Reply #25: In honor of the BTK Killer's recent capture... [View All]

[Shadowen]

Sixteen lessons to learn from BTK.

1. Don't leave clues for the police unless you are leaving no pattern for them to recognize and you just want to taunt them.

2. Pick a cool nickname that's easy to remember and sounds sinister enough to inspire fear when the anchorfolks intone in ominously on the newscast. But try not to use one that reminds people of a classic sandwich.

3. Mix things up a little. If you must leave a calling card, make it a literal card--your favorite card from a standard playing deck, for example--and switch up the methods of murder so that people can't find a pattern. One day a stabbing, the next a sniping, the next a bombing, and so on.

4. Don't be the quiet, withdrawn, "but really nice" one. Be outgoing and friendly. Make sure your neighbours know who you are and, before your "disappearances", give them alibis as to where you are.

5. Don't kill the neighbours.

6. Either have no discernible schedule of killings (making the outings mentioned in #4 "random"), or have a rigid schedule that isn't suspicious when you link the days missing with the days you killed--for example, a "company picnic" that happens on the same dates every year. Don't be a "Holiday Killer"--unless you skip a random holiday (or two, or three--make the number random, too) every year.

7. Don't rape your victims, even the really hot ones. What kind of sicko are you, dude?

8. If the authorities seem to be getting a clue and predicting your next moves, drop out of sight and move no less than three and no more than six states in any direction.

9. Make sure your killings leave no discernible pattern on any level of map--city, county, state, or country. Unless you do it randomly enough that by the time you get to the last few to make the image, it'll be too late to stop you. Everyone loves a subtle artist in this day and age of crosses in buckets of piss.

10. Avoid torture or vivisection. Dissection is fine; vivisection is out. That's just mean.

11. Don't find any sort of perverse pleasure in your killings. They can check your jizz for DNA, you know.

12. A good way to hide the bodies: eat them. I recommend the brain as an entree.

13. Watch CSI for a primer on the most basic of forensic techniques. Then become an amateur expert on the subject with textbooks and the like. But make sure no one knows about the textbook thing.

14. If you learn the head investigator of that killin' you did in Vegas a few weeks back is named Gil Grissom, go back to Sin City and fucking murder his entire department, then get the hell out of Dodge. It is your only hope.

15. Ignore all of the above but #2 if you want to get caught.

16. If/when you're caught, confess everything. Show no remorse to up the shock value of your killings. Try not to show glee when confessing, unless you really felt it when you were doing the whole murdering thing. Comment on how you didn't have anything against any of the people you killed personally. If you're in a state where your killings took place while the death penalty was active, make sure you show remorse when you confess (assuming you don't want to die). Exception: Texas. You can get executed for walking on the wrong side of the street there, so why bother?