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 B
Authors: John Douglas, Johnny Dodd
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going to be coming home from school.
From fifteen-year-old Charlie Otero, Stewart, known for his rock-solid investigative skills, learned that the family had moved to Wichita in fall 1973 from the Panama Canal Zone, where Joseph, thirty-eight, had served the last stretch of his twenty-year hitch in the Air Force. An aviation fanatic with a penchant for bongo playing and practical jokes, he decided to move his family to Wichita, known as the “Air Capital of the World,” in order to pursue a career in flying. For the past couple of months, Joseph, who had a commercial pilot’s license, worked as a mechanic and flight instructor at a local airport.
Like his wife, Julie, thirty-four, to whom he’d been married for the past sixteen years, Joseph was born in Puerto Rico. The couple’s five kids, ages nine through fifteen, were all well mannered and studious, and seemed to adore their parents. The only other member of the family was their often unpredictable German shepherd mix, Lucky, a trained military guard dog the Oteros had brought with them when they moved from Panama.
The dog was pacing around the backyard when police arrived, something that perplexed detectives when they spotted boot prints near the spot where the UNSUB had cut the family’s phone line. Why, they wondered, hadn’t the foul-tempered Lucky started barking to sound the alarm?
After speaking with the distraught, dazed children, a picture of the family’s morning routine began to come into focus, along with some rough details about what may have happened over the course of the morning.
The kitchen appeared to hold the lion’s share of the clues in explaining the opening moments of the attack. From the looks of things, the kids were in the midst of preparing their lunches when the killer or killers entered. The three older Otero siblings had already departed for school. Josephine had just finished fixing a sandwich that consisted of a smear of potted meat between two pieces of white bread. She wrapped it in wax paper and placed it in a lunchbox covered with flowers, left sitting on the stove. Joey stood at the kitchen table beside his father, spreading meat on a piece of bread. His open lunchbox with pictures of policemen on it sat on the table beside him. Joseph was hunched over the table, eating pears from an open can.
Stewart and other detectives figured that it must have been just around this moment that Joseph asked one of the children to take out the garbage and place it in the trash can sitting back behind the house. Two theories emerged over what happened next. In the first scenario, Josie, who had finished with her lunch-making duties, pulled on her white mittens, grabbed the garbage pail, and walked out the back door. It was at this moment that the intruder grabbed her and forced her back into the kitchen, where he confronted the rest of the family. Police retrieved her mitten, which might have fallen off when she was jumped by the attacker, on the concrete stoop just outside the back door.
In the second possible scenario, Joey was the one who was dispatched on garbage duty. The fact that he hadn’t finished making his lunch probably wouldn’t have fazed his father, who had the reputation for being a taskmaster. Josie might have been giggling over the fact that her brother might not get to finish making his sandwich before heading off to school. So, in the spirit of brotherly retaliation, Joey grabbed her gloves, lovingly caressed the trash bucket with them, then headed outside, where he was quickly overtaken by the UNSUB.
Exactly what happened next also proved difficult for detectives to determine with any certainty, although a couple of facts seemed clear. It didn’t appear that anything had been taken from the house, which ruled out the chance of the attack’s being a botched burglary. It also didn’t seem likely that this was the work of two intruders. And because the interior of the house
From fifteen-year-old Charlie Otero, Stewart, known for his rock-solid investigative skills, learned that the family had moved to Wichita in fall 1973 from the Panama Canal Zone, where Joseph, thirty-eight, had served the last stretch of his twenty-year hitch in the Air Force. An aviation fanatic with a penchant for bongo playing and practical jokes, he decided to move his family to Wichita, known as the “Air Capital of the World,” in order to pursue a career in flying. For the past couple of months, Joseph, who had a commercial pilot’s license, worked as a mechanic and flight instructor at a local airport.
Like his wife, Julie, thirty-four, to whom he’d been married for the past sixteen years, Joseph was born in Puerto Rico. The couple’s five kids, ages nine through fifteen, were all well mannered and studious, and seemed to adore their parents. The only other member of the family was their often unpredictable German shepherd mix, Lucky, a trained military guard dog the Oteros had brought with them when they moved from Panama.
The dog was pacing around the backyard when police arrived, something that perplexed detectives when they spotted boot prints near the spot where the UNSUB had cut the family’s phone line. Why, they wondered, hadn’t the foul-tempered Lucky started barking to sound the alarm?
After speaking with the distraught, dazed children, a picture of the family’s morning routine began to come into focus, along with some rough details about what may have happened over the course of the morning.
The kitchen appeared to hold the lion’s share of the clues in explaining the opening moments of the attack. From the looks of things, the kids were in the midst of preparing their lunches when the killer or killers entered. The three older Otero siblings had already departed for school. Josephine had just finished fixing a sandwich that consisted of a smear of potted meat between two pieces of white bread. She wrapped it in wax paper and placed it in a lunchbox covered with flowers, left sitting on the stove. Joey stood at the kitchen table beside his father, spreading meat on a piece of bread. His open lunchbox with pictures of policemen on it sat on the table beside him. Joseph was hunched over the table, eating pears from an open can.
Stewart and other detectives figured that it must have been just around this moment that Joseph asked one of the children to take out the garbage and place it in the trash can sitting back behind the house. Two theories emerged over what happened next. In the first scenario, Josie, who had finished with her lunch-making duties, pulled on her white mittens, grabbed the garbage pail, and walked out the back door. It was at this moment that the intruder grabbed her and forced her back into the kitchen, where he confronted the rest of the family. Police retrieved her mitten, which might have fallen off when she was jumped by the attacker, on the concrete stoop just outside the back door.
In the second possible scenario, Joey was the one who was dispatched on garbage duty. The fact that he hadn’t finished making his lunch probably wouldn’t have fazed his father, who had the reputation for being a taskmaster. Josie might have been giggling over the fact that her brother might not get to finish making his sandwich before heading off to school. So, in the spirit of brotherly retaliation, Joey grabbed her gloves, lovingly caressed the trash bucket with them, then headed outside, where he was quickly overtaken by the UNSUB.
Exactly what happened next also proved difficult for detectives to determine with any certainty, although a couple of facts seemed clear. It didn’t appear that anything had been taken from the house, which ruled out the chance of the attack’s being a botched burglary. It also didn’t seem likely that this was the work of two intruders. And because the interior of the house
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