Inside the Mind of BTK

Meeting BTK: An Exclusive Interview 289
As Landwehr had told me during my last visit to Wichita, Rader
was a fan of my books. Predictably, his favorite was Obsession, no doubt
because the first chapter was a thinly veiled account of the BTK case.
According to Casarona, Rader was impressed at what I seemed to
know about him long before police apprehended him. Over the years,
he had gone back to that chapter again and again. He had told Kris
that reading what I’d written gave him a sense of perspective about
himself he’d never had, allowing him to better understand the forces
that writhed and squirmed within him, compelling him to kill. Not that
this insight did him a lick of good. But because he could never turn
to a psychiatrist or a psychologist for help, what I’d written in Obsession
felt as close to a therapy session as he’d ever had. The words on
the pages of that chapter forced him to ask questions about himself.
Of course, he never figured out any answers. But, as I’ve said before,
for someone as shallow and empty as Rader, just asking the questions
was good enough.
I spread Rader’s “essay” out across the table. I’d never had a serial
killer send me a piece of writing quite like this before. Neither had any
of my colleagues.
At first glance, the pages looked to be nothing more than scribbled
notes culled from that first chapter of Obsession.
Rader’s words were printed in black ink in the same tiny, hopeless
chicken scratch employed in his journals. I’m no handwriting specialist,
but his contained, tight lettering reminded me of just how controlled
and withdrawn Rader was. His scrawl looked hollow, flat in a
way I’d never seen before when reading the handwritten words of a
killer. It was almost as though Rader had been attempting to write
something else, but this came out instead, and it made me feel as
though I were peering into his brain.
He intended this document to be a type of chart. Across the top of
the first page he’d written the words OBSESSION (CASE STUDIES).
Down the middle of the page, he’d printed out a list of qualities and
attributes that I’d discussed in the book as ones he shared with other
serial killers, all of which he must have felt were relevant to him. On
the left side of the yellow paper, he referenced the page number and
paragraphs where these traits had been described in Obsession. The
words appeared on the page in quick bursts, jumping from one disturbing
topic to the next, never remaining in one place for very long.
Manipulation, domination, control ....Locate and identify—profile
victim....Knows how to get inside victim’s head. ...Manipulation,