Inside the Mind of BTK

The Capture and Arrest of BTK 187
aware” of everything going on around him—the other students dutifully
scribbling notes, sunlight streaming in through the window, the
sound the chalk made as it slammed against the blackboard. Never
before had he felt so focused. Sweat drenched his clothing.
After class, he decided it was time to take action. He made one last
pass of the house, to check out the location of the phone line and the
back door. In front of the house sat the blonde girl’s green Pinto,
which led him to believe she was inside. He parked a few blocks away,
then walked a meandering route back to the house. Tucked inside his
heavy ski jacket were his ropes, cords, gags, knife, and two pistols.
As luck would have it, by the time he reached the house and
pounded on the front door, no one was home. He walked around back,
cut the phone line, and broke the glass on the back door with his wirecutters.
The place was empty, but he told himself he’d stick around
awhile and wait for her to return. After a few minutes, he decided to
check out the inside of the house, walking from bedroom to bedroom,
plotting out exactly where and how the crime would all go down. He
eventually decided that he’d tie her up in a back bedroom, using some
of the panty hose and clothes he’d located in the house.
Then he sat down in a chair and waited for the woman with the
long blonde hair and the beaded purse to arrive back home. His head
was filled with all the images he’d created about what he wanted to
have happen. The moment she walked inside, he envisioned choking
her into unconsciousness, then dragging her into the bedroom. Once
there, he’d tie her naked to the bed and rape her. When she awoke, he
planned on either plunging an ice pick into her heart or strangling
her. But on that particular morning as he waited for his victim, he
couldn’t stop thinking about what he later referred to in his journal
as “anus intercourse.” Perhaps he’d try that?
His daydream was cut short when he heard a car door slam. He
raced to the front room and hid by the door. A second later, it swung
open, and his victim’s nineteen-year-old brother walked in. Thinking
he was alone, Rader stepped out to confront him, brandishing his pistol.
But a split second later, the young woman whose image he couldn’t
get out of his mind walked in. It was a bad moment, he later recalled.
His whole plan seemed on the verge of being blown.
“She could have turn and run out screaming down the road,” he
wrote in his journal. But she didn’t, and Rader quickly launched into
his story about being a wanted felon in California and how he needed
their car, money, and food in order to get to New York.