Bind, Torture, Kill: The Inside Story of BTK, the Serial Killer Next Door (4 page)

Thomas began a routine that would last the rest of his life. Every morning when he picked up the
Eagle
, he carried a doorstop, a heavy metal bar that would come in handy for beating the Oteros’ killer to pieces if he decided one day to pay him a visit.

Rader slipped back into the comforts of home. He had been married nearly three years and still opened doors for his wife, helped her put on her coat. They attended church with their parents; he helped with the youth group. But he made the rules and liked things neat, orderly, and on time. She complied.

He liked to study crime novels, detective magazines, and pornography. He liked to masturbate while playing with handcuffs. In their snug home�only 960 square feet�he hid small trophies. On his wrist he wore Joe Otero’s watch. It ran well and got him to school on time. Wichita State University had started spring classes, and he had chosen a major�administration of justice�that let him study police officers closely and learn more about his new pursuit. He enjoyed the irony.

He began to write about what he had done; he told his wife he had a lot of typing to do for school. He wrote that Joe Otero had thought in the first moments that his intrusion was a practical joke. He wrote what Josie had said just before he hanged her. He wrote it all down, finished it on February 3, 1974, and filed it in a binder so he could read it whenever he pleased. He signed the document “B.T.K.” Bind, torture, kill.

He knew he had done things that could have got him caught: he had left his knife behind. He had let himself be seen. He had not anticipated the dog. He had assumed the father had left. He had walked into a place with too many people.

He decided to do better next time. And there must be a next time.

He had enjoyed his time with the girl.

4

April 4, 1974

Kathryn Bright

The safe thing would be to never kill again, especially after the way he’d botched so many details of the Otero murders. But Rader had Factor X, as he called it, or the Monster Within, his other name for whatever impelled him. He was inventing new abbreviations and names now: BTK for who he now was, Sparky for his penis, trolling for what he did, which was hunt women. He called his female targets projects�PJs for short. In his writings, he called Josie Otero “Little Mex.”

Rader went trolling again a few weeks after he killed the Oteros�after he came down from the high the murders gave him.

He was trolling every day now, spying on women, following them to work and back home, writing notes on each. He had to keep track�he spied on multiple projects, breaking off if one did not look safe. He peeped in windows, walked alleys, and hunted females living alone.

Kathy Bright’s high school yearbook photo.

In the spring of 1974 he settled on a woman he called Project Lights Out.

Kathryn Bright had lived in the little house at 3217 East Thirteenth Street for only a year. She was twenty-one. One semester at the University of Kansas in Lawrence had left her missing her family, so she had come home and worked at Coleman, where Julie Otero had worked for about a month.

By family she meant cousins too: counting the five Bright kids, there were eighteen. They were all tight; they often went to see their grandparents on a farm outside Valley Center. They would hook a cart to a donkey named Candy and ride for hours. When Kathryn was six, a newspaper photographer shot their picture. Kathryn stood smiling in the middle. “Youngsters Find Donkey Pal,” the headline said.

At nine she learned the ukulele and played with a kids’ group dressed in Hawaiian outfits.

Sometimes the Bright kids would go to a cousin’s farm in nearby Butler County, make mud pies, and drive a car around a cow pasture, their legs too short to reach the brake pedal. They’d stick it in first gear, hope for the best, and laugh.

In church Kathryn sang in a trio with a sister and a cousin. They liked the hymn “In the Garden.”

And He walks with me,

And He talks with me,

And He tells me I am his own,

And the joy we share as we tarry there,

None other has ever known.

Rader saw her one day while on his way to take his wife to lunch. A pretty good figure, as he said later. Other things caught his eye: long blond hair, a jeans jacket, an old beaded purse. The first time he saw her, she was collecting her mail.

He treated his wife to lunch that day, but as they ate, he daydreamed. He went back and spied on the woman for weeks. This might work, he decided; she looked like a college girl, living alone, no man around, no children, no dog.

Rader squeezed rubber balls to strengthen his hands. It had freaked him out how long it had taken to strangle the Oteros; his hands had gone numb. He wanted to be ready this time.

He made a plan. In normal life, he was a Wichita State University student; he would carry books to her door and tell her he needed a quiet place to study. Then he would force his way in.

Before he knocked, he pulled on his rubber gloves.

His plan went to pieces immediately.

No one answered his knock.

On impulse, he smashed through the glass of the back door, and then panicked a little. He realized she might come home, see the glass, and run. He cleaned it up as best he could, hid in a bedroom, and pulled out his Colt. 22 to take the safety off. And�
bang!
�the gun went off. That scared him; he thought she might smell the gunpowder when she arrived. As his heart pounded, the front door opened. He heard her talking to someone.

It was a man. Rader began to sweat again.

He could hear them laughing. He had no place to run. But he had the .22, and a .357 Magnum in a shoulder holster, so he stepped toward them.

Hold it right there, he said.

Kevin Bright.

I’m wanted in California, Rader told them. They’ve got wanted posters out on me. I need a car. I need money. I just need to get to New York. I need to tie you up. But I don’t want to hurt you.

That’s when Rader realized he’d made another mistake.

He had brought no rope; he had assumed she would be alone, easy to control. He had planned to tie her with panty hose or whatever she had, so that when the cops found her body they would see a method different from the Otero murders. But now here he stood, Mr. Bind, Torture, and Kill, with nothing to bind them.

He marched them to a bedroom, went through her dressers, found bandannas, belts, nylons, T-shirts.

Rader would learn later the man’s name was Kevin. Tie her hands, he told Kevin. Kevin did so. He walked them to the bedroom by the front door and told Kevin to lie down. He tied his hands together and tied his feet to a bedpost.

So far, so good.

Do you have any money? he asked.

Kevin gave up three dollars from his right front shirt pocket. He had eight more in his wallet, but he didn’t tell the robber about that.

Rader marched the girl back to the other bedroom. He sat her in a chair, tied her to it with nylon stockings, and bound her ankles. Rummaging through the house, he found another ten dollars. He called out that he had found the money. He wanted them to think that this was just a robbery, that they would survive if they behaved.
Calm them
, he thought. He got them to tell him where to find their car keys. He would need transportation after he finished.

Time for a little music. He turned on her stereo, turned up the volume. He knew now, from Project Little Mex, that there would be strangling sounds, so he wanted to kill them in separate bedrooms. He did not want one of them to hear gagging noises and start thrashing. He decided to kill the man first, to put down the bigger threat. He had done the same in January. He looped a nylon around Kevin’s throat, and began to pull.

And that’s when Project Lights Out fell apart. Kevin broke his leg bindings, jumped up, and charged, his hands still tied behind him.

Rader pulled his .22 and shot Kevin in the head. He fell, and blood poured onto the floor. Rader stood amazed.

He ran to the next room. The girl was struggling and screaming. “What have you done to my brother?”

So that’s who the guy was.

It’s all right, Rader told her. He was trying to fight, so I had to shoot him, but I think he’ll be all right. When I get out of here, I’ll call the police and tell them to come untie both of you.

She kept struggling. Rader ran to the other bedroom and kicked Kevin to make sure he was dead. He wasn’t. Kevin leaped up, charged again, broke the bindings on his wrists, and grabbed at the gun. For a few moments, Rader thought he would die right there: Kevin got his hand on the trigger and tried to pull it. They fought, grunting and straining, until Rader broke free and shot Kevin in the face, dropping him again.

Rader ran back to the woman. She was thrashing like a snared bird. He picked up a piece of cloth, looped it around her throat, and began to pull. She broke free from the chair. He wished he had brought his own rope.

He felt terrified now. He punched her in the face, on the head, on the shoulders. She tried to fight, tried to get away.

Someone probably heard those shots,
he thought.

He pulled a knife; she fought like a wild animal. Like a hellcat, he’d say later. He stabbed her in the back, once, twice, again, then spun her around and stabbed her in the gut, and still she fought.
God,
he thought,
how much stabbing does it take?
In the detective magazines they said to go up for the kidneys and lungs. He stabbed as they lunged around the room, smearing her blood on the walls. At last she went down.

The chair in which Rader tied Kathy Bright with panty hose. She was stabbed eleven times. Note the bloody smears on the wall, at left.

And he heard a sound…from the next room.

Shit!
he thought.

Rader ran to where he had left the brother. The brother was gone.

He ran to the front door; it was open.

I’m dead meat,
he thought. He stepped out, blood covering his hands and clothes, soaking into his suede shoes.

He saw the brother running up the street.

The game is up,
Rader thought.
I’m done for.

He ran back to the woman.

She lay groaning, blood coming out of eleven wounds. Should he shoot her?
What difference did it make now?
The brother was alive and loose and could identify him.
Get out of here.

5

April–July 1974

Lessons to Learn

Kevin Bright ran to two neighbors, William Williams and Edward Bell. He told them the man who had shot him was still at his sister’s house. “He’s in there now, doing a number on my sister,” Bright said. “Please help me.”