The Official Websleuths Investigative Book Club Book #2 - Confessions Of A serial Killer: The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer.

[Insightful1]

Wow, what a book. I hope everyone is hanging in there.

 

[tricia]

Hey Everyone,
This book by Dr Ramsland is incredible. I hope you will join us at 8 PM Eastern tonight for a special edition of Websleuths YouTube Live, where we will discuss Dr. Ramsland's book. Later in February, Dr. Ramsland will join us on a Zoom call to discuss her book about BTK. CLICK HERE AT 8 PM EASTERN TONIGHT!

 

[tricia]

Hey Everyone.
Don't forget today, Saturday, January 23rd, we are discussing Dr. Ramsland's book about BTK on our Websleuths Livestream. We go live at 8 PM Eastern.

 

[SnarkyTreehugger]

When should we start reading the book? Has anyone started yet?

Hi
I’m catching up on the end of Cruel Sacrifice. Have you started book 2 yet?

 

[SnarkyTreehugger]

I’m lagging behind. I’m just finishing up Cruel Sacrifice. I had to put the book aside for minute. It was intense

 

[SnarkyTreehugger]

I just started the book.

The codes and key phrases in the introduction are wild. I’m having a hard time digesting all of it. Hopefully, I’ll be able to comprehend some of it when I get going further into the book.

Hi just curious.. so far do you think it’s worse than Cruel Sacrifice?

 

[nhmemorymaker]

Audio book is just too intense.
I am going to try to listen again, tomorrow.....
but if it doesn't get easier, I will just have to stop listening for good.
He is still alive, and kickin around prison..... its as if, reading "his story", gives him credibility, gives him the continuing thrill.
I don't want to give him any thrills. I just want him to die lonely and useless.

 

[Tippy Lynn]

Hi just curious.. so far do you think it’s worse than Cruel Sacrifice?

I haven’t read that book.

 

[SnarkyTreehugger]

Audio book is just too intense.
I am going to try to listen again, tomorrow.....
but if it doesn't get easier, I will just have to stop listening for good.
He is still alive, and kickin around prison..... its as if, reading "his story", gives him credibility, gives him the continuing thrill.
I don't want to give him any thrills. I just want him to die lonely and useless.

I get it . I had to stop in the middle of Cruel Sacrifice and step away for about 1 week. It was so intense and so very sad

 

[SnarkyTreehugger]

I haven’t read that book.

That was the first book club book. Cruel Sacrifice by Aphrodite Jones

 

[Tippy Lynn]

That was the first book club book. Cruel Sacrifice by Aphrodite Jones

I didn’t join the book club until this book.

 

[Tippy Lynn]

I get it . I had to stop in the middle of Cruel Sacrifice and step away for about 1 week. It was so intense and so very sad

That’s what I’m doing with the BTK book. I had to step away. I’m hoping I can get back into it.

 

[SnarkyTreehugger]

Wow, what a book. I hope everyone is hanging in there.

I haven’t started yet. Just finished CS and I need a breather before diving in again

 

[SnarkyTreehugger]

I didn’t join the book club until this book.

Welcome

 

[NeilC]

I finished the audiobook a couple of days ago and then watched the Hulu doc of the same name. So I feel like I’ve spent a little too much time inside Rader’s head. What I’ve tried to focus on is the approach that Dr Ramsland takes in her writing and research. She really is looking for answers and is trying to expand the circle of knowledge we have to understand serial killers. She says (imho) that our current taxonomy is fairly limited - loner, violence in childhood, organized vs. disorganized, etc., and that we need to include people like Rader who don’t really fit our typical understanding. This is a very worthy goal and I agree with trying to gather as much understanding as possible so we can ultimately predict and perhaps prevent these people from doing so much destruction.

What is so interesting and sometimes difficult to read/hear are the words of Rader himself. Dr Ramsland, more or less, co-authors this book with him and gives his voice a lot of space. He is such an awful, perverse and disgusting person. He is also a dispassionate killer - his victims are “projects”, his life is “ meticulously organized”, he has the ability to “cube” his emotions and experiences, he has no ability for introspection, compassion or empathy, he has a huge ego and thinks he should be the one to discern “right from wrong” in ordinary life. It almost takes some “cubing” to hang with the book! - I had to either fast-forward or skip many of the details of him talking about the murders (apparently I’m bad at cubing). I just can’t separate the terror the victims must have felt from his description of why he chose them and what he did to them. And make no mistake, the looks of terror and the fear the victims display is what gets this monster off.

Lastly, I had a professor in grad school (FSU School of Crim.) who believed that we should study the brains of murderers/serial killers in order to advance our knowledge of what makes them tick. But not study brains like Dr Ramsland is doing with this book and having conversations with murdererers. He promoted the idea of neuroscientists literally studying their actual brains - look at the amount of nerve endings they have in areas of their brains that have to do with decision-making and behavior. He felt the answers to much of the causes of crime lie here. Now, I graduated in 1990 and neuroscience has greatly advanced (and that prof has since passed) but the next generation of scientists are looking at not only areas of the physical brains, but in functional abnormalities, too (neurotransmitters, gray matter, DNA, etc). At the very least, and I think my old prof would agree, we should be studying the physical brain structures of murderers/serial killers after they pass away and see what is or isn’t there. We can never predict precisely who will or will not end up like Rader but we can at least advance our knowledge. And I think that Dr Ramsland’s efforts did this as well through her psychological examinations and awarenesses. It’s going to take both physical and psychological understanding to get to where we want to go in terms of prediction and prevention of certain behaviors.

Thanks for letting me get that all out and now I’m going to read about flowers and puppies and other things that bring love and light to my life…

 

[Bipolar Express]

Im about a quarter of the way through this book. Very interesting. Some of the writing in his words is very strange. He doesnt use the word “sexual” its always “sexually”. What a strange person. So far Im thinking his head injury had a lot to do with how he developed.

Also Im thinking his dad had some twisted fetishes by his reading material he had hidden.

Also im having a hard time wrapping my head around “self bondage”… is it really bondage if you can free yourself? Weird.

 

[OneLove]

I regrettably missed the zoom Saturday as I didnt know about it ahead of time and also had houseguests. Would it be okay for someone who attended to give a very general synopsis of it?

Also, I see from NeilC' s excellent post that DR gave some detail on *why* he chose the victims he did and it made its way into the book. I've always wondered this about his stalking and (unsuccessful, obviously) assault of me but find myself having a really hard time making myself read *his* words.

The only thing that I could think of back at that time was that I was wearing a wrap around skirt when he would have seen me at the community College. But it was very plain, denim, very secure, and mid calf length as was the style in those years. I don't remember after all these years but may well have even been wearing high top lace up sneakers which I considered as opposite of a "hot chick" look as anyone can get, lol. After all these years, looking back at my distant younger self, I can also now realize that I was young, fit, and sociable.

Is there anyone here who might be interested in kindly retelling a bit of what attracted him to his victims as he tells it in the book? Was it generally the same attributes each time or different for each person (trying not to use the term "victim").

I've waited this long to order the book, I now realize, because I fear it will feel like an evil dark spirit itself invading my presence, a poisonous bomb of sorts, defiling the sacredness and sanctity of my personal space. If felt that way after he crossed my path in 1985. And of course, I'll end up reading the whole book in just a compact few days so I can fling it where the sun doesnt shine as quickly as possible and shake it off.

Its taken me decades to shed just a portion of the feeling of "taint" and sickness that looking into the depths of hell in his eyes in those very few moments left me with, and that was even years before he had been revealed as being "those 3 letters I just cannot not speak". When I read Kevin Bright's description of his eyes, I knew exactly what he meant.

Any words for me on "why" he chose *those* specific targets? I really will read the book soon, I will, but I'd so much rather hear "that part" from anyone here rather than the horror & dread of reading it in his very own words and knowing the worst that could have happened to me. My heart and soul went out to every unsuspecting soul, both past and future, from just those few moments of seeing into those indescribable eyes and watching how his body was frozen in place, almost vacated, with something else entirely going on in his head, all while we were standing in the open in a public place.

 

[cujenn81]

I regrettably missed the zoom Saturday as I didnt know about it ahead of time and also had houseguests. Would it be okay for someone who attended to give a very general synopsis of it?

Also, I see from NeilC' s excellent post that DR gave some detail on *why* he chose the victims he did and it made its way into the book. I've always wondered this about his stalking and (unsuccessful, obviously) assault of me but find myself having a really hard time making myself read *his* words.

The only thing that I could think of back at that time was that I was wearing a wrap around skirt when he would have seen me at the community College. But it was very plain, denim, very secure, and mid calf length as was the style in those years. I don't remember after all these years but may well have even been wearing high top lace up sneakers which I considered as opposite of a "hot chick" look as anyone can get, lol. After all these years, looking back at my distant younger self, I can also now realize that I was young, fit, and sociable.

Is there anyone here who might be interested in kindly retelling a bit of what attracted him to his victims as he tells it in the book? Was it generally the same attributes each time or different for each person (trying not to use the term "victim").

I've waited this long to order the book, I now realize, because I fear it will feel like an evil dark spirit itself invading my presence, a poisonous bomb of sorts, defiling the sacredness and sanctity of my personal space. If felt that way after he crossed my path in 1985. And of course, I'll end up reading the whole book in just a compact few days so I can fling it where the sun doesnt shine as quickly as possible and shake it off.

Its taken me decades to shed just a portion of the feeling of "taint" and sickness that looking into the depths of hell in his eyes in those very few moments left me with, and that was even years before he had been revealed as being "those 3 letters I just cannot not speak". When I read Kevin Bright's description of his eyes, I knew exactly what he meant.

Any words for me on "why" he chose *those* specific targets? I really will read the book soon, I will, but I'd so much rather hear "that part" from anyone here rather than the horror & dread of reading it in his very own words and knowing the worst that could have happened to me. My heart and soul went out to every unsuspecting soul, both past and future, from just those few moments of seeing into those indescribable eyes and watching how his body was frozen in place, almost vacated, with something else entirely going on in his head, all while we were standing in the open in a public place.

I’m almost finished. I think I’m at like 80% on my Kindle. From what I can tell, he didn’t choose his victims based on any specific physical characteristic. He usually chose locations that were easy to watch without being seen and was often associated with the number 3 somehow. He seems to have some kind of weird obsession with the number, and the location seems to have been more important than anything else.

He usually chose a house with a 3, 6, or 9 in the address if the woman who lived there had a predictable routine. He watched his target for several weeks until he felt confident he could break in without being seen and laid in wait for them to come home.

There were many times he abandoned his plan due to a barking dog or because his target didn’t return home when he expected them to. Or she returned home before he could fully enter the house. He targeted one girl simply because she drove a Mustang and he wanted to drive her car (as he always parked nearby, walked to the scene, and then fled in their car). A few times he used a ruse (like working for the phone company) and he once abandoned his plan because the woman seemed suspicious of his story.

It definitely wasn’t anything about what YOU did or didn’t do. Please know that.

 

[Bipolar Express]

I’m almost finished. I think I’m at like 80% on my Kindle. From what I can tell, he didn’t choose his victims based on any specific physical characteristic. He usually chose locations that were easy to watch without being seen and was often associated with the number 3 somehow. He seems to have some kind of weird obsession with the number, and the location seems to have been more important than anything else.

He usually chose a house with a 3, 6, or 9 in the address if the woman who lived there had a predictable routine. He watched his target for several weeks until he felt confident he could break in without being seen and laid in wait for them to come home.

There were many times he abandoned his plan due to a barking dog or because his target didn’t return home when he expected them to. Or she returned home before he could fully enter the house. He targeted one girl simply because she drove a Mustang and he wanted to drive her car (as he always parked nearby, walked to the scene, and then fled in their car). A few times he used a ruse (like working for the phone company) and he once abandoned his plan because the woman seemed suspicious of his story.

It definitely wasn’t anything about what YOU did or didn’t do. Please know that.

I agree with all of this. This is my take on his victims as well

 

[Bipolar Express]

I regrettably missed the zoom Saturday as I didnt know about it ahead of time and also had houseguests. Would it be okay for someone who attended to give a very general synopsis of it?

Also, I see from NeilC' s excellent post that DR gave some detail on *why* he chose the victims he did and it made its way into the book. I've always wondered this about his stalking and (unsuccessful, obviously) assault of me but find myself having a really hard time making myself read *his* words.

The only thing that I could think of back at that time was that I was wearing a wrap around skirt when he would have seen me at the community College. But it was very plain, denim, very secure, and mid calf length as was the style in those years. I don't remember after all these years but may well have even been wearing high top lace up sneakers which I considered as opposite of a "hot chick" look as anyone can get, lol. After all these years, looking back at my distant younger self, I can also now realize that I was young, fit, and sociable.

Is there anyone here who might be interested in kindly retelling a bit of what attracted him to his victims as he tells it in the book? Was it generally the same attributes each time or different for each person (trying not to use the term "victim").

I've waited this long to order the book, I now realize, because I fear it will feel like an evil dark spirit itself invading my presence, a poisonous bomb of sorts, defiling the sacredness and sanctity of my personal space. If felt that way after he crossed my path in 1985. And of course, I'll end up reading the whole book in just a compact few days so I can fling it where the sun doesnt shine as quickly as possible and shake it off.

Its taken me decades to shed just a portion of the feeling of "taint" and sickness that looking into the depths of hell in his eyes in those very few moments left me with, and that was even years before he had been revealed as being "those 3 letters I just cannot not speak". When I read Kevin Bright's description of his eyes, I knew exactly what he meant.

Any words for me on "why" he chose *those* specific targets? I really will read the book soon, I will, but I'd so much rather hear "that part" from anyone here rather than the horror & dread of reading it in his very own words and knowing the worst that could have happened to me. My heart and soul went out to every unsuspecting soul, both past and future, from just those few moments of seeing into those indescribable eyes and watching how his body was frozen in place, almost vacated, with something else entirely going on in his head, all while we were standing in the open in a public place.

They had a live stream discussing the book but It dont think theyve had the zoom call for this book yet.