Inside the Mind of BTK

The Capture and Arrest of BTK 197
off at a restaurant with a few of the guys from work and picked up
some cinnamon rolls and coffee. That was when he spotted the pay
phone on the side of a mini-market on the corner of Central and Saint
Francis streets. For the next hour, he couldn’t get the image of that
damn phone out of his brain. He was dying to pick it up and tip off
the cops about what he’d left them in that apartment on South Pershing
Street. Even though he knew it would be a stupid move and that
his voice would probably be recorded, he couldn’t help himself.
No sooner did his men begin working on the fire alarm job than
he announced that he needed to head back to the ADT office and pick
up some supplies. A few minutes later he was standing beside that pay
phone, telling himself that what he was about to do was both careless
and bold. “It’s probably the kind of thing you do when you’re younger,
the kind of thing you don’t do if you really think things through,” he
said years later. But at that moment, the fire burning inside Rader was
far too hot. He picked up the phone and dialed the police dispatch
number.
“You will find a homicide at 843 South Pershing,” he told the dispatcher.
“Nancy Fox.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the woman on the other end of the line replied. “I
can’t understand you. What is the address?”
At that point another dispatcher, who had been monitoring the
call, interrupted: “I believe 843 South Pershing.”
“That is correct,” the man said. Then the phone line went quiet.
The entire call lasted fifteen seconds. In his journal he wrote that
as he hung up the phone, he mumbled to himself afterwards, “Maybe
no one will recognize my voice.”
A few nights later, while watching TV with Paula, the recording of
the call was played on TV for the umpteenth time. Brian was asleep,
and Paula was tired. She listened as the voice of Nancy Fox’s killer
drifted out of their TV set.
After a few seconds of reflection, she commented, “He sounds just
like you.”
Dennis felt his heart begin thumping madly. He did his best to
look cool and calm, as though the mere idea that his wife believed that
his voice resembled that of the sick and twisted man responsible for
Fox’s death was too ludicrous even to be worthy of a comment. But
deep down he was in a panic. When he finally glanced over at Paula,
she was still gazing at the TV screen. Her comment, he concluded, was
nothing more than a bit of idle chat. If she truly believed he was a