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Killer Thriller: How a “Normal” Man Became the BTK Killer · Legally Brunette

0:06
Speaker 1: Amy Roboc and TJ. Holmes present Killer Thriller with your
0:10
Speaker 1: host Alisa Donovan.
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Speaker 2: Hey everyone, Alisa Donovan here, and this is killer Thriller.
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Speaker 2: What if the person committing some of the most horrific
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Speaker 2: crimes imaginable was also living what looked like a completely
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Speaker 2: normal life. Well, today we are talking about the BTK
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Speaker 2: killer short for Bind Torture Kill, who terrorized Wichita, Kansas
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Speaker 2: for decades, murdering ten people between nineteen seventy four and
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Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one before going silent and then re emerging
0:46
Speaker 2: years later in a way no one saw coming. This
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Speaker 2: is the story we see play out in the movie
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Speaker 2: The Hunt for the BTK Killer. And today we are
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Speaker 2: going very deep because our guest didn't just study this case,
1:01
Speaker 2: she had direct contact with the man behind it. Forensic
1:05
Speaker 2: psychologist Catherine Ramsland corresponded with Dennis Raider for years, gaining
1:10
Speaker 2: rare insight into his thinking and how he hid in
1:13
Speaker 2: plane sight. Doctor Ramsland, thank you so much for being
1:18
Speaker 2: with me today.
1:19
Speaker 3: Great to be here, looking forward to this.
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Speaker 2: I am really First of all, I'm very much in
1:25
Speaker 2: awe of your career and what you have done with
1:27
Speaker 2: your life. It's pretty extraordinary. And impressive and fascinating to me.
1:34
Speaker 2: So we're going to talk today obviously about the BTA killer.
1:40
Speaker 2: So for people who may not know the full story,
1:43
Speaker 2: what makes the BTKK so uniquely disturbing?
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Speaker 3: Well, what's disturbing about someone like Dennis Raider, who murdered
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Speaker 3: people between nineteen seventy four nineteen ninety one and which
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Speaker 3: talk Kansas and got away with it thirty years is
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Speaker 3: that he passes it completely normal person. He had a family,
2:05
Speaker 3: he was highly involved in his church, he was president
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Speaker 3: of his church congregation, and he had a job. He
2:13
Speaker 3: was in his community, and even when he was finally arrested,
2:18
Speaker 3: people told the cops, you have the wrong guy. It
2:23
Speaker 3: isn't him. So the way someone like that can pass
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Speaker 3: as normal while they're stalking, burglarizing and looking for someone
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Speaker 3: to kill is I think the scariest thing.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's terrified.
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Speaker 2: We cover a lot of very disturbing things on this
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Speaker 2: podcast and really talk about sort of the human part
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Speaker 2: of it and human behavior and all of those things.
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Speaker 2: And this is truly one of the most diabolical to me.
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Speaker 2: And So you corresponded with Dennis Raider for over a decade.
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Speaker 1: How did that come about. How did you actually meet him?
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Speaker 1: How did you get him to allow you to do this?
3:01
Speaker 3: What happened is when he was caught in two thousand
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Speaker 3: and five, a woman approached him and wanted to write
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Speaker 3: his book, and she kind of got into the news
3:11
Speaker 3: and whatnot, and so I knew who she was. And
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Speaker 3: five years passed, so I was twenty ten and no book.
3:17
Speaker 3: So I saw her on Facebook and dis asked her,
3:21
Speaker 3: whatever happened to your book with Dennis Rader? And she
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Speaker 3: knew who I was, and she knew she wasn't going
3:28
Speaker 3: to actually write it, so she asked me to come
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Speaker 3: in and take over. Now that's easier than it sounds,
3:36
Speaker 3: because I had to be I had to pass muster
3:40
Speaker 3: with the victims' relatives, the surviving relatives, because they had
3:45
Speaker 3: formed a legal kind of adventure that they had approval
3:51
Speaker 3: because he had signed his life rights over to them.
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Speaker 1: Oh interesting.
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Speaker 3: It turned into a long process me telling them what
4:03
Speaker 3: I aimed to do, which was and I would only
4:07
Speaker 3: do it under these circumstances, which was to write a
4:10
Speaker 3: book that would benefit criminology, forensic psychology, and law enforcement.
4:16
Speaker 3: So he can tell his story his way, but it's
4:19
Speaker 3: going to be guided by me toward my ends, and
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Speaker 3: they wanted that. They had turned down a few other people,
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Speaker 3: but they were interested in that. If there had to
4:30
Speaker 3: be a book out there, they wanted it to be
4:32
Speaker 3: that one. And then they get, you know, a large
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Speaker 3: percentage of the proceeds too.
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Speaker 2: Right, because I'm sure they want to be careful of
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Speaker 2: not sort of inflating this criminal's ego, right, because so
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Speaker 2: much of this seems to be about narcissism and.
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Speaker 3: You're not going to get past that. The ego is there.
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Speaker 3: So either you have to do, you know, shut him
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Speaker 3: down altogether, which we really can't do, or use it
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Speaker 3: in a way that's to our benefit and not just
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Speaker 3: his right.
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Speaker 2: Right, So he Dennis killed over a span of decades,
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Speaker 2: but and then he just stopped.
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Speaker 1: Is that very How unusual is that.
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Speaker 3: He didn't just stop, He didn't succeed, big difference. The
5:23
Speaker 3: way he puts it, it's like a fisherman goes out
5:27
Speaker 3: and doesn't always catch, but they go out to catch.
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Speaker 3: His life circumstances had changed. He didn't have as many
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Speaker 3: opportunities to be out and about without checking in with
5:38
Speaker 3: his wife and kids and whatnot. He was busy with
5:42
Speaker 3: other kinds of obligations, so he didn't have as many opportunities,
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Speaker 3: but he still had them. He sent me a list
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Speaker 3: of fifty five projects. These were all people he had stalked, watched,
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Speaker 3: taken notes on, looked for opportunities to get into their
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Speaker 3: house and potentially kill them. So there were opportunities that
6:05
Speaker 3: just didn't work out.
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Speaker 2: I'm so speechless over how kind of clinical he is
6:14
Speaker 2: in terms of talking about these things, like words like
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Speaker 2: projects and things like that. Is that common or is
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Speaker 2: that specific to him?
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Speaker 3: Well, the word is specific to him, But it's very
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Speaker 3: common to dehumanize your victims because in the perception of
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Speaker 3: especially sexually compelled serial killers, the person the victim is
6:39
Speaker 3: just upon in their game. Essentially, they once they have
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Speaker 3: identified that this is the person they're going to go after,
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Speaker 3: now that person is not a person to them. It
6:52
Speaker 3: is their target, is their goal. It's something that they
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Speaker 3: need to to do, and so they get dehumanized. Project
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Speaker 3: you know, accomplishes that goal. But they were named like
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Speaker 3: Project Cookie and Project lights Out, and they were named
7:10
Speaker 3: for certain features because it helped him to remember them.
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Speaker 2: So that's Can you talk a little bit about what
7:19
Speaker 2: led him to finally getting caught.
7:21
Speaker 3: He had been He already knew how to use computers.
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Speaker 3: It's false for people to think that he was just inept.
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Speaker 3: And he had asked a cop that he knew was
7:33
Speaker 3: involved in learning digital stuff. And this is very early
7:38
Speaker 3: in the process for law enforcemental they really played a
7:41
Speaker 3: lot of ketchup in the digital arena. And so he
7:44
Speaker 3: when he asked him, can you trace an anonymous email?
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Speaker 3: And the cop erroneously told him no. That cop has
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Speaker 3: written an article about how he inadvertently helped with this process.
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Speaker 3: Because then Dennis Raider got the idea. What he had
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Speaker 3: been doing is he'd been writing these cat and mouse
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Speaker 3: things that he was sending to the newspapers and the cops,
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Speaker 3: the task Force, and he had been taking him to
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Speaker 3: a copier and then copying the copies and copying the copies,
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Speaker 3: and which is very time consuming. He didn't have that
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Speaker 3: kind of time. He knew how to use a computer.
8:19
Speaker 3: So he asked in the newspaper ad to the task force,
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Speaker 3: can you trace me if I send you a disc
8:29
Speaker 3: with my instructions. And they couldn't believe that he was
8:34
Speaker 3: really asking this, and so they gave him a message
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Speaker 3: back in a newspaper ad that he'd be safe, and
8:43
Speaker 3: he wasn't. They were able to trace him. But I
8:46
Speaker 3: will say this, had he used a brand new disc,
8:50
Speaker 3: what he did was he used a disc that he
8:53
Speaker 3: had taken notes on as the church president, and he
8:56
Speaker 3: used the church's computer. Had he gone into a library
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Speaker 3: with a brand new disc unopened, and I think he
9:05
Speaker 3: would have not been caught.
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Speaker 1: Wow.
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Speaker 2: So is there any part of that that you think
9:10
Speaker 2: was intentional or no, it's subconscious or not.
9:13
Speaker 3: They definitely did not want to It's a myth that
9:16
Speaker 3: serial killers want to be caught. No, they don't. They
9:18
Speaker 3: want to keep doing what they're doing.
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Speaker 2: So do you think do the why do some of
9:23
Speaker 2: them want recognition and others try to stay hidden or
9:26
Speaker 2: do they all want recognition?
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Speaker 3: Well, I mean we're talking about over five thousand documents
9:30
Speaker 3: serial killers. I couldn't possibly generally generally answer why do
9:36
Speaker 3: some It depends on the person, depends on if they're narcissistic,
9:40
Speaker 3: It depends on if they if they're aim like some
9:44
Speaker 3: of the kids today who want to be serial killers,
9:48
Speaker 3: who aim to do it, of course they want recognition
9:51
Speaker 3: because they set out to identify as a serial killer.
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Speaker 3: So that's one thing.
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Speaker 1: Wait, is this a thing like people like in.
10:01
Speaker 3: Thanks to social media? Yes, oh my god, you're kidding me,
10:05
Speaker 3: not kidding.
10:06
Speaker 1: So there are like groups or something that is that groups.
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Speaker 3: There are kids who just find it. They feel like losers,
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Speaker 3: and this is a way to get attention. They look
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Speaker 3: at specific types of murders, often mass murderers or school
10:22
Speaker 3: shooters or serial killers. They have special heroes among those
10:27
Speaker 3: groups that they want to emulate. And yeah, so it's
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Speaker 3: it's a thing for sure.
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Speaker 2: Oh gosh, and that's I mean, I have a thirteen
10:38
Speaker 2: year old daughter, so all this, I'm everything terrifies me,
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Speaker 2: like literally every guys, if I think about it too much,
10:47
Speaker 2: I will never ever sleep again. Let's talk about your
10:52
Speaker 2: your first impression of Dennis when you met him, Like,
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Speaker 2: what was what do you remember most well?
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Speaker 3: By the time I was I live on the East Coast,
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Speaker 3: he's in which or actually El Dorado Prison, So by
11:07
Speaker 3: the time I got to actually visit him, we already
11:12
Speaker 3: had been talking on the phone and playing chess because
11:16
Speaker 3: we were going through this whole legal process, which took
11:18
Speaker 3: some time. And then I didn't really want to visit
11:21
Speaker 3: him till I had sold the book, because you know,
11:26
Speaker 3: you get some money up front for your expenses and
11:30
Speaker 3: things like that, so we I already felt pretty familiar
11:35
Speaker 3: with him. And then in a prison like this, which
11:39
Speaker 3: is like a maximum security you're in a booth. He's
11:43
Speaker 3: in a booth. You talk through a monitor. You don't
11:47
Speaker 3: talk face to face.
11:49
Speaker 4: Oh really, you don't.
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Speaker 3: It's not like on TV shows that show that they
11:55
Speaker 3: got plastic or glass between them. No, you don't have that.
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Speaker 3: You are. It's very much filtered, and it's a crappy monitor, frankly,
12:04
Speaker 3: so you don't get a real good sense of them.
12:07
Speaker 3: But there was an interesting thing that happened. He wasn't
12:12
Speaker 3: he knew I was coming to Witchita. He wasn't sure
12:14
Speaker 3: if I was going to be able to get arranged
12:17
Speaker 3: to get into the prison, so he didn't know I
12:20
Speaker 3: was coming for sure. And he was brought into his
12:25
Speaker 3: booth and you know, all in shackles and with the
12:31
Speaker 3: guards all over it. He's kind of doing this Hannibal
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Speaker 3: elect you what do you think I'm Hannibal Elector, And
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Speaker 3: he's kind of really gruff and everything. And then he
12:39
Speaker 3: looked in the monitor and saw that I was in
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Speaker 3: the other room and immediately just switch so fast to pleasant. Oh,
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Speaker 3: how was your trip, I'm so glad that you made it,
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Speaker 3: blah blah blah. And the switch in his ability to
12:59
Speaker 3: you know, pivot from this nasty gruff pose he's putting
13:05
Speaker 3: on for the guards to this pleasant demeanor for me
13:10
Speaker 3: was so fast that that showed me a lot about
13:15
Speaker 3: his ability. And now he actually has a name for this,
13:18
Speaker 3: and I think is a very good name, cubing. If
13:22
Speaker 3: you think about a cube with the multiple sides, and
13:26
Speaker 3: you have access to all sides, you can just pivot
13:29
Speaker 3: to whichever one you face you need for a given circumstance, right,
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Speaker 3: And I think that's a lot better than the idea
13:36
Speaker 3: of compartmentalizing just like different compartments, because these are all integrated.
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Speaker 3: But when you're turning a face to someone like good father, church, president,
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Speaker 3: serial killer, they're right there, right at your hand. When
13:57
Speaker 3: I saw that kind of switch, the wickness of it,
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Speaker 3: I realized that that's how he does it.
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Speaker 1: Wow, and not just him.
14:06
Speaker 3: I think a lot of serial killers operate like this.
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Speaker 1: Mm hmm. I mean I was going to say, you know,
14:12
Speaker 1: as as humans, we kind of all do that to
14:15
Speaker 1: some degree.
14:16
Speaker 2: Yes, perhaps, right, we're different with our teachers than we
14:20
Speaker 2: are with our parents or our friends or you know,
14:22
Speaker 2: as we're going out, but obviously to a very different degree.
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Speaker 3: I mean, if you you know, if you're living a contradiction,
14:29
Speaker 3: let's say, I mean, let's say it's somebody who's having
14:32
Speaker 3: an affair and you know they're caught. Generally there's this
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Speaker 3: kind of moral dilemmaa dilemma that operates and slows down
14:44
Speaker 3: the process. And right in interact together with them, there's no
14:48
Speaker 3: moral dilemma at all. The right's a contradiction. It's fine
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Speaker 3: with them. They have no sense of identity that has integrity,
15:00
Speaker 3: you know, or consistency. That doesn't matter to them. What
15:03
Speaker 3: matters to them is getting what they want right, So
15:06
Speaker 3: they don't have that kind of hesitation, and which is
15:11
Speaker 3: which I think is very interesting. It is a human ability,
15:14
Speaker 3: but they have honed it to work for.
15:17
Speaker 4: Them, right.
15:35
Speaker 2: You know, this span had a family, had a job,
15:38
Speaker 2: had the routine, had all of these very typical things
15:41
Speaker 2: that seemed quite in depth.
15:44
Speaker 1: It wasn't just like he was kind of on the
15:46
Speaker 1: surface of that.
15:47
Speaker 2: He was engaged with a lot of people in the community.
15:51
Speaker 2: And I mean, how how do they do that, like,
15:56
Speaker 2: how do you lead that kind of a double life?
15:58
Speaker 3: The operative word seems in depth. It is not you
16:04
Speaker 3: can engage without deep feeling because you're acting right. It's
16:10
Speaker 3: it's a lot of different roles they take on, and
16:14
Speaker 3: they can make it seem very believable. But you know,
16:19
Speaker 3: like let's Ted Bundy for example, he had a girlfriend,
16:22
Speaker 3: but then you go up with somebody else, right, and
16:24
Speaker 3: then you go back to the girlfriend.
16:26
Speaker 2: Right.
16:27
Speaker 3: None of that mattered to him. He wanted what he
16:30
Speaker 3: wanted and he wanted now. And it's very infantile when
16:34
Speaker 3: you think about it. Yes, you know, I'm the center.
16:36
Speaker 3: I'll do what I want and you will meet my needs.
16:39
Speaker 2: Right there seems to me about a lot of these
16:43
Speaker 2: sorts of people that they are like like like baby like,
16:47
Speaker 2: like like babies about it, like sort of you know, whiny,
16:53
Speaker 2: I need what I.
16:54
Speaker 3: Need rested development?
16:56
Speaker 4: I s yes, yes it is.
16:58
Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. So are there actually warning signs for people like this?
17:03
Speaker 3: It certainly can't tell by the look in their eye,
17:05
Speaker 3: which I've heard many police officers say they're wrong about that,
17:09
Speaker 3: But there can be I'm not going to say there
17:13
Speaker 3: are signals. There can be like Dennis raider he was.
17:19
Speaker 3: His wife caught him writing notes that misspelled words the
17:23
Speaker 3: same way BTK did. But here's the thing, there's a
17:29
Speaker 3: there's a cognitive disadvantage and people who are close to
17:34
Speaker 3: one of these killers is that they will spin it
17:36
Speaker 3: to the most benign interpretation. And he said, when she said,
17:42
Speaker 3: you spell words the same way that BTK does in
17:45
Speaker 3: his newspaper, in the things of the newspaper, and he said, well,
17:49
Speaker 3: we were probably raised in the same educational system with bonics.
17:53
Speaker 3: There's something like some stupid thing. But is going to
17:57
Speaker 3: be prepared to accept that because who is thinking they're
18:02
Speaker 3: married to a serial killer of course, father or the
18:06
Speaker 3: child or you know.
18:08
Speaker 4: Of course, there.
18:09
Speaker 3: Is a cognitive disadvantage for family members and spouses because
18:15
Speaker 3: they are going to just automatically give as much room.
18:21
Speaker 1: Yes, as much leeway and sure.
18:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, unless that person is very abusive like Keith jessperson
18:29
Speaker 3: for example, he was an abusive guy and his daughter
18:33
Speaker 3: famously has you know, done a lot of TV shows
18:36
Speaker 3: and whatnot about him, and you know, something like that.
18:39
Speaker 3: But just because their abusive doesn't make them murderers by
18:42
Speaker 3: any means, So that is not necessarily a red flag.
18:47
Speaker 3: But it really is case to case, and typically you're
18:50
Speaker 3: going to be catching them in lies and and you know, inconsistencies,
18:56
Speaker 3: and they'll be absent when these things happen. And you know,
19:00
Speaker 3: so if you wanted to look for a pattern, you
19:03
Speaker 3: probably could see it, but typically they don't.
19:07
Speaker 4: Right.
19:08
Speaker 1: What else did you learn during your meetings with him?
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Speaker 3: Lots?
19:14
Speaker 1: Event give me something.
19:15
Speaker 3: I've wrote a whole book about it.
19:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I know, you know.
19:21
Speaker 3: Just talking about how can I basically all American boy?
19:26
Speaker 3: He was the oldest of four brothers and raised both
19:31
Speaker 3: grandparents were intact, Both sets of grandparents were intact. They
19:34
Speaker 3: were on farms, so he had this kind of all
19:37
Speaker 3: American springing, right, you know, there wasn't his parents were together.
19:44
Speaker 3: What was going on? How did this happen? So one
19:48
Speaker 3: of the reasons I wanted to work with him is
19:52
Speaker 3: that he just did not fit the formulas that had
19:56
Speaker 3: kind of come to us side of it from the
19:57
Speaker 3: nineteen nineties of the this notion that serial killers have
20:02
Speaker 3: always have been abused or traumatized or head injuries or whatever.
20:07
Speaker 3: You know, there are all these these ideas that he
20:11
Speaker 3: didn't fit, and I thought that, so I want to
20:15
Speaker 3: find out how can someone like this evolve into a
20:21
Speaker 3: person who wants to be a serial killer? And as
20:25
Speaker 3: I went along, I could I could begin to see
20:27
Speaker 3: the ways he was intrigued with certain things, like he
20:32
Speaker 3: liked bondage self bondage. He liked to tie himself up
20:35
Speaker 3: with ropes and things that was exciting. It was in
20:38
Speaker 3: part was it was scary the cowboy and Indian games,
20:43
Speaker 3: for example, when he would be tied up, he'd be scared,
20:47
Speaker 3: and then that would be arousing. But for another kid
20:51
Speaker 3: it could just be so scary they never want to
20:53
Speaker 3: go near a rope again. Right. It's about perception. And
20:58
Speaker 3: as this began to become a pleasurable thing to him,
21:04
Speaker 3: he started looking for things, and when he was about fourteen,
21:08
Speaker 3: he grabbed a True Detective magazine that was under his
21:12
Speaker 3: father the driver's seat of his father's car that featured
21:18
Speaker 3: Harvey Glatman's victims. Harvey Glatman in the nineteen fifties had
21:22
Speaker 3: been a serial killer who had enticed young women to
21:28
Speaker 3: allow him to tie them up because they thought they
21:31
Speaker 3: were going to be on the cover of a True
21:32
Speaker 3: Detective magazine. They were inspiring models, and so yes, they're
21:37
Speaker 3: going to allow him to tie them up because they
21:41
Speaker 3: think he's going to photograph them for these magazines. Turns
21:45
Speaker 3: out they were on the cover, but not because they
21:47
Speaker 3: were models, because once he had them under his control,
21:53
Speaker 3: he killed them and he told them he was going
21:55
Speaker 3: to kill them so he could get that expression on
21:57
Speaker 3: their face of absolute terror. And when Raiders saw that
22:02
Speaker 3: he was around fourteen, that was so exciting. He wanted
22:07
Speaker 3: to replicate that. He wanted to see that expression some
22:11
Speaker 3: woman looking at him that way.
22:13
Speaker 1: Was he able to articulate that to you? Yeah?
22:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely said that. Yes. Wow. Part of it
22:21
Speaker 3: came from being humiliated five females, his mother, his teachers,
22:27
Speaker 3: and girls always made him feel off balanced, and he
22:31
Speaker 3: didn't like that feeling of being humiliated. So this idea
22:35
Speaker 3: of binding them and having them look to him as
22:41
Speaker 3: dominant was exciting and became part of his fantasy. He
22:47
Speaker 3: started drawing girl traps. You know, in his teenage years
22:51
Speaker 3: he would look at Dudley do write cartoons with the
22:55
Speaker 3: hell being tied to the track right, but you know
22:58
Speaker 3: at Dudley doesn't come, the girls get right over in
23:01
Speaker 3: his fantasy, Oh my.
23:03
Speaker 1: God, did he ever show any remorse?
23:08
Speaker 3: Depends on what day you catch him on. Really he's
23:11
Speaker 3: a spin doctor. I mean, if you were to write
23:16
Speaker 3: to him and Meg it seemed like that that's what
23:20
Speaker 3: you wanted to see. He'll show that to you. He'll
23:24
Speaker 3: study the Bible with you, He'll do, you know, whatever
23:26
Speaker 3: it takes.
23:27
Speaker 1: Right.
23:28
Speaker 3: So again he's got that cubing thing. If this is
23:32
Speaker 3: a person who wants me to be remorseful, I can do.
23:34
Speaker 4: That, right.
23:36
Speaker 2: So did you watch the movie The Hunt for the
23:39
Speaker 2: bt K Killer? What do you think were there things?
23:43
Speaker 2: Because a lot of things that you've said today to me,
23:46
Speaker 2: I feel like they put into that movie.
23:50
Speaker 3: On the investigative side what they know initially they have it.
23:56
Speaker 3: You know, he's got some gaps in his murder spree.
24:00
Speaker 3: In nineteen seventy four of January, there's a family of
24:03
Speaker 3: four killed. Three months later there's a lone woman and
24:07
Speaker 3: her brother is shot but not killed. Then three years
24:12
Speaker 3: and another woman, and then three or four months go
24:16
Speaker 3: by another woman, and then you know, and Raider had
24:21
Speaker 3: sent a note about eight months after the otaros so
24:25
Speaker 3: it's nineteen seventy four October ish, basically saying that the
24:30
Speaker 3: people they had arrested this were not the guys. It
24:34
Speaker 3: was him him alone, and you know he kind of
24:37
Speaker 3: named himself BTK, so he had communicated with them, and
24:43
Speaker 3: then after I think it was Shirley Bayanne who was
24:47
Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy seven, he wrote this kind of little
24:52
Speaker 3: poem and then killed Nancy Fox and called it in right.
24:56
Speaker 3: So now we have a long period of time here.
24:59
Speaker 3: But and they're not sure that Catherine Bright's part of
25:02
Speaker 3: this because the knot used to tie her was different
25:06
Speaker 3: than what was in Otaro, and he didn't write anything
25:09
Speaker 3: about her. Well, the reason was because her brother lived
25:13
Speaker 3: and was a witness, so he didn't want to pay
25:15
Speaker 3: attention to that, but he did want credit as a
25:17
Speaker 3: serial killer. So he's he's taken the oto, the four
25:21
Speaker 3: in O'to and Sholey Buyen and Nancy Fox, and so
25:28
Speaker 3: that's where he's first getting going. They don't know who
25:31
Speaker 3: he is at all.
25:47
Speaker 2: Wasn't he afraid of being caught because it was this
25:50
Speaker 2: is in or that person seeing him like I was
25:55
Speaker 2: struck by that.
25:55
Speaker 3: Afraid after the otos, but no one came. So then
26:01
Speaker 3: three months later he decides he's going to do this again.
26:04
Speaker 3: He was afraid. He even looked for where Kevin lived
26:08
Speaker 3: and thought about killing him to eliminate him, but then didn't.
26:13
Speaker 3: So but then no one came and he didn't do
26:16
Speaker 3: anything till nineteen seventy seven, and then again a long
26:20
Speaker 3: period of time goes by. Now it's nineteen eighty five
26:25
Speaker 3: before he picks off Marine Hedge, one of his neighbors
26:28
Speaker 3: in Park City, not Wichita, right right, So then and
26:33
Speaker 3: then the next year there he's back to Wichita for
26:37
Speaker 3: another one. But he does not communicate about either of
26:39
Speaker 3: these two, so they don't know that this is in fact,
26:44
Speaker 3: it was Vicky Reagerly. They suspected her husband.
26:48
Speaker 2: Right, So it's the inconsistency, right, like, it's not a typical.
26:51
Speaker 3: Then nineteen ninety one, so again another five years, his
26:57
Speaker 3: last victim, Doloris Davis, completely different. He leaves her outside,
27:02
Speaker 3: he leaves Marine Hedge outside. These are not the same
27:06
Speaker 3: behaviors that he was showing. So the task force and
27:10
Speaker 3: they did bring the FBI profilers in at some point,
27:14
Speaker 3: but they're faced with there's so many differences, and only
27:19
Speaker 3: some does he communicate. You know which ones are BTK.
27:23
Speaker 3: They thought they had seven. They weren't at all sure
27:28
Speaker 3: about the final three. But because there had been No,
27:32
Speaker 3: there had been such a long period of time, so
27:37
Speaker 3: only when they caught him and he told them about
27:41
Speaker 3: all ten did they know that what these were. So
27:45
Speaker 3: the task Force had some pretty serious challenges in terms
27:49
Speaker 3: of trying to connect all these and not just connect them.
27:54
Speaker 3: Who could this possibly be? It was really the mistakes
27:57
Speaker 3: he made during the cat and mouse game in two
28:00
Speaker 3: thousand and four. Right, he's killed in nineteen ninety one,
28:04
Speaker 3: his final victim. Nothing happens until two thousand and four.
28:09
Speaker 2: So that in the movie they do show that, and
28:12
Speaker 2: they this is what I wanted to know if this
28:13
Speaker 2: was accurate from what they show in the movie, that he.
28:17
Speaker 1: He sees the author who wrote the book about.
28:21
Speaker 2: Him on and that stimulates him to start to send
28:26
Speaker 2: these things and give them clues.
28:29
Speaker 3: Essentially, yeah, he didn't want Beatty to tell his story
28:33
Speaker 3: because Bead was going to talk about the seven murders,
28:38
Speaker 3: so his book was going to be inaccurate. But not
28:42
Speaker 3: only that. Raider the narcissist wants to control the narrative, right,
28:47
Speaker 3: so he then decides he's going to start sending his
28:50
Speaker 3: own chapters to his story. The funny thing is he
28:55
Speaker 3: ripped off the chapters we had on the court TV website.
29:01
Speaker 1: You're kidding.
29:02
Speaker 3: I'm not kidding. The titles of his chapters or the titles.
29:07
Speaker 3: I used to work for the Crime Library, which was
29:09
Speaker 3: Court TV's kind of repository website, and all the titles
29:16
Speaker 3: from our article on him were the ones he picked.
29:19
Speaker 3: So I knew he was reading that story. I didn't
29:22
Speaker 3: write it, but I knew he was reading that story.
29:25
Speaker 3: So he still wasn't telling his own story.
29:28
Speaker 2: Oh so this is just he was that intentional. Do
29:31
Speaker 2: you think then he was trying to make.
29:33
Speaker 3: That's what he was. The Shirley Lock's poem that was
29:36
Speaker 3: plagiarized from someone else. Some of the other things that
29:40
Speaker 3: he did that he wrote were plagiarized. The one, Oh
29:45
Speaker 3: Nancy was from a folk song. So no, it isn't surprising.
29:50
Speaker 3: And he read serial killer novels to figure out some
29:53
Speaker 3: things to do.
29:55
Speaker 2: His demeanor is very much like the language, like I'm
29:58
Speaker 2: so struck by that. How it's very clinical and almost
30:02
Speaker 2: like he's a like a professor himself or in law
30:06
Speaker 2: enforcement himself.
30:07
Speaker 3: Oh you mean you mean during the plea hearing. Yes, yes,
30:11
Speaker 3: So the background to that is that he did not
30:15
Speaker 3: know the judge was going to make him talk about it.
30:20
Speaker 3: He thought he was going in just to give a
30:22
Speaker 3: plea and leave. He was taken aback, so I think
30:27
Speaker 3: he was off guard. He's not like that when we
30:31
Speaker 3: talk on the phone or he has a range of emotions.
30:36
Speaker 3: He laughs. He that was a circumstance that he was
30:41
Speaker 3: off guard, and I think it was just his way
30:44
Speaker 3: of keeping control over himself.
30:48
Speaker 1: Why do you think that.
30:51
Speaker 2: We as viewers are so drawn to these kinds of
30:54
Speaker 2: cases and we're fascinated for decades, I mean, especially when
30:59
Speaker 2: it's like a killer that seems normal.
31:02
Speaker 1: Why do you think we're so fascinated?
31:05
Speaker 3: Well, I think in that's a sociologist's question, is not
31:09
Speaker 3: really what I study. But we do try to stay safe,
31:15
Speaker 3: and these are dangerous people, and we believe if we
31:20
Speaker 3: study them enough, we'll figure out how to protect ourselves
31:24
Speaker 3: from them. The big problem, I think is that we
31:29
Speaker 3: would then have to be suspicious of everyone because the
31:34
Speaker 3: serial killers have been you know, boy Scout leaders, they've
31:37
Speaker 3: been youth ministers, they've been treachers, they've been all the
31:41
Speaker 3: things that we trust in society, have been nurses and doctors.
31:44
Speaker 3: They are all the things we trust in society. So
31:46
Speaker 3: how do we drop our ability to bond as a
31:52
Speaker 3: community in order to protect ourselves. I think we choose
31:57
Speaker 3: community first, and so that's why we fail to see them, right.
32:01
Speaker 1: That is something in the movie.
32:03
Speaker 2: There is a section where you where everything really escalates
32:07
Speaker 2: for the community in where you, you know, then make
32:12
Speaker 2: a point of showing that people are afraid to sort
32:15
Speaker 2: of go anywhere or do anything at the point when
32:17
Speaker 2: they realize that it truly is someone in their community.
32:20
Speaker 2: And then he's back and all of that, and that's
32:22
Speaker 2: just such a terrifying you know.
32:24
Speaker 3: And he had targeted another woman.
32:27
Speaker 1: Right do they? In the movie?
32:29
Speaker 2: He has this shed that he works out of essentially
32:34
Speaker 2: and has all of.
32:35
Speaker 1: The trappings and the things that he's taken from his victims.
32:38
Speaker 1: Is that and that but the family, I guess it
32:40
Speaker 1: ever went in there? Was that a real thing?
32:43
Speaker 3: Is that shed? But he had actually a bunch of
32:46
Speaker 3: Heidi holes that he called in the house. He had
32:50
Speaker 3: false bottoms, really those bottoms and drawers, locked boxes. He
32:56
Speaker 3: built a treehouse for his kids and he put a
32:58
Speaker 3: false floor in there. He dug holes, so he hit
33:05
Speaker 3: things in a lot of different places. But he kept
33:08
Speaker 3: the things that he put into his kit hit kit
33:11
Speaker 3: mostly in the shed, and.
33:12
Speaker 2: It just feels like, isn't that somebody wanting to be caught?
33:15
Speaker 2: Or is that part of that, like fear.
33:17
Speaker 3: Thing using you're a gardener, you're using ropes for He
33:22
Speaker 3: wouldn't just put it into it into a kit and
33:24
Speaker 3: leave it there. He redistributed it. So the rope hangs
33:28
Speaker 3: over here, and the twine over here.
33:30
Speaker 1: And I mean the things that he was like.
33:33
Speaker 3: But but his wife knows that he keeps that in
33:35
Speaker 3: a safe place in the house. No, it isn't like
33:38
Speaker 3: he has a hit kit right there that anybody can
33:41
Speaker 3: find and understand what it is. He dismantles it when
33:45
Speaker 3: it brings it home.
33:47
Speaker 2: Right, So all the little hiding places and things that
33:50
Speaker 2: you're talking about in that house, if any one thing
33:53
Speaker 2: was found, it would not seem strange.
33:55
Speaker 1: Is that what you mean?
33:57
Speaker 3: Yes? But also they weren't because these were his hiding places.
34:02
Speaker 3: Plus he kept a lot of stuff in a locked
34:05
Speaker 3: file in his office. The book that I did, I
34:09
Speaker 3: call it a guided autobiography because I'm guiding it towards
34:13
Speaker 3: certain things that I want to get benefit from. But
34:17
Speaker 3: it is like eighty to eighty five percent his voice
34:22
Speaker 3: he wrote long, detailed letters. We did things in code,
34:26
Speaker 3: which was really odd. But he wanted to tell his story,
34:32
Speaker 3: his dark journey. So for example, he would send me
34:34
Speaker 3: police reports and then he'd annotate them. Here's where they
34:38
Speaker 3: got this wrong. Here's where they you know, see this,
34:42
Speaker 3: Here's where they didn't understand what I was doing here.
34:44
Speaker 3: So he was very helpful in guiding me through what
34:50
Speaker 3: he was thinking and what was happening to him at
34:53
Speaker 3: the planning stages and at the crime scenes and afterward.
34:57
Speaker 3: And I think it's a really great study of the
34:59
Speaker 3: mid kind of a killer in a way that you
35:02
Speaker 3: often don't get. Any of the books on the investigation
35:06
Speaker 3: are going to be about what the investigators were thinking
35:09
Speaker 3: and what challenges they were meeting. This is him him talking,
35:14
Speaker 3: So I think it's valuable as raw material.
35:18
Speaker 2: Really, right, did you ever feel scared? I know you
35:21
Speaker 2: said you were on a monitor and all those things,
35:23
Speaker 2: But were I mean, was it scary to talk with him?
35:27
Speaker 3: No? No, I mean I continue to talk to him.
35:31
Speaker 3: I talked to him two weeks ago.
35:33
Speaker 1: Oh you're kidding.
35:34
Speaker 3: He's We watched TV shows, talked about them. He talks
35:40
Speaker 3: about politics a lot. He talks about the Farming Report
35:45
Speaker 3: and things like that. It's actually very easy to talk
35:48
Speaker 3: to him.
35:48
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, wow.
35:52
Speaker 3: But I don't have to face him as a victim.
35:55
Speaker 3: I'm not in his sights as I am going to
36:00
Speaker 3: bind you and molest you and kill you.
36:04
Speaker 2: Well, Doctor Katherine Ramsland, thank you so much for being
36:08
Speaker 2: here today and talking with me.
36:09
Speaker 1: This is just fascinating.
36:12
Speaker 2: Doctor Ramsland teaches forensic psychology at de Sales University and
36:16
Speaker 2: wrote the twenty sixteen book Confession of a Sterial Killer,
36:20
Speaker 2: The Untold Story of Dennis Raider, the BTK Killer with
36:25
Speaker 2: Dennis Raider himself. Thank you so much, doctor Ramslin, and
36:31
Speaker 2: continued success with your work.
36:35
Speaker 3: Okay, I appreciate it.