Inside the Mind of BTK

276 INSIDE THE MIND OF BTK
up at the front gate of a prison and the warden will meet and escort
me to the cell of whatever inmate I want to speak with. Truth is, there
are countless bureaucratic hoops I’m forced to jump through before
I can talk with an inmate—particularly this inmate.
Back in the days when I was in the FBI, things were different. All I
needed to do was walk in, flash my credentials, and ask to speak with an
inmate. Not anymore. I lost that luxury when I retired from the agency
in 1995. But even if I still had my credentials and the warden’s support,
Rader wouldn’t have to speak with me, and I couldn’t force him to.
Six months ago, I’d learned that a woman named Kris Casarona
had formed a special relationship with Rader in prison. They had a
signed contract between them that gave her power as his official gatekeeper
over who could see or interview him. She evidently had plans
to write a book about him.
I began communicating with Kris Casarona, calling her, writing
her, talking to her at great length, trying to convince her to approve
my interview with Rader. I needed her blessing before he’d agree to
speak with me. Since his arrest, he’d been contacted by hundreds of
journalists, TV producers, behavioral scientists, authors, and screenwriters,
all of them requesting—and, in many cases, begging—for an
interview. So far, the only people to have gained access to Rader at his
new home in the El Dorado Correctional Facility were the Wichita
police, members of his state-appointed defense team, and, of course,
Casarona herself.
So far we had never met in person, but on this evening when I got
back to Wichita, Casarona came over to the hotel, and we sat together
in the hotel lobby. Casarona turned out to be a frazzled-looking thirtynine-year-old
woman in a floral-print dress. I sipped Chardonnay
as she drank a Jack Daniel’s and cola. Several, to be exact. But that was
partially because the past week had been so hellish. It seemed as though
every time she picked up the telephone, her lawyer was on the other
end of the line, giving her more bad news.
Hardly surprising. For the past thirteen months, Casarona had
become increasingly involved in the world of Dennis Rader. Shortly
after his arrest, she succeeded in befriending him, convincing him that
she was on his side, that she understood. At the time, he was still incarcerated
in the Sedgwick County Jail. The relationship, however, had
taken a terrible toll on her, turning her life upside down, sinking her
deep into debt, leading to her vilification by many in this part of
Kansas. Nobody said that dancing with the devil was easy.