Crime Classification Manual

Homicide 233
females, within a narrow age range, unknown to the offenders, and considered
high-risk victims because they were hitchhiking. (Schaeffer was not
hitchhiking, but walking along the highway elevated her risk as a victim.)
Crime Scene Indicators
Bittaker and Norris’s crime scenes typified organized sadistic murder. They
were carefully planned offenses that reflected overall control in conversation
and of the victims themselves by the use of restraints. Bittaker derived enjoyment
from engaging victims in conversation that he governed. He used the
conversation as a means of torture in itself; making victims plead for their
lives substantiated his sense of domination.
Their abductions were well planned, beginning with the customizing they
did on the van. The weapons, the tools of their assault, were never an issue
until capture since the actual crime scene was within the van. At the abduction
sites, the only evidence left behind was Schaeffer’s shoe.
Bittaker and Norris transported the victims to remote sites that posed little
to no risk of interruption or discovery. This ensured the lengthy contact
with the victims that was required to fulfill the fantasies and drives that
fueled their acts of sadistic murder. Several bodies were transported to a different
disposal site from the death scene. With Norris’s help, the broken
skeletal remains of Gilliam and Lamp were found scattered over an area hundreds
of feet along the canyon floor. No traces of Schaeffer or Hall’s body
were found due to the well-selected disposal sites. All of these indicators
common to Bittaker and Norris crime scenes are evidence of controlled,
organized offenders.
The setting of Ledford’s death and assault was still within the realm of the
organized, controlled scene, despite the body being left in view with no effort
to conceal it. Bittaker’s craving for some press time, recognition of his
crime, was his incentive for this change in MO.
Forensic Findings
Lucinda Schaeffer and Andrea Hall’s remains were never found. Partial
remains of Gilliam and Lamp, including their battered skulls, were found in
the Glendora Mountains. Gilliam still had the ice pick inserted in her right ear.
Shirley Ledford’s autopsy revealed death was due to strangulation with a
wire ligature around the neck. There were a linear compression mark, soft
tissue, and petechial hemorrhage around the neck. There was evidence of
multiple blunt-force trauma to the face, head, and breasts. Her rectum, the
lining inside her rectum, and her vagina had been torn from being stretched
too far, in part due to the insertion of a pair of pliers by Bittaker. There were