Inside the Mind of BTK

228 INSIDE THE MIND OF BTK
read poetry—that is, of course, if limericks were considered poetry.
But nothing he’d read before touched him like those words.
Part of it might have had to do with the typography—the big,
bold letters, which nearly always seemed to be capitalized. And sometimes
the images they conjured up struck him as a little too over the
top. But it was these words that always got him. They cut into him like
a knife and stirred things up inside him. They were something to
aspire to. They made him proud of who he was and what he stood for.
They were written about other guys just like him, guys who lived all
around this great nation of ours, who all seemed to have this same
thing living inside their heads that he had. They’d all done unspeakable,
horrible things to other humans just as he had. Their crimes were
big, bold, and daring—he had to give them that. But more often than
not, they weren’t particularly the kind of atrocities that he got off on.
Nevertheless, as corny as it sounded, his collection of headlines
always felt to him as though they’d been written just for him. The
words transported him to another place. They stood for everything he
lived for but had always kept hidden away. Some of his favorite headlines
included: NEVER KILL ANYONE YOU KNOW . . . SCHOOL
GIRL STRANGLER . ..NEVER TEASE A SEX KILLER . ..SHE
WATCHED HIM DIG HER GRAVE . . . SEXUAL HORROR FAN-
TASIES BECAME REALITY . . . PRETTY WOMAN PLAYING
GAMES FOUND OUT—YOU SHOULD NEVER TEASE A SEX
KILLER.
Even the lowercase headlines never failed to excite him: “He used
to ‘practice’ in his basement with stuffed dolls.”“He liked to watch his
young female hostages writhe painfully against the rope holding them
tightly bound. He felt he could do anything he wanted to them—even
blow them away.” “The suspect’s alibi, lawmen claim, is that he was
engaged in a little karate mixed with bondage and he accidentally
killed her. Then why rape her after she’s dead, they wondered.”“Look
of innocence masks the mind of murderer whose obsession with
bondage led to girl’s strangulation.” “An air-powered dart gun, several
sharp darts, knives, twine and an assortment of various-sized
vibrators—these told were all used by the sex fiend who ravaged
many girls’ lives with them.”
Reading the longer pieces he’d clipped from books, magazines,
and newspapers also helped feed Rader’s hunger. From time to time,
when it was safe, he’d thumb through his stack of articles and passages
that allowed him to put everything inside his head into perspective.