Inside the Mind of BTK: The True Story Behind the Thirty-Year Hunt for the Notorious Wichita Serial Killer by John Douglas, Johnny Dodd
Authors: John Douglas, Johnny Dodd
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unfathomable savagery, suddenly felt like a celebrity. He’d become addicted to seeing his crimes written about in the newspaper and discussed on TV. I bet that hearing others discuss his killings proved almost as thrilling and satisfying as committing the crimes themselves.
Although he had killed men and children, it seemed obvious that women were his primary targets. Everyone else just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I believed that deep down, he loathed women. Whatever conflicts he’d had with them, as well as with society, were released through the murders he committed. Within his troubled mind, he took no responsibility for his actions. He was clearly in some state of depression, unable to genuinely love or be loved. As a result, his life was one in which he must seek out excitement and drama in order to feel alive. And although he was able to put up a good front to others, the world he lived for—and lived in—had nothing to do with reality. It was based purely on the sadistic fantasies inside his brain.
By his own admission, BTK took trinkets from the homes of his victims. He used them as fuel for his fantasies. I felt confident that they were one of the few things that quieted his head, which is why he needed to collect and preserve the trophies of his conquests, taken from his crime scenes. Having the personal possessions of his victims reminded him of his “glory days.” I imagined that all he needed to do to relive one of his kills was hold his victim’s belongings in his hands. Each homicide brought with it a psychological high that would quickly evaporate, always leaving him alone with his depressed thoughts. His trophies and keepsakes no doubt proved a bit more effective at keeping the depression away. But the peace these ghostly mementos brought never completely removed his feelings of depression and anxiety.
The question that stumped me and everybody else involved in the case was this: Why had so many years lapsed since his last murder? I couldn’t understand it. Every time I pondered the question, I came up with another theory. All of them made sense. None of them I could prove.
Perhaps he’d been picked up on some unrelated charge and was now rotting in a prison cell or mental institution? Or could the police have gotten too close to him during one of the various phases of their investigation? Maybe they even interviewed him as a potential suspect, and the experience might have proved too unnerving for this otherwise unflappable sociopath?
One thing was certain—serial sexual predators don’t wake up one morning, decide to turn over a new leaf, and start their lives over. For all I knew, he could have been killed in a car wreck, although I had a hunch that we weren’t going to get off that easy. Someone as sick and dangerous as BTK will stop killing only when he is killed or gets locked behind bars. My research had proven to me that this is the only way to rein in these guys. Rehabilitation is a fairy tale.
Which I suppose was the most unbearable part of being involved in this case—knowing in my gut that that if he were alive, BTK would resume his killing. Somewhere out there, there was a family whose future was on the verge of becoming a living hell. If you’ve ever seen the blank, numb look on the face of someone whose loved one has just been murdered, you know that it stays with you forever. Just as BTK had stayed with me throughout my career at the FBI.
I joined the agency in 1970, four years before the first BTK killings, a twenty-five-year-old rookie agent working the streets of inner-city Detroit. Like most idealistic young agents (and I was one of the youngest ever hired), I’d convinced myself that I was going to make Motor City safer by helping put the bad guys behind bars, a crusade I imagined the citizens would applaud. It didn’t take long before I realized how the residents living in my “beat” felt about my
Although he had killed men and children, it seemed obvious that women were his primary targets. Everyone else just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I believed that deep down, he loathed women. Whatever conflicts he’d had with them, as well as with society, were released through the murders he committed. Within his troubled mind, he took no responsibility for his actions. He was clearly in some state of depression, unable to genuinely love or be loved. As a result, his life was one in which he must seek out excitement and drama in order to feel alive. And although he was able to put up a good front to others, the world he lived for—and lived in—had nothing to do with reality. It was based purely on the sadistic fantasies inside his brain.
By his own admission, BTK took trinkets from the homes of his victims. He used them as fuel for his fantasies. I felt confident that they were one of the few things that quieted his head, which is why he needed to collect and preserve the trophies of his conquests, taken from his crime scenes. Having the personal possessions of his victims reminded him of his “glory days.” I imagined that all he needed to do to relive one of his kills was hold his victim’s belongings in his hands. Each homicide brought with it a psychological high that would quickly evaporate, always leaving him alone with his depressed thoughts. His trophies and keepsakes no doubt proved a bit more effective at keeping the depression away. But the peace these ghostly mementos brought never completely removed his feelings of depression and anxiety.
The question that stumped me and everybody else involved in the case was this: Why had so many years lapsed since his last murder? I couldn’t understand it. Every time I pondered the question, I came up with another theory. All of them made sense. None of them I could prove.
Perhaps he’d been picked up on some unrelated charge and was now rotting in a prison cell or mental institution? Or could the police have gotten too close to him during one of the various phases of their investigation? Maybe they even interviewed him as a potential suspect, and the experience might have proved too unnerving for this otherwise unflappable sociopath?
One thing was certain—serial sexual predators don’t wake up one morning, decide to turn over a new leaf, and start their lives over. For all I knew, he could have been killed in a car wreck, although I had a hunch that we weren’t going to get off that easy. Someone as sick and dangerous as BTK will stop killing only when he is killed or gets locked behind bars. My research had proven to me that this is the only way to rein in these guys. Rehabilitation is a fairy tale.
Which I suppose was the most unbearable part of being involved in this case—knowing in my gut that that if he were alive, BTK would resume his killing. Somewhere out there, there was a family whose future was on the verge of becoming a living hell. If you’ve ever seen the blank, numb look on the face of someone whose loved one has just been murdered, you know that it stays with you forever. Just as BTK had stayed with me throughout my career at the FBI.
I joined the agency in 1970, four years before the first BTK killings, a twenty-five-year-old rookie agent working the streets of inner-city Detroit. Like most idealistic young agents (and I was one of the youngest ever hired), I’d convinced myself that I was going to make Motor City safer by helping put the bad guys behind bars, a crusade I imagined the citizens would applaud. It didn’t take long before I realized how the residents living in my “beat” felt about my
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