Inside the Mind of BTK

The Capture and Arrest of BTK 179
ken with. The goal is to lull victims into believing that if they’ll cooperate
with their attacker, they won’t be hurt. Nothing, of course, could
be further from the truth.
Julie’s purse sat on the dresser, and he began rifling through it,
searching for her car keys. Things were becoming clearer now. He
could feel the ideas jelling inside his head. He’d entered into this thing
with a vague idea of the outcome, but now things were taking shape
faster than he could control them. One thing was certain—when this
was all over, he’d escape from their house using their car.
“Take whatever you want,” Julie called to him from the bed. “We
have a typewriter. Take that. You can pawn it.”
He didn’t say a word. He just walked over and fished out the car
keys he’d spotted in Joseph’s front pocket. Joseph tried to make eye
contact with him as he removed the keys, and Dennis stared at him,
unblinking.
In his journal, Rader described walking out into the living room
and standing there, staring at their belongings, much of which were
still packed up in cardboard moving boxes, as if the family had just
moved into the house. It was quiet out here, away from the chaos and
panic in the bedroom. He could hear himself breathing and the
thumping of his heart.
Decision time, he told himself, drumming his fingers on the side
of his head. Decision time ...Decision time.
He plunged his hands into his pockets and dumped everything
out onto the sofa—the plastic bags, the cords, his knife and gun.
They’re going down . . . They’re all going down. He grabbed what he
needed and hurried back into the bedroom. Everyone except Joseph
was sobbing. Rader walked over to Joseph, pulled a plastic bag down
over his head, looped his preknotted cord around his neck, and pulled
tight. He did the same thing to the boy. Joseph was attempting to
shout at him through his gag. His words were horribly muffled, but
Rader could still make out what he was saying.
“What are you doing?” Otero cried. “What are you doing?”
And that was when all hell started to break loose. They were on to
him now. There was no use pretending any longer. Everyone began
screaming.
“BE QUIET,” Rader ordered. “EVERYBODY SHUT UP.”
Dennis didn’t like this one bit. Nothing he’d read in those detective
magazines of his had prepared him for this. He’d always considered
those articles to be vocational primers for the kind of work he’d