Free Bind, Torture, Kill by Roy Wenzl

Loewen said. LaMunyon agreed that was a possibility. BTK stalked women, and might stalk KAKE’s female anchors.
    As Loewen and Hatteberg left, Cornwell handed Loewen a police revolver and bullets and told him to keep them in his glove compartment.
     
    Back at KAKE, Loewen tried to write the story himself. But this was a crazy day; he was talking to his station manager about the story, talking with the police, trying to run the rest of the newsroom. He struggled to write it. Finally, Hatteberg did it for him.
    KAKE’s evening co-anchors were Jack Hicks and Cindy Martin. Loewen called Martin, and told her to come in early�“now.”

    Wichita police chief Richard LaMunyon, announcing the presence of a serial killer in the community.
    When she did, he told her she was off the air that night and why. He and Hicks would deliver the news. Martin was furious; Loewen was firm. BTK’s interest in women and in KAKE prompted LaMunyon to order police protection for Martin, weekend anchor Rose, Stanley, and Loewen, even though BTK had made no threats against them. Police followed Martin home that afternoon and checked to see whether BTK had already been there.
     
    Six o’clock came quickly. Loewen sat in one of the two anchor chairs, looked into the camera, and began to report matter-of-factly that a serial killer was stalking people in the city. Loewen looked nervous on the air, and with good reason: LaMunyon was supposed to be sitting beside him, but LaMunyon was late. Loewen had already read several sentences of the script on the air when LaMunyon walked into the studio. The KAKE staffer who was turning the wheel of the TelePrompTer, distracted by LaMunyon’s entrance, stopped. Loewen stopped talking in mid-sentence. He had forgotten that he had a second copy of Hatteberg’s script in his hands. He sat frozen for several moments, apologized, and told his audience he would start the story from the beginning. And he did.
    LaMunyon, sitting beside him now, looked calm and resolved. When Loewen asked about BTK, LaMunyon bluntly told viewers that police did not know who the killer was or how to stop him.
    A little later, LaMunyon called a news conference and made his own announcement. Shocked reporters raced back to the newspaper office and to television stations and began to type out stories.
     
    Police followed Loewen home that night, as they would for the next month. Alone in his apartment, Loewen looked at the gun Cornwell had loaned him.
    I’m such a fool, Loewen thought. I’ll accidentally shoot myself in the dark. He unloaded the gun and hid it.
    Martin went back to work the next day. For weeks afterward, when she arrived home from anchoring the 10:00 PM news, she saw a patrol car parked behind her apartment building. When she walked from her car, the officer turned the headlights on and off, flick-flick, as though saying good night.

14
1978
    Fear and Frustration
    LaMunyon had decided the moment he saw the KAKE letter that he had to publicly announce BTK. But in those few moments after Loewen handed him the letter, LaMunyon made a couple of quick phone calls to psychologists. He asked them whether going public about BTK might entice him to communicate more, given that he already seemed inclined to talk to the media.
    Nothing the psychologists said dissuaded him. So LaMunyon began to plan his news conference, began to plan how to tell a half million people in and around Wichita that a serial killer lived among them.
    He would not release the contents of the typo-filled letter, because he didn’t want to encourage copycats, but he would say that BTK probably looked not like a monster but like one of us. BTK himself had said he was hiding in plain sight.
    I don’t lose any sleep over it. After a thing like Fox I ccome home and gp about life like anyone else.
    It would be embarrassing to admit the police were helpless, but LaMunyon had to tell people to watch their backs. Some of his commanders still advised against this,