Inside the Mind of BTK

226 INSIDE THE MIND OF BTK
he had been doing just that—being lazy. Of course, there was an undeniable
element of risk that came from pulling off a project so close to
his home. But he also realized that he was possibly leading the cops
right to his back door.
After Davis’s murder, he told himself that if he “did another one”
so close to his house, the cops would most certainly begin connecting
the dots. He told himself that the one surefire way to throw the cops
off his trail would be to leave them some bodies in some other cities.
Before long, Rader was out trolling again, looking for other victims.
In his notes, he likened himself to a seasoned tracker, combing
the forest for game. All he really needed was patience and a good,
sharp eye. He reminded himself that with ten victims under his belt,
he couldn’t afford to get sloppy.
He began to catalogue his projects with a fury: PJ (Project) Nails
was a white female who often favored business attire and lived in the
eastern portion of Wichita in a large house. PJ 2 Black involved two
African American university coeds who lived a block away from Nails,
the salon where Paula worked. PJ Mex was a Mexican family living on
the south end of town. His list went on and on for good reason. To be
a successful hunter, he reflected in the pages of his journal, it was crucial
to have a list of potential victims. Then all he needed to do was
keep moving around, checking up on them and waiting until the
nuances of their schedules began to fall in sync with his.
Over the next few years, he had plenty of projects and just as many
close calls. Project Twin Peaks involved an elderly couple who lived,
appropriately enough, in the Twin Peaks neighborhood of Wichita.
He spent close to a month staking them out, watching them. Then one
day he decided it was time. That was back in the day when he wanted
to use a shotgun in one of his hits. So he parked his car down the road,
out in a field by a hedgerow, and started walking back toward their
house. His gun was down at his side, and he was so focused on what
was about to happen that he never even saw the “county mountie
barging over the hill lickity split.”
He had his lights off, and Rader figured the sheriff must have spotted
him parking. All he could think was, “Man, I’m cold turkey.” He
dove into a culvert beside the road.
The sheriff roared past, no doubt in pursuit of someone else, and
Rader climbed out of the mud, miffed that he’d scratched the barrel
of his shotgun.