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December 16, 2005 |
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December, 2005
My apologies for the long delay in getting a newsletter out to you and up on the site. It’s been a very busy year. I’ve been involved in some demanding pro bono work. Also, I’m hard at work on my new book, which you’ll read about below. In addition, I’ve really been trying to spend time with my kids, who are all grown (or nearly grown) and going through some big changes. I’m very proud of all three of them, and wish I could’ve always been there for them. But, as you know, my job just didn’t allow for that when they were young. So now, whenever I can, I choose my family. They were always what mattered most, and now I’m better able to show them.
That said, these newsletters are important to me, too. As extensions of the website, they are links to fans of my work, law enforcement officers and enthusiasts, and people who need my help. We’ll try to keep these coming more regularly, especially as big cases make the news. As always, I welcome your feedback and questions and will try to respond as often as possible. As I’ve said before, when you see a message on my forum from John Douglas, it’s really from me. I may not be able to join every discussion, but when I do jump in, it’s the real thing. That I can promise.
Coming from Jossey-Bass in January, 2007
The BTK Strangler, finally caught. It would be impossible for me not to go back and put it all together, for myself as much as anyone else. I know you’re all aware of the arrest and conviction of Dennis Rader, Wichita’s infamous BTK Strangler. This brings to an end thirty-year investigation which has frustrated investigators, including me, at every level. Shortly after our original profile, BTK paused in his killings. We thought we got too close for comfort, that he was intelligent and sophisticated enough to know when to say when. As I’ve said, killing is a compulsion for serial killers, but they are not stupid. They can control their impulses, though they cannot seem to overcome them or get rid of them forever.
So investigators, we thought, had scared BTK into hibernation, but we didn’t know what happened next. Now we know the whole terrible story, which I’m telling from start to finish in my new book. In June, Rader entered a guilty plea for ten killings between 1974 and 1991, and he was sentenced to a life sentence for each. He could get parole in forty years, if he lives that long (he’s sixty now). Many of you probably watched the court coverage, during which Rader described in detail each of the murders. It was sickening to me, even with my experience. I can only imagine the impact it had on regular folks. It’s almost impossible to imagine someone could be so calculating, discussing his crimes like a chef discussing a menu. But, remember, several months after his first murders (the stranglings in their home of Joseph and Julie Otero and two of their children, both of whom were under twelve), Rader decided he needed to create his own legend. Apparently, he wasn’t getting enough attention in the papers.
So he wrote the Wichita Eagle-Beacon, taking credit for the Otero killings and assigning himself the BTK nickname by writing, ”the code for me will be Bind them, Torture them, Kill them.” He wanted to be famous and widely feared, like Jack the Ripper and the Son of Sam, murdering heroes who he compared himself to. He continued to contact the media, expressing frustration in a letter to KAKE-TV at his lack of media coverage. He didn’t want any of his work to go unnoticed – he even called the police himself to report his 1977 strangling of Nancy Fox, and took credit for her murder and that of Shirley Vian (also killed in 1977) in his TV station letter.
He was eager for attention, but also clever and very patient. Several years went by between some of the killings, and even his communications with the media. But eventually his need for notoriety got him caught. After 15 years, he wrote the Eagle again in 2004, taking credit for the 1986 murder of Vicki Wegerle and enclosing photographic evidence. This kick-started the investigation and, finally, police got their man. But was this what Rader ultimately wanted? After all, how many millions of us couldn’t help watching as he confessed, in detail, to each of the ten murders? For all those hours, he was the dark celebrity of the year.
It is not wrong for us to be interested, but it is unfortunate that heartless predators like Rader crave our interest and, as much as anything, our fear. Maybe by taking the sensationalism out of it, we minimize the myth. By telling you the story of the coward and loser that Rader (and every serial killer) is – and I am doing just that in the BTK book – maybe we can cut the “legend” down to size. And, most of all, by telling you exactly how their minds work, and providing tips on avoiding being a high-risk victim or a victim of opportunity, we can cut down on the fear Rader’s story, and others like it, inflict on the public. That’s one reason I keep doing books.
I’m in the middle of the BTK book now, which involves a fair amount of travel and a lot of research. We don’t have the title nailed down yet, but we do have a publication date: January, 2007 from Jossey-Bass (www.josseybass.com), the publisher of the Crime Classification Manual. The CCM is known as "The Bible" for prosecutors, defense attorneys, and investigative reporters. We just completed a revision. The CCM II, with many new chapters, including "Internet Crimes", "Crimes Against the Elderly", "Death by Poisoning", and "Stalkers", will be published in August 2006.
I’ll be sure to send out a newsletter as each book is available.
Readers of Mindhunter will recall the chapter, “Sometimes the Dragon Wins.” As I said there, and have repeated countless times, the hardest part of the job are the ones that get away. But sometimes the dragon only wins for a while. The past few years have seen the arrest and conviction of two of the most evasive serial killers in history, the BTK Strangler and the Green River Killer. It has meant a huge sigh of relief to see these guys caught. No good investigator can ever really get over an unsolved case, especially when the UNSUB is a serial killer and you know he is still out there, and will kill again. Someone asked whether the belated arrests of these two men gave me mixed feelings. My answer? Hell no. My feeling about the cases being open for so long is unchanged: regret. I know we did all we could, pushing ourselves to the brink and working every possible angle. But that doesn’t change the fact that these guys were able to elude us all for so long, and would’ve taken fewer lives if they’d been caught sooner. Period.
But my feeling about them being caught, finally, is that of enormous relief, for the victims’ families and loved ones, for the investigators who carried the nightmares around with them for so many years, and for those who might’ve been victims and are now safe.
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