God’s Not Here, Only Devils

The District Attorney began his opening statement with, “If you don’t know what hell is like, you’re about to find out.”

In 1979, Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris went on a rape and killing rampage. The pliers, screwdrivers, hammers, sledgehammers, and ice picks they used on their victims became their calling card and moniker: The Toolbox Killers. They were soon apprehended and convicted for their atrocities, but for decades, refused to reveal the location of their victims’ bodies. More than two decades later, criminologist Laura Brand had the opportunity to interview this sadistic pair as they sat behind bars, probing the depths of their depravity right up to the days of their deaths. Over this relentless six-year period, Bittaker finally gave Brand what he had withheld from law enforcement and families alike: the precise locations of two victims’ remains. Brand’s investigation tore open sealed police reports, court transcripts, and witness accounts, and unearthed brutal and shocking new findings: undisclosed victims, forgotten evidence, and chilling new insights that resurrected this nightmare in unimaginable ways.

God’s Not Here, Only Devils is told through a powerful blend of narratives: the voices of Bittaker himself, his victims, traumatized witnesses, the tenacious lead detective, and the hardened District Attorney. This book pulls the reader into a visceral retelling of the horrors that unfolded and the legacy of terror the Toolbox Killers left behind.