Inside the Mind of BTK: The True Story Behind the Thirty-Year Hunt for the Notorious Wichita Serial Killer

INSIDE THE MIND OF BTK: The True Story Behind the Thirty-Year Hunt for the Notorious Wichita Serial Killer

For 31 years a man who called himself BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill) terrorized the city of Wichita, Kansas, strangling and sexually assaulting a series of women (and one child), taunting the police and the community with frequent letters, communications, crime scene photographs and property stolen from his victims.  He bragged about his crimes in correspondence to local newspapers, TV, and radio stations, describing himself as a "psychotic and sexual pervert" who claimed that "I can't stop it." After he seemed to disappear for nine years, he suddenly reappeared, complaining that no one was paying enough attention to him, that he had committed crimes for which he had not been given credit.

INSIDE THE MIND OF BTK: The True Story Behind the Thirty-Year Hunt for the Notorious Wichita Serial Killer (Jossey-Bass/Wiley; September 2008; $16.95, Paper; ISBN: 978-0-470-32515-5) by legendary FBI profiler John Douglas and Johnny Dodd, tells the whole incredible story and also draws from it a program for new and improved police methodology to prevent such serial killers from remaining at large, including early intervention in childhood development, and more community involvement in apprehension.

In INSIDE THE MIND OF BTK, Douglas describes many of the techniques ultimately used to apprehend Dennis Rader, the killer known as BTK.  Douglas was first called into the case as an expert profiler in 1978 and has been deeply involved in the case and all its principal players ever since. After Rader was arrested, Douglas was able to obtain the only exclusive interview since sentencing, as well as exclusive interviews with family, friends, and the police. As a result, INSIDE THE MIND OF BTK reveals new information about why Rader did what he did, and why he stopped for a long period before surfacing again, one of the more baffling questions confronting investigators.