Inside the Mind of BTK

246 INSIDE THE MIND OF BTK
The most perplexing part of this latest package was the killer’s
inquiry about whether or not police had discovered “#7 at Home
Depot Drop Site 1-8-05.” Landwehr and his detectives had no idea
what he was talking about. Several task force members were dispatched
to the local Home Depot, where they spent the next few hours
scouring the inside and outside of the store, searching for what they
assumed would be a package or letter.
They discovered nothing, but eventually hit pay dirt after the store
manager played a security videotape for them from the late evening
of January 8. The grainy black-and-white footage of the tape showed
some sort of SUV pulling into the nearly empty parking lot and stopping
beside a parked pickup truck. Because of the darkness and the
quality of the image, detectives were unable to pinpoint the exact
make of the SUV. However, after roughly calculating the vehicle’s
length and wheelbase and the amount of ground clearance, they felt
confident that it was a Jeep Grand Cherokee.
But the most riveting part of the video unfolded just moments
after the SUV parked and the driver’s door opened. From out of the
interior, a shadowy figure emerged, walked briskly across the parking
lot, then appeared to toss something into the bed of the nearby
truck. Once again, the detectives paused the tape and scrutinized the
individual frames. But no matter how they tried to enhance the
image, the man’s face was too blurry and dark for any of his features
to be visible.
Although the detectives wanted to yank their hair out in frustration,
they were ecstatic over one thing: they were actually staring at
the phantom whom the Wichita police had been trying to locate for
three decades. And, if their calculations were correct and the vehicle
wasn’t stolen, he was one of nearly twenty-five hundred Sedgwick
County residents who owned a Jeep Grand Cherokee.
But there was another question the police were unable to answer:
What the hell had happened to whatever the killer had tossed into
the back of that pickup truck? Detectives got their answer the next
afternoon after the manager posted a notice on a bulletin board in the
back of the store, inquiring if any employee had discovered a curiouslooking
package in his or her vehicle.
As it turned out, the roommate of an employee had discovered a
Special K cereal box in the back of his truck. He’d pitched it in the
garbage, but because the trash collector hadn’t yet stopped by his apartment,
he was able to fish the mystery package out of his trash and turn
it over to police.