Inside the Mind of BTK

The Capture and Arrest of BTK 221
“It’s cold outside,” he said. “I need some warmth, a car, and some
food.”
Then he told her to lie down on the bed; he pulled handcuffs out
from a pocket in his coat and slipped them over her wrists. Davis
began to panic, but Rader told her to relax. He explained that if she’d
only tell him where her car keys were, he’d be gone in no time. He
grabbed a pillowcase, went into the kitchen, and began filling it with
cans of food, making as much noise as possible. This seemed to calm
Davis down.
His journal detailed how he checked out where she kept her car,
then got everything ready for what would happen next. In his mind,
he felt confident that Davis believed he was preparing to leave. Next he
walked back into the bedroom, unlocked her cuffs, and tied her wrists
with rope. Once again, he apologized for breaking into her house,
assuring her that he’d be gone in a minute and that someone would
probably find her shortly. As she lay there on her stomach on the bed,
he opened the drawer to her dresser and pulled out a pair of panty
hose. She spotted him, but he once again attempted to convince her
that everything would be okay; the last thing he wanted was for her to
begin panicking.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked. “I need these to tie you a little
more.”
And that was when he decided there was no reason to wait any
longer. In one quick motion, he looped the hose around her throat.
“Please,” she pleaded. “I have children.”
So did Rader, I thought. They were both home asleep in their
beds, just down the hallway from his wife. But that didn’t seem to matter.
He pulled the hose tight and later wrote that it took her between
two and three minutes to die. Rivulets of blood trickled from her nose,
ears, and mouth. As he stared down at her body, the thought occurred
to him that the moment he savored most when he killed happened at
that instant when his victims had been bound and realized they were
doomed. He could live off that moment for years, he wrote afterwards.
Rader later told police that he didn’t masturbate at the scene, and
because no traces of semen were found in the house, he might have
been telling the truth. From the sound of it, he had other things on
his mind, because after watching the life seep out of Davis, he wrapped
her body in a blanket from the bed and dragged her out to the trunk
of her car. Afterwards he darted back inside the house, grabbed some
jewelry, lingerie, and a camera, then headed out to a remote highway