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A resident of Daly City, California, Rosemarie Bjorkland awoke on the morning of February 1, 1959, and told herself, as she related in court: “This is the day I will kill someone. If I meet anyone, that will be it.” The 18-year-old girl was obviously in a deranged frame of mind when she took a .38-caliber pistol from her parents’ home that day and began wandering through the hills of San Francisco, looking for a person to murder. She found a gardener, August Norry, emptying refuse from his pickup truck on a lonely road. He apparently though she was stranded and asked if she wanted a lift into town. Rosemarie smiled and thanked him. Then she drew the pistol and emptied it into the hapless father of two, killing him. She reloaded the weapon and fired another clip of bullets into the dead body, twelve shots in all. Then the young killer climbed through the victim’s truck and took it for a thrill ride through the hills. Police, examining the bullets that killed Norry, noticed they were unusual “wadcutters” used mostly for target practice. They traced the bullets to a gun shot, and its proprietor, Lawrence Schultz, reported that the bullets had been purchased by Rosemarie Bjorkland. She was quickly arrested at her parents’ home and confessed almost immediately, explaining that all she did was follow a “sudden urge.” Bjorkland was tried and convicted. Before she was led away to begin serving a life sentence, Bjorkland shook her head at reporters and said: “This is not what I expected.”
