Inside the Mind of BTK

Q
My computer screen pulsed and glowed. Hours
had seeped by, but I couldn’t pull my eyes away.
The hotel room had long ago grown dark, so I sat in the blackness.
The only light was leaking out from the disturbing words and images
on my monitor. My vision had begun to grow blurry, so I stood up,
turned on a lamp, and walked to the bathroom to fetch a washcloth. I
allowed the warm water from the sink to flow over the cloth, then I
wrung it out and pressed it over my eyes, hoping to wash away the
residue of what I’d just read. But I knew it wouldn’t work. And deep
down, I didn’t want it to. After all, I’d come to Wichita to wallow in
Dennis Rader, to open up his sick head and dive into his swamplike
mind in order to answer the questions I’d begun asking decades before.
“You’ve got miles to go before you sleep, buddy,” I mumbled to
myself. “Now get back at it.”
I tossed the washcloth in the sink, trudged dutifully back to my
computer, and resumed reading.
Shortly after graduating from Wichita Heights High School in
June 1963, Dennis Rader yearned to feel it. He was desperate to expe-
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