Inside the Mind of BTK

94 INSIDE THE MIND OF BTK
for several hours when I first arrived at Quantico), fitness instructors
long ago began marking the way with yellow bricks. Ever since, the
running course has been known as the Yellow Brick Road. On that
warm, hazy autumn afternoon, I soon found myself trotting over a
dirt trail that bore the name “We’re Not in Kansas Anymore.”
Just a few minutes into my run, the full weight of those five words
hit me—this could have been the BTK’s mantra. From what I recalled
from a college literature class, Dorothy uttered that famous phrase to
Toto in The Wizard of Oz for good reason. Kansas was a symbol of
Dorothy’s outer world. But thanks to a tornado and a knock on the
head, she suddenly embarked on an inner journey to a place she called
Oz, a world that dwelled deep within her subconscious.
For Dorothy, Oz was filled with everything from a loveable Cowardly
Lion and cute Munchkins to a hideous-looking Wicked Witch
and a squeaky Tin Man. My hunch was that years before the UNSUB
committed the Otero murders in January 1974, this aspiring killer had
begun a similar journey. But for him, Oz was a much more sinister,
violent realm, a dark fantasy world where he retreated on a daily basis
to relive his kills.
While I was mulling over all this, thinking about how much
Dorothy reminded me of Josie Otero, the vision of an ultracool black
man in a suede trench coat flashed into my head. The juxtaposition
of these disparate, seemingly random images proved jarring. Where
the hell is this going? I laughed.
Then suddenly I remembered the night before when Pam and I
were channel surfing. After a few minutes, she stumbled on a rerun of
an early 1970s flick, starring Richard Roundtree, about a no-nonsense,
ass-kicking inner-city black detective named John Shaft. The movie’s
theme song thundered out of the tiny speaker in our TV set.
“Oh, I remember this movie,” she said, flipping to another channel.
“Turn it back,” I pleaded. “I gotta watch this.”
Pam moaned, switched back to the movie, then snuggled up next
to me. “OK, you win,” she said. “But if you start sobbing over this the
way you did over that Lassie movie two weeks ago, I’m turning off
the TV.”
She had a point. Ever since emerging from my coma ten months
before, I’d been an emotional basket case, bursting into tears at the
strangest moments—commercials for used cars, sunsets, even a Lassie
rerun.
“I think I can handle this,” I replied.