Inside the Mind of BTK

308 INSIDE THE MIND OF BTK
“You did?” he asked, obviously flattered that I’d gone to the trouble
of memorizing something that I’d been told was so important to him.
“ ‘For decades,’ ” I said, reciting the copy from the back cover,
“ ‘these infamous deeds would inspire television and movie plots. But
until now, there has been no definitive account for the forces that drove
one of America’s most legendary serial killers. And never before has it
been explained why, for Harvey Glatman, his crimes weren’t about
killing, raping and torturing at all—they were all about the rope.’ ”
Rader sat there, moving his lips as though he were repeating the
words I’d just recited to him. I waited for him to say something, but
he remained silent. So I spoke.
“So all you really cared about was binding your victims with
rope?” I asked. “Was the hunting for victims, even the killing, just secondary?
Your fantasy was to look at someone who you had totally
immobilized and made powerless, someone who you were in total
control of, free to do as you pleased.”
He nodded, listening to me as though I were a doctor describing
some type of physical condition that had troubled him for most of
his life.
“So you never really wanted to sexually assault them. That would
almost be like cheating on Paula, and you certainly didn’t want to do
that . . . What you wanted to do was masturbate as you looked down
at the crime scene you’d created for yourself.”
I waited for Rader to say something, but he remained silent. Judging
from the look on his face, I wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t
already know about himself. But he’d never heard it come from someone
else’s mouth before, and he seemed almost stunned by it, as if I’d
held up a mirror in front of his face and the image he glimpsed staring
back confused him.
A few moments later, he stammered, “But I was a little bit different
than Glatman. He didn’t communicate with the police and he didn’t
have a wife, a family, and all my social obligations.”
Next, I brought in another serial killer, as I knew he loved the
comparisons.
“I once mentioned your case to convince David Berkowitz, that
Son of Sam guy, to speak with me.”
Rader’s face brightened when he heard that. “You used me to get
to Berkowitz?” he asked. “When would that have been? What year?”
“That was in 1981,” I told him. “Back when you were still working
for ADT.”