Inside the Mind of BTK

80 INSIDE THE MIND OF BTK
The brazenness of Nancy Fox’s killer both sickened and intrigued
the community—at least for a week or two. To murder an innocent
young woman was terrible enough. But to actually pick up a phone
and notify police about the killing seemed unfathomable. What in
God’s name would he have to gain by doing that, most people
thought, other than to flaunt his handiwork?
At this point, the crime still hadn’t been connected with any of the
UNSUB’s previous killings. Police focused much of their efforts on three
of Nancy’s former boyfriends, but this quickly led nowhere. To nearly
everyone but her grieving family and friends, her death began to feel
like nothing more than a terribly random, isolated act of violence.
And this, I believe, must have irked the UNSUB. The rush brought
on from Nancy’s killing would have faded in a matter of weeks. True,
the murder would have provided him with plenty of sick memories,
but something told me that Fox’s murder just wasn’t receiving the kind
of attention BTK had hoped and yearned for.
Media interest in the killing quickly waned, especially because
police didn’t have any real suspects other than the mysterious man
who phoned in to report the murder. A recording of his voice was
played over and over on local radio and TV stations, but no one could
identify the man behind the voice. FBI voice analysts were unable to
uncover anything of value from the seven-second audio clip, such as
whether or not the caller had attempted to mask his voice.
The only thing police knew about the caller came from information
fireman Wayne Davis provided. The man was six feet tall, blondehaired,
dressed in a gray industrial uniform and wearing a hat with
earflaps. Davis also reported that the man might have driven a latemodel
van with some sort of writing on its side. After undergoing four
sessions with a hypnotherapist, that was all Davis could retrieve from
his subconscious. The general consensus among detectives was that
he was “blocking” due to a very primal emotion—fear.
“It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help,” said one officer working on
the case. “I think he was just scared.”
On the last day of January, BTK’s desire to stir things up appeared
to get the better of him. He penned a pithy Valentine’s poem to
his latest victim, then sent it to the local newspaper. It wouldn’t
be discovered for nearly two weeks. By this point, police still hadn’t
made the connection between Shirley Vian’s murder and Fox’s. Nor
had they established any links with either of those homicides and the
killing of Kathy Bright and the Otero family. But that was about to