Read Online Inside the Mind of BTK: The True Story Behind the Thirty-Year Hunt for the Notorious Wichita Serial Killer by John Douglas, Johnny Dodd - Free Book Online
Authors: John Douglas, Johnny Dodd
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together in such perfect synchrony. I’d also never seen a case where two offenders would each have bondage as their signature. Normally, each killer would have his own distinct patterns at the crime scene. More often than not, one offender will be organized and controlling, whereas the other is disorganized, leaving evidence behind. Then there was the fact that the only biological evidence recovered at the scene was semen, later determined to have come from just one person. So if just one person was involved, I believed that he must have relied on a gun, not a knife, to intimidate the members of the Otero family, who—according to police—were well trained in karate. His gun was the equalizer. It leveled the playing field in a way a knife couldn’t.
But most disturbing of all about the scene was that Joey’s head had been encased within a series of hoods—a white T-shirt, a white plastic bag, and a blue T-shirt. Back in 1979 when I’d initially looked at the case, the presence of the bags and shirt over the boy’s head led me to believe that killing Joey was probably the most difficult murder the UNSUB committed that morning. The killer, I theorized, identified with the child. Looking at the young boy, he glimpsed himself. Lying there on the floor, Joey was helpless and hopeless in exactly the same way the killer felt helpless and hopeless in his own life.
Within the mind of the killer, all the other murders were justified—but not Joey’s. I thought that was why whoever had killed him had gone to such lengths to cover his face. He couldn’t bear to look at it.
In 1979, therefore, I advised the police that if they ever tracked down and were interviewing a suspect, they should provide him with a face-saving scenario, focusing only on the young boy, not the other three family members. Tell him something, I had written, like “We know you don’t feel good about the death [not murder] of Joey. It was difficult for you, and you tried to soften the kill.” Even though this might not be 100 percent true, what I wanted them to do was place the suspect at the crime scene.
But now, five years later, I learned that the killer had also used hoods on Joey’s father and mother. Unfortunately, the officer who briefed me on the case back in 1979 had somehow omitted this fact. This unintentional oversight reminded me of an adage that has long since become my mantra: profilers are only as good as the information they receive. In other words, garbage in, garbage out.
Shortly after Joey’s body was discovered, Bulla set off to search the remaining rooms in the house to determine if the killer or killers had left behind any other grisly discoveries. Because tornadoes are a fact of life in this part of the country, he knew there was a basement. He just needed to find a way to get down there.
As he walked down the hallway that led into the living room, he spied the contents of Julie’s purse scattered atop the burnt-orange shag carpet. Bulla glanced around the room at the wood carvings hanging from the wall that looked as though they’d been picked up on an overseas trip. A moment later, he spotted a door in the kitchen that led down to the basement. He opened it, but all he saw was blackness, so he had to rely on his flashlight while slowly navigating the carpeted stairs. Near the bottom step, he spotted a pair of shiny black boots that looked as though they might belong to a little girl. Walking slowly across the room, he spotted a squadron of model airplanes in various stages of construction, spread out across a table, along with a rocking chair and TV set.
In an adjacent corner, a door led to a small room containing the family’s washer and dryer, and a wall filled with wooden storage cabinets. Bulla walked through the doorway into the darkened room. But before he could locate a light switch, his shoulder bumped into something solid that gave way when he made contact with it. He stumbled
But most disturbing of all about the scene was that Joey’s head had been encased within a series of hoods—a white T-shirt, a white plastic bag, and a blue T-shirt. Back in 1979 when I’d initially looked at the case, the presence of the bags and shirt over the boy’s head led me to believe that killing Joey was probably the most difficult murder the UNSUB committed that morning. The killer, I theorized, identified with the child. Looking at the young boy, he glimpsed himself. Lying there on the floor, Joey was helpless and hopeless in exactly the same way the killer felt helpless and hopeless in his own life.
Within the mind of the killer, all the other murders were justified—but not Joey’s. I thought that was why whoever had killed him had gone to such lengths to cover his face. He couldn’t bear to look at it.
In 1979, therefore, I advised the police that if they ever tracked down and were interviewing a suspect, they should provide him with a face-saving scenario, focusing only on the young boy, not the other three family members. Tell him something, I had written, like “We know you don’t feel good about the death [not murder] of Joey. It was difficult for you, and you tried to soften the kill.” Even though this might not be 100 percent true, what I wanted them to do was place the suspect at the crime scene.
But now, five years later, I learned that the killer had also used hoods on Joey’s father and mother. Unfortunately, the officer who briefed me on the case back in 1979 had somehow omitted this fact. This unintentional oversight reminded me of an adage that has long since become my mantra: profilers are only as good as the information they receive. In other words, garbage in, garbage out.
Shortly after Joey’s body was discovered, Bulla set off to search the remaining rooms in the house to determine if the killer or killers had left behind any other grisly discoveries. Because tornadoes are a fact of life in this part of the country, he knew there was a basement. He just needed to find a way to get down there.
As he walked down the hallway that led into the living room, he spied the contents of Julie’s purse scattered atop the burnt-orange shag carpet. Bulla glanced around the room at the wood carvings hanging from the wall that looked as though they’d been picked up on an overseas trip. A moment later, he spotted a door in the kitchen that led down to the basement. He opened it, but all he saw was blackness, so he had to rely on his flashlight while slowly navigating the carpeted stairs. Near the bottom step, he spotted a pair of shiny black boots that looked as though they might belong to a little girl. Walking slowly across the room, he spotted a squadron of model airplanes in various stages of construction, spread out across a table, along with a rocking chair and TV set.
In an adjacent corner, a door led to a small room containing the family’s washer and dryer, and a wall filled with wooden storage cabinets. Bulla walked through the doorway into the darkened room. But before he could locate a light switch, his shoulder bumped into something solid that gave way when he made contact with it. He stumbled
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