Free Inside the Mind of BTK: The True Story Behind the Thirty-Year Hunt for the Notorious Wichita Serial Killer by John Douglas, Johnny Dodd

didn’t indicate that a struggle had taken place, it seemed unlikely that the killer entered the house brandishing only a knife. To maintain the kind of control that it appeared he must have had, he in all likelihood used a gun. The prevalence of ropes, medical tape, and other bindings signified to detectives that the killer had arrived prepared.
     
    Police speculated that after the attacker somehow managed to subdue the family and tie them up, he quickly decided to get rid of Joseph. With this one wild card out of the picture, the killer could continue his work at a more leisurely pace. Exactly what Joseph must have been thinking during those final moments, no one will ever know. But this one-time champion boxer, who was also a black belt in karate, surely must have been cursing himself for not putting up more of a fight when he had the chance, before allowing himself to be tied up.
     
    Time was another factor. Even after he managed to kill Joseph, the UNSUB would have been constantly watching the clock. He knew he had to work quickly. With that many people living at the residence, the odds were good that somebody—one of the other Otero siblings, a classmate, another parent or a neighbor—might show up at the house. Yet he still wanted to savor the sick thrill of what he was doing, reminding himself that he couldn’t spend much time with Julie, Joseph, and Joey. He hadn’t come for them. From what I could see, they were just appetizers. It seemed obvious that he’d been watching the family, and what he really longed for was the main course and the dessert, all rolled into one—eleven-year-old Josephine.
     
    Judging from the abrasions on the upper portion of Julie’s neck, just below her ears, she had been strangled from behind while she lay on her stomach. The killer had evidentially straddled her, lifting her torso up off the bed while choking her. Beside her, traces of semen were found on the sheets and pillow; these were eventually determined to have come from her husband. The presence of Josephine’s glasses in her parents’ bedroom led detectives to believe that the killer had purposely left them there to confuse investigators.
     
    Another bit of evidence that puzzled detectives was the chair with a broken rung found in the boys’ bedroom. In her interview with police, Carmen June claimed that the chair came from the bedroom she shared with Josephine. Upon learning that, detectives began to suspect that the killer had moved the chair into the boys’ bedroom, then held Josephine in his lap, forcing her to watch her brother suffocate. The wooden rung could have been cracked while he struggled to hold the squirming child, who probably would have fought to keep from watching Joey die. Even though traces of bruising could be seen encircling his neck, Joey was the only member of the family to die from asphyxiation, not strangulation. With a plastic bag over his head, along with the two T-shirts, the boy probably took four to five minutes to expire.
     
    The killer’s decision to take Josie down into the basement indicated just how badly he wanted her and to what lengths he’d travel to act out the fantasies writhing inside his head. He no doubt knew that such a move would have been incredibly risky. He could have easily gotten trapped down there if someone had entered the house. Nevertheless, he was clearly eager to take the risk.
     
    The presence of the gag in her mouth provided another window into the mind of her killer. There was really no need to gag her because the others were all dead and, due to her location in the far corner of the basement, neighbors wouldn’t be able to hear her scream. Nor was there any reason to hang her to a pipe or to tie her up at all if all the suspect wanted to do was rape her. What he did was all about his need to script, direct, and produce a crime to fulfill his fantasies of dominance and control. She was no longer human, merely a prop.
     
    After binding her wrists,