Inside the Mind of BTK

The Capture and Arrest of BTK 227
He walked back to his truck and drove home, cursing himself over
his rotten luck.
Landwehr told me that Rader spoke of another so-called project
that he called off at the last minute. It happened back one afternoon
in August 1976, at a time when he’d begun locating potential victims
by roaming through neighborhoods on the lookout for For Sale signs
taped to an old car or a fishing boat in someone’s front yard. He’d
knock on the front door, and if a woman answered, he’d inquire about
whatever it was she was attempting sell. During the conversation, he’d
check out the inside of the house, trying to figure out if she lived alone
or, God forbid, shared her place with a male. If that were the case, he’d
stay the hell away.
One afternoon, he stumbled on a single mother with two or three
kids, who had a Coleman trailer for sale in her driveway. They chatted
for a few moments, then Rader quickly went on his way. She was
perfect in every way. He wanted to take her so badly it hurt.
A few days later he decided to strike. Late one morning, he stuffed
all his gear inside his pockets and drove toward her house, parked his
car nearby, and began walking back to Project Coleman’s house. He
stood out front to collect himself and rehearse how he wanted everything
to go down. Then he took a deep breath and started up the walkway.
But just as the sole of his shoe made contact with the concrete
step that led to her front door, all hell broke loose. The air suddenly
exploded with a cacophony of police and ambulance sirens. The
sounds were so loud that they drowned out the fantasies playing inside
his head.
“Something’s up,” he muttered to himself as he turned and hightailed
it back to his car. He switched on the radio and learned that a
sniper was hunkered down on the twenty-sixth floor of the Holiday
Inn Plaza in downtown Wichita, picking off people in the streets
below. The gunman ended up killing two men and wounding seven
others. Rader drove back to Park City, feeling as though he’d just had
a piece of candy snatched away from him.
One activity that always seemed to take the edge off was reading
over his collection of headlines he’d clipped from old detective magazines
or ripped from the covers of books. He fancied himself to be an
intelligent man, one who was sensitive enough to be moved by words.
That was why he’d started saving all this stuff in the first place. He’d