to take Kevin out for hamburgers; she had let him drive her car. He never went back to school. It would be twenty-seven years before he could talk about her death.
Georgia’s doctor did not let her go back to work for three months. When she did, hospital coworkers came to her one by one. She had spent her life holding in feelings, but when they hugged her she would start crying. Her doctor had told her to go ahead and cry.
After Nancy died, Georgia would look out the window on Sundays, wishing Nancy would drive up in her Opel. It would be a long time before Georgia could fry chicken again.
At the family Christmas gathering, one of the presents opened was a Tonka truck, for little Thomas. Nancy had hidden it under the bed where she died.
No one came to arrest Rader, to his surprise.
He got cocky again.
Rader wrote out a poem about Shirley Vian on an index card one night, but as he was scribbling, his wife came home, and he quickly stuck the card in the folds of his chair. Then he forgot to retrieve the card and hide it.
His wife found it a few days later.
What’s this?
Well, he said. Yeah, I wrote that, but at WSU we’re working on some things, writing things about the BTK murders in my criminology class.
Paula bought the lie.
Later, he reworked the poem and printed it on an index card with a child’s rubber-stamping set. On January 31, 1978, he dropped it in the mail.
The index card arrived at The Wichita Eagle a day later.
SHIRLEY LOCKS! SHIRLEY LOCKS
WILT THOU BE MINE?
THOU SHALT NOT SCREEM
NOR YET FEE THE LINE
BUT LAY ON CUSHION
AND THINK OF ME AND DEATH
AND HOW ITS GOING TO BE.
B.T.K.
POEM FOR FOX NEXT
This poem was sent to the Eagle, but was not immediately recognized as being from BTK.
No one handling the Eagle ’s mail that day gave it more than a glance. It looked like a message for a special Valentine’s Day section in the classifieds�the holiday was two weeks away. The card never made it to the newsroom. It was forwarded to the Eagle ’s classified advertising department. There was no money with the card, so the classified people put it in a dead-letter file. Days passed; the Eagle published nothing. The poem’s author grew irritated.
What do I have to do, draw them a picture?
13
February 10, 1978
Big News
The letter came through KAKE-TV’s front door like an angry dog, with its teeth bared. When the receptionist opened the envelope she found a poem titled “OH! DEATH TO NANCY.” To the left of the poem the sender had typed “B.T.K.” four times, and beside each, he added tiny hangman’s nooses. There was a pencil drawing of a woman bound and gagged, and a two-page note with hundreds of words, many of them misspelled.
I find the newspaper not wirting about the poem on Vain unamusing . A little paragraph would have enought. Iknom it not the news media fault. The Police Cheif he keep things quiet, and doesn’t let the pubbic know there a psycho running lose strangling mostly women, there 7 in the ground; who will be next?
How many do I have to Kill before I get a name in the paper or some national attention. Do the cop think that all those deaths are not related?
Larry Hatteberg, a KAKE photojournalist, called his news director at home a few minutes later. Ron Loewen was sleeping hard; there was a downtown bar called the Looking Glass, where journalists drank after work, and he’d spent a lot of time there the night before.
You need to come in now, Hatteberg said.
Why?
We have a letter.
Why is it important?
It looks like it could be from BTK.
Loewen hurried to KAKE, his clothes still smelling of stale beer. He had skipped taking a shower.
The woman in the drawing was lying facedown on a double bed, gagged, ankles and thighs bound, hands bound behind her.
Loewen knew who BTK was: the guy who claimed to have murdered the Oteros. But Loewen was relatively new to Wichita, so parts of the letter mystified him. Who is Nancy? he asked. Who is “Vain”?
Georgia’s doctor did not let her go back to work for three months. When she did, hospital coworkers came to her one by one. She had spent her life holding in feelings, but when they hugged her she would start crying. Her doctor had told her to go ahead and cry.
After Nancy died, Georgia would look out the window on Sundays, wishing Nancy would drive up in her Opel. It would be a long time before Georgia could fry chicken again.
At the family Christmas gathering, one of the presents opened was a Tonka truck, for little Thomas. Nancy had hidden it under the bed where she died.
No one came to arrest Rader, to his surprise.
He got cocky again.
Rader wrote out a poem about Shirley Vian on an index card one night, but as he was scribbling, his wife came home, and he quickly stuck the card in the folds of his chair. Then he forgot to retrieve the card and hide it.
His wife found it a few days later.
What’s this?
Well, he said. Yeah, I wrote that, but at WSU we’re working on some things, writing things about the BTK murders in my criminology class.
Paula bought the lie.
Later, he reworked the poem and printed it on an index card with a child’s rubber-stamping set. On January 31, 1978, he dropped it in the mail.
The index card arrived at The Wichita Eagle a day later.
SHIRLEY LOCKS! SHIRLEY LOCKS
WILT THOU BE MINE?
THOU SHALT NOT SCREEM
NOR YET FEE THE LINE
BUT LAY ON CUSHION
AND THINK OF ME AND DEATH
AND HOW ITS GOING TO BE.
B.T.K.
POEM FOR FOX NEXT
This poem was sent to the Eagle, but was not immediately recognized as being from BTK.
No one handling the Eagle ’s mail that day gave it more than a glance. It looked like a message for a special Valentine’s Day section in the classifieds�the holiday was two weeks away. The card never made it to the newsroom. It was forwarded to the Eagle ’s classified advertising department. There was no money with the card, so the classified people put it in a dead-letter file. Days passed; the Eagle published nothing. The poem’s author grew irritated.
What do I have to do, draw them a picture?
13
February 10, 1978
Big News
The letter came through KAKE-TV’s front door like an angry dog, with its teeth bared. When the receptionist opened the envelope she found a poem titled “OH! DEATH TO NANCY.” To the left of the poem the sender had typed “B.T.K.” four times, and beside each, he added tiny hangman’s nooses. There was a pencil drawing of a woman bound and gagged, and a two-page note with hundreds of words, many of them misspelled.
I find the newspaper not wirting about the poem on Vain unamusing . A little paragraph would have enought. Iknom it not the news media fault. The Police Cheif he keep things quiet, and doesn’t let the pubbic know there a psycho running lose strangling mostly women, there 7 in the ground; who will be next?
How many do I have to Kill before I get a name in the paper or some national attention. Do the cop think that all those deaths are not related?
Larry Hatteberg, a KAKE photojournalist, called his news director at home a few minutes later. Ron Loewen was sleeping hard; there was a downtown bar called the Looking Glass, where journalists drank after work, and he’d spent a lot of time there the night before.
You need to come in now, Hatteberg said.
Why?
We have a letter.
Why is it important?
It looks like it could be from BTK.
Loewen hurried to KAKE, his clothes still smelling of stale beer. He had skipped taking a shower.
The woman in the drawing was lying facedown on a double bed, gagged, ankles and thighs bound, hands bound behind her.
Loewen knew who BTK was: the guy who claimed to have murdered the Oteros. But Loewen was relatively new to Wichita, so parts of the letter mystified him. Who is Nancy? he asked. Who is “Vain”?
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