A&E's Documentary "BTK: Confession of a Serial Killer" Goes Inside the Mind of a Monster

This chilling story is told through the lens of acclaimed author and forensic psychologist Dr Katherine Ramslandamp160pictured below right who over the years has spoken with Rader from his jail cell something she continues to do quotI was writing for the court TV website The Crime Library in their resource area around 2004quot Ramsland explained during anamp160 exclusive interview with MediaVillage quotOne of our staff writers had covered unsolved crimes around that time and suddenly there was communication from the BTK killer to Wichita law enforcementquotThat lasted almost a year so we paid attention to itquot she continued quotThat39s really how we first knew about it We were looking at unsolved crimes then all of a sudden Rader popped back up and then got caught The weird thing was when he began to play his cat and mouse games with the law he used material that we had published on the web site He39ll claim that he didn39t but you can39t have the exact same chapters of your story by luck He definitely looked it up and used material we had postedquotThe case of Dennis Rader a churchgoing family man gone bad is a long and involved one He began his 30year killing spree in 1974 with the brutal murders of four members of the Otero family and up until his 2005 arrest took the lives of six more people His victims were bound tortured and killed hence his selfappointed moniker BTK As a criminal psychologist Ramsland wanted to know what made him tickquotSomeone had approached him about doing a bookquot she recalled quotBut the author decided it was beyond what she could accomplish I contacted her and she invited me to do the book instead Then I had to win his confidence So I reached out and immediately we started playing a chess game where he made the board That was one game He also wanted me to solve some puzzle codes to see if I could I was willing to go along with the idea as I was looking at this for psychology purposes It didn39t matter to me who won or lost I wanted to see how he strategized how he reacted how he thought about different moves his and mine I was looking for layers in his personality that included the kinds of codes he used and why he wanted to use themquotAfter solving Rader39s first set of codes Ramsland realized they revolved around layers of three quotI started seeing that he had circled various pictures of foodquot she recalled quotHe was going to use food as a metaphor for what we were going to talk about We then moved onto gardening trains and caves Three is the magic number for him so I had to always pay attention when threes were part of any equationquotThrough her many conversations with Rader portions of some heard in the documentary Ramsland had to take whatever he divulged in stride quotI approach this as a research psychologistquot she explained quotIt39s clinical for me I39ve been studying serial killers for over two decades He39s not telling me anything that surprises or shocks me He39s revealing his particular manifestation of a phenomenon that I not only study but teach a course on both at the undergraduate and graduate levelquotOne thing that intrigues people the most about someone like him is that he is not just a serial killer but a family man who had a fulltime jobquot she continued quotHe was a member of his community a helpful neighbor who was present with his church council How does he live with the polarity amp8230 the complete contradiction of moral values stalking and killing people especially children when he has children of his own and a wife That was what I was most interested in and he did do a lot of work with me on trying to understand how he could live with those kinds of polarities in himselfquotRamsland insists that despite being diagnosed as possessing a narcissistic personality disorder by a psychiatrist during his competency evaluation she is not doing him a service by keeping his name in the media spotlight something he thrived on Her motives are purely educationalquotThe four parts of the program are broken into distinct parts because we are not trying to make this a documentary about a serial killer and letting him go on and on about himselfquot she explained quotIt39s about what can we learn by talking with him that will benefit forensic psychology and law enforcementquotThat was really one of the stipulations I made when I went into working with himquot she continued quotI wanted us to be able to use whatever he said to further our knowledge of serial killers and part of that was that he doesn39t have the background you typically think of he was an allAmerican boyquotA detective recently said all serial killers have some extreme trauma in their background including BTK but that39s wrongquot Ramsland said in closing quotA case like this one helps us to see that our formulas are incomplete and wakes us up to the need to stay open and attentive so that we don39t think we39ve got all the answers Thinking we do puts us in a very dangerous positionquotBTK Confession of a Serial Killer will be telecast Saturday January 8 and Sunday January 9 on AampampEClick the social buttons to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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A&E's Documentary "BTK: Confession of a Serial Killer" Goes Inside the Mind of a Monster

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Steve Gidlow

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A&E's Documentary "BTK: Confession of a Serial Killer" Goes Inside the Mind of a Monster

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