Inside the Mind of BTK

Meeting BTK: An Exclusive Interview 319
“Nothing like hindsight, I suppose,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said, taking a sip out of her new drink, then chewing
on a chunk of ice. She placed the glass back on the table.
“So,” she said, “tell me what Dennis said to you. Tell me everything
...Tell me everything.”
So I did. It was the least I could for Kris Casarona.
By the time I started back to my room, it was nearly nine o’clock.
I placed the key in my door, twisted it, then pushed it open. The first
thing I noticed was a white envelope sitting on the burgundy carpet.
Nothing was written on the front of it. I opened it and pulled out three
typewritten pages. Whoever had written the letter felt the need to
make one thing clear up front. None of what appeared on the pages
that followed were to be quoted in my book. The reason I’d been sent
this material was so that I might have all the facts. Whether or not I
chose to use them in my book was up to me.
I fumbled for my reading glasses, then sat down on the edge of
my bed and started reading. Slowly. One word at a time. Backing up
every few words and going over what I’d just ingested. Ten minutes
later, I’d finished. I folded the letter up, placed it back in the envelope,
then lay down on the bed to think.
Whoever had written this was either close to Dennis or a confidante
of Paula. Exactly why it came to be sitting inside my hotel room
was hardly surprising. Wichita may be the largest city in Kansas, but
gossip still moves through it the way it does in a small town. No doubt
word had leaked out fast that I was coming here to interview Dennis,
and someone had decided to help me in a way not unlike anonymous
tipsters do when they phone police with a scrap of crucial information
to help solve a crime.
I sensed that whoever wrote this note wanted to provide law
enforcement with some useful, concrete information that would shed
light on one of the most enigmatic unanswered questions about
BTK—namely, why he went underground for so many years. It’s only
by understanding the answer to that question that we can find better,
more effective ways to ensure that we never have another Dennis Rader.
My hunch was spot-on. It had gone down much the way I’d imagined.
According to my letter, the first time Rader had to go underground
was in the autumn of 1978, when Paula walked into the tiny
bedroom she shared with her husband and found herself staring at
something that just about killed her.