Inside the Mind of BTK

The Capture and Arrest of BTK 229
These weren’t fantasy stories. They were articles written by scholars
and others who had studied people just like him.
One of his favorite was an op-ed piece he clipped from a January
23, 1997, issue of the Wichita Eagle, titled “Children Without a Conscience
Dangerous But Can Be Helped.” Accompanying the piece was a
moody sketch of a little boy with an angry, defiant glare in his eyes. Two
adult hands appeared to be gripping the troubled young lad’s shoulders.
“They are a parent’s nightmare,” the article stated, “society’s worst
fear come to life. They seem a mocking rebuke to our sacred, deeply
held beliefs on the innocence and purity of childhood. And they do
not exist only in pulp novels or B-grade movies such as The Bad Seed.
Terrifyingly they exist in real life.”
There was another entry, from a book titled The Criminal Mind,
that he loved to read and reread, then think about because it showed
just how confusing and contradictory killers like him could be. He’d
even underlined various sections of it with yellow highlighter.
Even within a category of theories there can be contradictions. When
evaluating which personality constructs lead to aggression, for example,
many theorists proposed that low self-esteem is a key factor. Bullies
and rapists were thought to be men who did not value themselves.
However, another researcher said that there is increasing evidence that
high self-esteem is instrumental in aggression. Many violent types have
an inflated, albeit unstable, sense. If challenged or criticized, they react
with violence to reestablish their self-esteem. Researchers who support
this theory believe that studies of incarcerated offenders that measured
a significant proportion with low self-esteem are a result of the offenders
being locked up. The low self-esteem supporters counter that the
so-called high self-esteem factor is actually narcissism, which is based
on perceived superiority, not a healthy regard for self.
By the late 1990s, Rader was beginning to grow bored. Brian and
Kerri had already graduated from high school and were out of the
house. He immersed himself in his job, his duties at Christ Lutheran
Church, periodic fishing trips, and, in the fall, driving over to Manhattan,
Kansas, with Paula to attend football games at Kansas State,
where Kerri attended college.
Most important, he still had plenty of projects, scores of them
located all over the city, woman he fantasized about undressing, tying
up in cord, and strangling.