# Lawrence Bittaker

Lawrence Sigmund Bittaker (September 27, 1940 – December 13, 2019) and Roy Lewis Norris (February 5, 1948 – February 24, 2020), also known as the Tool Box Killers, were two American serial killers and rapists who kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed five teenage girls in Southern California over a period of five months in 1979. Described by FBI Special Agent John E. Douglas as the most disturbing individual for whom he has ever created a criminal profile, Bittaker was sentenced to death for five murders on March 24, 1981, but died of natural causes while incarcerated on death row at San Quentin State Prison in December 2019.Norris accepted a plea bargain whereby he agreed to testify against Bittaker and was sentenced to life imprisonment on May 7, 1980, with possibility of parole after serving 30 years. He died of natural causes at the California Medical Facility in February 2020.Bittaker and Norris became known as the "Tool Box Killers" because the majority of instruments used to torture and murder their victims, such as pliers, ice picks and sledgehammers, were items normally stored inside a household toolbox.