Inside the Mind of BTK

144 INSIDE THE MIND OF BTK
Rader would also do the same thing to anyone who bothered his
youngest brother, Paul, who his friends all referred to as Paulie. If there
was ever a time when Rader’s softer side came out, it was around
Paulie, who was always a small child. That was why his older brother
often seemed to have him at his side. He reportedly couldn’t stomach
the thought of the other kids razzing Paulie because of his size. On
more than one occasion, Rader walked straight up to one of Paulie’s
tormentors and, with his usual calm and level voice, stared unblinkingly
into his foe’s eyes and said, “I don’t appreciate you teasing Paulie
. . . You need to stop now, or I’m going to have to do something about
it.” After a while, kids no longer bothered teasing the youngest Rader
boy. Nobody, it seemed, wanted to endure Rader’s unnerving, matterof-fact
routine.
There may have been another reason why Rader’s words seemed
to carry such weight. The other kids understood that if he had no
alternative, Dennis actually did know how to use his fists. According
to a friend, back when Rader was in grade school, his father gave him
a bit of advice about how to handle those clowns who seemed hellbent
on picking a fight. If he ever encountered one of those guys, old
man Rader instructed his eldest son, he needed to learn how to defend
himself. So one afternoon, he showed his son how to punch and where
to aim his blows on the other guy’s body.
It wasn’t long after that, when Rader was in eighth grade, that the
class bully set his sights on the him. All morning long, he picked on
and badgered Dennis, calling him names and shoving him around in
front of the other kids. Rader finally snapped shortly after lunch, after
retreating into a restroom with a buddy, partly to get away from the
bully who had decided to make his life hell. It wasn’t long before his
tormentor discovered him and quickly resumed picking on him. And
it was then, according to one of his childhood friends, that Rader
remembered his father’s advice.
He balled up his fists and announced, “That’s enough.”
The fight reportedly didn’t last long, but Rader matched the kid
blow for blow. And after all the punches had been thrown, nobody
had won or lost, but nobody else ever picked on Rader again.
Back when Rader was in grade school, Friday nights were always
a big deal for him. That was the night the local TV station, KAKE,
played all those old horror movies. The show was called Rodney and
the Host, and it centered around a guy who looked like Boris Karloff,