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

by Johnny Dodd, John Edward Douglas, John E. Douglas

Book Overview

A dramatic and compelling true-crime psychological thriller

This incredible story shows how John Douglas tracked and participated in the hunt for one of the most notorious serial killers in U.S. history. For 31 years a man who called himself BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill) terrorized the city of Wichita, Kansas, sexually assaulting and strangling a series of women, taunting the police with frequent communications, and bragging about his crimes...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0470325151
• ISBN13: 9780470325155
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.9" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Inside the Mind of BTK

This is one of John Douglas's best works and provides the reader a detailed look into the thinking of a serial killer. One is struck with the normality on the one hand and the intense psychological sickness on the other hand.

Five Stars, easily

I guess I have Mr Douglas to thank for my staying up til three in the morning reading the first two hundred pages of this book, then immediately finishing it the very next day. At first, one thinks, well I shouldn't be reading this kind of stuff, not only is it depressing but it is so horrifying. But then you think, well, how else to understand this subject, other than to delve into the criminal mind. As it happens, I am a criminal trial attorney who works in very high crime inner-city courts of a very large city, and although I have not yet run into a BTK type, I do run, all the time, into egos of his kind, which I always found very interesting. The folks who are least entitled to sympathy, consideration, privileges, are the ones who demand them. I would highly recommend this book to anyone. The reason is, as others have stated before me, this is a real glimpse into the mind of a monster masquerading as a human being. Perhaps even one life could be saved by the information found in this book. Perhaps more vigilance in a rather humdrum lifestyle would be all it would take to protect oneself a little more. There are BTK types out there, who have never been caught and maybe have yet to act out their fantasies. But they are out there. We need to know what makes them tick. Thanks to John Douglas for another very very informative and important book.

Hard to Imagine a More Competent Explanation of a Serial Killer

This book is simply outstanding. Douglas is the epitome of his craft, the "profiler's profiler" of serial killers. Because of my academc background in linguistics and psychology, I appreciate Douglas's profound grasp of how serial killers create and maintain their interior dialogue, their mental drama that follows a patterned plot sequence of desired elements in each murder. Douglas has studied the typical psychological profile of this kind of psychotic personality, evolving from childhood fantasies that take the form of fire setting or animal torture and the like. Dennis Rader, self-labeled as the BTK (bind, torture, kill) murderer, typifies this type of psychopath, needing the domination of helpless victims to gain emotional stability by "owning" the final minutes or hours of a victim's life, planning and controlling various levels of detail. Rader would engage in "down-time" fantasy skits (one-man) donning his past victims' clothing, wearing a mask to imitate the victim while looking in a mirror, sometimes while lying in a self-dug grave, photographing himself in that position, relishing the projected feeling of being the victim in order to relive the crime. In this, Rader was somewhat typical in that while maintaining a normal life to earn a living, his preferred mental life, the one that provided him his most exciting sense of identity, was reliving past murders and inserting his sense of identity into his idea of the mind of the victim, while also fantasizing about expanding this secret life by acquiring additional victims. Thus this book presents, in effect, the serial killer as suffering from (while enjoying, in his own way) a multiple-personality disorder. I know of no book that so competently deals with this kind of subject, and I know of no one better qualified for this task than John Douglas. I don't know how this book could have been better written (though Douglas himself didn't do most of the actual writing per se).

RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "SERIAL KILLERS LIKE BTK AREN'T HUMAN!"

I first became aware of John Douglas around 1995 when I read his best selling autobiography "Mindhunter". It was a fascinating book that detailed John's growth from a high school kid headed nowhere, to a personal road that led him from the Air Force, to the FBI, to becoming a co-participant in the FBI's first research program of serial killers. I became enthralled with the "common sense and logic" involved in the early days of profiling serial killers. I immediately became a John Douglas fan, and read every one of his subsequent major releases. After reading all his books I almost felt as if I had a degree in criminal psychology. I amazed myself on a number of occasions while watching the nightly news, when I applied the logic I had learned reading John's books to crimes that were reported on the news. My teenage son was astonished when weeks after I made "my profiles" to him of the "UNSUBS" that were reported on the news, they turned out to be highly accurate. My son then read Douglas's books and made his term report in his English class on John Douglas. "Inside The Mind Of The BTK" shows that John Douglas has not lost his literary "fast-ball"! This book matches up with the best of his prior work. The beginning might be a little slow for readers like myself who already know his background, but I of course understand, that first-time Douglas readers need to be given a cursory report on John's resume, so that they can fully appreciate his legitimacy in making the claims that he does. I have read another BTK book that beat John's to publication, and while it was an excellent book, it talked more about the crimes than about the root cause. John deftly, and in intricate detail, peels back the skin of the onion, relating to how a monstrous, less than human creature, winds up becoming a serial killer. The author makes it very clear, that the goal of his work is not just to assist law enforcement in capturing active serial killers, but to figure out what "formula(s) create these abominations on earth, so society can be armed with the information needed to be able to see warning signs and stop them before they strike! The fact that this monster (BTK) killed ten innocent people is one thing, but the fact that he stretched it out over thirty years, added a new wrinkle that racked John's brain: Serial killers can't control themselves and go without killing for such long periods of time. How, and why did BTK? NOTE: (The only other known serial killer who "may" have restrained himself is the Zodiac Killer. But no one knows if he simply died). This book will keep your interest all the way to the last page. It doesn't hide a single grisly detail, but it's comforting to know that men like Douglas are working full-time to try to understand the "un-understandable". Probably the best printable quote in or out of this book regarding a serial killer like BTK is: "A LONG TIME AGO, I HEARD SOMEONE DESCRIBE A NAZI WAR CRIMINAL IN A WAY THAT I THINK WORKS FOR BT

John Douglas At His Best!!!

Every once in awhile a book comes along that has the capability to transport you to another world with its spellbinding revelations and graphic details. With his amazing talent, Douglas grabs the reader with details of fantasy, obsession, and shear brutality of events that make the BTK one of the most gruesome and prolific serial killers in history. Douglas skillfully threads you through the inner workings of the criminal mind with first hand details and information that has never before been told or released to the public. If you love true crime you will love this book!