In a Wichita, Kansas courthouse yesterday, the BTK Killer calmly confessed to everything.
His remorseless demeanor has outraged a great part of this country. It’s the story of the morning; how 60-year-old husband and father of two grown children, Dennis Rader, politely listed his atrocities to a stunned courtroom.
Here’s the thing. Everyone is absolutely staggered that Dennis Rader can be so matter-of-fact about his heinous deeds. But, really now, what the hell was everyone expecting?
He’s a freaking serial killer. He stalked and murdered 10 people in cold blood and then flaunted it in front of the local police and entire country. Did anyone expect a great show of repentance here? I mean, it wasn’t an accident! He didn’t accidentally tie up, torture and brutally strangle an entire family. It’ was no coincidence that when he hung an innocent little 11-year-old girl from a drainpipe in her basement she died from it. His victims didn’t just happen to die of natural causes while he was asphyxiating them.
He’s a vicious killer. He’s a sociopath. He doesn’t show any remorse because he doesn’t have any.
Sure, we’d all like to see him break down into tears, apologize and beg for forgiveness. Not because we want him to repent, mind you. Not because we’re just looking for an excuse to forgive him. It’s just because we all want to see him in twisted, tortured psychological agony.
Yeah, and I want the federal government to forgive my useless student loans.
But here’s the truth: it’s not going to happen.
We’ve been spoilt in this country with far too many colorful serial killers. The kind with “the devil-made-me-do-it” stories.
Or in the case of the Son of Sam, “the devil dog made me do it.”
We want our ruthless murderers to at least attempt some kind of excuse. It doesn’t have to make sense. In fact, the more outrageous the excuse, the better. The more confounding the reason, the more willing we are as a society to accept it.
Let’s face it, for most of us, a compulsion to kill is a bit hard to understand. It’s just not the way we’re programmed. (I hope. If you do have a compulsion to kill, especially me, remember this…I live in New Jersey)
So a ridiculous excuse for killing somehow makes sense. It sets killers apart from us. I mean we’ve all done things “just ‘cause.” But there aren’t too many people out there who have done anything to impress Jody Foster.
Ironically, the problem many people had with the BTK killer’s confession was that it was eerily human.
Any of these excuses would have been a hell of a lot better than “because I wanted to.”
• A kernel of un-popped popcorn told me that the victims all had $100 bills in their stomaches.
• As an alien scout leader from the low-oxygen planet of Kroylon 79, I thought I was doing the over-oxygenated earthlings a favor. Honest mistake.
• I was trying to impress Jody Foster and win her affections. I would have stopped at one if someone would have mentioned to me that she was a freaking lesbian! Boy is my face red.
See, then we could sit back while the “crazy” serial killer spun some bizarre story about butchery for a misguided and completely asinine grand purpose. We would be horrified, but at least there would be absolutely no doubt that he was lunatic.
As it stands, he looks just a little too much like us (he reminded me of a doctor, in fact. And people wonder why I’m terrified of hospitals...). Just remember that he’s an inhuman monster underneath. And in true monster fashion, he’s unapologetic about it.
In my relatively short time on this planet I’ve learned that the more you expect people to behave a "certain way" (read: like you do), the more disappointed you’re going to be in the future. Lets just do what we should do here.
Lock this jerk-ass up and give him less of a crap than he gave his victims.
Fun Fact: Speaking of inhuman monsters. I’ve only seen the commercial once, but I’ve already had way too much of that CG dancing “kibbles n bits” dog.
Way too creepy. I never thought I’d miss that obnoxious bulldog.
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