BTK and Me

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a serial killer and an ordinary person? As I look at this guy who has confessed to being the BTK killer, I can't help but wonder at his ordinariness. He held jobs. He went to church; in fact he was a lay leader at his church and was considered a pillar of his church community. He lived in an ordinary house in an ordinary middle-American neighborhood, and by all accounts he lived an ordinary American life; except he had this fetish about strangling young, pretty women.

So, why do I title this piece "BTK and Me?" Well, I look at him, and I have to ask myself how we are different? He was in the Air Force about the same time I was, though as far as I know our paths never crossed. The Air Force is a big operation. But in all other respects, we have a lot in common. We even share some tenuous similarities in sexual fantasies, though I must admit I never wanted to do anyone any harm, and I never wanted to strangle anyone, not really.

The only difference I can see, and it is quite significant, is that he didn't see these other people as human beings, and that is something I'm always conscious of. I can kill, of that I have no doubt. Yet I cannot imagine in my wildest moments doing the things he has done to men, women, and children. Especially children.

I have to take it further and say that I really don't understand jealous spouses killing their partners in a fit of rage. Nor do I understand plotting to kill someone, goading a lover into killing one's partner, or hiring someone to do it. I just don't get why people in those situations don't just walk away. Maybe I just haven't been goaded enough or felt betrayed enough or felt desperate enough.

Yet I see those crimes as somehow different from BTK's crimes. BTK's crimes are truly crimes against humanity in general; spousal violence, which is a terrible and growing problem in its own right, is more specific. The people involved don't want to kill just anybody or randomly. BTK picked his victims relatively randomly, and his killings had no greater purpose than to satisfy some sort of psycho-sexual hunger he felt and did not feel he could satisfy in any other way.

Maybe there's really no difference between a BTK and a wife-murderer or a husband-murderer. Both have lost sight of the humanity of the other. Neither has to kill to survive. (I put the battered spouse killing a partner in a different category; there I can argue that survival is at stake.)

Sometimes I think the only differences between me and someone like BTK is that I won't let myself imagine to the extent he did, so I won't let myself objectify others to the extent he did.

I just don't think that makes me somehow a better person than he is. I know there is a killing beast in me, and I believe there is a killing beast in all human beings. The only difference I see is that he let his out while most of us keep ours under tight control.