Inside the Mind of BTK

The Capture and Arrest of BTK 161
to the prostitutes was similar. After a while, his sex sessions did little to
satisfy his real appetite, the one that demanded torture and pain. This
new little game of his was the only way he knew how to feed it.
In the pockets of his coat, he carried rope, gags, a knife, and his
Woodsman Colt. He wanted to find just the perfect woman, then tail
her through the darkness wherever she went. He told himself that he’d
walk through the darkness until he spotted that special someone who
looked just right, then who knows what might happen. He’d walk
behind his target, licking his lips, whispering to himself all the things
he yearned to do to her. Sometimes the words and images that slithered
out from his head surprised even him. He was so close, he told
himself. But he was in control. He hadn’t crossed over the line. Not
yet. He called the shots. Not the monster inside him. It was all pretend.
Nobody ever got hurt. He never once so much as touched any of the
women he followed through the night. So it was all okay. Kind of like
a hobby.
Where would it all lead? Sometimes that thought drifted through
his mind as he walked back through the night to the safety of the base.
As I read in his journal, he always reckoned he’d put it all behind him
when he finally returned stateside. After all, what sort of a future was
there in this sort of thing? Not much. He told himself that when he got
back to Wichita, he’d get a job, find a wife, start a family, and settle
down. He’d renew his faith in God. He’d purge all this from his system.
He told himself he could do it. And deep down he almost believed
it. That was the way most of the serial killers I’d interviewed were. At
times, they possessed the ability to fool everybody—even themselves.