Inside the Mind of BTK

282 INSIDE THE MIND OF BTK
But being written off as a kook was one thing. Her legal problems
were even worse.
Casarona’s legal nightmare began to unfold in January 2006 when
the families of Rader’s victims sued her for an unspecified amount
because of the book contract Rader signed. They alleged that Rader
had made a deal with her that would allow her to profit from his
crimes. The fact that she originally wanted to turn over the proceeds
from her book to these same families didn’t seem to matter. A jury
trial was tentatively set, but the case was dismissed in March 2007
when both Rader and Casarona signed an agreement requiring her to
do exactly what she’d intended to do all along.
Before I spent time getting to know Kris Casarona, I’d written her
off as a loony. In all probability, I told myself, she was just another serial
killer groupie who would end up being a nuisance and possibly a
hindrance to investigators.
In fact, the Wichita police worried about Casarona because when
news first leaked that she was about to write a book, Rader had yet to
enter a formal plea in court in the ten murder charges filed against him.
The authorities still had no idea how many people Rader might have
killed. Because law enforcement depends on the public for potential leads
and other information, their greatest frustration was that Casarona might
end up concealing information for her book about a murder Rader had
committed after 1994, when Kansas reinstated the death penalty.
When I finally caught up with Casarona in Wichita in May 2006,
she claimed to be nearly $100,000 in debt to the attorneys she’d been
forced to hire to defend her against her various lawsuits. Her bold
dream of writing a crime book, she told herself, had been stabbed
through the heart. She doubted that any of the insight she’d gleaned
from her hundreds of hours of phone calls, letters, and jailhouse visits
would ever find their way onto paper.
“All I wanted to do was write a crime book, just like everyone else
was doing, and now look what happened,” she moaned in the hotel
lobby. “I get letters from people telling me I’m going to hell for doing
this. And for what? I didn’t want a dime from this book. Not a dime. If
I could get out of this contract with Dennis and be done with all this, I
would. But the families of Rader’s victims don’t care. They’re suing
me anyway. So I’m stuck.”
Ever since I first wrote that letter to Rader in December 2005,
requesting an interview for this book, Casarona had been a never-