Inside the Mind of BTK

Q
7
How do you trap a shadow? Where do you even
start? You can’t shine a light on it. Shadows dwell in darkness. They
disappear in the presence of light. The police in Wichita had thrown
plenty of light in the direction of the UNSUB, but had found nothing.
He’d remained hidden, revealing himself only to his victims, then
vanishing.
If the authorities had managed to get close to him, he’d never let
on. Now it was 1984, and ten years had passed since what he claimed
were his first grisly series of murders.
After combing through hundreds of pages of crime reports, photos,
and other documents detailing his murders, I’d slowly come to
the conclusion that perhaps the only way to catch this killer was to let
him catch himself. That was really all I had to offer. The UNSUB
seemed to hold all the cards—a fact that both he and the police were
well aware of. This meant we might have to wait years before he let his
guard down enough to slip up.
But he’d done it before. Besides leaving traces of semen behind in
the Oteros’ basement and in Nancy Fox’s bedroom, he’d felt compelled
to send his revealing, potentially evidence-laden communiqués to
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