Inside the Mind of BTK

My Lifelong Hunt for BTK 47
The victim’s aunt peered at the photo and gasped, “Oh my God—
it’s the ring.”
This particular homicide had already been featured on America’s
Most Wanted, and the public had been advised that the killer had taken
the victim’s ring. That he hadn’t, told me that the murderer wasn’t the
type who felt compelled to collect souvenirs or mementos from his
victims. This meant that detectives needed to track a killer with a different
psychological makeup, which ultimately changed the course of
the investigation. The killer was eventually linked through DNA to
cases in California and Montana.
Something told me not to expect this sort of lucky break in the
BTK case. And as I stood there in that library, thumbing through the
various photos snapped in the rented wooden house where Kathy
Bright lived with her older sister, along with a few taken in the medical
examiner’s office, I saw only one thing: a vibrant, feisty young
woman whose life was ripped away too soon. So I settled back into my
chair at the table and began immersing myself in the sad, cold facts
surrounding her murder.
It was couple minutes shy of 12:30 in the afternoon when the
front door of the white clapboard house burst open and nineteenyear-old
Kevin Bright flung himself outside, staggered through the icecrusted
snow, and began running down the street. Blood had soaked
through his white T-shirt. The sight of this young man stumbling
through the streets, waving his arms and screaming something about
his sister needing help, caught the eye of a passing driver. He slammed
on his brakes. The passenger jumped out, quickly pushed the frantic
man into the front seat, then sprinted to a nearby automotive repair
shop and told the owner to call the cops.
A few minutes later, as the Good Samaritan drove the dazed,
bloody young man to the emergency room, a Wichita police dispatcher
put out a call over the radio: “Officers to a robbery at a residence,
3217 East 13th Street North. Suspect still at the scene. Armed
and dangerous.” Patrolman Raymond Fletcher was driving through
the neighborhood. He arrived at the house three minutes later, scrambled
out of his cruiser, and slowly walked up the front steps with his
.38-caliber service revolver drawn. The front door was open.
“POLICE OFFICER,” he yelled. “POLICE OFFICER.”
When he poked his head inside, he immediately spotted twentyone-year-old
Kathy Bright lying on her side in a puddle of blood in