Inside the Mind of BTK

256 INSIDE THE MIND OF BTK
young children, Comer’s second husband was murdered several years
earlier. She’d come to the sleepy little bedroom community of Wichita
because it seemed like a nice place for her young son and daughter to
grow up.
“I’d only been there about an hour and a half, moving boxes
inside the house, when I saw him walking up the driveway in that little
uniform of his,” she recalled. “I thought he’d stopped by to meet
the new people, to say hello.”
But, she told me, it quickly became apparent that Rader wasn’t in
the welcoming mood, and he certainly hadn’t dropped by her house
on a social visit. “Before I could even get a single word out of my
mouth, he pointed to my washer and dryer that had just been
unloaded from our moving truck and were sitting under the carport
and snapped, ‘You can’t have these here. You’re going to have to put
those inside the house.’ ”
Comer was dumbfounded. “I thought, ‘You gotta be kidding me.’
I tried to tell him that we’d just unloaded them a few minutes before
and were going to move them inside, but we hadn’t had a chance yet.’
But all he could say was, ‘Just move them inside or I’m going to write
you up.’ ”
Within a couple of months, she explained that Rader began showing
up at her house with alarming, annoying regularity. In February
2004, he started writing Comer tickets for the vehicle in her driveway.
On more occasions than she could recall, she’d arrive from work and
find his white truck parked in front of her house. The moment he
spotted her, he’d drive away. One Saturday afternoon, her two children
walked into the family room and informed their mother that a
man in white truck had just given them a ride home from the park
where they’d been playing.
“What do you mean a man in a white truck gave you a ride?” she
asked, alarmed.
“The man who always parks in front of the house,” her son
replied. “He said there was a dog with rabies running around and
that’s why he needed to take us home. He gave me his card.”
He handed his mother a stiff white piece of paper that read, “Dennis
Rader. Park City Compliance Officer.”
“After a while, it was like he knew my schedule,” she said. “I’d
come home from work, and my neighbors would tell me that he’d
stopped by their house, asking them questions about me. Sometimes
he’d be out in front of my house, measuring my grass. I am not kid-