Nightmare in Wichita: The Hunt for the BTK Strangler

345 Pages·2005·2.29 MB·English

by  Robert Beattie

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N
IGHTMARE
IN
W
ICHITA
THE HUNT FOR THE BTK STRANGLER
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N
IGHTMARE
IN
W
ICHITA
THE HUNT FOR THE BTK STRANGLER
Robert Beattie
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New American Library
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For the families and friends of the victims,
in memory of whom and what they’ve lost
For the forgotten grievers,
including those who investigated
and reported on these crimes
and
For Kirby and Pandora,
I’m sorry that I wasn’t more sensitive
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Exordium
And let me speak to th’ yet unknowing world
How these things came about. So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook. . . .
But let this same be presently performed,
Even while men’s minds are wild, lest more
mischance,
On plots and errors happen.
William Shakespeare,
the final scene of Hamlet
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Contents
Introduction xi
PART ONE: The Slaughter Begins—1974–1976
Chapter 1:The Day Wichita Changed 3
Chapter 2:ACitywide Manhunt 17
Chapter 3:The Investigation Leads Abroad 27
Chapter 4:The Murder of Kathryn Bright 34
Chapter 5:The Letter in the Library 39
Chapter 6:The Murder of Sherry D. Baker 49
Chapter 7:The Momentum Is Lost 58
PART TWO: The Hot Dog Squad—1977–1981
Chapter 8: Shirley Vian Is Strangled 63
Chapter 9:Nancy Jo Fox—Strangled 72
Chapter 10:APackage to KAKE-TV 83
Chapter 11:Panic Strikes Wichita 94
Chapter 12:The Trail Grows Cold 103
Chapter 13:Burglary on Pinecrest 117
Chapter 14:The Poet Attacks 128
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PART THREE: The Ghostbusters—1982–1986
Chapter 15:The New Hunters 145
Chapter 16:ANew BTK Murder Is Uncovered 151
Chapter 17:Revisiting Old Cases 155
Chapter 18:Deaths by Strangling 167
Chapter 19:AFormer Police Officer Convicted of Homicide 182
Chapter 20:Psychology of a Killer 186
PART FOUR: The Hunted Emerges from Hiding—
January 1999–March 2004
Chapter 21:Manson Mania 195
Chapter 22:Events Prompt My BTK Research 203
Chapter 23:An Odyssey Through the Past 214
Chapter 24:Porkchop Is Back 238
Chapter 25:Swab-a-thon 251
Chapter 26:ACity Under Siege 269
Chapter 27:Contact—True or False? 278
Chapter 28:The Task Force 287
Chapter 29:More Contacts 293
Chapter 30:BTK Contact Increases 304
Epilogue: The Hunt Ends 315
Status as of March 2005 323
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Introduction
An American Mystery
For over thirty years, from 1974 to 2004, the serial killer self-named
BTK (for “Bind, Torture, Kill”) has telephoned and written to police
and press advising that he is still stalking victims, still waiting in the
dark, and preparing to kill again. He murdered at least ten people and
attempted to murder at least six more. And he has always done what
he threatened todo.
BTK is unique. He may be the only criminal that meets the federal
criteria to be defined all at once as a mass murderer, a serial killer, and
a domestic terrorist. He is the only killer to communicate with police
and press for more than thirty years and remain unidentified. Other
infamous killers, including Zodiac, the Green River Killer, Ted Bundy,
and Jack the Ripper, either stopped communicating or were identified
after no more than twenty years. BTK is now in his fourth decade of
committing state and federal crimes, including making death threats.
He has been suspected of committing murders outside of Kansas. At
one time police concluded that he murdered a New York resident in
New Orleans, Louisiana, but they kept that secret.
BTK phoned the police to report one of his murders. He wrote to
law enforcement and the media offering details of the crime scenes. In
1974 and 2004 he left packages in the main branch of the Wichita Pub-
lic Library. He’s sent messages via a television station, a newspaper, ali-
brary, a UPSbox, the police department, and victims. He taunted that he
enjoyed seeing the terror in women’s eyes. Victims were attacked in the
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security of their own home, and most were strangled in the safety of
their own beds. The killer called them “home-icides.”
Some tough cops coped with this horror by muttering, “Well,
there’s no place like home,” turning the famous Kansas phrase from
The Wizard of Ozinto macabre black humor. In 2003 one detective told
me that, in his retirement, he has not been able to enjoy fishing in his
boat on the lake without imagining he sees BTK crime scene evidence.
He was waiting for the day when BTK was identified and he would be
able to go fishing and just fish.
BTK attacked both in the daylight and at night, both when the fam-
ily was at home and when the victim was alone. Wichitans became
suspicious of people they knew, the people they worked with,
strangers—every male in town.
Frustrated police investigated a wide swath of possible suspects,
anyone who might have been given voluntary access to the victims, in-
cluding utility workers, plumbers, and reporters. Eventually, many
cops’ DNAwas tested to see if it matched that of the strangler. So were
former Wichita State University students, postal employees, Coleman
employees, and any male reported to the Wichita police’s anonymous
BTK hotline. As of the time of this writing, about five thousand men
have been tested.
During BTK panics in and around Wichita, where I live, wild sus-
picions festered in our souls at night when we just knew that he was
hiding somewhere in the darkness. We know that at least twice at
night he had hidden in a woman’s bedroom closet and waited for her
to return, with Nancy Jo Fox and Anna Williams. There was no relief
from fear in the daytime, because we knew that he could appear at the
front door and use a ruse to gain entry, as he did with Shirley Vian.
The book you are reading started as a chapter for a classroom exer-
cise. When I wanted my students to learn about this aspect of Wichita
history I looked for a book about the BTK case. To my surprise and dis-
appointment I learned that not only was there no book, but that the
story was largely unknown, forgotten, misunderstood, or mistaken.
Early in my career I worked in the emergency room at Wesley
Medical Center with the Emergency Medical Service ambulance, and
then as a firefighter-medic. I met many officers and detectives who
worked on the BTK investigation, and they told me many facts about