Inside the Mind of BTK

160 INSIDE THE MIND OF BTK
things he wanted to do to them . . . that was pure bliss. Some guys have
baseball cards, he’d laugh to himself, but I have these—my fantasy
cards. He quickly got so addicted to his paper prisoners that he continually
felt the need to add to his stable. After a while, they always
lost their zing. He tried using the pictures he’d clip from the local
newspapers he had access to, but something about those women never
quite worked for him.
One night, he grew so desperate for a fix of what he considered
to be American-looking models that he claimed to have smashed a
window on the side of the base library, crawled inside, and stolen a
stack of magazines. He quickly stashed them away deep in his locker.
Whenever he felt the need to go trolling for victims, he’d retrieve one
of his pilfered magazines, grab a pair of scissors, and go to work. The
break-in marked something of a dark milestone for Rader. His decision
to steal the magazines during a high-risk, high-stakes late-night
burglary—instead of simply sneaking them out when the library was
open—showed that he was beginning to have a tough time controlling
his impulses.
Some nights, however, not even his slick ads could help Rader
scratch his itch. So he’d wander out in the woods near his base, wrap
himself up in rope, lock his wrists together with the pair of handcuffs
he’d purchased during his travels, then pretend to be one of his imagined
victims. The handcuffs were the latest addition to his arsenal. For
the first few months he had them, they helped ease some of his sexual
frustrations. Yet, as satisfying as they could be, his self-bondage eventually
failed to satisfy his urges. Which was why he finally decided it
was time to step up his game to the next level.
One night, he waited until nightfall, then jumped the fence surrounding
the Tachikawa Air Base, located about forty miles northeast
of Tokyo. I read in his journal how he spent the next half hour hailing
down taxis and hopping buses, trying to get as far away from the
base as possible, working his way deeper and deeper into the maze of
tiny, crowded streets. He considered this to be a little game. He was
going on a pretend hunt.
He stuck out like a bandaged thumb, out there in those neighborhoods.
He knew that, but he didn’t care. That thing inside him was getting
stronger now—hungrier, too. I’d learned from other killers that
their fantasies were like watching a movie over and over again. Pretty
soon, no matter how exciting it once was, the story line grows boring,
and the killer has to try to find something new. Rader’s having access