Today’s Normal, Average Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Though raised in comparatively good surroundings by her family in Daly City, California, Penny Bjorkland (born Rosemarie Diane) was bent on murder while still in her teens. There was never an adequate reason given—either by herself or psychiatrists baffled at her deed—for her slaying of gardener August Norry on February 1, 1959. Her only comment on the murder was chillingly laconic—”Just to see if I could, and not worry about it afterwards.”
Laconic Penny
Penny, an attractive eighteen-year-old blonde, worked as a file clerk at a publisher’s service bureau. She was conscientious in her work habits and considered an asset to the firm. Her weekends, however, were fitful. She bit her nails horribly and slept for twenty-five hour stretches; she would dream of murdering someone, anyone.
On the day of the murder, Penny awakened abruptly and said audibly to herself: “This is the day I will kill someone. If I meet anyone that will be it.”
After breakfasting with her mother, an unusually beautiful woman (some claim it was Penny’s jealousy for her mother which caused her hatred for society and bloodlust), Penny went into her room, got dressed and, after taking out her .38-caliber pistol, which she used for target practice, went hunting for someone to kill in the hills about San Francisco.
She found landscape gardener August Norry, 27, married and the father of two children. The young man was dumping some refuse from his car when Penny walked up to him. He offered her a lift and slid behind the wheel.
“Thank you,” Penny Bjorkland replied and pulled out her pistol, pumping six shots into the startled gardener. She then ran around the car and, reloading, fired another six bullets into the dead body.
Penny reached upward, grabbed the corpse by the neck and pulled it from the car. She reloaded her weapon and fired yet another six shots into the dead man. After staring at the body for a while, pleased, Penny jumped into the car—the bloody seat didn’t appear to bother her—and drove it wildly down through the hills. It was found hours later in a lover’s lane. A boy told police he had seen “a freckle-faced blonde” driving Norry’s vehicle “like mad” away from the murder spot.
The brutal murder stymied police. Penny tried to help them by sending a letter to a San Francisco newspaper, telling the editor that “her friend” killed Norry—but she did not reveal her identity or any names. A month later, Penny turned to her co-workers at the publisher’s service bureau and blandly stated, “I’m the blonde they’re looking for in the Daly City murder.” Her friends laughed uproariously.
Police did have one clue, however. From Norry’s body, they took eighteen unusual slugs, known to ballistic experts as “wadcutters,” a kind of bullet used in target shooting. These were somewhat rare and were subsequently traced to a San Francisco gunshop owned by Lawrence Schultze. The proprietor, after attempting not “to get involved” admitted selling fifty rounds of “wadcutters” to a teenage blonde. He had her name on his receipt files. Yes. Here it is. Penny Bjorkland.
In a matter of hours, on April 15, 1959, police arrested the disturbed young girl and took her to the San Mateo County Jail where she sobbingly confessed her crime to a matron the following morning.
Penny waived jury trial and admitted the killing, throwing herself on the mercy of the court. A four-month trial followed, weighed down with tedious psychiatric examinations, theories, and cross-examinations. On August 6, 1959, Superior Court Judge Frank Blum of Redwood City determined that the Norry killing was a “willful, wanton murder,” and sentenced the girl to life in prison.
“This is not what I expected,” Penny told reporters. She was removed to Corona Prison. Years later, a reporter visited with her. She ended the interview brightly with: “I consider myself a normal, average girl.”
Penny being escorted by a prison matron to her new lifelong home
Culled from: Bloodletters and Badmen
Plastination Specimen Du Jour!
New-born child with hydrocephalus
Culled from: Bodyworlds: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies
Andersonville Prisoner Diary Entry Du Jour!
This is the continuation of the 1864 diary of Andersonville prisoner Private George A. Hitchcock (see the archived version for all entries up until now).
Here’s today’s entry:
July 14th. Warm in the forenoon, but cloudy in the afternoon. Several were shot on the dead-line during the day. The sergeants were ordered to appear at the gate, where they received the pleasing information that grape and canister would be fired into camp without further notice, if large crowds should collect or any unusual commotion occur. There was a general review of the camp guard outside, and a salute of two guns fired. The authorities evidently fear an uprising in camp.
Culled from: Andersonville: Giving Up the Ghost