Inside the Mind of BTK

My Lifelong Hunt for BTK 35
of their flesh. Their skin was cold, and their limbs were already stiff
from rigor mortis. They’d been dead for many hours, he concluded.
Joseph lay on his back on the floor; his feet, clad in white socks,
were bound tightly together by rope at the ankles. Strips of cord, each
tied in complex knots, lay next to the bodies. Charlie told officers that
he sliced the bindings off of his father after discovering him in the
bedroom. Next to Joseph was a plastic bag that had been pulled off his
head. Blood was smeared around his mouth and nose. His thick,
strong hands were swollen to the size of baseball mitts.
Julie’s face was also grossly swollen, and dried blood was caked
around her nose and mouth. Carmen June had used fingernail clippers
to cut the gag out of her mother’s mouth, along with her many
bindings. The white nylon cord that had been snipped away from her
body had formed a thin necklace-like bruise around her neck. She was
barefoot and dressed in her powder-blue housecoat. Her ankles were
still bound by a single loop of white cord. Sitting on a nearby dresser
was a framed photo of a pensive, smiling Julie in her wedding gown.
Most of the drawers had been pulled open, and it appeared someone
had rifled through the contents.
Additional officers arrived at the home, and before long they discovered
the body of Joey, the youngest of the Otero siblings. The boy,
who wore maroon corduroy pants and a shirt covered with dragons,
lay on his side on the floor of his bedroom, beside the bunk bed he
shared with his brother Danny. Next to his head was a Wichita phone
book. His ankles were bound by cord. Another cord extended up
behind his back and was knotted to his wrists. The cord that bound
his hands behind his back was cinched so tight that the boy’s tiny
wrists were bruised. Like those of his father, Joey’s hands were
engorged with blood and lymph, and had swollen to several times
their normal size.
The manner in which he was bound suggested that the UNSUB
either tied the boy himself or instructed another family member in
how to do it, perhaps trying to create the impression that if everyone
would just cooperate with him, he’d take what he needed from the
house and be on his way.
A few feet away from the bunk bed sat a wooden chair. The bottom
rung of the chair had been broken. Splinters from the shattered
piece of wood lay atop the carpet. I glanced at the crime scene photos
and imagined the killer sitting there, watching the boy die, and somehow
the rung had snapped. The sick image of this killer having the