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 Page A
Authors: John Douglas, Johnny Dodd
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back, aimed the white beam of his flashlight onto the object, and instantly jumped back in shock.
What he had bumped into was the stiff body of Josephine, eleven, dangling from a pipe. A noose, fashioned from the same type of cord used on the others, bit a deep hemorrhaged groove into her neck. Her hands were tied tightly behind her back. Her mouth had been gagged with a strip of towel that made her tongue bulge out above the top of the gag. It was swollen and the color of eggplant.
Josie wore a pale blue T-shirt and nothing else. Her panties had been pulled down to her ankles, just above her saggy royal-blue socks. The back strap of her bra appeared to have been sliced with a knife.
Around Josephine’s body was wrapped a web of cord; this reinforced my belief that the UNSUB had arrived at the home with a large length of this cord in his “murder kit.” Like some Boy Scout gone bad, he’d come prepared. Her wrists were tied together behind her back and bound to a rope encircling her waist. Another length of cord had been wrapped around her knees, followed by yet another around her ankles. The tips of her toes almost touched the concrete floor. On her leg was a milky gelatinous substance that appeared to be semen. It had run down her leg over her sock and formed a tiny puddle on the floor.
Bulla took a deep breath, shook his head, and headed back upstairs.
“We got another body in the basement,” he announced to the officers and detectives who had just arrived at the scene and were busy combing through the house.
Before the discovery of Josie’s body, the killings had all the makings of a revenge- or retaliation-style homicide. But now the case had taken a macabre, darker twist. It now seemed to reek of a homicide that had sexual underpinnings. This meant that police were dealing with a much more sinister, complex type of killer.
When the call about the Oteros came over his radio, Wichita Police Department detective Bernie Drowatzky had been riding through the northeast part of town, looking for a couple of suspected heroin dealers. Like Bulla, he knew only that there had been a report of a possible murder-suicide at 803 North Edgemoor. Upon arriving, he quickly learned that police had discovered four bodies, including two children.
Drowatzky, who was known as a cop’s cop, didn’t like what he was hearing. Over the years, he’d immersed himself in plenty of violent crimes—he’d solved grisly murders, survived bloody shootouts, taken down armed suspects using only his fists—but something about what was unfolding inside the Otero house felt deeply bizarre and disturbing.
While all the detectives and crime scene technicians were moving through the house, Drowatzky, who would eventually arrive at the scenes of three other BTK murders over the next three years, fanned out across the neighborhood with several officers. They interviewed residents about anything they might have seen happen outside the Otero house that morning. Eventually he located a witness who had caught a glimpse of the Otero family’s tan-colored Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon backing out of the garage at approximately 10:30 A.M. The driver, according to this neighbor, was a short man with a “Middle Eastern” complexion.
Another neighbor also reported seeing a dark-haired stranger quickly back out of the family’s driveway. Whoever was driving the car was in such a rush that yet another neighbor had to slam on his brakes to avoid plowing into him as the neighbor backed onto Murdoch Street.
A few hours later, the car was located in the parking lot of Dillons grocery. A witness at the scene told police that the driver exiting the car looked terribly nervous. His whole body appeared to be shaking.
It was hours past sunset when Charlie Stewart, the lead detective working the case, broke the news to the three surviving Otero children that their two youngest siblings weren’t
What he had bumped into was the stiff body of Josephine, eleven, dangling from a pipe. A noose, fashioned from the same type of cord used on the others, bit a deep hemorrhaged groove into her neck. Her hands were tied tightly behind her back. Her mouth had been gagged with a strip of towel that made her tongue bulge out above the top of the gag. It was swollen and the color of eggplant.
Josie wore a pale blue T-shirt and nothing else. Her panties had been pulled down to her ankles, just above her saggy royal-blue socks. The back strap of her bra appeared to have been sliced with a knife.
Around Josephine’s body was wrapped a web of cord; this reinforced my belief that the UNSUB had arrived at the home with a large length of this cord in his “murder kit.” Like some Boy Scout gone bad, he’d come prepared. Her wrists were tied together behind her back and bound to a rope encircling her waist. Another length of cord had been wrapped around her knees, followed by yet another around her ankles. The tips of her toes almost touched the concrete floor. On her leg was a milky gelatinous substance that appeared to be semen. It had run down her leg over her sock and formed a tiny puddle on the floor.
Bulla took a deep breath, shook his head, and headed back upstairs.
“We got another body in the basement,” he announced to the officers and detectives who had just arrived at the scene and were busy combing through the house.
Before the discovery of Josie’s body, the killings had all the makings of a revenge- or retaliation-style homicide. But now the case had taken a macabre, darker twist. It now seemed to reek of a homicide that had sexual underpinnings. This meant that police were dealing with a much more sinister, complex type of killer.
When the call about the Oteros came over his radio, Wichita Police Department detective Bernie Drowatzky had been riding through the northeast part of town, looking for a couple of suspected heroin dealers. Like Bulla, he knew only that there had been a report of a possible murder-suicide at 803 North Edgemoor. Upon arriving, he quickly learned that police had discovered four bodies, including two children.
Drowatzky, who was known as a cop’s cop, didn’t like what he was hearing. Over the years, he’d immersed himself in plenty of violent crimes—he’d solved grisly murders, survived bloody shootouts, taken down armed suspects using only his fists—but something about what was unfolding inside the Otero house felt deeply bizarre and disturbing.
While all the detectives and crime scene technicians were moving through the house, Drowatzky, who would eventually arrive at the scenes of three other BTK murders over the next three years, fanned out across the neighborhood with several officers. They interviewed residents about anything they might have seen happen outside the Otero house that morning. Eventually he located a witness who had caught a glimpse of the Otero family’s tan-colored Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon backing out of the garage at approximately 10:30 A.M. The driver, according to this neighbor, was a short man with a “Middle Eastern” complexion.
Another neighbor also reported seeing a dark-haired stranger quickly back out of the family’s driveway. Whoever was driving the car was in such a rush that yet another neighbor had to slam on his brakes to avoid plowing into him as the neighbor backed onto Murdoch Street.
A few hours later, the car was located in the parking lot of Dillons grocery. A witness at the scene told police that the driver exiting the car looked terribly nervous. His whole body appeared to be shaking.
It was hours past sunset when Charlie Stewart, the lead detective working the case, broke the news to the three surviving Otero children that their two youngest siblings weren’t
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