The Tool Box Killer (2021)

The Tool Box Killer is not readily available online so I couldn’t embed the video in this post but you can watch The Tool Box Killer documentary by clicking here… or click on the image below.

The Tool Box Killer (2021)

Serial Killer Documentaries: “The Tool Box Killer (2021)”

The Tool Box Killer is a terrific full-length documentary, produced by Mike Mathis Productions, that tells the disturbing story of Lawrence Bittaker, also known as the ‘Tool Box Killer’   ..

The Tool Box Killings …

For five months in 1979, Bittaker, along with his killing buddy, Roy Norris, drove around California in a modified van they called “Murder Mac” looking for girls to victimize.

Armed with a toolbox full of pliers, ice picks, and sledgehammers, they abducted girls and perpetrated horrific crimes, killing five in all: Lucinda “Cindy” Schaefer, 16; Andrea Hall, 18; Jacqueline Gilliam, 15; Jacqueline Leah Lamp, 13, and Shirley Lynette Ledford, 16.

Norris bragged about his and Bittaker’s murders to Joe Jackson, a friend of theirs from prison, which would eventually lead to both of their captures. Norris took a plea deal and offered to play State witness.

He lead the police to two of the missing bodies while claiming Bittaker was the mastermind and he was, ‘mostly stoned’ through the crimes and murders.

Bittaker remained quiet throughout the entire judicial process. Bittaker would be sentenced to death and Norris was given 45 years to life.

California Men’s Colony …

Norris and Bittaker first met at California Men’s Colony – a male-only state prison located northwest of the city of San Luis Obispo, San Luis Obispo County, California.

After a lifetime of crimes and incarcerations, Bittaker was being held there for attempted murder for stabbing a clerk in the parking lot of a grocery store after attempting to shoplift a steak.

After a lifetime of crimes and incarcerations, Norris was being held there for strangling a woman to the point of unconsciousness and raping her.

While in prison they would form an evil bond connected by perverse, sadistic fantasies of what they would do to young girls once they got out.

Both would eventually be paroled and in February, 1979, they made contact with each other once again and set their sadistic plans in motion.

Criminologist Laura Brand …

In an odd way, The Tool Box Killer documentary is about a friendship being formed by a lifelong, aging criminal and a fearless young criminologist.

One, perhaps realizing that his death is imminent, is eager to make one final human connection and the other eager to make a name for herself while perhaps gaining information to help a couple of families gain some closure.

Laura Brand, fondly referred to as ‘Siren of San Quentin’, has interviewed many murderers and serial killers in her career but the one that she always wanted to interview was always slipping out of reach.

The Tool Box Killer documentary explains how over the course of five years, Brand set out to record Lawrence Bittaker but she would be rebuffed at every attempt.

Then one day, while being 7 months pregnant, she showed up to San Quentin and Bittaker let down his guard and started to open up.

A strange long-distance friendship was formed (brilliant strategy by Brand) which led to countless hours of Bittaker on record recounting his life story: from abandoned, abused youth to the murdering psychopath that he would eventually become.

The Tool Box Killer Documentary …

Coming in at around 124mins, The Tool Box Killer is an absolute stunner of a serial killer documentary.

Brilliant use of dramatic re-enactments serve as the visual while Bittaker himself – in a calm and knowing tone – plays the role of the narrator, coldly describing his own sadistic acts.

Brand, expertly asks the right questions along the way to prod and elicit broader explanations from Bittaker which sometimes leads to answers that are chilling to listen to.

‘God isn’t here. Only devils!’ was one of the sadistic things that Bittaker would say to his victims as they plead for their young lives.

The Tool Box Killer is not readily available online so I couldn’t embed the video in this post but you can watch The Tool Box Killer documentary by clicking here.

“In 1979, Bittaker and Norris used the roads of California as their hunting grounds and relied on the remote areas of the San Gabriel Mountains, where they brutalized and killed their victims.

Their prey: young women aged 18 and under, some of whom were hitchhiking. The teens made the dire mistake of getting into the deadly duo’s van that they ghoulishly nicknamed “Murder Mack,” The New York Daily News reported in 2015….” Oxygen