Bind, Torture, Kill: The Inside Story of BTK, the Serial Killer Next Door by Roy Wenzl, Tim Potter, L. Kelly, Hurst Laviana Read Free Book Online Page B

Otero’s ankles to the foot of his bed; this killer had tied Shirley’s feet to a headrail. At both scenes, a killer had pulled a plastic bag over someone’s head.
    The cops had not turned up a single useful fingerprint at either house.
    Some detectives argued there was not enough evidence to link the murders. What about the differences?
    The differences looked small, LaMunyon said.
    Detectives pointed out something else: the experts said serial killers couldn’t stop once they started. The FBI had only recently begun to study serial killers in depth, but it was saying that no serial killer had taken three years off. It was probably not the same guy.
    In the end, based on the advice of some of his detectives and his own desire to be more sure before risking public panic, LaMunyon decided to not make an announcement. He thought publicity might inspire BTK to kill again. He made the decision with one grim thought: the strangler would probably make it necessary to change his mind.
     
    Steven Relford, Shirley Vian’s youngest son, would grow up bitter, drinking, drugging, and paying artists to cover his body with skull tattoos. He would remember the screaming.
    BTK remembered the screaming too�and that it did not bother him.

10
    Autumn 1977
    A Turning Point
    By 1977, Wichitans no longer felt safe, even from their neighbors. To their regret, they were becoming more accustomed to violent crime. The older generation blamed the sex-drugs-rock-and-roll culture of the ’60s. The younger generation countered that Wichita was still so backwater conservative that the ’60s would not arrive until after the ’70s ended.
    A few months after Shirley Vian was killed, Kenny Landwehr saw violent crime firsthand. He was twenty-two, still studying history at WSU. Five years out of high school, he had not yet obtained a college degree. His mother, Irene, later said that Kenny was such a curious kid that he took more college courses than he needed, while putting off taking the science prerequisites that would get him the diploma.
    He worked at Beuttel’s, a clothing store at Twenty-first and Broadway in north Wichita that sold bib overalls to farmers, cassocks to priests, and hip stuff to their black customers: shoes with stacked heels, long fur coats, and “walking suits” with wide lapels and bell-bottom trousers.
    Landwehr liked owner Herman Beuttel, who handed out cigars to employees. Landwehr soon switched to cigarettes because they were easier to smoke on a break.
    Going out for lunch one day, Landwehr stepped aside to let two men enter the store. Something about their expressions caught his attention. They looked…nervous. Landwehr turned a corner and saw a Cadillac and a third man behind it, leaning against a wall. He looked nervous too.
    Getaway car, Landwehr thought. Shoplifters. We’re being set up . He turned around, walked back into the store, and found himself staring down the barrel of a handgun. The men had pulled nylon stockings over their faces, but they were the same two he had met at the door, and they were not shoplifters. One of them forced him to the cash register.
    “Get down on the floor.”
    Landwehr obeyed. The robbers hog-tied him under the register with electrical cord. They tied up two other clerks. One robber reached under the register and found Beuttel’s. 45 caliber semiautomatic pistol. He stood over Landwehr and worked the pistol slide, sha-shink , jacking a cartridge into the chamber. Landwehr thought he was going to be executed.
    But they did not shoot him. They searched for money. As customers came in, the men bound them with neckties. The robbery lasted only minutes, but to Landwehr it seemed to last for ages.
    After they left, a badly shaken Landwehr told police that one of the robbers had called the other one “Butch.” From that name and Landwehr’s description, the detectives concluded that he was Butch Lee Jordan, a small-time thug.
    The police went to Jordan’s home, but when they