittaker agreed, and Norris drove down to a liquor store, leaving Bittaker and Hall alone on the fire road.

Bittaker then led Hall to a ridge overlooking the same canyon where Cindy Schaefer’s body had been thrown. There, Bittaker raped Hall again, pausing repeatedly to hear her beg for mercy. After he was finished, Bittaker removed Hall’s gag, took out his camera, and told the girl that he was going to kill her. Laughing at her terrified expression, Bittaker photographed Hall’s face as he told her to give him a reason not to kill her.
According to Norris, Bittaker later said that Hall “couldn’t come up with too many reasons.”

Bittaker then stabbed Hall in both ears with a large ice pick, stomping on it with his foot until the handle broke, but this still failed to kill the girl, who remained alive and conscious. Bittaker then manually strangled Hall to death, and threw her body into the canyon. Bittaker then reunited with Norris and both returned to their homes.

The body of Andrea Hall was never found.

Murders 3 and 4: Jackie Doris Gilliam, 15, and Jacqueline Leah Lamp, 13

On September 3, 1979, fifteen year old Jackie Gilliam and her friend, thirteen year old Jacqueline Leah Lamp, were sitting on a bench near Hermosa Beach, California, waiting for a bus to take them to the beach. Unfortunately for the girls, they caught the sights of Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris, who immediately pulled over to them.

Bittaker pulled the van over to the girls and asked them if they wanted a ride to the beach. Both girls accepted, and Norris opened the sliding door of the van to let them inside. Bittaker flattered the girls with comments on their appearance, and Norris returned to the passenger seat.

The girls' moods both turned to fear as Bittaker proceeded to drive in a direction away from the beach and both Gilliam and Lamp realized they were being kidnapped. Norris quickly climbed into the back, picked up a sack filled with lead weights and struck Lamp on the side of the head, knocking her unconscious. He then grabbed Gilliam and began tying her up, but Lamp soon regained consciousness and managed to open the sliding door of the van.

Bittaker stopped the van, ran over to the open side door, and punched the girl in the face, knocking her back into the vehicle. Noticing several tennis players watching the scene, Bittaker yelled that Lamp was “having a bad trip on acid” and got back into the van. Norris then tied up and gagged Lamp and Gilliam as Bittaker drove back to the fire road in the mountains.

Neither Norris nor Bittaker had any sexual interest in Lamp, but both had an interest in Gilliam. Back at the fire road, Bittaker raped Gilliam while Norris, on Bittaker’s orders, photographed the assault with a polaroid camera. Bittaker slapped Gilliam across the face when she didn’t do as she was told, and polaroid photos taken by Norris show Gilliam with a black eye and swollen cheek.

Bittaker then took out a tape recorder, claiming he wanted to “tape the raping of a virgin”. Before switching on the recorder he told Jackie to pretend she was a cousin of his whom he fancied and to “feel free to express her agony” and to “scream your head off”. When Jackie’s screaming didn’t satisfy Bittaker, he began stabbing her in the breasts with an ice pick and pinching and tearing her with a pair of pliers.
(Bittaker later buried the tape in a cemetery. The recording of Jackie’s rape was never found).

Meanwhile, Leah Lamp was forced to watch Bittaker torment Gilliam for several hours, leaving her hysterical and in tears. That night, Bittaker and Norris tied up their victims, telling Jackie she could “get some rest” before being raped again.

The following morning, Bittaker left Leah Lamp tied to a tree while he continued to rape and torture Jackie while Norris photographed him. Bittaker then retrieved Lamp when he was finished and he and Norris drove the van aimlessly up and down the road for several hours.

Norris, once again overcome with guilt for his actions, tried to apologize to Jackie. He gave Jackie his phone number and some money, and even promised to buy her a motorcycle so she wouldn’t have to hitchhike anymore. Norris then tried to convince Bittaker to spare the girls’ lives, but Bittaker refused. Norris then asked Bittaker to at least “kill them quickly”, but Bittaker again refused, stating that “they only die once anyway”.

As Norris walked away, unwilling to witness the murders, Bittaker threw Jackie on the ground and, as he had done with Andrea Hall, stabbed the girl in both ears with an ice pick. When this failed to kill her, Bittaker twisted a coat hanger around Jackie’s throat with a pair of pliers, strangling her to death.

After Jackie had died, Bittaker led Leah Lamp, who had been drugged with sleeping pills, out of the van. Bittaker then yelled to Lamp “You wanted to stay a virgin: now you can die a virgin!”. He then struck Lamp on the back of the head with a sledgehammer multiple times before strangling the young girl until she stopped moving. Norris returned to the scene as Bittaker stood over the battered body of the 13-year-old girl.

Suddenly, Lamp opened her eyes, and began gasping for air. Despite having been beaten with a sledgehammer and strangled, she was not yet dead. She still clung to life.
Immediately, Bittaker once again wrapped his hands around Lamp's neck and began strangling her, while Norris continued to hit her with the sledgehammer.
Finally, Lamp ceased breathing, and she closed her eyes for good.

After throwing the bodies of the girls into the canyon, both Bittaker and Norris returned to their homes. They never suspected that the bodies of Lamp and Gilliam would ever be found.

Murder 5: Shirley Lynette Ledford, age 16

The last known murder committed by Norris and Bittaker, and their most gruesome murder, took place on the night of October 31st, 1979. This murder was a deviation from their typical M.O., and would later lead to their capture.

That night, sixteen year old Shirley Lynette Ledford had attended a Halloween party at a friend’s house in the Sunland suburb of Los Angeles. After her boyfriend got into a fight with two other boys, Shirley decided to walk home from the party.

Her timing could not have been worse. As Shirley walked home, Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris were cruising around in their van. Bittaker recognized Ledford as a waitress from a restaurant he frequented, and pulled his truck over. He offered Ledford a ride home, which she accepted. Norris got into the back of the van and Ledford got into the passenger’s seat.

Bittaker then drove the van off in the direction of Ledford’s home, but abruptly swerved into a dirt road. Abruptly, Bittaker grabbed Shirley and threw her into the back of the van, knocking Norris over. Bittaker then drew a knife, climbed into the back of the van, and subdued Shirley, tying her up and gagging her. Bittaker then yelled for Norris to drive while he raped Ledford..

As Norris drove aimlessly for over an hour, Bittaker removed the gag around Shirley’s mouth and untied her legs, leaving her arms bound. Bittaker then took out his tape recorder, put a fresh tape into the machine, and switched it on.
This tape would later become one of the most notorious and disturbing recordings in criminal history.

Initially, Bittaker mocked and tormented Shirley by slapping her again and again across the face, repeatedly yelling “Say something, girl!” as Shirley began weeping and begging Bittaker to stop. Shirley curled up into a ball to try and shield herself from Bittaker, but it was to no avail. Bittaker grabbed Shirley, yelling “Roll over, girl!”. After forcing Shirley back to facing him, he forced her to perform oral sex on him. When she didn’t satisfy Bittaker, he struck her on the head and yelled at her to scream. When she didn’t, Bittaker began beating her breasts as hard as he could with his fists.

Bittaker then extracted a pair of pliers from his toolbox and proceeded to twist and tear Shirley’s breasts and genitals to make her scream. The more the girl begged Bittaker to stop, the more violent he became. He increased the severity of the torture, taunting her and laughing as he ripped her apart with his pliers. As Shirley screamed, Bittaker then inserted the pliers into her rectum and twisted them, splitting the lining inside.

After about fifteen minutes, Bittaker then left Shirley torn and bleeding in the back, and he and Norris traded places. Norris was upset that Shirley wasn’t screaming the way she was with Bittaker, so Norris picked up the sledgehammer he had used to kill Leah Lamp and struck Shirley on the elbow with it as hard as he could, breaking the bone. After Shirley begged him to stop, Norris proceeded to strike her elbow another 25 times with the sledgehammer.

After enduring over three hours of torment, Shirley’s pleas for life became pleas for death. She yelled to Bittaker “Do it! Just kill me!”. Bittaker ordered Norris to kill Ledford, and Norris used Bittaker’s pliers to twist a coat hanger around the young girl’s throat, finally ending her torment. Shirley Lynette Ledford barely reacted to the strangling, dying with her eyes open.
After she was dead, Bittaker tore off Shirley’s necklace to keep as a souvenir.

But Bittaker was not finished. To further degrade and disrespect the girl, Bittaker dumped Shirley’s nude, ravaged body on the ivy bed of a suburban home, hoping to shock the community and make a news splash. Shirley’s body was found the following morning by a horrified jogger.

Caught in the Act: The arrests of Norris and Bittaker

When Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris dumped Shirley Lynette Ledford’s body on the lawn of a suburban home, they inadvertently sealed their own fate.

This was coupled with the fact that Roy Norris couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Norris began bragging about the murders to an old prison friend, Joseph Jackson. Jackson thought Norris was joking until he heard about Shirley Lynette Ledford’s body being found.
Afraid for his life and the lives of his 13 and 17 year old daughters, Jackson went to the Hermosa Police Department and talked with the police investigator, Paul Bynum.

Although Bynum did not have enough evidence to arrest Norris or Bittaker, he decided to place Norris under surveillance, and within days Norris was observed loading bags of marijuana into his car. Because this violated his parole, Norris was arrested. Later that same day, Bittaker was arrested and charged with five counts of murder.
Inside Bittaker's motel room, police found numerous bottles of acid. It would later turn out that Bittaker intended to use these acids to torture his next victim.

Norris was now in a jam. He was accused of five counts of murder. Facing a possible death sentence, Norris decided to make a deal and testify for the prosecution. He gave a three-hour recorded confession to the police describing all five murders in meticulous detail.

Meanwhile, police were searching Bittaker’s van. Bittaker had destroyed several polaroid photographs prior to his arrest, hoping to get rid of evidence, but he had completely forgotten about the tape recording he had made of his torture of Shirley Lynette Ledford, a tape which, according to Norris, Bittaker had described as “real funny”.

The police found the tape and turned it over to the prosecutor, Steven Kay, who had been on the infamous Manson Family case several years earlier. The tape was so graphic that when Kay played it for each of Roy Norris’s attorneys, one of them demanded he shut it off and the other ran out of the room in tears. For years afterward, Kay would have recurring nightmares stemming from his hearing of the tape.

Roy Norris Makes a Deal

Both Bittaker and Norris were charged with murder. Norris, fearing the death penalty and wrought by guilt for his actions, pleaded guilty to the charges of murder and rape.
In exchange for testifying against Bittaker, Norris would be spared a death sentence in favor of a life sentence with parole eligibility.
Norris also agreed to lead investigators into the mountains to find the bodies of the other four victims.

In February of 1980, Norris led a search team into the San Gabriel Mountains to look for the bodies. The search team discovered the skeletal remains of 13 year old Leah Lamp and 15 year old Jackie Gilliam. Gilliam’s skull still had an ice pick stuck in it from when Bittaker had murdered her. Despite extensive searching, the bodies of the first two victims, Lucinda Schaefer and Andrea Hall, were never found.

Bittaker goes on trial

When asked to plead to the charges, Bittaker remained silent, so a plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf. Judge Thomas Fredericks, who oversaw the case, appointed public defender Albert Garber, a prominent lawyer, to defend Lawrence Bittaker.

The trial of Lawrence Bittaker began on January 19th, 1981. Among the evidence used in the trial were numerous photographs Bittaker and Norris had taken of their victims, the pliers found in Bittaker’s van, and, most damningly, the notorious torture tape of Shirley Lynette Ledford. Bittaker’s defense team had petitioned the court to omit the torture tape as evidence, but this was denied.

Despite defense objections, the judge allowed the prosecution to play a 17 minute section of the tape to the jury and court observers. Before playing the horrific recording, the main prosecutor, Steven Kay, warned the jury: “For those of you who do not know what hell is like, you will find out.”

When the tape was played in court, and the agonizing screams of the sixteen year old girl echoed in the courtroom, it left the entire room in shock. Several people rushed outside and vomited. Others broke down crying, including Paul Bynum, the detective who had arrested Norris. (In fact, the case would traumatize detective Bynum so severely that he would later commit suicide in 1987).

Bittaker, however, remained unmoved, wearing a grin on his face throughout the entire ordeal.

Bittaker at the stand

When Bittaker testified in his defense several days later, he denied any knowledge of the murder of Cindy Schaefer, and claimed that Norris, not him, had murdered the other girls.

The prosecutor would later say that Bittaker had “an IQ of 138 but had no common sense”. In the end, it would be Bittaker’s own testimony that would seal his fate.

Bittaker's sexual sadism periodically showed itself throughout his testimony. Smiling as he recalled the memory, Bittaker described on the stand how he had "touched Miss Ledford on the breast with cold metal pliers" during the rape. When Steven Kay asked him "What did you touch her on the breast for with a pair of pliers", Bittaker answered, almost matter-of-factly and without hesitation, "To shock her with the cold metal". Bittaker's sadism, coldness, and lack of remorse stunned everybody in the courtroom, even his own defense lawyer.

When the subject of his recordings came up, Bittaker claimed the torture tape of Shirley Lynette Ledford was simple “pillow talk” (a comment that provoked outraged catcalls from the jury). Bittaker claimed that he had simply made Shirley “scream theatrically” for the tape, and that the recording provided nothing more than evidence of a “threesome”. He claimed that Norris should be on trial, not him, and that the prosecutor had a “blood lust” against him.
The argument, of course, was ludicrous and Bittaker’s alibi was destroyed by the forensic evidence and the testimony of Norris. If the jurors had any doubt as to Bittaker's guilt, he shattered it through his own testimony.

As the prosecutor later said of Bittaker, “he was a dead duck after that”.
During the closing arguments, prosecutor Steven Kay apologized to the jury for only being able to ask for the death penalty. Calling Bittaker an “excuse for a man”, he showed the jury pictures of each murdered girl as he said “If the death penalty is not appropriate in this case, then when will it ever be?”

On February 17, 1981, the jury convicted Bittaker of all five murders, plus charges of rape, kidnapping, robbery, and other violations.
Deliberations on sentencing began two days later. Bittaker faced either the death penalty or life without parole.

It took the jury less than 90 minutes to reach a verdict. On February 19, 1981, in a unanimous vote, the jury recommended that Bittaker be executed in the gas chamber for the five brutal murders.

On March 24, 1981, Judge Thomas Fredricks followed the jury’s recommendation.
Lawrence Bittaker was sentenced to death five times, and sent to death row at San Quentin State Prison to join 79 other condemned inmates in California.

Justice Denied: The mess that is California’s Death Penalty System

Like all death row inmates, Lawrence Bittaker was permitted to appeal his conviction and sentencing. Because of the overwhelming evidence against him, most thought that Bittaker would be executed within several years. Most Californians tried to move forward and put the whole terrifying case behind them.

But Lawrence Bittaker would continue to wreak havoc in the legal system long after his conviction and sentencing. Bittaker immediately appealed his conviction and sentence, citing, among other things, the validity of the search warrants used against him.

However, Bittaker would not limit himself to simply filing appeals of his conviction. Beginning in 1983, Lawrence Bittaker would file over 40 lawsuits against the state of California for what were alleged violations of his constitutional rights. These alleged “rights violations” included not being allowed access to pornography, failure to deliver a magazine, not being allowed to smoke, and receiving a broken cookie in his lunch tray.

It would not be until 1993, ten years and millions of taxpayer dollars later, that the California Supreme Court imposed the status of vexatious litigant on Lawrence Bittaker. This ruling, usually imposed upon entities that file numerous frivolous suits, would prevent Bittaker from filing any more lawsuits without approval by a judge.

To this day, California’s death penalty remains a complicated legal maze wrought with obscurity and endless appeals processes, prone to frequent abolition and reinstatement.

Twice, in 1972 and 1976, the California Supreme Court overturned the state’s death penalty statute, retroactively commuting the death sentences of 177 condemned inmates, including cult leader Charles Manson and Robert Kennedy’s assassin, Sirhan Sirhan.

Both times, the court’s decision was overturned by popular referendums, in which the voting public of California reinstated the state’s death penalty by wide margins.

But the California Supreme Court would continue to draw the wrath of the voting public in numerous cases involving the death penalty.

The liberal-leaning state supreme court during the term of governor Jerry Brown was heavily against the death penalty under the state supreme court justice, Rose Bird.

Of the 61 death penalty cases reviewed under Justice Bird’s tenure, 58 sentences were overturned (Justice Bird voted to overturn all 61).
Rose Bird had incurred the wrath of the public so much that, when she had to stand for reapproval by the voting public in 1987, the public not only voted to remove her, they also voted to remove two other anti-death-penalty judges who had sided with her on capital punishment cases.

Luckily for supporters of the death penalty, Lawrence Bittaker’s appeal was not heard until after Rose Bird had been deposed.
On June 22, 1989, the court unanimously rejected Lawrence Bittaker’s appeal and upheld his conviction and death sentence. Furthermore, the court set an execution date for Bittaker for December 29, 1989. It was the first execution scheduled in California since 1967.

However, when Bittaker appealed his case to the US Supreme Court, this execution date was automatically stayed.

On June 11, 1990, the US Supreme Court refused to hear Bittaker’s case. A new execution date for Bittaker was set for July 23, 1991.
However, 14 days before his execution was to take place, Bittaker instead appealed his conviction to the US Federal District Court, requesting to have another attorney and claiming his defense had been inadequate during his trial.
After the Federal District Court refused to hear his case, a third execution date was set for Bittaker, but he would avoid that one too when he filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

Hell and habeas corpus

A writ of habeas corpus is a way for a prisoner to get legal relief, such as a reduction in sentencing, on the grounds that their constitutional rights are being violated in custody. Although Bittaker could not overturn his conviction with his habeas corpus appeal, he could try to have his death sentence commuted.

Unfortunately, due to the different setup of state and federal law, habeas corpus petitions go through a different appeals process.

In all appeals processes, with the exception of death penalty cases, the California Supreme Court has discretionary jurisdiction, meaning they can choose whether or not to hear a case. However, state death penalty cases go directly to the California Supreme Court, which is required to review the case on appeal. After the state supreme court rules, the matter can go to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and then go to the US Supreme Court.

But this still leaves federal court review, as habeas corpus remedies are covered under federal law, which differs from California law. As a result, habeas corpus appeals have to go through another long court process.

After an inmate has exhausted his long appeals in state court, he can still go further and file a writ of habeas corpus, as Lawrence Bittaker did, to the US Federal District Court. If the case loses in Federal District Court, the inmate can appeal the writ of habeas corpus to the US Court of Appeals, upon which it can go to the US Supreme Court.

As a result of this kafkaesque legal system, California death penalty cases can drag on for decades, costing millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars in legal fees.

Because Bittaker’s vexatious litigant status prevented him from filing lawsuits, he appealed the ruling in 1993, claiming his status as a vexatious litigant could not apply to his habeas corpus appeals. Because this was an important legal matter, nothing regarding Bittaker’s execution could proceed in court until the issue was decided.

It would not be until 1997, four years later, that Bittaker would be allowed to continue his habeas corpus appeals, the court finding his status as a vexatious litigant could not prevent his habeas corpus appeals from moving forward.

Still, it would not be until November 29, 2000, that Bittaker would fully exhaust his habeas corpus remedies for his criminal appeal. With his case now riding on issues of ineffective counsel, Bittaker could now continue his criminal appeals. This presented another legal issue when the state of California performed depositions on Bittaker’s attorney and prosecutor Steven Kay. The case was so filled with legal bickering that it had practically come to a standstill.

In 2006, the judge overseeing Bittaker’s case, William M. Byrne, died suddenly. This meant that Bittaker’s case would have to be reassigned to a new judge, and attorneys for the defense and prosecution would have to resubmit legal summaries of the case. Until this happened, the process would be halted indefinitely. Although another judge was assigned to Bittaker’s case, as of the time of this writing, absolutely no significant activity has taken place regarding Bittaker’s execution.

That same year, another death row inmate’s case would provide an even further setback to not only Lawrence Bittaker’s case but the entire capital punishment system of California.

Judicial bungling and denied justice

In February of 2006, convicted murderer Michael Morales was scheduled to be executed by the state of California. However, hours before the inmate was set to die, state officials canceled Morales’s execution, and announced they could not comply with the strict medical requirements regarding the lethal injection process imposed by federal court judge Jeremy Fogel.

After a series of hearings, Judge Fogel instituted a moratorium on all executions in the state of California, and ordered a scientific study (paid for by the state) to determine whether lethal injection causes pain to those being executed.

Because of this moratorium, even inmates who had completely exhausted all appeals could not be executed until the moratorium was lifted. Although Judge Fogel’s moratorium was finally lifted in November of 2015, there have been no executions scheduled for the now 747 inmates currently on California’s death row.

What now?

Because of the high cost and twisted legal system regarding California’s death penalty, several abolition initiatives were proposed on the ballot. These bills, if passed, would abolish the death penalty in California, and retroactively commute all death sentences, including Lawrence Bittaker’s, to life without parole.

Twice, in 2012, and 2016, these ballot initiatives to abolish the death penalty were rejected by voters. In 2016, voters additionally approved legislation that would expedite California’s death penalty process. It remains to be seen whether this will pave the way for executions to resume in the state, but, considering the stubborn resistance put forth by death penalty opponents, it is likely that a long legal fight is ahead before any executions will be carried out.

It is hopeful that California’s approval of the expedition process will bring some sort of order to the mess that is California’s death penalty system, but, unfortunately, it may be already too late to serve justice to Lawrence Bittaker, who, now aged 76, remains on California’s death row with no execution date in sight. Even if the death penalty process in California is expedited under the new legislation, most legal experts believe that Lawrence Bittaker will die in prison long before he is even close to execution.

To this day, Bittaker still remains on death row at San Quentin State Prison. Rarely leaving his cell due to hostility from other inmates, Bittaker has been known to sell his hair, toenails, homemade greeting cards with lewd and gruesome pictures, and autographed photos of himself and his victims for legal fees.
Even today, nearly 40 years after the brutal murders, Bittaker has shown absolutely no remorse for his crimes.

In fact, he signs his fan mail with his nickname: "Pliers".

The Death Penalty: My Thoughts

The case of Lawrence Bittaker perfectly illustrates why society has the death penalty. I have read about a lot of killers. I have studied a lot of killers. I am no stranger to cases of violence, sadism, and death.

But Bittaker is something else. The level of sadism, disregard for life, cruelty, malice, and just pure evil demonstrated by Bittaker is almost incomprehensible. In my opinion, Lawrence Bittaker is the most evil man to have ever walked this earth. The horrific nature of his abhorrent crimes not just demands, but screams out for the death penalty.

I have always been a supporter of the death penalty. I feel it should be used less often, but I think that, in a small number of cases, it is the only appropriate punishment for certain heinous and depraved murders.

But not everyone thinks this way. Groups such as the ACLU, Amnesty International, and the NAACP work constantly and tirelessly to try and abolish the death penalty. They call it inhumane, archaic, barbaric, and incompatible with democracy. And whenever I bring up the case of Bittaker, I am accused of using logical fallacies. I am told that I am "arguing from emotion", and not logic.

To that, however, I have but one response: Yes! I am arguing from emotion! Just because an argument is made from emotion does not mean it is invalid.

In fact, I would argue that arguing from pure logic without emotion is cold, callous, heartless and shows no regard for decency, empathy, or any of the feelings that make us human. 

Lawrence Bittaker's case is very disturbing. That much is obvious to anybody. It brings out all of the emotions that make us human. The case reaches down into your insides and rips them apart as it reveals how depraved and twisted an individual can be. It shows the very depths of humanity's most evil, and it exposes the fact that there are some people who are simply bad to the bone, who have no shred of humanity or goodness in their heart. Lawrence Bittaker is one of these people. He has no ounce of decency in his evil soul. A psychopath to the bone, Lawrence Bittaker is the literal personification of the devil.

So, when I hear Amnesty International calling for the abolition of the death penalty, it makes me sick. If anything, Amnesty International should be calling for Bittaker to face his long awaited and well-deserved justice. For people like Lawrence Bittaker, there is no hope for rehabilitation. He is evil and he always will be. No amount of punishment inflicted on him will ever be enough to exact the proper amount of justice necessary.

Of course, executing Bittaker won't bring back his victims. But it will provide some sense of justice.

Individuals can get life without parole for numerous offenses, such as bank robbery or attempted murder. By giving Bittaker the same sentence a bank robber who killed nobody would get, we belittle the crime of murder. We belittle the evil and the heinousness of Bittaker's crimes. By giving Bittaker life in prison, we equate his torture and murder of five little girls with lesser crimes where the level of heinousness is of an incomparably lower degree.

Now, maybe that is the goal of abolitionists. Maybe they truly believe, in their distorted sense of righteousness, that giving people like Lawrence Bittaker life without parole instead of the death penalty exacts some twisted, perverted travesty of justice. But the fact is that it doesn't. The only thing it serves to do is reward a murderer, a man who is the worst of the worst of humanity, with the very thing he denied his victims: life. People like Lawrence Bittaker have no right to life. Like the sick, rabid beast he is, the only thing Bittaker deserves is to be put down for good.

So, in the end, when people ask me why I support the death penalty, I always point to Lawrence Bittaker. Despite the misguided perversions of justice and misplaced sympathy so frequently preached by opponents of the death penalty, the truth is that Lawrence Bittaker demonstrates that some murderers are so evil, so depraved, and so wicked, that they forfeit their right to life.

And, no matter what opponents of capital punishment say, that is a truth that will never change.

(A special thanks to the makers of the documentary The Devil and the Death Penalty)