Jul 18, 2013 I think Cindy was the first victim, Shar. They were still rehearsing (or had very recently finished) their verbal ruses at this point in time and, when initial attempts to entice Cindy into the van failed, they decided they wanted her anyway - that's why they drove ahead of her when she politely but firmly refused Norris's offer of going for a ride and waited to bundle her into their van. Never-before-published confession tapes of Ted Bundy, used by the FBI to train criminal psychologists in Quantico, Virginia, since they were recorded in 1989, two days before Bundy’s execution.
ISSUES WITH JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL
Encore: Cases that Changed America -- Human Hunters
Aired September 7, 2009 - 19:00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HOST (voice-over): Tonight, a special ISSUES presentation. Cases that changed America. Human hunters. For the next hour, I`ll analyze the nation`s most infamous serial killers to find out what caused them to become monsters. And I`ll explore what these cases tell us about the media, and our justice system. Starting with the BTK serial killer, Dennis Rader, a church-going family man. But for more than 30 years, he terrorized the people of Kansas, playing a chess game with cops. Rader would send them poems and letters and even gave himself a nickname, BTK, for 'bind, torture, kill.' I`ll show you his chilling courtroom testimony that gives a stunning look inside the mind of this killing machine. Then one of America`s only female serial killer, Eileen Wuornos. She used her past -- a broken home and sexual abuse -- and twisted it into hatred and death. The case captivated the nation and spawned the Oscar- winning film 'Monster.' Plus, jaw dropping analysis of text book serial killer Ted Bundy, the handsome law student who lived a true Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde double life. Bundy believed to have killed 35 college women. His weapon of choice? A baseball bat. The ruthless serial killer kept souvenirs of his victims and twice escaped prison. I`ll tell you how cops finally nabbed him for good. This ISSUES special presentation starts now. (END VIDEOTAPE) VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tonight we begin our ISSUES special presentation with the man who dubbed himself BTK, bind, torture, kill. The monstrous alter ego of a very average-looking family man. Dennis Rader, his real name, terrorized the people of Wichita, Kansas, for more than 30 years. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DENNIS RADER, BTK KILLER: I proceeded to tie her up, and then she got sick. Threw up. Got her a glass of water. Comforted her a little bit and then went ahead and tied her up and then put a bag over her head and strangled her. (END VIDEO CLIP) VELEZ-MITCHELL: What a sicko. Rader, a father, husband, church deacon and Cub Scout leader, kept his hidden life from his own wife, two kids and friends for three long decades. That, and he stalked his victims like prey and taunted police and local media with clues. He sent letters detailing his crimes, and mocked law enforcement for their inability to catch him. Inexplicably in 1985, the letters stopped, and BTK vanished without a trace. He came back twice 20 years later after a book on the case came out called 'Bind, Torture, Kill.' Again, he began sending investigators and the media letters and puzzles. But Rader`s obsession with keeping BTK in the press eventually made him slip up. He sent a computer disk to cops who were able to examine it and link it to the former dogcatcher. The 59-year-old father of two was then arrested. He soon confessed and pleaded guilty to ten murders. His rambling courtroom diatribe will go down in history. Rader seemed to proudly relive his crimes as he recounted his killings in gruesome detail, right in front of the victims` families. Tonight we will examine every aspect of this sick and twisted killer. Straight to my fantastic expert panel: Casey Jordan, noted criminologist and former criminal profiler; Diane Dimond, a syndicated columnist and author of 'Be Careful Who You Love'; Dr. Park Dietz, a world- renowned forensic psychiatrist who has testified in such cases as Jeffrey Dahmer, the Menendez brothers, and the Unibomber; and Steven Singular, author of 'Unholy Messenger: The Life and Times of the BTK Killer'; and Wendy Murphy, a former prosecutor and author of 'And Justice for Some.' Wendy, why did it take 30 years to catch this man who lived literally doors away from one of his victims? WENDY MURPHY, FORMER PROSECUTOR: Well, I think a couple of things. One is he`s obviously smart. And the obvious. He doesn`t look like the kind of killer we are raised to believe is the dangerous guy to worry about. He wasn`t a toothless, homeless guy living in a shack by the river. He built around him the kinds of insulating lifestyles, features of his lifestyle that made everybody who knew him think, 'What a lovely man.' Between church going and a having a family that seemed normal and a lovely picket fence around his house. VELEZ-MITCHELL: He looks like a professor right there, when you`re looking at him. MURPHY: He absolutely does. But you know what the moral is? Give me a guy with honest -- a little bit of honest bad behavior any day over somebody with a little bit too much fake perfection. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Absolutely. Diane Dimond, this is just a lesson here. The lesson is, we should not have stereotyped notions in our brains of what criminals look like. DIANE DIMOND, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST/AUTHOR: Absolutely. Think about John Wayne Gacy, for example. He was a clown that entertained all the kids on the weekend. And we know he killed, oh, 30 or 33 people. When I look at Rader, what I am overwhelmed with is his ordinariness. You know, he goes to church. He goes to the Cub Scouts. He -- he`s a compliance officer for the city. He`s like -- you know, he`s like 'Father Knows Best' on the outside. But on the inside, he`s this horrible monster without even really a bad childhood to blame it on. VELEZ-MITCHELL: We`re going to get to that in a second. There`s some fascinating tidbits. New information from our author who joins us. But first, BTK`s first victims were the Otero family. He targeted the mother, Julie, and her daughter, Josephine, followed them home and tortured and killed four members of the family. Charlie Otero, then 15 years old, came home to find his parents, brother and sister all brutally murdered. Here is the BTK serial killer describing those murders. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RADER: I didn`t have a mask on or anything. They would have I.D.`d me. And I made a decision to go ahead and put them down, I guess, or strangle them. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. What did you do to Joseph Otero? RADER: Joseph Otero? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Joseph Otero Sr., the father. RADER: I put a plastic bag over his head and then some cords and tightened it. After that, I did Mrs. Otero. I had never strangled anyone before, so I really didn`t know how much pressure you had to put on a person or how long it would take. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was she also tied up there in the... RADER: Yes, both their hands and feet were tied up. She was on the bed. (END VIDEO CLIP) VELEZ-MITCHELL: He`s talking like he`s at a city council meeting. Dr. Dietz, Dennis Rader was not only the father, the church leader, and the local animal control officer, which is a fancy way of saying dog catcher, a woman once complained he put down her dog for no reason. Did you hear how he referred to putting down these victims? That is so creepy. DR. PARK DIETZ, FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST: Look, the problem here is that we expect to somehow be able to detect someone`s character or someone`s perverse sexual desires from the way they live and the way they look. And we can`t do that. Until they tell us, or show us, we`re not going to know what lies inside the mind. And this is a mistake that sucks people in again and again. They think if someone seems harmless, if they seem nice, if they`re good looking, that it`s safe. And that`s not true. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, I don`t think this guy`s good looking. But I get your point. Steven Singular, you wrote a fantastic book, 'Unholy Messenger.' And you talk about this divided life. What is it -- because most of these serial killers have these really horrible, crazy, pathetic, abusive childhoods. He didn`t seem to have that. But we do know a couple of things about his behavior toward animals, and we also know something that you learned later, which is the new information, really, about sexual orientation issues. Tell us. STEVEN SINGULAR, AUTHOR, 'UNHOLY MESSENGER': Yes, the interesting thing about what you just showed is that he didn`t have any problem going into court like that after he was caught and confessing to ten murders. But there were lots of things about his sexuality he didn`t share with us. After I was on 'ANDERSON COOPER,' after my book came out, a man in Wichita contacted me after that, a gay man who talked about when he was about 20 and Rader was about 20, they would meet down at the Wichita bus station, and Rader was a gay hustler down there. This is something that he never talked about at all. He got involved with this man. They actually went out a few times. He tied him up and beat him up and just completely scared the bejesus out of this fellow, who remembered it 30 years later, came to me and told me about all of this. So it shows this very definite split in his character. He wanted to talk about certain things, but not about others. And this was there right from the beginning. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, are you saying he was a repressed homosexual? SINGULAR: I`m saying that`s a distinct possibility. But his sexuality actually seemed to cover almost everything on the waterfront. DIETZ: That`s right. SINGULAR: I mean, he kept numerous pictures of women in his -- in his house, in his office. He cut out these little pictures for years and years. He had thousands of those. He had pictures of Barbie dolls and things like that. I think there`s a term called paraphilia, which is just being interested in everything. DIETZ: That`s how it seems... VELEZ-MITCHELL: OK. Go ahead. DIETZ: Any sexual deviation is a paraphilia. Homosexuality isn`t among them. And this guy was sexually indiscriminate in what kind of people he was interested in. But the one theme that`s shown throughout his behavior and his self report is the sadism, that he is aroused by the binding and torture of another. VELEZ-MITCHELL: And he also tortured animals as a child. We know that. And that most serial killers begin by torturing animals. Do they not, Doctor? DITZ: No, they don`t. That`s a widely believed myth. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, he did. Didn`t he? Steven Singular, you wrote about that in your book. SINGULAR: Yes. He began -- he began by looking at pictures of women on magazines where they were tied up. That was the first thing that stimulated him. Then he began making drawings of women who were tied up. Then he took dogs and cats into a barn and tied them up or used barbed wire to kill them. So it graduated from an image to a drawing to actually committing the act. And this is what carried through his whole life. He wanted to be a writer. He wanted to use the visual arts. But what was he going to write or draw about? (CROSSTALK) RADER: ... killing people... VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, the only thing he ended up were writing was notes to the cops saying, 'Come and find me.' I`m going to ask my excellent panel to stand by. More fascinating analysis of the grisly BTK serial killer case in just a moment. Then, human hunter Ted Bundy, the law school student who`s believed to have killed more than 30 women. I will tell you about this real-life Jekyll and Hyde. But first, BTK serial killer Dennis Rader`s courtroom appearances provided a very disturbing glimpse into the mind of a sick monster. Here he is, finally apologizing to his victims. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RADER: Finally, I apologize to the victims` families. There`s no way that I can ever repay them. That`s all, sir. (END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RADER: I had her lay on the bed, and I tied her feet. And then I undressed her to a certain degree. I got on top of her and I reached over. Either her feet were tied or not tied. Anyway, I think I had a belt. I took the belt and then strangled her. (END VIDEO CLIP) VELEZ-MITCHELL: Dennis Rader, the real name of the monstrous BTK serial killer, eerily explains to the courtroom exactly how he killed one of his many innocent victims. BTK terrorized the people of Wichita, Kansas, killing at least ten people and keeping that community in total fear for three long decades. The twisted killer currently serving 175 years behind bars. Not long enough. Casey Jordan, criminal profiler, what I find so astounding is that his own wife never had a clue until cops arrived at her doorstep. This as he targeted women in the community. One was a neighbor who lived just a few doors down. CASEY JORDAN, CRIMINAL PROFILER: Yes, we see this a lot, actually. And I`ve read that he had his souvenirs and the photographs and driver`s licenses of some of his victims in a file cabinet in his home that was never even locked. If she had known to even go in there. But that was the competency he had, the sort of marriage he had with his children. It looked so normal. His wife would never have any reason to suspect him of any sort of abhorrent behavior. She was so confident of that, perhaps overly confident. MURPHY: I don`t agree that this was confidence. Wait a minute. She could well have just been an idiot, all right? VELEZ-MITCHELL: Or completely controlled. MURPHY: How can you not know there were underpants under the bed. But you know what? Let`s just say when you`re married to a guy who has a lot of secrets, instead of sticking your head in the sand, how about taking a look around, asking some tough questions? You know, growing a backbone might have helped a couple people along the way. SINGULAR: And one... (CROSSTALK) VELEZ-MITCHELL: It`s a cautionary tale in so many ways, because I see lesser examples of this going on all over the place. We read these stories, we cover them all the time. Girlfriends and wives who have no idea of the double life that their own significant other is leading, Diane Dimond. SINGULAR: At one point, at one point she -- at one point his wife told him that his handwriting looked just like BTKs. They were putting his handwriting in the paper and doing all that, and she said looked at him and said, 'This is exactly like your handwriting.' But she didn`t take it any further than that. DIMOND: You know what I was going to say, Jane? Is that, to me, I look at his psychopathy, if that`s a word, and I think to myself, he probably practiced that control at home. And there was no way that wife, Wendy Murphy, was going to go around and poke around in any of his things, because that would have brought the wrath of you know what down on her head. (CROSSTALK) SINGULAR: She also read the poem that he wrote to one of his victims, one of his eventual victims. But again, she didn`t pursue it. He said, oh, it was a classroom project. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Those poems are absolutely astounding to me. This guy romanticized his crime spree and wrote these bizarre poems. JORDAN: Yes. He fancied himself a writer. And in fact, it was his pride in his writing that would eventually be his downfall. You don`t often have serial killers -- I mean, obviously son of Sam is perhaps the only other one that`s so famous -- playing that cat and mouse game with the police, sending them poems, sending them letters, basically provoking them. If he had not engaged in that sort of power control behavior, he probably would have gotten away with it. But he thought he was so smart. And you`re right, Wendy. It`s not that he was confident. It`s that he was delusional. He thought he was that smart. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now listen to this. In an extraordinary bizarre and... DIETZ (ph): He wasn`t delusional. That`s absolutely wrong. VELEZ-MITCHELL: ... creepy courtroom speech -- listen to this. This was broadcast live across the whole country. Dennis Rader, the BTK serial killer, thanked the police. You`ve got to hear this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RADER: I can`t believe the people that dealt with this. I think that society has to, even though I`m a criminal, I think you have to appreciate the police department. They`ve done a lot of work. Even though it took a long time, they gathered evidence. They had the evidence. When they got the key suspect, they zeroed in on him very rapidly. (END VIDEO CLIP) VELEZ-MITCHELL: I always worry when people refer to themselves in the third person, and now I know why. This guy is truly -- I mean, I`m left speechless. He`s -- Wendy Murphy, he`s congratulating the police on a job well done. DIETZ: This is not about the police. MURPHY: I`m sure that`s very -- you know, they`re going to put that right up on their wall next to all the other awards they get, that he thinks they did a good job. You know, can I take a slap at culture for a second? Because two things: No. 1, pornography, mainstream pornography is so violent, that when you talk about a guy who found sadism pleasurable, let`s at least talk about where that comes from in culture and slap the porn industry around a little bit. And the place I want to blame is the place like the Disney princess movies. Because look, all of the handsome princes that all the princesses end up marrying at the end look like handsome guys, nice guys living in nice homes. They mislead us to not have the skills necessary to realize that sometimes very nice people can do very bad things. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Steven Singular, I`m still not understanding the why, the deeper why. Do you have any theories as to why this particular guy turned out so twisted? SINGULAR: I was -- I grew up in a very small town in Kansas, just like Dennis Rader did, in a repressed -- somewhat repressed environment by religion, by culture, by all of those things. He`s a little older than I am. This was in the 1950s. He had a deep desire to express himself artistically. It was quashed. He had very interesting sexual desires that were not at all welcome in that environment. And they morphed into something that was dangerous and violent and horrible. But if he had -- there were kids in my hometown who were taken to the Meninger (ph) clinic when they were 10 years old, and they said, 'This kid has severe psychological problems.' Why? Because in that case he was torturing animals. And they got a hold of him and they did something with him. It may or may not helped. But everything went wrong in his case. He kept following his father`s footsteps: 'If I join the Army, all of this will go away.' That didn`t happen. 'If I just get married to a nice woman and have kids, all this will go away. If I join the church and become president, I can shove this down.' VELEZ-MITCHELL: OK. SINGULAR: I think he was a serial killer because he could not deal with himself in his own identity. VELEZ-MITCHELL: I get your idea. Good theory. Everybody, more human hunters on the way. Eileen Wuorner, career serial killer. This is a case that shattered all serial killer stereotypes. And we`ll analyze Ted Bundy, one of America`s most prolific and infamous murderers. Behind his handsome facade, a sick, sadistic killing machine. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RADER: She was already dead. So I took pictures of her in different forms of bondage. And that`s probably what got me in trouble was the bondage thing. So anyway, that`s probably the main thing. (END VIDEO CLIP) VELEZ-MITCHELL: Dennis Rader`s sick courtroom rant. Here he is talking about victim No. 7. Here`s what he said about Nancy Fox. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RADER: I confronted her, told her that I was -- had problems, sexual problems, that I would have to tie her up and have sex with her. She was a little upset. We talked for awhile. She smoked a cigarette. While she smoked a cigarette, I went through her purse, identifying some stuff. And she finally said, 'Well, let`s get this over with so I can call the police.' I handcuffed her, had her lay on the bed, and then I tied her feet. And I was also undressed to a certain degree. And then I got on top of her. And I reached over -- either -- either her feet were tied or not tied, but anyway I think I had a belt. I took a belt and then strangled her. (END VIDEO CLIP) VELEZ-MITCHELL: It`s so sick, the lack of affect as he`s explaining all this. Wendy Murphy, there were a lot of people who were upset that he got the opportunity to do all this on camera and then it was broadcast all over the country. And the victims` families are sitting there while he`s recounting this so dryly. DIETZ: And again, watching this show, they`re experiencing the same thing. You`re doing it, too. MURPHY: Yes. But you know, but here`s the difference. VELEZ-MITCHELL: I didn`t make the decision to allow the cameras in the courtroom, sir, and allow this to go out live as he said it. We`re looking at the case now several years later. But Wendy Murphy... MURPHY: And we`re criticizing that choice. That`s right. Jane, look, we`re... DIETZ: We get to keep choosing. MURPHY: ... about -- about why it`s a bad idea to give a guy like that in a sense a celebrity venue, to come out in this cold way and describe human life in such a cavalier manner. I think it`s important that we hear him. It`s important that we understand him. But then let`s put it away. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Diane, you covered a lot of cases. Do you think they should have allowed him to talk on camera? DIMOND: You bet your life I do. And I`ll tell you why. Because the FBI behavioral unit right now tells us there are 50, maybe 100 active serial killers just like that, active in America right now. If we don`t look them in the eye, if we don`t hear what they have to say, then how the hell are we going to ever identify them in the future? Because we do think that they are the toothless guy living in the van down by the river. They`re not. They`re living right next door to you. MURPHY: That`s a good point. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Hey, Casey Jordan, how do we stop this in the future? DIETZ: ... still not going to be able to identify them, because they can look like anything. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. But how do we stop the next batch, the next generation of serial killers? We see they all have serious problems, Casey Jordan. But where`s the early -- intervention? DIETZ: I know the answer to that. If you want a list, I`ll tell you. VELEZ-MITCHELL: I`ve kept -- I`ve kept calling for group therapy in public schools so that we can give kids a chance to deal with their emotions before they become psychos. DIETZ: That`s not going to fix it. You`re going to have to take away bad parents, take away bad genes, change what... SINGULAR: His parents were not -- his parents were not bad people. DIETZ: No. SINGULAR: That does not apply in this case. DIETZ: No, none of these things apply to every case. That`s exactly the point. Each serial killer is made uniquely. MURPHY: Look, we could do a better job noticing red flags... VELEZ-MITCHELL: Hang on. We`re going to continue this conversation with the next serial killer. Thank you, Steven. Excellent work. Panel, stay with me as we examine the female serial killer, Eileen Wuornos. She captivated the nation. It`s an unbelievable story that`s inspired a movie. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HLN ANCHOR: An ISSUES SPECIAL PRESENTATION: CASES THAT CHANGED AMERICA -- HUMAN HUNTERS. I`ll analyze the nation`s most infamous serial killers, to find out what caused them to become monsters. Aileen Wuornos, one of America`s only female serial killers used her past of broken home and sexual abuse and twisted it into hatred and death. Plus, jaw-dropping analysis of Ted Bundy, the handsome law student believed to have killed 35 college women. He kept souvenirs of his victims and twice escaped from prison. I`ll tell you how cops finally nabbed him for good. Suave, sicko Ted Bundy would shatter our beliefs about how a serial killer should look and act. I will have more on that demented, deceptive human hunter coming up. But first to another unlikely suspect who carried out a monstrous series of cold-blooded, calculating, vindictive murders. Aileen Wuornos was one of America`s only female serial killers. The so-called 'Damsel of Death' made a living as a hooker and would eventually confess to slaughtering seven of her Johns. She claimed it was self-defense. Listen to her chilling confession. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) AILEEN WUORNOS, FEMALE SERIAL KILLER: I killed them because they got violent with me, and I wasn`t going to let them beat the (bleep) out of me or kill me either. And I`m sure if they found out I had a weapon on me which was very easy to find because I always had it behind me where I could grab it quick, that if after the fight, they found it, they would`ve shot me. (END VIDEO CLIP) VELEZ-MITCHELL: The prostitute claimed she killed her victims before they could kill her. She was the product of a childhood filled with violence. She claimed her own grandfather sexually abused her. She was abandoned by her mother. Prosecutors at her 1992 murder trial said it was greed combined with an appetite to control men that motivated Aileen to become a murderous monster. Aileen got six death sentences and was executed by lethal injection at the age of 46. So was she a cold-blooded killer? A tragic victim? Or both? Back out to my fantastic, fiery panel: Casey Jordan, criminologist and former criminal profiler; Dr. Park Dietz, world renowned forensic psychiatrist; Wendy Murphy, a former prosecutor and a law professor and author of 'And Justice for Some;' plus, Sue Russell, a journalist and author of 'Lethal Intent: The shocking true story of one of America`s most notorious female serial killers;' and Diane Dimond, a journalist, syndicated columnist and author of 'Be Careful who You Love.' Diane, she claimed to kill in self-defense over and over and over again. She claimed to be fighting off rape. But she was a prostitute who stayed on the job night after night. Is this a perfect illustration of the twisted criminal mind, they call themselves victims while they kill? DIANE DIMOND, JOURNALIST & SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Well they -- they are both in her case specially. And you gave some of the background. Her mother abandoned her. She was raised by an alcoholic grandmother. Her father killed himself in prison. He was a child molester; she may or may not have had sexual relations with her own brother -- a tragic, tragic figure. Lots of people have bad childhoods. They don`t grow up like Aileen Wuornos. They don`t grow up and kill people. I think your term human hunter really, really does apply to her. It was like she went out night after night looking for an outlet for her anger. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now, Dr. Park Dietz, you`re a forensic psychiatrist. We`ve been talking about how to prevent this from happening again. And the conversation got fiery, because everybody has different ideas. What are your thoughts on the matter? DR. PARK DIETZ, FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST: Well, for preventing all serial killers and all other killers, we`d have to change massive numbers of things. Parenting is the number one, education to some extent. The media and the culture that surrounds our children, we`d have to change dramatically. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well... DIETZ: And we`re not prepared to do any of it. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, Wendy Murphy, listen, bad parents, you know, unfortunately there are -- we have a teen pregnancy epidemic in this country. A lot of these cases, you have mothers who are having children with absolutely no support system in the worst possible situation. Again, I think you cannot just separate out education from parenting. The way you get better parents... WENDY MURPHY, FORMER PROSECUTOR: Yes. VELEZ-MITCHELL: ...is to educate them to be better parents. But that`s nothing that we teach in the schools. We don`t teach kids how to deal with their emotions so they grow up to be mature adults. We don`t teach kids that it`s all right to have feelings that you don`t have to act on them. We don`t do any psychological teaching in the schools. And yet -- of course, the richest kids in the world can go to shrinks. MURPHY: Yes. VELEZ-MITCHELL: But the poorest kids and troubled kids they don`t get any help, and they`re the ones who sometimes grow up like this Aileen to be these monsters. MURPHY: Yes. But let`s remember that the rich kids become monsters, too. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, yes, no I`m not saying that... MURPHY: Let`s not forget that. VELEZ-MITCHELL: I was talking about that only in terms of access to therapy. That kids who are of a certain group can access to therapy. But a lot of -- the vast majority of American kids who might have problems, whether it`s the Ted Bundys or this woman, do not get necessarily access to therapy that would prevent them from... DIETZ: Well, we don`t know that therapy can prevent any of this. MURPHY: Yes, fair enough, fair enough. But you and Dr. Dietz -- you and Dr. Dietz come to some agreement about the fact that there are all kinds of things we could be doing better. Therapy is a big one. And I`m on board with you. I think it could help an awful lot of people figure out their bad feelings rather than just explode inside, which then sometimes becomes explosions outwardly, murder and other kinds of bad behavior. But look, while we`re fixing all those other things, we need to be clear that no matter how you came to be a monster, you can`t use the Twinkie defense, the abuse excuse or any other cockamamie explanation for why you hurt someone else. You want to live in a free society? You want to walk around without leg chains? Don`t hurt someone else, period. End of discussion. There is no excuse for this behavior. VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right, in less than a year in the late 1980`s the bodies of several men found along the highways of central and northern Florida. Listen to Aileen Wuornos finally coming clean about the real reason she murdered them. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) WUORNOS: I killed those men, I robbed them and I killed them as cold as ice. And I would do it again, too. I know I would kill another person because I`ve hated humans for a long time. And I want to come clean with God, tell the truth and go on with the execution because there`s no sense in keeping me alive. I`m very sorry for the family members, what happened to your husbands and what will happen to me in the execution chamber will be justifiable. (END VIDEO CLIP) VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, Sue Russell, you wrote a book on this case. Doesn`t this hatred of humanity go back to her tortured childhood? Her father was a child molester she never met. Her mother abandoned her. She accused her grandfather of molesting her. She got pregnant at 14 and gave the baby up for adoption. I mean, this childhood hell is a prescription for serial killing disaster, you might say. SUE RUSSELL, JOURNALIST & AUTHOR, 'LETHAL INTENT': Well yes it is. But certainly many children have worse abuse than Aileen did, and don`t go on to become serial killers. There`s still that X Factor. VELEZ-MITCHELL: What is the X-Factor? RUSSELL: Well, I just like to correct you on one thing... VELEZ-MITCHELL: Sure. RUSSELL: ...because it`s very upsetting... VELEZ-MITCHELL: Ok. RUSSELL: ...for the victims` families. And of course, these men were victims and their families were victims. And they were not all Johns or at least we don`t know that they were. If they wore condoms, if there was nudity, yes, we can assume they were Johns. But she also had an M.O. of flagging down drivers on the highway saying, my kids are in a motel. She had a fake photograph of her family. 'They need food. Can you give me a ride to them?' So she had various ways of getting into men`s cars. VELEZ-MITCHELL: And I appreciate you making that distinction. It`s a very important distinction. And you`re right. It`s kind of urban myth while they were all Johns while some of them were determined to be others were not necessarily. Casey Jordan, though, when you hear about her past... CASEY JORDAN, CRIMINOLOGIST, FORMER CRIMINAL PROFILER: Yes. VELEZ-MITCHELL: What do you think in terms of, obviously, as you just heard from the author, not everybody with a hellish childhood grows up to be a serial killer. But what is this X-Factor? JORDAN: Well, the X-Factor is just the unknown. But I have to say, her hellish childhood was a tremendous factor in her turning out the way she did. Many people like to point out that the first victim had served nine years in prison for attempted rape. And there are really not many people who dispute the idea that in the first incident she was horribly abused. And many people would also argue the first murder was different from the rest. The first one in her mind probably was self-defense. But she liked it. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. JORDAN: She finally had gotten back at her attacker and she blossomed into somebody who not just had killed a man, but actually didn`t feel any remorse about it. Maybe even felt good. And that might explain why it continued. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes and once you feel... DIETZ: The X-Factor is psychopathy, this woman is a psychopath, and shares that in common with many other killers and serial killers. And the best thing we can learn from this case is that women can be psychopaths, too. Only one quarter as many are, but they are all around and we tend to ignore it. VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right, a very good point. We have to move on. Thank you, Sue, for joining us with your insights. Up next, perhaps the most infamous serial killer of all, Ted Bundy, suspected of killing 35 college women. I`ll tell you how he escaped from prison, twice. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ROBERT KEPPEL, BUNDY LEAD DETECTIVE: I think he was born to kill. I don`t know if it was a bad seed or what, but boy, he`s just totally consumed with murder. (END VIDEO CLIP) VELEZ-MITCHELL: Ted Bundy: handsome, educated and a psychopath. The suave sicko shattered our beliefs about how a serial killer should look and act. Take a look at him. He confessed to the brutal murders of more than 30 young college women in a diabolical four-year rampage across America. Bundy would carefully select his victims and then stalk, bludgeon, rape and strangle them to death. Nobody knows exactly where and when Bundy began killing. The why? It chills the soul. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TED BUNDY, SERIAL KILLER: I was ok, I was. The basic humanity, the basic spirit that God gave me was entrapped, unfortunately I had been overwhelmed at times. (END VIDEO CLIP) VELEZ-MITCHELL: Bundy finally caught in February 1978 after a frenzied killing spree in a Florida State University dorm. He turned the sorority house into his own personal house of horrors, killing two young co-eds and seriously wounding two others. Bundy was sentenced to death in 1979. He died strapped to Florida`s electric chair in 1989. Some estimate he could have many more victims. But only Bundy knew for sure and a secret he carried to his grave. Look at him smiling there. What a sicko. Straight back to my amazing, expert panel. Also joining us, Stephen Michaud, the author of 'The Only Living Witness: The true story of serial sex killer Ted Bundy.' Steven spent hours interviewing Ted Bundy just before he went to the electric chair. We`re going to get to him in a moment. But first up, former prosecutor, Wendy Murphy -- Wendy, how was it that he was able to continue his reign of terror for several years killing women from Seattle all the way to Florida and in between, escaping from jail twice, and he couldn`t be stopped sooner? WENDY MURPHY, FORMER PROSECUTOR: You know, again, I`m going to go back to the point I made about how we`re raised to look at guys like that and say, 'Well, he couldn`t be the one. People who look like that don`t kill.' Remember what I said about the Disney movies and the nice 'Prince Charmings' at the end. He looks like all of them. How do you look at a guy like that and think he could be killing people. It makes -- you`d think -- he could be your neighbor, your son, your cousin, your brother. It`s hard to get your head around the idea that someone who looks like someone close to you could be doing brutal things. (CROSS TALK) DIMOND: And you know what, Jane, these guys are really charming. They are so charming they`ll charm your socks off, as my mother used to say. And he was polite. He had nice manners and he would look at these girls and they would just melt. That`s how he got away with it. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Dr. Dietz? DIETZ: I`ve been teaching for years that everyone ought to be careful before they give their money or their bodies to people who have a lot of charm. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Interesting. Reminds me of high school where the ones that the parents always thought were the goody two shoes were really the worst kids. And they had that sort of Eddie Haskell manner. DIETZ: That`s right. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Bundy showed no remorse for his unbelievably vicious and sadistic attacks on women. Here`s what Bundy himself said in a jailhouse interview. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there remorse there? BUNDY: Again, I know that people will think but we`re beyond that now. I`m just telling you how I feel. I have been able to come to the point where I -- much too late, better late than never, feel that I`m responsible for it. (END VIDEO CLIP) VELEZ-MITCHELL: The author on the book of the subject, Stephen Michaud, with us today. You looked into his eyes. You interviewed him. You know, we know he didn`t target men; his prey exclusively women. What have you learned about why he hated women, why he carried on this murderous campaign against them? Stephen? STEPHEN MICHAUD, AUTHOR, 'THE ONLY LIVING WITNESS': Yes? VELEZ-MITCHELL: Why did he do it? MICHAUD: Why did he do it? Because it was fun and because he wanted, as he told me, to possess these girls. As Ted said, as you would possess a potted plant or a Porsche. His idea of fun was the dead or lifeless body of one of his victims, in a nice, quiet place and a lot of time to do as he said anything he wanted to, to them. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Let`s get back to the childhood. MICHAUD: Right. VELEZ-MITCHELL: He had a very tormented childhood in the sense that he was born in a home for unwed mothers. His mother said that she was his sister. So he grew up thinking his mother was his sister. He grew up apparently, according to some reports, thinking that his grandparents were his parents. Casey Jordan, that`s enough to make you a little squirrelly. JORDAN: Yes, and I`ve got to say, he didn`t find out that his older sister was actually his mother until high school. And a lot has been made of that in his early childhood behavior. But I have to remind people, a lot of kids born of that era who were the product of young mothers or unwed mothers were raised in the same situation. And they didn`t turn out to be serial killers. DIMOND: It happened to actor Jack Nicholson and he didn`t grow up to kill people. JORDAN: Absolutely. And Ted Bundy pretty much always argued he was hard- wired wrong. In that very interview that you just showed with him, he`s getting a little teary-eyed and basically faking emotion that he`s -- watch out for pornography. Yet a moment later he`s asked about his last victim only 12 years old, and he shoots that interviewer a look that you can see straight into his eyes and it looks like Satan. VELEZ-MITCHELL: To many, Bundy, of course was the opposite -- as we`ve been discussing -- of what we imagine a serial killer to be. He was handsome, he was suave, he was educated, he was charming. He was a law student. Was that a factor in being able to get away with this killing spree for so long? Consider that as you watch more of his jailhouse interview. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you deserve the punishment the state has inflicted upon you? BUNDY: That`s a very good question. I`ll answer it very honestly. I don`t want to die. I`m not going to kid you. I kid you not. I deserve certainly the most extreme punishment society has. And I deserve particularly for me. (END VIDEO CLIP) VELEZ-MITCHELL: Critics say, Diane Dimond, the killing spree could have been stopped sooner, but the FBI got the profile wrong. We all have this stereo typical notion -- I don`t -- but I mean, I think a lot of us do, and maybe I do, too, of what a criminal should look like. It`s sort of disturbing to hear that the FBI is suffering from the same misconception. DIMOND: Well, but let`s remember, this was 1979. 1979 to 2009, they`ve taken great strides in profiling. And identifying traits that can blossom into -- I`m being very careful -- blossom into a serial killer`s life. DIETZ: Profiling was in its infancy then. Something that Bundy has said that we can learn from that`s true of BTK, too, is Bundy attributes his early sexual arousal pattern to detective magazines showing sexy women who were bound. BTK says the same thing. BTK says the same thing. Roy Hazelwood -- Bruce Harry (ph) and I wrote an article on this in the `80s about a number of serial killers who started by using those magazines as their source of fantasy material. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Porn. MURPHY: You`re describing basically porn. That`s not detective magazines, porn. (CROSS TALK) VELEZ-MITCHELL: Hang on, hang on. We`re going to get back to it; more on Ted Bundy, the porn, the man who killed dozens of women in the `70s. Here`s one lucky woman who escaped, thank God. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KAREN CHANDLER, BUNDY ATTACK SURVIVOR: It happened ten years ago. My life is totally different from the girl that lived in the sorority house and was attacked. And so it`s hard to really think terrible things about that. It`s almost like it happened to another person in some ways. (END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ELEANOR ROSE, MOTHER OF BUNDY VICTIM: Ted Bundy took that away from me. (END VIDEO CLIP) VELEZ-MITCHELL: This is the mother of one of Ted Bundy`s victims. How horrifying, multiply that many, many times. He destroyed not just the lives of the estimated 30 young women he confessed to killing, but he also left many dozens of devastated, destroyed families in his wake. I am back with my fantastic panel. You know one of the sickest aspects of this case, Ted Bundy got married while he was being prosecuted and he also got thousands of fan letters from women after he was convicted while he was on death row? That, to me, is totally 100 percent sick. Stephen Michaud, you actually interviewed him. We were talking about this history of porn. What do you know? MICHAUD: Well, Ted used porn to ratify what was already going on in his head. Bundy had these ideas from a very early age. And he progressed through steps to becoming a serial killer. He was self-taught. I think the lesson -- the take-home lesson with Ted is that he discovered fairly soon how easy it is to be a serial killer. And he kept coming back to the subject with me saying that given his level of success, he was sure that there were dozens, hundreds, thousands more like him who simply don`t get detected. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Casey Jordan, it just seems when I review this case that he just was on a rampage. And he escaped from jail twice. Nobody was able to stop him. Why is it that he was so -- I mean, it was one woman a month at one point? JORDAN: Right. He was smart. He moved around. He was in Utah, he was in Washington, he was in Colorado, he was in Florida. And don`t forget in the 1970s, we did not have the DNA technology that we have today. Today those crimes would have been linked very quickly. And you would have been able to at least map out the progression. But I mean -- When he was in the Colorado jail, he dieted down so he could fit through the heating duct and escape. This guy really -- I mean, he knew what he was in for if he got caught. He was just determined to get away with it as long as he could. VELEZ-MITCHELL: Wendy Murphy, final thoughts. We`ve only got a few seconds. What can we learn? MURPHY: You know, look, he got so many love letters while he was in prison. We know that probably the daughters of those women are now writing love letters to Scott Peterson. I hope the one thing we learn is that sometimes too good to be true really is. VELEZ-MITCHELL: It is. Thanks to my fabulous panel for joining me tonight. You are watching ISSUES on HLN. END
ANDERSON COOPER 360 DEGREES
Serial Killer Next Door
Aired June 27, 2005 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everyone. Tonight, a serial killer speaks, and what he says is terrifying. A special edition of 360 starts now. Confessions of the BTK killer. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DENNIS RADER, CONFESSED BTK KILLER: And I came to the back door, cut the phone lines. (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: In his own words, Dennis Rader reveals how he chose his victims, how he killed them, and why. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RADER: I went back and strangled her again. It finally killed her. (END VIDEO CLIP) ANNOUNCER: Live from the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is a special edition of ANDERSON COOPER 360, 'BTK: The Serial Killer Next Door.' COOPER: Thanks for joining us this evening. You and I, all of us, have seen a lot in this day and age. We've seen war and terrible crime, shocking brutality, but rarely do we get the chance to see evil up close, right in front of our faces, to hear evil with our own ears. Today we did, and tonight so will you. We're going to spend the next hour tonight watching, listening, and hopefully learning. Dennis Rader, the BTK killer, stood up in a nondescript Kansas courtroom today and confessed his crimes, beginning in 1974 -- crimes which for more than some 20 years gripped the Wichita area. Ten victims, 10 lives later, the killings finally stopped in 1991. BTK stands for 'Bind, Torture, Kill'. We all know that. We all know a lot about the killings, about how he killed his victims. But today we learned and tonight we want you to hear this man speak, to hear how he evolved and changed, how he picked his victims, sometimes even at random, and how he talked to them before killing them. Look, we've all seen serial killers in movies and TV, but this is real -- not a boogie man jumping out of the shadows. Take a look at this guy. Dennis Rader was your neighbor, a Boy Scout leader, a 60- year-old church-going family man who raised two kids while he was trolling and stalking and murdering his victims. In truth, what we've heard today perhaps for the first time is the verbal diary of a serial killer. Now we want to warn you, what you're about to hear in this hour may be disturbing. Dennis Rader began today describing his first frenzied attack, four members of the Otero family in 1974. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JUDGE GREGORY WALLER, SEDGWICK COUNTY DISTRICT COURT: Did you know these people? RADER: No, that's -- no, that was part of my -- I guess my, what you call, fantasy. These people were selected. WALLER: You were engaged in some kind of fantasy during this period of time? RADER: Yes, sir. WALLER: All right. Now, when you use the term fantasy, is this something you were doing for your personal pleasure? RADER: Sexual fantasy, sir. Mr. Otero was strangled, a bag put over his head and strangled. Then I thought he was going down. And I went over and strangled Mrs. Otero, and I thought she was down. Then I strangled Josephine, thought she was down. And then I went over to Junior and put the bag on his head. After that, Mrs. Otero woke back up and, you know, she was pretty upset -- what was going on? So I came back, and at that point in time I strangled her with a death strangle at that time. WALLER: With your hands or what? RADER: No, with a cord. With a rope. No. WALLER: You indicated this woman lived down the street from you. Did she know you? RADER: Casually. We'd walk by and wave. She liked to work in her yard, as well as I like to work -- it's just a neighborly-type thing. It wasn't anything personal. I mean, just a neighbor. WALLER: All right. So she was in her bed when you turned on the lights in the bathroom? RADER: Yeah, bathroom. Yes, so I could get some light in there. WALLER: All right. What did you do then? RADER: Oh, I manually strangled her when she started to scream. WALLER: So you used your hands? RADER: Yes, sir. WALLER: And you strangled her. Did she die? RADER: Yes. WALLER: All right. What did you do then? RADER: After that, since I was in the sexual fantasy, I went ahead and stripped her and probably went ahead and -- I'm not sure if I tied her up at that point in time. But, anyway, she was nude and I put her on a blanket, went through her purse, some personal items in the house, figured out how I was going to get her out of there. Eventually moved her to the trunk of the car. Took the car over to Christ Lutheran Church, this was the older church, and I took some pictures of her. (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: He took some pictures of her. Did you hear how he was saying he put them down? He didn't even say kill. He was an animal control officer, we point out. Of course that's the term used for killing animals. He was talking about his eighth victim there, the last, one of his neighbors, Marine Hedge; 1985 is when he killed her. That's her picture. There are a lot of questions to answer tonight. Why did he stop in 1991? Why did he recently re-contact the media and police? Here is what we're going to do over the course of this hour. We're going to speak to a lot of criminal experts, people who have studied this case, and we're going to go through each murder and literally see this man's methods evolve. Court TV correspondent Jean Casarez was in the courtroom today. She joins us live from Wichita. Jean, he seemed calm on television. What did he seem like in person? JEAN CASAREZ, COURT TV: Well, he was very calm in the courtroom -- really not having any emotion as he was speaking and talking, admitting all of this. However, his hands were at the back, clinched behind him, and his left hand kept moving and pulsating over and over and over as he was saying all of this. Even to the point where he took his right hand to go get a sip of water, the left hand kept throbbing in the back. Now, I can't tell you why. Either excitement or nervousness, I'm not sure, but obviously there was a reaction within him to admit all of this. COOPER: I talked to one of the family members who was in the courtroom. We're going to play that interview a little bit later in our hour. But, I mean, there were a lot of them there. How did they react? CASAREZ: Oh, the family members, they were hearing some of this for the very first time because, remember, the only person that knows exactly what happened was Dennis Rader himself, and he did this alone, and the victims died. They were in the courtroom and they started to cry. They started to shake. There were other family members that had to put their arms around them so they wouldn't collapse. Finally they just lowered their heads. They couldn't even look at him anymore. But all listened and all learned something new, the final moments of their own family members before they died. COOPER: Well, I sat listening to this thing and kept thinking about his wife and his two kids. I mean, he was married for 34 years. He has two grown children. Were any of them in the courtroom? CASAREZ: We don't believe so. If they were, it was anonymous. They were -- we did not hear about them. We understand the children have visited him in jail. The wife has not. She's even contemplating divorce. He said that himself through a tape via the local television station last week. COOPER: Jean Casarez with Court TV, appreciate you joining us. Thanks very much, Jean. Dennis Rader's first killings were four members of the Otero family. The year was 1974. Rick Sanchez has been looking into the case. He's here with a preview of what we're going to hear after the break. Rick. RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're going to see how exactly it began with the Otero's. And it's interesting because this is a working family -- a wife, a husband, two kids. And from the very beginning on that day, mistakes occurred that led to the evolution of a serial killer. It's really, you know, a bit of an incredible journey to see how he manifested with not only this killing but others as they came through. And you're going to hear all this, Anderson, as you've been saying throughout the show, in the serial killer's own words. COOPER: Yes. SANCHEZ: Which makes it so different. COOPER: And also it's how he delivered those words. I mean, just unemotional. And it's like he's reading a laundry list. You don't realize that, of course, he's talking about murdering human beings. SANCHEZ: Almost as if he's teaching a class. COOPER: Yes, very strange. Rick will have that report in just a moment. Also, still to come in this special edition of 360, a victim's child who was there when his mother was murdered. He saw it all happen. He sat in the courtroom today during the confession. We speak one-on-one with him. Plus, eerie compassion, then murder. How Dennis Rader's testimony today revealed some real clues about the mind of a serial killer. We'll talk to some experts about that. We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RADER: Well, after that, I did Mrs. Otero. Had never strangled anyone before, so I really didn't know how much pressure you had to put on a person or how long it would take. (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: Unbelievable to hear this man talk. We heard there, when he confessed to the killing of the Oteros earlier today, BTK killer Dennis Rader, he spoke about his first killings nearly 31 and a half years ago. He admitted a lack of experience, saying he didn't really know how to strangle someone. He didn't know how much pressure it would take. In reality, that means that his victims were strangled not once, but twice, prolonging the horror that finally ended their lives. Tonight, as we go case by case through the BTK killings and hear this man confess in his own words, CNN's Rick Sanchez reports on Rader's first gruesome murders. And we warn you, the details are grisly. (BEGIN VIDEO TAPE) RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): Dennis Rader sounding as if he's reading a grocery list rather than describing a murder. WALLER: Can you tell me where you went to kill Mr. Joseph Otero? DENNIS RADER: I think it was 1834 Edgemoor. SANCHEZ (voice-over): The Otero family, his first victim. As part of his plea deal with the court, the serial killer had to reveal every detail of his gruesome odyssey. Co-worker Julie Otero was chosen as his first target. But after getting in her home, he realized she wasn't alone. Julie's 38-year-old husband and two of her children, 11-year-old Josephine and nine-year- old Joseph Jr. were also there. Rader says he tied them up, making them believe they would only be robbed. Then, to cover his tracks, he killed each and every one of them. RADER: There I realized that, you know, I was already -- I didn't have a mask on or anything, they already could ID me. I made a decision to go ahead and put them down. SANCHEZ (voice-over): Put them down -- language commonly used for disposing of an animal. In fact, Rader's municipal job description included animal control. Here is how he describes the Otero murders. Remember, the mother, Julie Otero, was the target. Her husband, son, and daughter just got in the way. RADER: First of all, Mr. Otero was strangled -- or a bag put over his head and strangled. And then I thought he was going down. Then I went over and strangled Mrs. Otero, and I thought she was down. Then I strangled Josephine. Thought she was down. And then I went over to Junior and put the bag on his head. SANCHEZ (voice-over): However, Julie Otero, according to Rader, then suddenly woke back up. RADER: She was pretty upset, what was going on. So I came back, and at that point in time, strangled her with a death strangle at that time. WALLER: With your hands or what? RADER: No, with a cord. SANCHEZ (voice-over): Only the killer himself could have known the next detail. Julie Otero had one request. She asked that her children be spared. Instead, Rader finished them off and reserved an especially gruesome act for the little girl. Eleven-year-old Josephine was dragged to the basement and hung off a sewer pipe. WALLER: You hung her in the basement? RADER: Yes, sir. WALLER: Did you do anything else at that time? RADER: Yes. I had some sexual fantasies, but that was after she was hung. SANCHEZ (vice-over): After hearing what amounts to a confession from the BTK killer, we decided that we would make a comparison. We found this tape. It contains an interview with a family member -- in fact, the family member who was first to arrive at the scene. CHARLIE OTERO, FAMILY KILLED BY BTK: When I stepped inside the house, I just got this feeling, you know, probably -- I probably smelled the death before I realized what I was smelling. SANCHEZ (voice-over): Three of the children were spared. They were at school that day. Imagine, like any other day, what it was like for 15-year-old Charlie. OTERO: I saw a horrible sight. It was like out of a -- some horror movie. My brother and my sister were there, holding my parents, crying. The room smelled of death and fear. And my parents were laying -- one was on the bed, the other was on the floor. They were tied up. My father's tongue was half bit off. His eyes were bulging. Man, it was -- it was rough. (END VIDEOTAPE) SANCHEZ: Rough, indeed. In fact, it's amazing, as you listen, how he described himself and his actions as that of a vintage serial killer -- at one point actually turning to the court and saying the following. Listen to this. If you've read much about serial killers, they go through what they call different phases, he says. In the trolling stage, basically, you're looking for a victim. At that time, you can be trolling for months, for years. But once you lock into a certain person, you become a stalker. There may be many of them, but you really hone in on one person, he says. Now Mrs. Otero was the first stalking victim. It was with her family and in her case that he learned the example, as you had mentioned earlier, how to perfect the art of strangling. COOPER: And he was frenzied, really, in that first one. And there was a lot of chaos. He did not know how to control it. But he did refine his methods, if you can use that term, over the years. SANCHEZ: So much so that he eventually developed something called a hit kit that he would take with him to some of the other crimes. And the hit kit was what eventually would lead him to make sure that he was always covering his bases, so to speak. And we're going to get more into that. We're preparing a report on that as well for you. COOPER: All right. We'll have that in a few minutes. Rick Sanchez, thanks very much for that. Two-and-a-half months after the Otero murder, the BTK killer struck again. Dennis Rader had more to do. We're going to talk about that and more coming up. Now let's go to Erica Hill from HEADLINE NEWS with a look at the day's other top stories. Hey, Erica. ERICA HILL, HEADLINE NEWS: Hey, Anderson. We start off in Washington. The Supreme Court calling it a term, while none of the justices, though, is calling it quits. Despite much speculation, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who had thyroid cancer, made no mention today of leaving as the court issued its last rulings of this session. Those rulings included split decisions on displaying the Ten Commandments. The justices said a monument outside the Texas capitol was OK, but displays inside two Kentucky courthouses violated the separation between church and state. Off the Florida Panhandle, another shark attack. A teenage boy is in stable condition tonight after being bitten by a shark in Cape San Blas. That's about 95 miles southeast of Miramar Beach where a teenage girl was killed in a shark attack on Saturday. In this latest attack, the boy was fishing on a sand bar. He was about 60 yards from shore. In London, Iraq's prime minister says within two years his government will be able to establish security within its border. His comment came at a joint news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. And finally to Nashville, Tennessee, where the winner is CMT. Next year, the Miss America Pageant will be broadcast on the country music cable channel. It plans to give the pageant a reality TV feel. ABC dropped the pageant last year due to low ratings. So that's where you can tune in next year, Anderson. COOPER: A reality TV feel? What does that mean? They're going to like eat bugs or something? HILL: If you're lucky, maybe, yes. COOPER: All right, Erica Hill, thanks very much. As long as they look good while doing that, that's all that matters -- with poise. Thanks. 360 viewers, don't forget. For free you can watch video of some of the day's story on our website, CNN.com. Just click on the video link. Still to come on this special edition of 360, the victim who survived. Dennis Rader gave him some toys and locked him in a bathroom before he went to kill his mother, and he saw it all happen. Today Steve Relford was in court to listen to Rader's testimony. His reaction coming up in my one-on-one interview. Also tonight, what Rader took with him from murder to murder. You just heard Rick Sanchez talking about the hit kit. We're going to tell you about what was in it and how he used it a little bit later. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RADER: If you read much about serial killers, they go through what they call the different phases. That's one of the phases they go through, is a trolling stage. You're -- basically you're looking for a victim at that time. And that -- you could be trolling for months or years. But once you lock in on a certain person, you become a stalker. And that might be several of them, but you really hone in on that person. They basically become the -- that's the victim. (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: An expert we talked to earlier today said you look at that sound bite and you see the -- that is a sociopath talking. He's talking like he's a college professor. He's talking about himself there, though. You'd never know it by the way he's talking. How a serial killer operates. We'll examine the mind of Dennis Rader ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RADER: I really can't remember, Judge, whether I had her tied up or she tied him up. But, anyway, I moved -- basically I moved her to another bedroom and he was already secure there by the bed. I tied his feet to the bed post, one of the bed posts, so he couldn't run. I kind of tied her in the other bedroom, and then I came back to strangle him. (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: Well, for one victim, no doubt, it was the most horrifying moment in his life. He survived. The other victim he's talking about did not. Yet today as Dennis Rader described these gruesome acts, he seemed numb. He didn't even remember key details. Tonight, we chronicle the BTK killing spree. He killed four people in his first attack, but two-and-a-half months later, this woman, victim number five, 21-year-old Kathryn Bright. His confession about Kathryn's murder would reveal so much about his method of selecting his victims and the problems in some of his plans. Again, we warn you, the following storing is disturbing. Once again, here's CNN's Rick Sanchez. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) SANCHEZ: From the start, Dennis Rader was workman-like. He didn't have victims, he had projects. RADER: And I had many -- what I called them projects. They were different people in the town that I followed, watched. Kathryn Bright was one of the next targets. SANCHEZ: That was Rader's chilling description of how he made his choices. RADER: Stalking and trolling. You go through the trolling stage, and then a stalking stage. She was in the stalking stage when this happened. SANCHEZ: She was Rader's fifth victim, 21-year-old Kathryn Bright, a worker at the Coleman Camping Factory, the same factory Rader left just a year before the murder. WALLER: How did you select her? RADER: Just driving by one day and I saw her go in the house with somebody else and I thought, that's a possibility. CASEY JORDAN, CRIMINOLOGIST: It is very typical that many serial killers start with a fantasy, then they take that fantasy and they start to act on it in minor ways by stalking, walking around, casing a joint, watching women through their windows, perhaps. And then it will actually proceed where the fantasy and the stalking is not enough. SANCHEZ: Rader broke into Kathryn's home and waited hours until she returned. To his surprise, she did not return alone. RADER: She and Kevin Bright came in. I wasn't expecting him to be there. SANCHEZ: Kevin was Kathryn's brother -- in Rader's mind, another witness. By now, he was prepared to put down, as he called it, anyone who got in his way. But his first attempt at killing Kevin Bright failed. RADER: I went back to the other bedroom where Kevin was at and I tried to restrangle him at that time and he jumped up. I went back to finish the job on Kathryn, and she was fighting. SANCHEZ: Though he was strangled and shot, somehow Kevin survived and escaped. And Dennis Rader learned a lesson -- he'd never again take on a project without his hit kit. RADER: If I had brought my stuff and used my stuff, Kevin would probably be dead today. I'm not bragging on that, it's just a matter of fact. It's the bonds I tied him up with that he broke them. SANCHEZ: The BTK hit kit? A briefcase containing ropes, plastic bags, and all the tools necessary to ply his deadly trade. JORDAN: When Dennis Rader talks about his hit kits and his hit clothes, what he's trying to do, again, is convince you that he's extremely intelligent. It's really -- if you could just see the subtext of what he's really saying is, he's saying, look at how smart I am. Look at how well organized I am. Look at how successful I was. I thought this out and that's why I got away with it for a very long time. SANCHEZ: Rick Sanchez, CNN, New York. (END VIDEOTAPE) COOPER: Well, as Casey just said, we're watching really something extraordinary tonight, the evolution of a serial killer. In his own words, Dennis Rader describing how he moved and evolved, his methods of murder. It's a window into his mind that's really fascinating and chilling, of course. It's something my next guest knows much about. Dr. Park Dietz is a forensic psychiatrist who analyzes serial killers. He's interviewed Jeffrey Dahmer and he joins us now from Irvine, California. Dr. Dietz, thank you very much for being with us. As you have heard his testimony, what have we learned so far about Rader's first stalkings and killings? Is this a typical evolution of a serial killer? PARK DIETZ, FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST: Well, he's a little bungling at the beginning. He hasn't really planned well in these first attacks, how to make sure there isn't a man present. And we see this theme carry on later because it's very hard for him to take control of multiple victims, especially a male. What's most notable about what he's been saying about his crimes is what he omits. He doesn't tell us much about the sex. That's the part he's ashamed of. COOPER: And how much of this does involve sex? I mean, how much of this is out of a sexually perverted desire? DIETZ: The motivation for these crimes is purely out of a perverted desire, but that's the part that he doesn't want to say too much about. It's much easier for him to talk about killing and call it a hit kit than to admit that it's a rape kit and it's about a particular, very specific perverted form of rape. COOPER: So why is that? I mean, why does the murder not embarrass him whereas -- I mean, is it a question of being embarrassed by the sexual act? DIETZ: Well, it's shame. American men are allowed to be violent and they're not allowed to be perverted. And so for him, it's much easier to admit to putting people down than it is to wanting women screaming and helpless. COOPER: It's fascinating, I hadn't thought of that, that you pointed out that he calls it a hit kit when really it is -- it's a rape kit is what it really boiled down to. Dr. Dietz, I know you're going to continue to joining us throughout this hour. We're going to talk to you a lot ahead. I appreciate you joining us tonight. A fascinating perspective. Also ahead tonight, the evolution of a sociopath, how Dennis Rader changed his methods, if not his madness. Also ahead, there was one man in the courtroom today who remembers Dennis Rader all too well, this man. Rader killed his mother. He was just five years old when it happened. He witnessed it all. We're going to talk with him ahead. A BTK survivor. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) COOPER: The 'Serial Killer Next Door'. We're talking about Dennis Rader and his extraordinary testimony today, confessing to 10 crimes over the course of 20 years. The confession and evolution of the BTK serial killer is what we're focusing on in this hour. Today, we're going to share with you the verbal diary, if you will, of a monster. But we want to warn you, what you're about to hear is gruesome. This morning, this man, Dennis Rader, calmly and in horrific detail, told a Kansas court how he murdered 10 people, including two kids. For over two decades, the former Boy Scout troop leader terrorized the Wichita, Kansas, area. When you look at it, he was a Boy Scout leader, he was a church leader, he had a wife, he had two grown children. None of them knew. He showed little emotion in the courtroom today. He's 60 years old, and he recounted his grisly crimes as if he was reading off a laundry list. He talked about how he would stalk his victims, he said also go trolling for them, and then murder them. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RADER: Just before -- Vian was -- actually, on that one, she was completely random. There was actually someone across from Dillon's was a potential target. It was called Project Green, I think. I had project numbers assigned to it. And that particular day, I drove to Dillon's park, parked in the parking lot, watched this particular residence, and then got out of the car and walked over to -- it's probably in the police report, the address. I don't know the address now. Knocked, nobody -- nobody answered it. So I was all keyed up, so I just started going through the neighborhood. I'd been to the neighborhood before. I kind of knew a little of the layout of the neighborhood. I'd been through the back alleys, knew where certain people lived. (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: Well, he was talking about his sixth victim, Shirley Vian. First, he killed, remember, four members of the Otero family, then Kathryn Bright. Victim number six was Shirley Vian. I want to show you her picture. If you can, put it up there. Today, Rader said, as you just heard, that he was wasn't stalking her. It was completely random. He went to someone else's house, they weren't there. He saw one of her kids enter the house and followed the kid in. We can only imagine what Shirley Vian was thinking when she suddenly -- she was home, sick. Suddenly this guy shows up in her house, and this is what Rader said to her. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RADER: I told Mrs. -- Ms. Vian that I had a problem with sexual fantasies, that I was going to tie her up, and that I might have to tie the kids up, and if she would cooperate with us -- cooperate with me at that time. We went back. She was extremely nervous. I think she even smoked a cigarette. And we went back to one of the back areas of the porch, explained to her that I had done this before. (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: You notice a lot in this next half hour, he allows them to smoke cigarettes. He tries to calm them, and then all of a sudden he kills them. After tying Shirley Vian up, Rader strangled her, and he did it while her kids were screaming in a locked bathroom. Today, one of those kids, Steve Relford, was in court to hear the confession, and he says he's certain Rader looked right into his eyes. Steve Relford joined me earlier from Wichita. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) COOPER: Do you remember him coming into your house? What happened? STEVE RELFORD, SHIRLEY VIAN'S SON: I remember him stopping me on the street. Asking me, did I know who the picture was? I told him, no. He went to my next door neighbor's. Saw where I went. He knocked on the door. Nobody answered. About five, 10 minutes later, he comes to my house. Knocked on the door. Me and my brother rushed to the door. I answered the door. Asked me, were my parents home? I told him, yeah, my mom, she's sick in bed. So he proceeded to come on in. Started pulling down blinds and turned off the TV, and pulled out a gun. About that time, my mom came to the bedroom door. COOPER: He says -- today he said it was a Magnum, a .357 Magnum. He said he told your mom that he had problems with sexual fantasies, and then he told you all to go back into the bedroom. I want to just play a portion of what he said today. Let's play that. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RADER: We went back to the -- her bedroom, and I proceeded to tie the kids up. They started crying and got real upset. So I said, no, this is not going to work. So we moved them to the bathroom. She helped me. And then I tied the door shut. We put some toys and blankets and odds and ends in there for the kids, to make them as comfortable as we could. We tied one of the bathroom doors shut so they couldn't open it, and then we shut -- she went back and helped me shove the bed up against the other bathroom door. (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: You were locked in the bathroom. Could you see what was happening? RELFORD: Yeah. I looked over the door, in the crack. Seen my momma being stripped, taped, plastic bag over her head, rope tied around her neck. COOPER: But you know there was nothing you could have done, right? I mean, you know, he had a gun, you were a little kid. RELFORD: I don't care. I could have opened the door. COOPER: You mean you still -- you still feel guilty about it? RELFORD: Every day of my life. COOPER: You were just a kid, Steve. RELFORD: I don't care. I'd opened the door. COOPER: One of the most disturbing moments of the testimony today was the way that this man described treating your mom. At one point, he sounded kind almost, and then the next second, completely evil. I just want to play this one last bite. Let's listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RADER: I proceeded to tie her up. She got sick, threw up. I got her a glass of water, comforted her a little bit, and then I went ahead and tied her up, and then put a bag over her head and strangled her. (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: You know, a lot of people use that word 'closure.' I think it's a pretty stupid word. I don't believe in closure. I think there's some pain that you never get over, and that time maybe changes it, but it's still there. Did you learn anything by hearing this killer confess today? Was it helpful to you in any way? RELFORD: It's the start of a new beginning. There's a long road ahead. COOPER: What do you want people to know about your mom, about this man, Dennis Rader? What do you want people to know, Steve? RELFORD: I want people to know that she was a good Christian woman, went to church every Sunday, sung in the choir. She was a good woman. COOPER: Well, Steve, you said yourself, you have a long road ahead, and I wish you luck. I wish you the best of luck, Steve. RELFORD: Thank you. (END VIDEOTAPE) COOPER: A man whose life has been forever changed by what happened some almost 30 years ago. Steve Relford. Coming up next on 360, it didn't end with the killings. Rader said he also used his victims to fulfill his sexual fantasies, but did those drive him to kill? We're going to examine that question ahead. Also, before he killed them, Dennis Rader showed his victims a bit of bizarre tenderness. We talked about that a little bit. What made him act that way? Why did he do it? We're going to go inside the mind of a serial killer. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) COOPER: Dennis Rader truly was the serial killer living next door. He had a wife, he had two kids. No one knew. For some 34 years he was married, all the while he had this secret life. As we listened to his testimony today, there was -- there were a couple of things that really got us, but in particular how he apparently showed some really bizarre tenderness, trying to make his victims feel more comfortable right before he killed them. In one case, a woman threw up. He got her some water, he calmed her down, and then he strangled her. That was also the case with his seventh victim, 25-year-old Nancy Fox. I just want to show you her picture. A young woman, 25 years old. Had no idea. She'd only been in her house about a year. As he describes it, she apparently had no idea what was about to happen, even after he'd came into the house. I want to warn you, what you're about to hear is his own testimony, in his own words, and it's graphic. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RADER: I confronted her, told her that I was -- I had a problem, a sexual problem, that I would have to tie her up and have sex with her. She was a little upset. We talked for a while. She smoked a cigarette. While we smoked a cigarette, I went through her purse, identifying some stuff and she finally said, well let's get this over with, so I can go call the police. And I said, OK. And she said, can I go to the bathroom? I said yes. She went to the bathroom and I told her when she came out to make sure that she was undressed and when she came out, I handcuffed her and now, really... WALLER: You handcuffed her? RADER: Sir? WALLER: You handcuffed her? You had a pair of handcuffs? RADER: Yes, sir. WALLER: What happened then? RADER: Well, I handcuffed her, had her lay on the bed and then, I tied her feet and then, I -- I was also undressed, to a certain degree and then I got on top of her and then I reached over took -- either her feet were tied or not tied, but anyway, I think I had a belt. I took the belt and then strangled her with a belt, at that time. (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: Well, as I said, Nancy Fox, just 25 years old. She was a secretary. You're listening to his confessions. Tonight, with us, psychologist Howard Brodsky in Wichita, Kansas; and in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Dirk Gibson, author of 'Clues from Killers: Serial Murder and Crime-Scene Messages.' Gentlemen, I appreciate both of you joining us. Doctor Brodsky, with many of his victims, Rader seemed to display, I don't know, compassion probably isn't the right word, but a calming influence on them. How does such a bizarre behavior exist in someone who's a murder? HOWARD BRODSKY, PSYCHOLOGIST: Right. Well, it would seem as though he does have his way of taking control of these scenes. And perhaps, through his reassuring the victim, he was able to have his way and to get her to cooperate. So, this guy really has some well- practiced routines. COOPER: Dirk, I want to play you something he did with another of his victims, Shirley Vian. Let's listen... (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RADER: I proceeded to tie her up. She got sick, threw up. I got her a glass of water. I comforted her a little bit and then I went ahead and tied her up and then put a bag over -- a bag over her head and strangled her. (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: I mean, does this guy just seem like a sociopath to you? Does he have any feelings? DIRK GIBSON, AUTHOR: Well, I think he has feelings, but I think what he was doing was engaging in very simple compliance-gaining behavior. As Dr. Brodsky said, I think he was trying to put her at ease so he could kill her more easily. COOPER: Doctor Brodsky, is he a sociopath? BRODSKY: Well, he certainly sounded that way today. Until we heard him say this in his own words, we were really kind of reluctant to call this examples of being a sociopath, but as we heard him today, it began to sound more and more like that. COOPER: What does that mean, sociopath? BRODSKY: Well, this is a guy who likes to hurt people, it's a long-standing pattern with him and he shows no remorse. And in this particular guy's case, this gaming people and stalking of them seems to build him up all the more. COOPER: We're going to have a lot more with you gentleman, in a moment. We're going to take a short break and be right back. Coming up next, more inside of the mind of a serial killer. Dennis Rader linked the murders to a sexual fantasy. We'll talk to a forensic psychiatrist also about that. Also, when you look at the BTK timeline, you notice an eight-year gap between murders. What set him off on the second wave of killings? We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RADER: Kind of like the others, she was chosen. I went through the different phases, the stalking phase and since she lived down the street from me, I could watch the coming and going quite easily. (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: Well, we've been calling this chilling hour the 'Serial Killer Next Door,' and that is exactly why what he just said there -- this wasn't some loner, he -- this is a guy who went to church, he had a family, he was a Boy Scout leader and he occasionally killed his neighbors and complete strangers. We've already walked you through the seven murders he first completed -- seven lives that were snuffed out, literally, in the 1970s. Then, there was this long pause -- eight years -- before, all of a sudden, a second wave of deaths, starting in 1985. It started with Vicki Wegerle, 28 years old, Dolores Davis, 62 years old, and Marine Hedge 54 years old. Now, today Dennis Rader talked grimly about how he killed her. Again, we to want warn you, this is graphic testimony. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RADER: Casually, we would walk by and wave. She liked to work in her yard, as well as I liked to work -- it's just a neighborly type thing. It wasn't anything personal. Just a neighbor. WALLER: All right. So, she was in her bed when you turned on the lights in the bathroom? RADER: Yes, the bathroom, so I could get some light in there. WALLER: All right. What did you do then? RADER: Well, I manually strangled her, when she started to scream. WALLER: So, you used your hands? RADER: Yes, sir. WALLER: And you strangled her. Did she die? RADER: Yes. WALLER: All right. What did you do then? RADER: After that, since I was in the sexual fantasy, I went ahead and stripped her and probably went ahead and -- I'm not sure if I tied her up at that point in time, but anyway, she was nude and I put her on a blanket, went through her purse, some personal items in the house. I figured out how I was going to get her out of there. Eventually, I moved her to the trunk of the car. I took the car over to Christ Lutheran Church, this was with the older church and I took some pictures of her. (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: Took pictures of her in the church. We're joined now, live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, by the author of the book 'Clues from Killers: Serial Murder and Crime-Scene Messages', Dirk C. Gibson; and in Wichita, Kansas, tonight, psychologist Howard Brodsky. Dr. Brodsky, why pictures? Is that so he can relive it later on? BRODSKY: Yes. Apparently he does that. He likes to take trophies from sites and pictures and that's probably the process. And he was able to maintain them in a secret place for many, many years. COOPER: Dirk, what do you make of this pause, this eight-year pause until 1985, when he began killing again? GIBSON: OK. If you look at the entire gamut of killings, pauses weren't unusual. There were a couple of killings in 1974, a couple of killings in 1977, then an attempted killing or a killing in '79. Then, we had activity in the mid-'80s. So if you look at the crime periods, it wasn't unusual for him to have some interval between the murder. COOPER: Dr. Brodsky, does his method change and evolve significantly? I mean, it seems to -- he seemed sort of frenzied in the first one with the Otero's and then afterwards, you know, kind of views himself as a hit man. BRODSKY: Yes, they do have that kind of a pattern. And hit man is, I think, a very good description. You know, it seems to me though, the last ones where he took the bodies out of the house, that there's more of a desperate feel to some of that and he did keep changing his pattern and he seems to be just trying out different kinds of styles of behaving. It's very, very eccentric. COOPER: Dirk, what surprised you most from today's testimony? GIBSON: Well, I think the fact that he admitted in the matter-of- fact, very casual way, what he had done. I think that this demonstrates the kind of person we're dealing with. And in my study of 500 serial killers, that's not unusual demeanor for a killer to have. COOPER: It's fascinating, so chilling listening to this. I know you guys do it all the time, but for me it was a revelation. Dirk Gibson, appreciate you joining us and Dr. Howard Brodsky, thank you very much, as well; appreciate it. BRODSKY: Thank you. COOPER: I want to find out what's coming up at the top of the hour on PAULA ZAHN NOW. Hey, Paula. PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, Anderson. In addition to also covering the BTK killer story, at the top of the hour, a summertime hazard that is downright deadly, even though the odds against it or odds of it happening to you are against it. Over the space of just a few days, there have been two shark attacks along the Gulf Coast. Tonight, we're going to meet an attack survivor as well as a rescuer and get some advice on keeping safe in the water. That's at the top of the hour, I guess for starters, Anderson. Maybe a swimming pool sounds pretty good tonight. COOPER: Yes, especially. Paula, thanks very much. We'll see you in about eight minutes from now. COOPER: Coming up next though, on the special edition of 360, the sick mind of a serial killer: Rader's sexual fantasies. Are they really what drove him? We're going to talk to a forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Park Dietz, who knows an awful lot about serial killers. He interviewed Jeffrey Dahmer and many others. We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RADER: That was it. She went through -- I tied -- she was already dead, so I took pictures of her in different forms of bondage and that's probably what got me in trouble, was the bondage thing. So, anyway, that's probably the main thing. (END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: Just shocking to hear. It is hard to believe, Dennis Rader describing what he did to his eighth victim, Marine Hedge, taking pictures of her body in bondage. It was part of a sexual fantasy. And today he talked a lot about those fantasies, although not as much as he did about the killings. The question is, are they what drove him to kill? Joining us, once again from Irvine, California, forensic psychiatrist and serial killer expert, Dr. Park Dietz. Doctor Dietz, thank you for being on the program. As you mentioned earlier, he seems as ease talking about the nature of the killings, not really forthcoming about the sexual acts. So, there is a level of shame there? DIETZ: Right. What he tells us about sex in his testimony today is that he masturbated in the presence of a hanged juvenile female, that he took multiple bondage photos in different positions of a woman already killed and that bondage is what got him into trouble. Those are clues that, when pieced together, make plain what's actually going on, but he never said it. COOPER: Well, what is -- I mean, without -- I don't want to going into gory detail or anything, but if you can, what is -- what's going on in his head? I mean, you know, that's the question. You keep hearing this thing over and over and you keep saying to yourself, why did he do this? And he kind of says, well, it's because of sexual fantasy. But that doesn't really answer the question. DIETZ: People who have the desire for sexual bondage with unconsenting partners, universally suffer from something called sexual sadism. The core desire is to enjoy and be sexually excited by the suffering of another. Now, dead bodies do not suffer. And so sexual sadists want their victims to be tortured while alive so that they can feel sexual excitement from the suffering. He's not saying a word today about his sexual excitement from the suffering of his victims, but you can be sure that that's what he had in mind when he went there. COOPER: And that's the overriding -- I mean, other people are collateral damage. I mean, it's the woman who is his focus, you know. Other people just get in the way, the kids, anyone else, is that correct? DIETZ: Well, certainly the males are just in the way for him. But his sexual use of a juvenile female corpse, tells us that it doesn't have to be an adult woman to be of interest to him. COOPER: There's so many things to talk about. There was also a random nature to his crimes. Does that surprise you at all? I mean, he talked about, you know, following somebody, stalking them, trolling for victims, but then he would be willing to change and just go to someone else's house, if no one was home at the first one. DIETZ: Well, I'd call that flexibility, not randomness. He's got specific interests that he's following and he's looking for opportunities. If the victim is appealing enough, then he'll go out of his way to construct an opportunity. If the opportunity is good enough, he won't care as much about the attractiveness of the victim. COOPER: Does it surprise you that this man could have a family, that he could have grown kids? I mean, he was married for 34 years. Apparently his wife didn't know anything about it; that he could live in a neighborhood and kill his neighbors. DIETZ: No, that's not surprising. And the reason it's not surprising is that there's nothing about his sexual desires that is necessarily known to anyone else. Now, some of these men will share pieces of their desire with consenting partners. For example, asking their wives to pretend to be tied up and to do various other things with them. Others keep it a secret because they know their wives will reject the idea. COOPER: Was there a particular type of victim, you think, that he continually was searching for or trolling for, to use his term? DIETZ: Well, whatever was attractive to him. It doesn't typically end up being people who look exactly the same, but there tend to be characteristics, like for any man, that he would find more attractive than others. You can see his search for victims very much like the early phase of any kind of courtship. Of course, this is a particularly mal-adaptive way to court a partner. And he doesn't care whether she has any interest because he's going to use force, and he knows in advance he's going to kill them because he makes no effort to disguise himself. COOPER: The thing which, I guess, freaked me out the most, in listening to the testimony today, was there were moments when he would try to calm them. And you know, in one case a woman threw up and he offered her a glass of water and tried to soothe her and then, seconds later put a bind around her neck and strangled her to death. DIETZ: Yes. I don't think that, that's particularly unusual either for serial rapists or serial killers. And it doesn't really reflect any great chivalry on his part, obviously. This is simply a way to put them at ease and let him get back to his core task. COOPER: How does he compare -- I mean, based on what you heard today, you interviewed Jeffrey Dahmer, you talked to a lot of these people, did anything surprise you today or did it just confirm what you'd thought? DIETZ: No. No surprise at all. Half the people I examine who have killed are very much like this. COOPER: How do you do this? I mean, I'm just -- I mean, I was really stunned listening to his testimony today. To you -- you've heard it a lot before -- how do you do this job? DIETZ: Well, you know, like any other branch of medicine, one has to distance oneself from the material. A surgeon otherwise, couldn't cut. So., that's not particularly a problem. But what is an observation that I can't help but make is that the public is always surprised at how normal people like this seem, that it would be so much easier if people like this were so different, we could see them coming, but they're not. COOPER: And that's what makes it, I think, so scary for me -- and I think, for a lot of people watching tonight. Dr. Park Dietz, I've long-admired your career. It's a pleasure to have you on the program. Thank you very much. DIETZ: Thank you. COOPER: Thanks for watching this special edition of 360. I'm Anderson Cooper. Our primetime coverage continues now with Paula Zahn. Hey, Paula. END TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com Comments are closed.
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