Inside the Mind of BTK

98 INSIDE THE MIND OF BTK
of us would dart off in a fresh, new direction, watching to see if anyone
followed. Much of what we would offer up would be insightful,
some of it not so. We didn’t always agree with what the others said, yet
we were smart enough to know that this was part of the process, part
of the journey.
The objective of our session was to keep moving forward until we
ran out of juice, until we were tapped out. It was up to the two detectives
from Wichita to take notes, jotting down whatever elements they
found helpful. Whether anything we came up with at this table would
ever get implemented was up to the task force. Our unit’s caseload was
far too crowded to allow the luxury of monitoring how our ideas were
used in a particular investigation.
I decided to kick off the discussion by spending a few minutes
rehashing the case for those present, hoping to refresh everyone’s
memories.
“Here’s where I’m at with this guy,” I said, pulling off my suit
jacket and draping it over my chair. “Back when he started in 1974, he
was in his mid- to late twenties. It’s now ten years later, so that would
put him in his mid- to late thirties.”
“How’d you come up with that figure?” Walker asked.
“I started with the age of twenty-five because that’s what our
research is finding to be the median age when most of these guys start
killing,” I said. “Then I tacked on a few more years because of the level
of criminal sophistication evident in the Otero murders and his apparent
knowledge of police and criminology.”
Walker nodded.
I turned toward the two detectives seated at the far end of the
table. “If you haven’t already, you guys should check and see if Nancy
Fox’s driver’s license had her picture on it,” I said. “If it did, it seems
logical to assume that he took it as a type of trophy to help him relive
her kill later. If not, perhaps he removed it in order to have enough
facts on hand so he’d have something to read to the police dispatcher.”
I paused for a moment to collect my thoughts. Since nobody
opened his mouth, I continued. “If this is all a game to him, he’s doing
it to fulfill his ego,” I said. “It’s a challenge thrown at police. His victims
are all so different. He may have a preferential victim, but when
it’s time to go on the hunt, the person he hits is the first one to come
into his sights. The significance for him is his ability to get away with
the crime and flaunt his skills. The only torture I’m seeing with his
kills is psychological torture.”