WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.360 --> 00:00:03.640 Lucky Land Casino, asking people what's the weirdest place you've 2 00:00:03.640 --> 00:00:07.320 gotten lucky? Lucky in line at the Delhi I guess ah, 3 00:00:07.320 --> 00:00:10.439 in my dentist's office more than once. Actually do I 4 00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:11.560 have to say? Yes? 5 00:00:11.560 --> 00:00:11.800 You do? 6 00:00:12.080 --> 00:00:15.119 In the car before my kid's PTA meeting? Really? 7 00:00:15.240 --> 00:00:15.480 Yes? 8 00:00:15.880 --> 00:00:18.399 Excuse me? What's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky? I 9 00:00:18.920 --> 00:00:20.920 never win? And tell well, there you have it. 10 00:00:20.960 --> 00:00:24.120 You could get lucky anywhere playing at lucky landslots dot com. 11 00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:26.679 Play for free right now? Are you feeling lucky? No, 12 00:00:26.800 --> 00:00:28.440 We're just necessary foid. We're gonna be my long eighteen 13 00:00:28.399 --> 00:00:30.160 plus terms conditions of place he wants every day else 14 00:00:30.519 --> 00:00:35.399 step into the world of power, loyalty and luck. I'm 15 00:00:35.439 --> 00:00:38.439 gonna make him an offer you can't refuse. With family, 16 00:00:38.840 --> 00:00:41.759 canoli's and spins mean everything? 17 00:00:41.880 --> 00:00:44.640 Now you want to get mixed up in the family business, 18 00:00:44.679 --> 00:00:48.799 Introducing The Godfather at champacasino dot com. 19 00:00:49.159 --> 00:00:52.520 Test your luck in the shadowy world at the Godfather slot. 20 00:00:52.679 --> 00:00:55.520 Someday I will call upon you to do a service 21 00:00:55.520 --> 00:00:58.719 for me. Play the Godfather now at champacasino dot com. 22 00:00:58.759 --> 00:01:01.079 Welcome to the Family vdW Group. 23 00:01:01.119 --> 00:01:02.880 No purchase necessary. I believe we're premited by loss. He 24 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:04.439 terms and conditions eighteen plus. 25 00:01:05.480 --> 00:01:08.760 Lucky Land Casino asking people what's the weirdest place you've 26 00:01:08.799 --> 00:01:12.480 gotten lucky? Lucky in line at the deli, I guess ah, 27 00:01:12.480 --> 00:01:15.599 in my dentist's office more than once. Actually do I 28 00:01:15.719 --> 00:01:18.319 have to say? Yes? You do? In the car before 29 00:01:18.359 --> 00:01:21.840 my kid's PTA meeting? Really? Yes? Excuse me? What's the 30 00:01:21.840 --> 00:01:25.879 weirdest place you've gotten lucky? I never win? And tell well, there. 31 00:01:25.719 --> 00:01:26.079 You have it. 32 00:01:26.120 --> 00:01:28.920 You could get lucky anywhere. Playing at lucky landslots dot 33 00:01:28.959 --> 00:01:31.719 com play for free right now? Are you feeling lucky? 34 00:01:31.760 --> 00:01:33.359 Nope, we're not necessary for We wait for my long 35 00:01:33.359 --> 00:01:36.000 eighteen plus terms and conditions plus se wester details. It is 36 00:01:36.079 --> 00:01:38.239 Ryan here and I have a question for you. What 37 00:01:38.439 --> 00:01:40.079 do you do when you win? 38 00:01:40.519 --> 00:01:40.599 Like? 39 00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:43.760 Are you at fist pumper, a wooo, a handclapp or 40 00:01:43.760 --> 00:01:44.319 a high fiver? 41 00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:45.599 I kind of like the high five. 42 00:01:45.599 --> 00:01:47.400 But if you want to hone in on those winning moves, 43 00:01:47.560 --> 00:01:50.719 check out Chumback Casino at chumbecasino dot com. Choose from 44 00:01:50.799 --> 00:01:53.359 hundreds of social casino style games for your chance to 45 00:01:53.400 --> 00:01:57.200 redeem serious cash prizes. There are new game releases weekly 46 00:01:57.239 --> 00:02:00.159 plus free daily bonuses, so don't wait start having the 47 00:02:00.159 --> 00:02:02.920 most fun ever at Schumbuck Casino dot com. 48 00:02:02.959 --> 00:02:06.680 Billbert Necesary dheverb By lost in terms of conditions eighteen plus. 49 00:02:15.560 --> 00:02:19.000 You are now listening to True Murder The most shocking 50 00:02:19.080 --> 00:02:22.120 killers in true crime history and the authors that have 51 00:02:22.199 --> 00:02:23.039 written about them. 52 00:02:23.759 --> 00:02:28.280 Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Night Stalker BTK. 53 00:02:29.159 --> 00:02:32.960 Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking 54 00:02:33.120 --> 00:02:37.159 and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with 55 00:02:37.319 --> 00:02:52.280 your host journalist and author Dan Zupanski, Good Evening. In 56 00:02:52.360 --> 00:02:56.199 nineteen seventy four, Dennis Lynn Rader stocked and murdered a 57 00:02:56.280 --> 00:03:00.800 family of four in Wichita, Kansas, since lessons he had 58 00:03:00.840 --> 00:03:05.039 read about serial killers and imagined becoming one. Soon after 59 00:03:05.159 --> 00:03:07.800 killing the family, he murdered a young woman and then another, 60 00:03:08.639 --> 00:03:12.240 until he had ten victims. He named himself b t 61 00:03:12.400 --> 00:03:18.360 K Mind Torture Kill and wrote notes that terrorized the city. 62 00:03:19.240 --> 00:03:22.360 He remained on the loose for thirty years. No one 63 00:03:22.560 --> 00:03:25.080 who knew him guessed his dark secret. 64 00:03:26.039 --> 00:03:28.159 He nearly got away with his crimes, but in two 65 00:03:28.199 --> 00:03:31.400 thousand and four he began to play risky games with 66 00:03:31.479 --> 00:03:35.599 the police. He made a mistake. When he was arrested, 67 00:03:35.680 --> 00:03:38.840 Raider's family, friends, and co workers were shocked to discover 68 00:03:38.919 --> 00:03:42.240 that bt K had been among them, going to work, 69 00:03:42.759 --> 00:03:48.960 raising his children, and acting normal. This case stands out 70 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:51.639 both for the brutal treatment of victims and for the 71 00:03:51.840 --> 00:03:55.639 ordinary public face that Raider, a church council president, had 72 00:03:55.680 --> 00:03:59.800 shown to the outside world through jail house visits, telephone calls, 73 00:03:59.840 --> 00:04:04.319 and written correspondence. Katherine Ramslin worked with Raider himself to 74 00:04:04.400 --> 00:04:09.319 analyze the layers of his psyche. Using his drawings, letters, interviews, 75 00:04:09.319 --> 00:04:13.319 and Raider's unique codes, she presents in meticulous detail the 76 00:04:13.439 --> 00:04:18.519 childhood roots and development of one man's motivation to stock, torture, 77 00:04:18.639 --> 00:04:23.600 and kill. She reveals aspects of the dark motivations of 78 00:04:23.639 --> 00:04:27.560 this most famous of living serial killers that have never 79 00:04:27.600 --> 00:04:34.040 before been revealed. In this book, Katherine Ramslin presents an intelligent, original, 80 00:04:34.120 --> 00:04:36.959 and rare glimpse into the making of a serial killer 81 00:04:37.600 --> 00:04:42.160 and the potential darkness that lives next door. The book 82 00:04:42.199 --> 00:04:45.000 they were featuring this evening, It's Confession of a serial Killer, 83 00:04:45.519 --> 00:04:49.360 The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer, with 84 00:04:49.480 --> 00:04:53.160 my special guest journalists and author and professor Katherine Ramslin, 85 00:04:53.600 --> 00:04:55.959 Welcome back to the program, and thank you very much 86 00:04:56.000 --> 00:04:58.680 for agreeing this interview. Katherine Ramslin. 87 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:01.199 A right, happy to be here again. 88 00:05:02.639 --> 00:05:07.120 Thank you very much. Catherine. This is I always say incredible, 89 00:05:07.199 --> 00:05:13.360 I overuse that word, but this is fantastic, incredible, comprehensive, amazing, 90 00:05:13.920 --> 00:05:17.600 and let's get right to it. You talk about in 91 00:05:17.639 --> 00:05:24.199 the book that we'll use a code name Donnette, and 92 00:05:24.920 --> 00:05:28.759 that there was correspondence back with Dennis Rader in two 93 00:05:28.800 --> 00:05:34.040 thousand and five. So tell us about that correspondence and 94 00:05:34.160 --> 00:05:39.439 how you came to become involved in this project. Why 95 00:05:39.480 --> 00:05:43.240 Dennis Rader tell us when you began correspondence. Tell us 96 00:05:43.240 --> 00:05:46.399 a little bit about the genesis of this project. 97 00:05:48.399 --> 00:05:51.240 Well, it happened. What happened in two thousand and five 98 00:05:51.279 --> 00:05:56.319 when he got arrested is Donnette approached him about writing 99 00:05:56.360 --> 00:05:59.600 a book about his sort of dark journey, as he 100 00:05:59.720 --> 00:06:03.720 called that, and he agreed to do it. They became correspondent. 101 00:06:03.800 --> 00:06:06.600 She visited him quite a few times at the jail 102 00:06:06.639 --> 00:06:10.680 and then later at the maximum security prison, collecting a 103 00:06:10.720 --> 00:06:14.120 massive amount of material over the period of five years. 104 00:06:14.920 --> 00:06:18.079 And I knew about her from newspaper reports that she 105 00:06:18.199 --> 00:06:21.279 was doing this, But then I saw her on Facebook 106 00:06:21.720 --> 00:06:25.879 in twenty ten and I asked her what happened, whatever 107 00:06:25.879 --> 00:06:30.040 happened to her book, and she immediately asked me if 108 00:06:30.079 --> 00:06:32.240 I would take it over. She didn't want to, She 109 00:06:32.759 --> 00:06:36.480 couldn't do it for a variety of reasons, and she would. 110 00:06:38.600 --> 00:06:43.199 Reader had signed over his METEA rites to the victim's family. 111 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:47.879 It was like a trust fund for the victim's families 112 00:06:47.920 --> 00:06:52.839 who participated in it, and so she had given all 113 00:06:52.879 --> 00:06:57.319 of her documents to the victim's family trust, which would 114 00:06:57.319 --> 00:07:01.680 be accessible to me if I were to be approved 115 00:07:01.800 --> 00:07:05.240 by the attorney for this trust and by the victims' 116 00:07:05.240 --> 00:07:09.160 family members. So I decided I would take it on. 117 00:07:09.319 --> 00:07:12.959 I wrote a proposal that I thought would use his 118 00:07:13.160 --> 00:07:17.040 story to benefit criminology, psychology, and law enforcement, and that 119 00:07:17.240 --> 00:07:20.399 just be a tale of some serial killer wanted to 120 00:07:20.399 --> 00:07:23.560 talk about himself, but would be really something that would 121 00:07:23.600 --> 00:07:26.879 be a valuable would be a value to my colleagues 122 00:07:26.920 --> 00:07:31.920 and offers to investigators. So I wrote a proposal with 123 00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:35.680 that in mind, and they appreciated that they didn't really 124 00:07:35.720 --> 00:07:38.560 want a book of this nature out there, but they 125 00:07:38.639 --> 00:07:41.519 knew it was inevitable. And if we're going to be written. 126 00:07:41.680 --> 00:07:45.720 They preferred that it be something that would be valuable 127 00:07:45.839 --> 00:07:53.040 to scholars, to practitioners, to investigators. So they approved me 128 00:07:53.279 --> 00:07:56.639 and it went forward from there. So I worked with 129 00:07:56.720 --> 00:07:59.600 him for five years, but I really had ten years 130 00:07:59.600 --> 00:08:00.480 worth of material. 131 00:08:03.279 --> 00:08:08.480 Now you talk about this first correspondence was split between 132 00:08:08.639 --> 00:08:12.240 Donnette and another part was to you, or at least 133 00:08:12.279 --> 00:08:17.240 part of the inevitable correspondence was done that way. You 134 00:08:17.279 --> 00:08:21.360 tell us about you say, there's a series of letters 135 00:08:21.360 --> 00:08:25.079 about hummingbirds and moon cycles. But tell us about the 136 00:08:25.120 --> 00:08:30.040 early correspondence and what you soon after the hummingbirds and 137 00:08:30.120 --> 00:08:33.320 moon cycles, what you asked him specifically for what information 138 00:08:33.360 --> 00:08:35.360 you asked him specifically to send you. 139 00:08:36.480 --> 00:08:39.320 Yeah, I mean he had to be introduced to me 140 00:08:39.399 --> 00:08:42.240 as well. It couldn't just be the families saying okay, 141 00:08:42.360 --> 00:08:46.000 that's fine. So he had to also accept that I 142 00:08:46.039 --> 00:08:48.799 would be the person to do this. So there was 143 00:08:48.840 --> 00:08:53.039 a little bit of like small talk through letters. You know, 144 00:08:53.200 --> 00:08:54.759 this is who I am, this is what I want 145 00:08:54.759 --> 00:08:57.399 to do. And then I said, in order to really 146 00:08:57.399 --> 00:09:01.679 write a proposal to move this book, I need your 147 00:09:01.879 --> 00:09:05.159 you know, a torture one of your torture fantasies and 148 00:09:05.240 --> 00:09:09.799 so he decided for several reasons that he wanted to 149 00:09:09.919 --> 00:09:13.159 put this into code. The first reason being that he 150 00:09:13.440 --> 00:09:15.960 didn't want this to end up on the internet somewhere 151 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:19.080 like one of the prison guards might see it and 152 00:09:19.399 --> 00:09:21.639 sell it or something like that, so he wanted to 153 00:09:21.720 --> 00:09:24.320 keep it under under wraps. So that was one reason. 154 00:09:24.960 --> 00:09:27.519 A second reason is that he liked to talk through 155 00:09:27.600 --> 00:09:30.879 codes because he thought of himself like a spy and 156 00:09:30.919 --> 00:09:32.679 that was kind of a thing he liked, he liked 157 00:09:32.720 --> 00:09:34.679 to do. And the third was a challenge to me 158 00:09:35.480 --> 00:09:37.919 to see if I would play along, so to speak, 159 00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:42.000 and also figure out the codes. So the first thing 160 00:09:42.240 --> 00:09:44.919 is that he was going to give half of the 161 00:09:44.960 --> 00:09:49.039 code to Donnette and half to me, and he sent 162 00:09:49.080 --> 00:09:53.200 me a series of newspaper articles and magazine pictures and 163 00:09:53.240 --> 00:09:59.759 whatnot that things were circled and they with ABCD etc. 164 00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:05.519 On it, and that would correspond with a list of 165 00:10:05.600 --> 00:10:09.440 things that he talked about in his letters. So here 166 00:10:09.480 --> 00:10:14.000 and there I would find ABC in the letters, which 167 00:10:14.320 --> 00:10:19.519 wasn't easy. And then once I populated my half, I 168 00:10:19.799 --> 00:10:25.399 was to see what Dawnette's half did. And once you 169 00:10:25.440 --> 00:10:28.840 put it all together, then we would tell him what 170 00:10:28.879 --> 00:10:31.559 we got and then I would pass the test. 171 00:10:35.679 --> 00:10:40.039 Now, you talk about the previous book that you had 172 00:10:40.320 --> 00:10:44.080 a few years before this, a few years ago, and 173 00:10:44.360 --> 00:10:47.519 it was called The Mind, The Mind of a Murderer, 174 00:10:48.200 --> 00:10:52.279 and it dealt with how mental health experts looked at 175 00:10:52.360 --> 00:10:56.360 extreme offenders. You mentioned it because it had some bearing 176 00:10:56.440 --> 00:10:58.840 on this, or it prepared you in some way. What 177 00:10:58.960 --> 00:11:03.360 did you get from that project that helped you to 178 00:11:03.440 --> 00:11:04.919 understand or prepare for this. 179 00:11:05.799 --> 00:11:10.399 That was an interesting project because I had been doing 180 00:11:10.440 --> 00:11:14.240 a lot of research in forensic science history and one 181 00:11:14.279 --> 00:11:21.000 of my favorite people was a French pathologist named Alexander Lakasania, 182 00:11:21.519 --> 00:11:23.960 and one of the innovative things he did in the 183 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:28.919 eighteen nineties was to get offenders, incarcerated offenders to write 184 00:11:28.919 --> 00:11:32.360 about themselves, right about their lives, and write about their motives, 185 00:11:32.480 --> 00:11:36.240 what they think were their influences and becoming criminals, some 186 00:11:36.320 --> 00:11:39.320 of whom wrote extensively. And then so he would go 187 00:11:39.399 --> 00:11:41.480 in each week and look at what they wrote and 188 00:11:41.840 --> 00:11:46.360 encourage them and sometimes even publish them in one of 189 00:11:46.360 --> 00:11:49.919 his journals. And he sort of started this thing called 190 00:11:49.919 --> 00:11:55.080 criminal autobiographies. And not many people have taken that up 191 00:11:55.200 --> 00:11:58.840 since him. You know, over one hundred years ago, but 192 00:11:59.159 --> 00:12:01.240 a few have, and so I thought it would be 193 00:12:01.320 --> 00:12:05.120 interesting to look back across the century to see what 194 00:12:05.320 --> 00:12:09.399 other psychologists or psychiatrists, you know, mental health experts of 195 00:12:09.440 --> 00:12:12.960 some kind, had really taken the time to go beyond 196 00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:19.360 the typical standardized assessments and clinical interviews, to spend time 197 00:12:19.440 --> 00:12:23.519 with an extreme offender, meaning a mass murderer or a 198 00:12:23.559 --> 00:12:27.000 serial killer, to see, you know, to have them tell 199 00:12:27.039 --> 00:12:33.480 their stories, to be trusted, to really try to document 200 00:12:33.559 --> 00:12:37.720 the trajectory of their path toward violence in their lives, 201 00:12:38.799 --> 00:12:42.240 knowing that sometimes they're going to lie or exaggerate, or 202 00:12:42.240 --> 00:12:45.840 have memory issues or whatever. But and it's a very 203 00:12:45.879 --> 00:12:50.240 time consuming thing. But I found a dozen cases of 204 00:12:51.039 --> 00:12:53.679 mental health experts who are willing to really spend a 205 00:12:53.720 --> 00:12:57.919 lot of time with an offender to learn their life story. 206 00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:00.639 And so I wrote a book that might have been two. 207 00:13:01.320 --> 00:13:05.799 Each chapter represents one of these efforts, you know, without 208 00:13:05.840 --> 00:13:08.960 ever imagining I was going to do this too, but 209 00:13:09.480 --> 00:13:13.480 this book got published, and then almost immediately I ended 210 00:13:13.559 --> 00:13:17.240 up with this opportunity to do exactly what I had 211 00:13:17.399 --> 00:13:21.360 just done, you know, documented to do this with Raider. 212 00:13:21.639 --> 00:13:26.080 So I had these role models, both both in terms 213 00:13:26.080 --> 00:13:29.759 of the mistakes they made and in terms of the 214 00:13:29.799 --> 00:13:34.600 innovations they they created to try to figure out how 215 00:13:34.639 --> 00:13:36.919 did I want to approach Rader? So it was really 216 00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:41.320 quite an interesting schooling just it was just something that 217 00:13:41.360 --> 00:13:43.039 I wanted to do and it turned out to be, 218 00:13:43.679 --> 00:13:45.399 you know, pretty beneficial for me. 219 00:13:47.840 --> 00:13:52.519 You talked about this criminal autobiography, and then you talk 220 00:13:52.600 --> 00:13:57.039 about how you were approaching Dennis Rader, and you talk 221 00:13:57.120 --> 00:14:02.480 about this being an assisted auto biography. So yeah, tell 222 00:14:02.559 --> 00:14:07.200 us what that assistance entailed. 223 00:14:08.240 --> 00:14:11.440 Okay, I get I think I've probably started calling it 224 00:14:11.480 --> 00:14:16.519 a guided autobiography in that it's certainly his story and 225 00:14:16.600 --> 00:14:19.720 about eighty percent of it is in his words. But 226 00:14:19.759 --> 00:14:21.440 there are a couple of things. There are a couple 227 00:14:21.480 --> 00:14:24.080 of reasons why you wouldn't just want to read his 228 00:14:24.120 --> 00:14:28.080 words straight out. And he agrees with me on this one. 229 00:14:28.159 --> 00:14:31.159 Is that he has a lot of language processing issues, 230 00:14:31.360 --> 00:14:36.519 so his grammars can be very difficult, and the spelling 231 00:14:37.399 --> 00:14:42.679 and even his phrasing sometimes he has processing difficulties. So 232 00:14:43.559 --> 00:14:46.519 it was better for me to try to take his 233 00:14:46.600 --> 00:14:49.639 words and make them a little bit more accessible to readers. 234 00:14:49.639 --> 00:14:51.440 So that was that was one thing. But the other 235 00:14:51.519 --> 00:14:54.320 thing was that if he were just left to his 236 00:14:54.360 --> 00:14:59.639 own devices, he would, you know, his insights, whatever they 237 00:14:59.639 --> 00:15:03.159 would be, would be limited. And so what I was 238 00:15:03.200 --> 00:15:09.679 trying to do was put triggers in, give him him primers, 239 00:15:09.799 --> 00:15:12.799 things to think about. Like I would send him articles 240 00:15:12.840 --> 00:15:16.759 about psychopathy, for example, because he had actually watched the 241 00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:22.200 Charlie Rose special on the Brain, so he had some ideas, 242 00:15:22.200 --> 00:15:25.399 and I sent him some more material. We read a book, 243 00:15:25.799 --> 00:15:30.320 Adrian Rayne's The Anatomy of Violence. It took him two years, 244 00:15:30.360 --> 00:15:32.440 but he made his way through the whole thing and 245 00:15:33.519 --> 00:15:36.639 talked about this is how he thought it applied to him, 246 00:15:37.159 --> 00:15:40.480 so it's a guided autobiography, and that these were not 247 00:15:40.559 --> 00:15:43.840 things that wouldn't necessarily have occurred to him to be 248 00:15:43.919 --> 00:15:47.799 thinking about in terms of himself. But because I was there, 249 00:15:47.840 --> 00:15:52.440 and because I brought to it clinical and forensic expertise, 250 00:15:53.639 --> 00:15:57.039 I was able to structure it in a way that 251 00:15:57.519 --> 00:16:01.240 helped him along. But still it's him, you know, I 252 00:16:01.240 --> 00:16:05.279 didn't feed him any thoughts about here's how you interpret this, 253 00:16:05.440 --> 00:16:09.600 but but it's still him trying to figure out who 254 00:16:09.639 --> 00:16:12.919 he is and why he became a serial killer. So 255 00:16:13.440 --> 00:16:16.679 you get him. It's really about eighty percent in his words, 256 00:16:17.440 --> 00:16:20.440 but I still guided it. And also there are things 257 00:16:20.519 --> 00:16:25.519 like if he mentioned HH Holmes or Harvey Glatman or 258 00:16:25.559 --> 00:16:27.799 Ted Bundy or some of these cases, or he talked 259 00:16:27.840 --> 00:16:30.399 about a movie or a book that inspired him or 260 00:16:30.720 --> 00:16:33.759 frightened him, well, then I would read the book, and 261 00:16:33.799 --> 00:16:37.200 I would watch the movie, and I would would provide 262 00:16:37.240 --> 00:16:42.240 the frame so that readers wouldn't you know, I wouldn't 263 00:16:42.240 --> 00:16:44.919 You wouldn't just assume that readers know exactly who Ted 264 00:16:44.960 --> 00:16:48.159 Bundy is or H. H. Holmes or you know, the 265 00:16:48.200 --> 00:16:52.360 wax Museum or any of those things. So the other 266 00:16:52.440 --> 00:16:55.039 part of what I did in this was to provide 267 00:16:55.039 --> 00:16:59.919 the frame for some of the things he talked about. 268 00:17:00.039 --> 00:17:03.840 Let's go right to that, because not everybody knows the 269 00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:06.240 HH Holms story, but most people do. But let's put 270 00:17:06.240 --> 00:17:09.640 it in relation to the influence that had had on 271 00:17:09.799 --> 00:17:13.400 Dennis Raider. And because it's again where we just talked 272 00:17:13.400 --> 00:17:16.599 about the correspondence where you asked for the torture fantasy. 273 00:17:16.759 --> 00:17:20.759 There's some codes involved, and you have to figure those 274 00:17:20.799 --> 00:17:23.319 codes out to be able to understand what he's trying 275 00:17:23.359 --> 00:17:25.880 to say in that, but you also have to explain 276 00:17:26.079 --> 00:17:30.000 and you say, it's important to understand his torture fantasy 277 00:17:30.039 --> 00:17:34.200 in relation to what he had learned about HH Silms 278 00:17:34.200 --> 00:17:37.880 and what he had respected and was influenced by from 279 00:17:38.200 --> 00:17:42.319 HH Holms. So tell us about Herman Mudget and his 280 00:17:42.480 --> 00:17:45.440 influence and what Dennis Rader got from it. 281 00:17:46.160 --> 00:17:48.039 Well, you have to kind of start a little bit 282 00:17:48.079 --> 00:17:52.559 earlier with Writer's own development of what was arousing to him. 283 00:17:52.599 --> 00:17:55.359 And he liked to bind himself with ropes because he 284 00:17:55.440 --> 00:18:01.319 found that particular pleasant and arousing, even before he was 285 00:18:01.359 --> 00:18:05.880 a sexual person. He just enjoyed that. So when he 286 00:18:06.400 --> 00:18:11.240 as a teenager, he found these two detective magazines under 287 00:18:11.279 --> 00:18:14.200 the seat of his father's car, and one of them 288 00:18:14.279 --> 00:18:17.440 was Harvey Glatman, who was a serial killer who posted 289 00:18:17.480 --> 00:18:21.920 as a photographer inviting women into, you know, into his 290 00:18:22.519 --> 00:18:26.279 apartment and then tying them up, pretending he's going to 291 00:18:26.319 --> 00:18:28.960 photograph them for the cover of a magazine and then 292 00:18:29.079 --> 00:18:32.079 telling them they're going to die so he'd get the 293 00:18:32.079 --> 00:18:35.240 photographs of their terror. That was the first one that 294 00:18:35.359 --> 00:18:38.720 really impressed itself on Raider because he loved the binding, 295 00:18:39.279 --> 00:18:44.559 the ropes and then their look of terror and the 296 00:18:44.599 --> 00:18:47.640 knowledge that it was total control over them. So that 297 00:18:47.759 --> 00:18:51.559 was the first one. And then along came a front 298 00:18:51.799 --> 00:18:56.480 cover about you know, the White City and HH Holmes 299 00:18:56.480 --> 00:18:59.200 in his Murder Castle, which was a hotel he had 300 00:18:59.240 --> 00:19:03.640 built in the eighteen nineties as the World's Fair was 301 00:19:03.680 --> 00:19:07.599 coming into Chicago, and the idea, you know, he was 302 00:19:07.640 --> 00:19:12.759 going to allow these young women to register for a 303 00:19:12.839 --> 00:19:15.559 room and then he would put them into a special 304 00:19:15.759 --> 00:19:19.119 special rooms that he had that were torture devices or 305 00:19:19.559 --> 00:19:23.279 something where he could spy on them dying, being gassed, 306 00:19:23.599 --> 00:19:27.640 things like that, and then he would strip the flesh 307 00:19:27.640 --> 00:19:32.119 from their bodies and sellthers skeletons to medical schools and whatnot. 308 00:19:32.160 --> 00:19:35.599 So he was quite the con artist kind of put 309 00:19:35.680 --> 00:19:39.279 himself to a medical school that way. And it was 310 00:19:39.319 --> 00:19:43.559 the idea of him having this hotel, this three story 311 00:19:43.599 --> 00:19:48.200 hotel with torture devices that got to Raider and so 312 00:19:48.319 --> 00:19:54.119 he would think about barns in Kansas that they drew 313 00:19:54.160 --> 00:19:56.319 his attention. He would look at the barns and the 314 00:19:56.359 --> 00:20:00.559 silos with their layers and think about what torture devices 315 00:20:00.599 --> 00:20:04.640 could he put into these barns if it were him. 316 00:20:05.680 --> 00:20:09.799 Among them being a railroad track. He wanted to have 317 00:20:09.839 --> 00:20:13.200 a train inside a barn because he had a particular 318 00:20:13.279 --> 00:20:16.880 fantasy about tying girls to railroad tracks and having the 319 00:20:16.960 --> 00:20:20.400 trains run over them, and so he needed to have 320 00:20:21.079 --> 00:20:24.599 a big barn that would somehow have a train track 321 00:20:26.119 --> 00:20:28.279 fantasy is what it is. That's all I have to say, 322 00:20:28.319 --> 00:20:32.279 because obviously that wouldn't be very practical, but in his fantasy, 323 00:20:32.400 --> 00:20:35.960 that's exactly what he had. So modeling it off of 324 00:20:36.359 --> 00:20:41.480 HH Holmes with some touch of the Harvey Glatman influence 325 00:20:41.559 --> 00:20:45.640 with the bindings really and then Dudley do Right with 326 00:20:45.799 --> 00:20:49.680 the nell tied to the railroad track, that kind of 327 00:20:50.640 --> 00:20:54.039 mixed all together to influence his teenage fantasies. 328 00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:01.960 You also mentioned even things like everything sort of factored 329 00:21:01.960 --> 00:21:05.640 into this with something about the bound chickens and the 330 00:21:05.680 --> 00:21:07.599 things he did with cats. 331 00:21:08.319 --> 00:21:10.759 Yeah, yeah, that would be. The other thing is he 332 00:21:10.839 --> 00:21:14.599 spent a lot of time in his grandparents' farm, and 333 00:21:15.799 --> 00:21:19.359 apparently his aunt or his grandmother didn't really like the 334 00:21:20.200 --> 00:21:24.359 barn cats, and he also saw them as kind of mysterious. 335 00:21:24.359 --> 00:21:28.720 He didn't like the way females made him feel off balance. 336 00:21:29.279 --> 00:21:34.440 He's a very controlling individual, and so to him, cats 337 00:21:34.599 --> 00:21:38.000 were female. Whether they were or not, they just had 338 00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:40.640 that kind of effect on him that they seemed as 339 00:21:40.720 --> 00:21:44.640 mysterious as females. So he would hang them in the barn. 340 00:21:45.319 --> 00:21:48.079 And so that again becomes the barn is the place 341 00:21:48.160 --> 00:21:51.759 you do these secretive things with bindings and whatnot. And 342 00:21:51.839 --> 00:21:54.480 with the chickens that wasn't actually on the farm, that 343 00:21:54.680 --> 00:21:58.039 was his father raised chickens in the backyard. When they 344 00:21:58.200 --> 00:22:03.039 moved to Wichita, one of his duties was to assist 345 00:22:03.160 --> 00:22:09.880 with killing the chickens for dinner. So watching their heads 346 00:22:09.880 --> 00:22:13.359 get cut off and watching their bodies run around and 347 00:22:13.799 --> 00:22:15.960 you know, horror stories like that. 348 00:22:19.079 --> 00:22:23.519 At the same time that he has this psycho sexual development, 349 00:22:25.119 --> 00:22:31.200 yet he still has these motivations. He's a guy that 350 00:22:31.559 --> 00:22:34.519 goes into the military eventually. So tell us what he 351 00:22:34.720 --> 00:22:38.160 was like as a student. And again, where do you 352 00:22:38.359 --> 00:22:45.079 dispel the myth of having this tread of characteristics that 353 00:22:45.160 --> 00:22:47.920 all serial killers are have to have, and that one 354 00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:53.279 of those includes abuse in his early childhood. So tell 355 00:22:53.359 --> 00:22:56.599 us a little bit about what he said about his childhood, 356 00:22:56.640 --> 00:22:59.039 his upbringing and what you found out as well. 357 00:22:59.079 --> 00:23:02.519 To yeah, yeah, and that was one of the things 358 00:23:02.640 --> 00:23:06.240 he too thought about. It was called the McDonald triad, 359 00:23:07.440 --> 00:23:10.720 which his animal abuse bed wedding and fire setting, and 360 00:23:10.880 --> 00:23:14.720 he wondered, you know that, why don't I have these things? 361 00:23:14.759 --> 00:23:17.880 He certainly had some animal abuse, but not he didn't 362 00:23:17.920 --> 00:23:20.960 abuse all animals. He liked dogs, He loved his own dog. 363 00:23:22.039 --> 00:23:25.039 It was really just cats that he set out to 364 00:23:25.079 --> 00:23:29.359 abuse him. Not really that often either, so but he didn't. 365 00:23:29.720 --> 00:23:32.000 He set a couple of fires, but he certainly wasn't 366 00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:35.559 doing repetitive fire setting, and not bed wedding according to him. 367 00:23:35.880 --> 00:23:38.640 And he did not have what many serial codes have 368 00:23:38.720 --> 00:23:44.960 in their background, is abuse, child abuse, verbal or physical 369 00:23:45.119 --> 00:23:48.839 or sexual or anything like that. But there is a 370 00:23:48.880 --> 00:23:52.480 possibility he had a head injury. His mother dropped him 371 00:23:52.480 --> 00:23:55.599 on his head when he was a child a baby. 372 00:23:55.880 --> 00:23:58.359 He turned blue, They didn't get him any help and 373 00:23:58.480 --> 00:24:01.279 get him too a hospital. She also had fallen off 374 00:24:01.279 --> 00:24:03.799 a horse when she was pregnant with him, and then 375 00:24:03.920 --> 00:24:07.240 later when he's a teenager, he was in a car 376 00:24:07.279 --> 00:24:10.240 accident where he hit his head. Now we don't know 377 00:24:10.680 --> 00:24:14.079 that that these head injuries have anything to do with it, 378 00:24:14.119 --> 00:24:18.240 but we do know that the brains of violent individuals 379 00:24:19.359 --> 00:24:23.319 certainly have some issues with areas of the brain that 380 00:24:23.440 --> 00:24:30.039 process moral information, that make decisions and do behavioral inhibition, 381 00:24:30.240 --> 00:24:33.279 and we do find that sometimes when people have these 382 00:24:33.359 --> 00:24:36.359 head injuries, it replicates what we also find in the 383 00:24:36.400 --> 00:24:39.000 violent brain. We're not at the point where we can 384 00:24:39.039 --> 00:24:42.440 say that this is causal, and I don't have an 385 00:24:42.559 --> 00:24:47.400 MRI of raider's brain to point out any of these issues, 386 00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:51.519 but we can't say that this isn't an influence either, 387 00:24:51.599 --> 00:24:55.680 because we've certainly seen it in the brains of violent individuals. 388 00:24:58.000 --> 00:25:00.559 Now, in the beginning of this five year correspondent, you 389 00:25:00.599 --> 00:25:03.240 ask him again for right away, you ask him for 390 00:25:03.279 --> 00:25:07.599 his torture fantasy. After you break those codes, what is 391 00:25:07.640 --> 00:25:11.799 it about that first correspondence, that torture fantasy? What do 392 00:25:11.839 --> 00:25:15.960 you learn specifically that you take and move on to 393 00:25:16.039 --> 00:25:19.960 the next correspondence, which is mostly letters and phone calls. 394 00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:22.720 You say, there was some visits, but they weren't as productive. 395 00:25:23.359 --> 00:25:26.440 So what was right from the very beginning, what did 396 00:25:26.440 --> 00:25:29.960 you learn from that very first must have been informative 397 00:25:30.039 --> 00:25:33.400 letter from package from demonstrator. 398 00:25:34.079 --> 00:25:37.440 I'd say that first package was informative, but then it 399 00:25:37.559 --> 00:25:42.200 kind of dropped into there was a point where I 400 00:25:42.240 --> 00:25:44.839 really didn't think there would be a book because the 401 00:25:45.200 --> 00:25:47.200