WEBVTT
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Okay, Tapes from the Dark Side contains descriptions of violence
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and sexuality. Listener discretion is advised.
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M that time we told her what was going on
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or or did and I was doing the driving, us
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doing mostly talking with her. I told him, well, since
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he did the door, he could go first with her.
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So I'm kind of patrolled outside of the man on
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the fire road while he right for her first chance,
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and then we changed places. I think everyone has a
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bit of a fascination of the dark side.
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I must, well, it's love the dark side as well.
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I think it's something that everyone secretly longs.
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Foreign waves.
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Having came to kind of the critical point, easily remember
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what we looked like by said ok old.
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And it was the summer of nineteen seventy nine. The
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last vestiges of the nineteen seventies were set to expire
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and welcome in the rip and roar era of the
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nineteen eighties. This chapter takes place in Torrance, California, a
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coastal town where the air smells faintly of salt and
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sun baked asphalt, and the streets glow soft orange beneath
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the high pressure sodium mark street lights. Sixteen year old
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Lucinda Lynn Schaeffer walks those streets often, the kind of
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girl who never seems out of place. Her friends call
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her Cindy. Blonde hair, bright blue eyes, always a book
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tucked under her arm, or a quick smile ready to
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disarm a stranger. Cindy was a student at Redondo Union
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High School, known for being responsible beyond her years, a
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steady presence in a world where teenagers are usually anything but.
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She sang in her church youth group, Saint Andrew's Presbyterian,
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and spent her weekends helping out with community events or
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hanging out with friends at the local mall. She was gentle,
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but firm in her values. Her parents described her as
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quote wise for sixteen, the kind of girl who would
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politely decline a ride home just to finish her walk
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beneath the quiet hum of the California street lights. That night,
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June twenty fourth, was just like any other night. A
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youth meeting at church had run late, and Cindy, dressed
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in a white black embroidered with black patterns and dark jeans,
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waved goodbye to friends before setting out on a short
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walk home to her grandmother's house. It wasn't far maybe
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ten minutes at most. She'd walked it dozens of times before,
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the kind of walk that feels so safe you don't
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even think twice. But that night, the sidewalks of Torrents
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held shadows that Cindy couldn't have known about, couldn't have
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even dreamed about. Somewhere nearby, Parked along the quiet street,
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sat As Silver nineteen seventy seven, GMC cargo van unremarkable
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at first glance, inside were two men watching her every move.
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Their names were Laurence Bittaker and Roy Norris, and Cindy
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Schaeffer was about to become their first victim. In his
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own chilling written account, Bittaker describes how the morning began.
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Before they set out, the pair worked inside their van,
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finishing the construction of a bed they had built in
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the rear. Beneath it. They carefully tucked away tools, a
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change of clothes, and a cooler packed with beer and
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soft drinks. Everything had its place, Everything was deliberate. By
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late morning, the two men were ready at approximately eleven am.
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Bittaker later wrote, quote, we.
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Drove to the beach area, drinking beer, smoking grass, and
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flirting with girls. We had no set routine to outsiders.
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They looked like two men killing time on a summer day.
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But inside that van, hidden beneath the bed, lay the
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beginnings of something monstrous, and before the night was over,
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Lucinda Shaeffer would cross their path. It was just before
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eight pm on June twenty fourth when the hunt came
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to an end. At approximately seven forty six pm, Roy
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Norris spotted their target, sixteen year old Lucinda Shaeffer, walking
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alone down a side street toward her grandmother's home. Roy
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turned to Larry and said, quote, there's a cute little
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blonde at the pop of the hill where she had walked.
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There was somebody out in their front yard I think
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doing a barbecue and he parently was the only person
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in the neighborhood heard her two little screams. I was
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kind of looking down the work she had been or
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we had been there is like girl looked over the
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top of the gildoy.
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So when you was there a conversation with Roy, like
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or was there something about this girl that stood out
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that made you think let's grab her? Like did she
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have a physical feature like why did you pick her?
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Was there any like sort of ring?
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She was long and for being alone accessible words I
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had all all told.
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Was there a conversation between you and Roy? Like getting
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her was like did you look at each other and say,
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you know, let's just speak her? Like they didn't even
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come about.
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I was just kind of uh understood it in a
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radio And then wasn't it conquered a lot of people's beliefs?
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So a little planning involved in all this? Just okay,
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let's you know, we kind of discussed this saying, okay,
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there's a fenialist criner. You know.
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They tried the easy way first, Pulling alongside her, they
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offered her marijuana and then a ride home. Cindy refused
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both times and kept on walking, but Roy and Larry
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weren't ready to let her go. They drove further ahead,
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pulling into a driveway and set the trap. Roy stepped
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out of the van, sliding open the passenger door. He
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leaned inside, his head and shoulders hidden from the street,
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as if nothing were amiss. When Cindy walked past, he
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spoke a few words to her, and then, in a
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sudden flash of violence, he grabbed her and dragged her inside.
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The door, slam shut. In an instant, Larry cranked the
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radio to full volume, drowning out her screams, while Roy
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bound her arms and left eggs, wrapping her in duct tape,
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and with that the van sped off towards the San
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Gabriel Mountains to the fire road they claimed as their own.
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Just weeks earlier, we got her in.
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The van and he drove on what happened.
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You know. I told her some story about we were
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sort of a citizens watch group and we were going
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to see how long it took the authorities to respond
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to her being missing. And I had a scanner going
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sitting on the shield on the sport while we'll hear
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over that and when it's all clear, we'll take you back.
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Tied her up.
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Mhm.
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Was the hysterical like during this is that why you
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were telling her this?
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Well, he was just explaining that was a long kind
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of league. The strange things about it. First, none of them,
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none of the five got uh tick the upset. Other
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than the last. I think, what a kind of a
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state of shock. But there are some uh you know,
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it was so low done, so low key in most cases,
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other than the initial taking physical custody of you know,
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one of the it's it's kind of surreal in ways
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that most of them usually weren't tied up. If they were,
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it was a very minimal extent, like like tying their
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hands together with a cored three feet apart, so they
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can still have meat freedom to glue around. And they
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usually weren't gagged. It's very strange to be low key overall.
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It's kind of hard there somebody walked up. They wouldn't
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really realize that such a thing was going on, right,
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So what happened when not? Yeah, not not to blame
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the girls for this at all, but if it could
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been slightly aware of her surroundings and crossed back to
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the other side of the street where there wasn't all
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that recrubby between the curtain sidewalks, she hadn't been able
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to see, you know, it was long around her. She
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made it easy in a way that's you know, that's
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not making her her fault. And I hated easier like
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the other ones are hitch. I could be voluntarily get
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into a strange van of two days, you know they did,
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you know, just sell the stupid stuff.
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It's impossible to ignore Larry Bittaker's disgusting victim blaming, but
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frankly I would expect nothing less from a monstrous man
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like himself. It's clear from Laura Brand's recordings that Larry
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has done very little soul searching during his time in prison.
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When Cindy Schaeffer was first dragged inside the van, her
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terrified screams filled the air, but then just silence. Against
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all odds, Cindy managed to regain her composure. Even Larry
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Bittaker himself seems struck by it. In his own written account,
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he described her with chilling detachment.
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Quote she displayed a magnificent state of self control and
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composed acceptance of the conditions of which she had no control.
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She shed no tears, offered no resistance, and expressed no
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great concern for her safety. I guess she knew what
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was coming.
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For a sixteen year old girl to face such horror
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with that kind of calm is haunting. There's really no
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other word for it. But to Larry Bittaker it was
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nothing more than a detail to record. At the fire Road,
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the nightmare deepened. Roy was the first to act. He
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ordered Larry to quote, go take a walk and return
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in an hour. Alone in the van, Roy sexually assaulted
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Lucinda Schaeffer.
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Which the one thing.
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You've got herd into the man and you drove up
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into the Allen what you know what progressed from there?
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I timely told her what was going on or Roy dude,
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and I'm doing the driving games, doing most of talking
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with her. I told him, since he did the door,
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he could go first with her, so I'm kind of
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patrolled outside of the Man on the fire road.
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Wow.
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He right for her first time, and then we changed
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places when.
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Larry came back. The men switch places, and now it
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was his turn. When he was finished, Roy came back
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he assaulted her again. It was during this second attack
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that Cindy finally asked the question she must have feared
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all along. Were they going to kill her? Roy Norris's
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answer was a lie one word. No, We'll be right
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back after her. A quick break. Don't go anywhere, and
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remember that If you want to join us and help
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support the show, get access to bonus episodes and all
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of our content ad free, you can join us on Patreon.
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That's patreon dot com slash Tapes from the Dark Side.
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Cindy's response was quiet heartbreaking. If they were going to
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kill her, she begged, at least allow her some quiet
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time to pray first. Afterwards, when Bittaker and Norris recounted
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the murder, unsurprisingly, their stories didn't match. Each claimed that
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the other argued over whether Cindy Schaeffer should be killed
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rather than released, but the truth of that argument mattered
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little to a girl who was pleading for her life.
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How many times did you each rape?
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At first? Sec then mm on, I guess twice. I
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would say, here's I can remember. It's a little fall
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begin a long time ago, and I's kind of excited
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and wound up nervousness. So if some of our memories
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are little bigue, I say twice, m hm and uh.
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And we came to kind of the critical point and
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really ordered out. We do we have to kill her?
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Can we just, you know, give her a couple hundred
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dollars and grass and let her go? I what he
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used to do? So I asked him kind of a
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critical question. Okay, she's been with us a couple of hours,
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and she can easily remember what we look like. And
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if she he's a registered sex offender with the notices,
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call the neighbor and you know we're he's living in
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a county where she was living there if she contacted,
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the cops would take him about one hour to identify him,
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and that would be his third different rapist sense they
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would Natalie hooked me up with him, and so I'm
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going to be rested. Sure there there there, So we
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might as well just go down and turn ourselves in
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or we get the other optitylight. So and there wasn't
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an oreo argument from beyond that. All the light didn't
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use all those words and reported our parties. Hey, and
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so I said, okay, I'll I'll hold her and you
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use stranger work.
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She begged for only a second to pray, and that
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request was denied. Roy Norris attempted to strangle her with
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his hands for roughly forty five seconds. He tried and
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then recoiled in his own w words. He was disturbed
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by quote the look in her eyes, and then he
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fled to the front of the van and vomited. Larry
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Bittaker took over. He manually strangled loosen to Shaeffer until
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her body collapsed. Her muscles convulsed uncontrollably, but that wasn't enough.
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Larry then twisted a wired coat hanger around her neck
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with vice player grips until the convulsions finally ceased. After
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the murder, Larry and Roy prepared to dispose of Cindy
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Shaeffer's body. They wrapped her in a plastic shower curtain
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and carried her to a steep canyon, one that Larry
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had carefully chosen in advance. According to Norris, once the
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body was hurled over the edge, Bittaker turned to him
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and said, quote, the.
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Animals will eat her up. There won't be any evidence left.
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In that moment, the horror of what they had done
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was complete. A young girl's life extinguished, and nature itself
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was enlisted to erase all traces of evidence. Thank you
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for listening to Tapes from the Dark Side. I've been