The Serial Killer Whisperer- Laura Brand

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to sit down and chat with a serial killer? Well, we found out this week when we sat down with Laura Brand. She’s basically a serial killer whisperer. A private eye and forensic psychology practitioner, Laura has been working with serial killers for years.

She started by creating a questionnaire that she sent to hundreds of serial killers, looking to get a better understanding of who they were and how their minds worked. Once she started getting tons of questionnaires back she decided it might be time to actually sit down with a couple of serial killers face to face.

A mentor suggested she start in San Quentin, the largest death row in the country. Laura originally thought she’d sit down with Lawrence Bittaker (1/2 of the Tool Box Killers)and two other serial killers but it grew to so much more. She’s spent 6 years working with Bittaker.

Bittaker and Norris make up the Tool Box Killers duo. They were charged with kidnapping, killing and torturing 5 women. Bittaker charges consisted of five counts of first-degree murder, one charge of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, five charges of kidnapping, nine charges of rape, two charges of forcible oral copulation, one charge of sodomy, and three charges of unlawful possession of a firearm. Bittaker was found guilty on all charges.

The first time Laura met with Bittaker she was fresh out of college and working on her master's degree. She described him as harsh and very hard to work with at first. Norris was actually a much warmer and more forthcoming interviewee in the beginning. However, when Laura returned to San Quentin in 2018 she was 7 months pregnant and she said that actually had an interesting effect on many of the men she was interviewing. She remembers about 10 minutes into her reuniting with Bittaker he grabbed a pen from her hand and began drawing a map to where two victims that had never been found were located.

Laura felt that the vulnerability of her pregnancy was what had this effect on the men. She felt that it helped them to really connect with her oddly enough and open up in a way she had not gotten them to do before. Bittaker and Laura worked together up until his recent death in late 2019. Laura hopes that she can use the information she garnered from Buttaker to bring the women home and give a sense of peace to their families. She is working on organizing a search.

Laura will be speaking at Crime Con 2020 and is currently working on both a book and a documentary all about her encounters with some of the most vicious serial killers in history. But we got a sit down with her first and she tells us all about her story and experiences.