Inside the Mind of BTK

50 INSIDE THE MIND OF BTK
wedge his hands loose from their bindings, and he jumped up onto
his feet. In a flash, the man pulled out the pistol with which he’d been
threatening the Brights minutes earlier and pointed it at Kevin’s forehead.
He pulled the trigger. None of Kathy’s neighbors reported hearing
the shot—which wasn’t surprising. I’d lost count of the number
of homicides I’d worked involving a firearm that neighbors never
heard go off.
The force of a slug hitting his skull and the sheer shock of being
shot knocked Kevin backward, and he quickly crumpled onto the
floor, unconscious. When he came to a few moments later, the man
had disappeared into the bedroom with his sister, obviously satisfied
that he’d taken care of Kevin.
“You shot my brother,” Kathy was shouting. “You shot my
brother.”
Kevin sat up on the floor and listened as the stranger tried to calm
her. “Relax,” he said. “I only wounded him. He’s gonna be OK.”
Kevin attempted to stagger to his feet, but the noise he made must
have reached their attacker. The man walked back into the room,
where Kevin had just managed to untie his legs. In a flash, Kevin
remembered seeing the grip of a pistol tucked into the waistband of
the man’s pants, lunged at him, grabbed the gun, and managed to
shove it into the man’s chest. He squeezed the trigger, but before the
hammer could slam down on the back of a round in the chamber, the
attacker wedged his fingers beneath the hammer, preventing the gun
from discharging. The two wrestled for control of the pistol, and Kevin
managed to squeeze the trigger one more time, but once again the gun
didn’t fire.
The man finally wrenched the weapon free, quickly took aim at
Kevin’s head and fired, but missed. He pulled the trigger again, and
the bullet hit Kevin in the mouth, tearing through his upper lip, turning
Kevin’s face into an even bloodier mess than it already was. What
the gunman didn’t know, however, was that Kevin’s front teeth
deflected the slug. Kevin crumpled to the ground once again, and the
gunman jumped on top of him in a flash, then wrapped a rope around
his neck and yanked it tight.
Upon hearing the pistol shots, Kathy began screaming, and the
man ran back into the other bedroom where she was still tied to a
chair. Kevin blacked out for an unknown amount of time, probably
just a few minutes. When he came to and stumbled to his feet, his sister
was still screaming. He made a split-second decision that sent him