Inside the Mind of BTK

Q
13
The conversations in my head had begun. After spending
hours clicking my way through the digital remains of Dennis
Rader’s secret inner life, I’d begun conversing with myself, giving
myself instructions.
Fight it, I said. Fight the urge to hate Dennis Rader. You don’t have
time for that. Just keep reading, keep moving downward through all his
words. Think of those he killed. That’s really why you’re here, I reminded
myself. Think of how he decided to make them suffer before stealing their
lives away. Don’t think about how badly you’d enjoy burying your fist
squarely into the middle of his face, hitting him with the type of punch
that drives the cartilage of a man’s nose into the base of his brain, sending
him packing to the next world.
Don’t think about those things, I ordered myself. It’ll only cloud your
judgment, preventing you from glimpsing all the things you need to see,
facts you might have overlooked decades ago. Your job now is to determine
what you missed, what you could have done differently.
Then I shut the hell up and kept reading.
173