
One of True Crime Garage's favorite Crime series of all time is the Netflix original Mindhunter. Mindhunter is mostly real true crime tales from the F.B.I. Season One kicks things off in 1977 with legendary agents John Douglas and Robert Ressler partnering up and stepping into the minds and the madness of serial killers. Join Nic & the Captain as they celebrate this great series by exploring the true crime tales from the Mindhunters and the F.B.I.
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Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Let's go.
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TV's number one drama, High Potential returns with star Caitlin Olsen as the crime solving single mom with an IQ of 160. Every week, Morgan uses her unconventional style and brilliance to crack LAPD's most perplexing cases. It's the perfect blend of humor and mystery. She's breaking the mold without breaking a nail. High Potential premieres tonight at 10, 9 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu SA.
Co-host (Captain)
Foreign.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host, Nick, and with me, as always, is a man whose future is so bright that he has to wear sunglasses. Here is the captain.
Co-host (Captain)
That's right, TCG sunglasses. It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
This week we are featuring the one and only Hazy IPA by the adventurous brewers over at Great Divide Brewing Company. Hazy IPA is a juicy and balanced mix of citrus hops that bring out the aromatic characteristics of papaya and mango and finishes with a hint of ripe strawberries. ABV 6.2% garage grade 4 out of 5 bottle caps. And let's give some thanks, some praise, some cheers to our good garage friends for helping us fill up the old garage fridge. First up, a cheers to Caroline Bryan from Benicia, California.
Co-host (Captain)
And a big we like your chip goes out to Nat in Darby, uk.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Here's a cheers to Krista in Schenectady, New York. And last but certainly not least, this garage friend says, let's do a shout out to my pups. Adopt, don't shop. Cheers to Layla, Stanley and Winston from Glenview, Illinois. Milk bones all around. Thank you to everyone for contributing to this week's beer fun.
Co-host (Captain)
Yeah, Milk Bones in the air. BWR you& beer run. You need more True Crime Garage for your earballs. Yes, you do. Check out our show off the Record on Patreon or Apple podcast. You just hit subscribe and there you go. Colonel. That's enough of the business.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
All right, everybody. Gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime. Episode four opens with the not so trusty ADT man creeping around inside someone's home. He turns the corner and is met with the homeowner who is busy doing dishes at the kitchen sink. At this point, we can infer that the ADT serviceman is becoming BTK or already has submitted to some of his deep seated and guarded urges of binding, torturing and killing a victim or victims. But he is actually working in his ADT capacity during this scene and he's not setting up to commit a murder.
Co-host (Captain)
Well, I think that's what they're trying to imply is, oh, we know this guy is a murderer. We know he's planning out murders. Is he going to kill this woman? And then we find out, nope, he's doing his ADT job and telling her how he would secure the house.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah, and what's, what's interesting here too is the methods that Dennis Raider would ultimately use. Right. He would, he would use a lot of his time that he was supposed to be studying, remember he was continuing his education. He would use that time to be away from his wife and say that he's studying or he's going to the library, that he was at the college campus. But a lot of those times he's out trolling and stalking victims or, or future projects, as he called them. And then his capacity as the ADT man allows him into the homes of many people day after day, where he is getting used to the layout of people's homes. He's getting used to being inside of their homes. And we know that with the exception of his first murders, a lot of the times he was breaking into the homes when the victim would be gone and staying and waiting for them to return home and then intercept them, ambush them when they come through the front door. Back on the road, Bill Tench and Holden Ford exit their very cool dark gray 1971 Plymouth Satellite. They are in Richmond, Virginia to interview serial killer Monty Risle. They are discussing how Monty killed the victims, with Tench quizzing. Holden Ford. Prior to going in, Risell likely had severe abandonment issues and a deep hatred for women. His mother was married and divorced twice by the time he was 12. His biological father left the home when Russell was 7. Then the family moved from his hometown of Wellington, Kansas. The family was moving around. This is when Russell was already robbing and raping from the ages of 14 to 17. So once again here, Captain, this is another real life killer, real life serial killer that is depicted in the series a little bit more about his crimes. On August 4, 1976, Monty Risle, who later says that he was angry with his ex girlfriend after seeing her with another man. He says that he spotted 26 year old Aurora Marina Gabor, who was living in the same apartment complex as Risso on Armistead street in Alexandria, Virginia. Risso claimed he grew angry with her after she allowed him to have sex with her again. These are his words. Remember these. These guys lie about just about everything, right? And she made it seem like she enjoyed it. So he drowned her in a nearby ravine. Later, Risle pled guilty to five murders. Three of his victims were stabbed, two drowned. He became eligible for parole in 1995, and since then he has received an annual parole review every November. And thankfully, each time he has been denied.
Co-host (Captain)
Isn't this the serial killer that asked them for Big Red?
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Yes, he is. And I like Tench's straightforward approach to the interview. He tells Risso that they are trying to figure out why people like Risle do what they do. Russell says he would like to know as well. This is, this is intriguing too here, Captain, because this is something that we find with a lot of these types. Tench saying, we want to figure out why you do what you do. And Russell replying, yeah, I would like to know as well. And when we spoke with John Douglas, that was a question I had asked him was is it true that your findings are that these guys want to talk to you just as much as you want to talk to them? Because some of them don't understand why they are the way that they are.
Co-host (Captain)
Well, you have to remember when Dahmer is caught and the FBI is talking to him, they basically tell him, you know, you can make a deal with us, you can get something in return. And all he asked for is, can you help me figure out why I am the way I am?
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Well, to this, in the scene here, Risell asks the agents if they're going to try to find a cure. He tells them that he's not really interested in talking with the feds. And Tench fires up a dog. This is cigarette number 18 in series one, season one. And Tench threatens to just leave. Then Rissole describes the first murder for the road agents. So he wants to talk, even though he claims that he doesn't. Russell says that he stabbed the second victim because after he had abducted her, she would not shut up. But he let one victim go because when she was upset after he abducted her, she explained that that her Father recently died of cancer. This seemed to touch Risle or affect him in a way that he chose to let her go. After this, the road agents get into a little tiff. Once back in the car, Bill Tench is pointing out how Russell is an Olympic class liar. After a surprise car accident, the boys are at a bar. It looks like they are taking down some whiskeys, neat. Tench is smoking cigarette number 19. Bill starts telling Holden that he and his wife Nancy adopted a kid. In real life, Robert Ressler had three kids, none that were adopted. Back at the office, the agents are talking with Dr. Wendy Carr about Monty Russell. They stumble into a conversation about triggers, stresses and control. Dr. Carr is explaining that these men, what they are experiencing is normal. However, they process it different. The way that they process their life experiences is not normal. Then we see Bill Tench on the front porch of his home smoking where he tries to hug his son. Before leaving the house with Holden, they go back to see Monty bristle once again. This time they bring you nailed it, Captain. Big Red soda with them as he had requested, Risso talks about his upbringing, the divorce, the moving around, physical abuse. He says that no one wanted him. They learn that Rissole sees himself as the real victim here. And we find that time and time again with some of these serial killers, that some of them, they see themselves as victims and then they victimize people in their adult life. Now it's back to road time teaching. And the agents are in Altoona, Pennsylvania where we hear motive, means and opportunity. What plus Y equals who? This is all part of their teachings. Outside of the police station, Tench fires up a dog cigarette number 21. The agents are approached by an officer. He explained that he had recovered a victim. So this victim is Beverly Jean Shaw, age 22. The police think that the victim was stored somewhere before later being found in the local dump. The victim's wrists were removed post mortem. Now we wanted to figure out if this was a real case. This is one of those ones here, Captain, that's a little bit more difficult to determine if it's real, but it certainly has the, the markings of being potentially real or connected to some real cases. So I found this from refinery29.com and it says According to a 1988 article in the Altoona Mirror, on June 2, 1979, a 22 year old woman named Betty Jean Shade had a fight with her live in boyfriend, Charles Butch Salt. She was planning on leaving him. Still, she went on a drive with Salt, his brother Michael and his and sister Catherine Salt and Shade went on a walk so they could talk. But when they didn't return, Catherine went searching for her brother and found him beating Shade to death. Shade died of head and stab wounds. The trio then transported Shade's body to the garbage dump three days after the killing. The name Beverly Jean may also be in regard to a murder that took place in Dallas, potentially Dallas, Texas in 1970. This is Billie Jean Hope was the victim. Mother of three and popular suburban housewife. She was murdered in her large mansion. The crime to this date remains unsolved, though new information which emerged in 2016 brought in another suspect. This was Beverly Jean's ex brother in law. For those that have watched the series and watched this particular episode, and as this case plays out for the agents on Mindhunter, you can see the similarities in the two cases that we just discussed. Holden explains to the Altoona cops that they need to focus on what they know about the victim. And they deliver a short, vague profile saying white male loner who hunts at night, who will likely kill again.
Co-host (Captain)
But this also shows how local law enforcement is treating the locals with too much respect. They're not treating this as a homicide investigation. They're almost pampering some of these individuals that should be suspects.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah. And this, with this short, vague profile. I think what this is meant to do on the show is to show the agents their lack of experience at this time. Right. That they're not seasoned profilers by this time. Really what they're doing is white male loner who, who hunts at night is super vague, obviously. But it also would just fall into with what little they know at the time. And we know that the way that this is going to play out does not involve someone who's out hunting for a victim at night.
Co-host (Captain)
Yeah, I agree with you and also disagree with you because, yes, inexperience when it comes to profiling the killer that they're looking for. But I think this shows like before the case when Holden says, hey, we're in the dark, well, they're not in the dark anymore. Maybe they're not completely in the light, but that door has cracked open. And you see that their experience and basically the path of their thought ways are coming through in the interrogation of this case during the show and shows that they're a couple steps ahead of where they were in previous investigations.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
And this reminds me with some of the talks we've done with serial killer experts. And they talk about a lot of the different myths that surround serial killers. And you hear it there. White male Loner who hunts at night. In fact, there's a. There's a case where out in New Jersey, the Garden State Parkway murders. The two women were killed in the early morning hours. And police there said that one of the detectives said it couldn't be the work of a serial killer. Meanwhile, this is still unsolved. It has the markings of a serial killer. We can't prove that because we don't know who did it, but the detective said it can't be. It's not a serial killer because a serial killer would have killed them at night. And, well, they. Sorry, detective, but they kill any time of day. Back to the show. They go out to this dump site where Holden says that the victim was disposed of just like a piece of trash. And unfortunately, we've seen that in so many cases that we've covered. Here in the garage, the officer says, folks loved Beverly Jean. At the body recovery site, the agents want to. They say they want to talk to the man who found the body. They do go to this man. They talk with him. He looks shady. He has a record. He tells the agents that he waited until the next morning to report finding the body. He says part of that was because he does have a police record and he thought they would be looking at him, holding intention, talking about the case and the likely perpetrator. It looks like Holden Ford here is thinking that this is probably the work of a sequence killer. That's what they're calling serial killers before they coin the term right. This would go along with the white male loner who hunts at night. But then Bill Tench is reminding Holden that nine times out of 10, it's the husband or boyfriend. It's not a serial killer. Back at the office, the agents are talking with Dr. Wendy Carr. They start to getting into figuring out the differences between organized and disorganized killers. And the episode ends with the agents getting a stern talking to by the boss man at the Bureau. And then he tells them that Congress is interested in their research and they are getting $385 in funding for their research. So, ladies and gentlemen, let the mind hunting begin.
Co-host (Captain)
Cha Ching.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Episode five opens up at Park City, Kansas. We see our ADT serviceman, off duty, out of uniform, mailing a letter with very thick black gloves on. This, of course, we know to be true, right? We know that btk, AKA the ADT serviceman, did communicate with both the local news and police. He sent letters to both newspaper and television outlets. One of the letters, and we went through a lot of this in Our BTK coverage here. But one of the letters was the I did it letter, which arrived in October of 1974, when Raider sent the I did it letter to the Wichita eagle, Using the pseudonym btk, Taking responsibility for the Otero murders and offering details about the crime not previously made public. Series one is supposed to start off and take place mostly in 1977, but Raider. We know Raider did communicate in with the police in 1977. So not the I did it letter from 1974, but we have a communication that was not a letter. It was on December 9, 1977. One day after he killed Nancy Fox, Dennis raider called police from a pay phone and told them they would find Fox's body at her home. But for a letter communication to line up here, I believe it is the how many do I have to kill? Letters that raider mailed on February 10, 1978, to KAKE News, a Wichita television station, Claiming responsibility for the Otero murders along with those of Katherine bright, Shirley Relford, and Nancy fox. He suggested many possible names for himself in this letter, including btk, and demanded media attention, saying, how many do I have to kill before I get a name in the paper or some national attention? The letter was traced to a copy machine at the Wichita state university library, where we do know that Dennis Raider was a student at that time. So, you know, he went undetected, Unidentified for so long. But you. You have some information on this guy, right? Like the I did it letter. I think they kind of just dismissed that. And they were looking at other suspects in the Otero murders. And that is why Raider for. Well, really, captain, for a multitude of reasons, he kept reaching out to them. He wanted to get his name in the paper. He wanted his moniker, btk, to be known and feared. But he also wanted btk to get credit for some of these murders. So he goes undetected for so long. But your unidentified serial killer, you know a few things about him. You know that he is male. You know that he wears glasses, and he's someone that uses the copy machine at Wichita state university.
Co-host (Captain)
Well, you also know he's white.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
In 1977, there were approximately 18,000 students and faculty at Wichita state university. And we know that the perpetrator wears glasses because he dropped his glasses at Nancy Fox's house. A murder, and that he deemed project foxhound. Small detail that may have been on purpose or just a matter of happenstance, Having never been to park city, Kansas. But the ADT man mails the letter at a blue postal box on North 3rd Street. Here again, losing my mind. I'm looking at the details in the background, but I found North 3rd street to be interesting because one of the things that I found incredibly annoying and just frankly dumb about Dennis Raider was how he seemed to be shocked that the police failed to pick up on subtle commonalities in his murders. Raider wanted the police to be able to connect these murders. Again, it goes back to him wanting credit for it. He wants to make a name for btk. Raider almost treats these clues for the cops as ways that they can create links between his crimes. But they are so subtle that nobody would pick up on any of the stuff. And frankly, they're just dumb. When they, law enforcement and the media did not pick up on these and broadcast them to the public. He had to announce himself to the world, coming up with many monikers that the media could call him. And it's so desperate and frankly pathetic that he's creating his own name, sending not just creating his own name, sending a long list of suggestions of names to be called. So here the postal box is on north third Street. Years after being caught, he has said things that the cops missed, right? He look, oh, I fooled him. The cops missed this or the cops missed that. One of those claims that Dennis Raider makes is the number three. And it's unknown importance to the killer.
Co-host (Captain)
Yeah, but at the end of the day, they caught you, so those little details, they missed. Who cares? You're caught. You lost.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Dennis Raider, BTK or versions of such have been depicted in several books, movies, and on TV prior to Mind Hunter season one. Some of my favorites. I know we've talked about some of these here before in the garage, but we have Stephen King, who has said that his novella A Good Marriage, later turned into a film, were inspired by the BTK Killer. Silence of the Lambs novelist Thomas Harris has said that the character of Francis Dolarhyde in his 1981 novel Red Dragon is partially based on the then unidentified BTK killer. The 2004 law and order Special Victims Unit episode Scavenger is based on the case. And episode 15 of season one of Criminal Minds, titled Unfinished Business, is based on the BTK murders. And that one's about the. They call the killer there the Keystone Killer, a serial killer that resurfaces after 18 years of inactivity. The movie the Clove Hitch Killer was inspired by Dennis Rader. The film takes place in a small Kentucky town. The town and its residents are haunted by the memory of the Clove Hitch Killer and an infamous serial killer who bound and then strangled 10 female victims before disappearing 10 years earlier.
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TV's number one drama, High Potential returns with star Caitlin Olsen as the crime solving single mom with an IQ of 160. Every week, Morgan uses her unconventional style and brilliance to crack Lap Beauty's most perplexing cases. It's the perfect blend of humor and mystery. She's breaking the mold without breaking a nail. High Potential premieres tonight at 109 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
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Co-host (Captain)
All right, we are back. Tall cans in the air. And I can say this for all the listeners out there, Colonel, we appreciate you losing your mind in these Mind Hunter episodes.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
It has been lost and if anybody finds it, please email the show or hit me up on X. Tall cans in the air my friends. So now the boys go back to Altoona, Pennsylvania to work on that Beverly Jean case. Bill Tench is angry at the office, the police office because, because they let the murdered woman's boyfriend know in advance that they would be coming to talk to him years later. John Douglas would be promoted to unit chief of the Investigative Support Unit. So this is where I think that maybe the genesis of these profilers actively working cases may have started. Right, because we're seeing they're out to teach the, the police station and the officers and they keep kind of catching these cases along the way. Well, when John Douglas is promoted to this unit chief of the Investigative Support Unit, that's pretty much all this unit does. They go out to other locations and work hand in hand with the local Authorities on a case that. That is, needs. Needs their help, needs their assistance for. For any number of reasons. Sometimes it's an unsolved case. Sometimes they have the guy, but they need to come up with ways to get him to confess or better ways of finding more evidence tying him to the crime. Bill Tench explains to the boyfriend of the murder victim this. His name is Benjamin, that they are from a particular unit at the FBI and that they investigate murders that exhibit a sexual component. His words. We investigate murders when there is a sexual angle. That's his exact words. Benjamin starts crying. This has an effect on the investigators. The cops believe that Benjamin is a victim. Holden Ford seems bothered by Benjamin's crying. And Bill Tench says he doesn't believe the crying at all. He thinks it's just a show. And it's 11 minutes into this episode before we see Bill Tench smoking a cigarette so it looks like he's cutting back tension. Tench then schools Holden and the Altoona cop a bit, explaining why the killer of Beverly Jean is local and not some traveling madman. Next, we have a car ride with Holden and Dr. Wendy Carr discussing psychopaths. They discuss if the victim had some kind of sexual power and control over the boyfriend. Benjamin Carr points out that this murder and the details of such exhibits, two different presentations. This is her starting to put together that we may be dealing with more than one person being responsible for this murder. When we're back at the office, the basement office. So cozy down there in the basement.
Co-host (Captain)
At Quantico, A little more cozy than a garage.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Some more information. From the background, you can see a map behind Holden, Ford and Tench. And they have 21I. This is how many I could count. So if this number's not accurate, my apologies. But it looked like there were 21 push pins in this United States map. And I'm guessing that each push pin represents a killer that they would like to interview. So, pausing the frame and zooming in, I could identify a few of the names that were tacked onto these push pins. One is Brutus. Jerry Bruto, serial killer. One is Corona, a serial killer from California. All of these, the ones that I could identify, were California cases because I couldn't see other parts of the map, and I didn't want to try to guess the serial killers from other locations. Mullen is one, Manson is one, and Greenwood. Greenwood was a killer in California as well. So now that they have this idea that we might be dealing with more than one person being responsible for the murder, they want to talk to Frank Janderman. So this is the brother in law of the boyfriend. They want to talk to him because he has a record, he's got a history of violence. So Janderman is the brother in law of the boyfriend and suspect Benjamin Cartwright. And during this interview process, Tench has a cigarette. Now we go back to the hotel room where Bill Tench and Holden Ford examine the case file. Tench is obviously annoyed that they have to share a room while on the road. And because of the mutilation to the body of the victim, Holden Ford seems stuck on the idea of a sequence killer. Tench rips another butt during this scene. Eventually Rose. This is Benjamin's sister. And Frank's wife goes to the police and confesses to some kind of involvement. So all three were involved in killing Beverly Jean.
Co-host (Captain)
Well, they also taped her confession. And when the, when it's played back to the doctor, she actually is the one that realizes that her involvement is deeper and maybe even darker than what she's confessing to.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
And we, we discussed some of the similarities to those other cases. This is from the Altuna Mirror that I referenced earlier. We have information that in this case of Betty Jean Shade that the victim died from head and stab wounds. The three, the trio, which is the brother and sister and the boyfriend. Boyfriend live in boyfriend transported Shade's body to the garbage dump three days after the killing. And it's very similar that one of the perpetrators, the living boyfriend in this real life story, did return to the body to further mutilate it while she was before she was found. In the real life case, police first arrested Catherine and Michael Salt, then arrested Charles, who was on a Greyhound bus to Pittsburgh trying to get away travel to Pittsburgh. Though the jury sentenced Charles Salt to death, the trial judge overruled the decision and gave him a life sentence. He's currently serving out his sentence in the State Correctional institution in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. Episode 6 opens once again in Park City, Kansas. Here we see the ADT serviceman watching TV and incessantly tying knots and untying them. There is a woman with him in the living room and presumably she is his wife and she is tending to the child. The ADT serviceman scenes, cold opening, whatever you want to call them, I've seen online, I think that this is even a better description. They, they refer to him as the creepy cold opening. You have to kind of try to piece things together on these scenes because there's often little to no talking at all in the scene.
Co-host (Captain)
Right.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
This of course all rings true for the ADT serviceman known to us as Dennis Raider. The nightmare of Wichita. The bind, Torture, kill. BTK serial killer. Dennis Raider was married and has two children. What involvement any of these three have with Dennis Raider today as he wastes away in a prison cell is not known to a great extent publicly. Oh, and something from earlier here, Captain at adt, Raider was nicknamed the Blue Book man by his co workers because he always followed the rules and scolded others for doing as much as making small talk during work hours.
Co-host (Captain)
Yeah, I think you mentioned that in episode two.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
We do know that on May 22, 1971, Dennis Raider married Paula De and then they had two children, Carrie and Brian. Raider was arrested driving from work to his home to have lunch with his wife in Park City a little after noon on February 25, 2005. On February 28, he was charged with 10 counts of murder. And on June 27, 2005, at a scheduled trial date, Raider changed his plea to guilty. He described the murders, which he referred to as projects in detail to the court and made no apologies. Later in July. This is July 26th of 2005. Dietz was granted an emergency divorce from Dennis Raider. And we have to point out here that all of Dennis Raider's known crimes or the crimes that he has confessed to were committed while he was married.
Co-host (Captain)
Well, and we don't know the complete arc of Mindhunter because it was scheduled to last five seasons, but we think what is being set up by these little BTK glimpses is that eventually it'll come to a head and then the FBI will be going after and capturing btk and that would be the end of the series.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Right. And remember, it was the local authorities that cracked the case and discovered the identity of btk. I think my guess is that they were attempting to go for the one that John Douglas couldn't catch.
Co-host (Captain)
Right.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
To, to, to show like it's, it's almost like you're showing the ultimate good guy or the hero versus the ultimate evil bad guy. And he's tormented because he cannot catch btk. And if you read Douglas's BTK book, he openly talks about the frustration of trying to profile BTK because he says that there were, there were closed door arguments when they would put their, get their team together and try to profile btk. They, they couldn't agree on a lot of portions of the profile.
Co-host (Captain)
Is John Douglas's book called Inside the Mind of btk?
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah, yeah. And he, he does interview him at the end of the book, but, but he talks about the Frustration of not being able to catch him and then these, these arguments sometimes that got very heated between different agents working the case on trying to get inside of the mind of btk a little more from his life here, personal life. In 2019, Raider's daughter Kerry Rawson published her book A Serial Killer's Daughter My Story of Faith, Love and Overcoming, where she goes over her childhood and Raiders role and such. In an interview with ABC News, Carrie stated that she writes to her father and has now given him, forgiven him, but still struggles to reconcile her normal childhood with the knowledge that she was raised by the BTK killer.
Co-host (Captain)
Well, she's also become involved in the true crime world and you can see her on the New Long Island Serial Killer documentary talking about what the family and what the children are probably going through now with the arrest of their father and husband, Rex Herriman.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
I've talked to a couple of experts that seem to think that BTK doesn't have a whole lot of many days left, right? Not too many days left for btk, that, that he's in quite bad shape and will probably pass away, die in prison this year or next year. This aligns with, with something that we know to be true here because Carrie went and visited her father in 2003, visited her father, Dennis Raider in prison in 2020. Sorry, 2023. Reported him as, quote, rotting and unhappy and saying that, quote, he's lost like seven inches and he's in a wheelchair.
Co-host (Captain)
That's a lot of inches to lose off your penis. Thinking of, of this, though, it saddens me because he committed these crimes. He worked very hard because he wanted to be recognized. He wanted the BTK to be recognized. I don't know if he necessarily wanted to be caught, but then when he was caught, because of our fascination with him, he then gets a platform and then he didn't really spin, you know, a huge amount of his life behind bars.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
At the 2024 crime con in Nashville, Tennessee, we were there. Carrie presented excerpts from her father's journal that revealed he had sexually abused her when she was a child.
Co-host (Captain)
Was she not aware of that?
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
I don't think that she was. And this, you know, I know that we said that they're all liars, but I also believe in what we've talked about just earlier this episode that they, the serial killers don't fully understand themselves or why they do what they do. In Kathleen Ramslin's BTK book, she traded letters with Dennis Raider for a long time before putting together her book. And he states to her many times that he is not like other serial killers, that he actually does possess the ability to love, that he, he was loved and he has loved. And I, again, I would spit in this man's face because, and call him a liar because you can claim that, you know, he said, I never wanted to hurt my wife. I never wanted to hurt my kids. That, that getting caught. I didn't care about getting caught. I only, I only cared that it was going to hurt my family because I loved them. Well, if you love them, then maybe don't go out and murder and torture other families and women and children. This 2024 crime con revelation. Maybe also don't sexually abuse your child.
Co-host (Captain)
But I'm going to push back a little bit though, because I, I do think again, like you said, they're all liars. But you wonder because he has these time periods, these long breaks, is this him thinking that, well, I'm just maybe done with that life. I committed these crimes. I can live in this weird fantasy world in my head. He provided for his family, he raised his daughter, he was around. He was an active member in the community. Him, more so than other killers, seemed to be able to have two different lives. I mean, am I crazy for thinking that?
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
No, you're not. And that's something worth exploring. And many people have attempted to do so, not just with btk, but with others. But I guess, I mean, I agree.
Co-host (Captain)
With everything you're saying.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Right. My thought would be, is all of the things you mentioned where Dennis Raider might say that, that those are signs of love for my, for my family. I would say, is it though, Dennis, or is it just your attempt to blend in? Because. And he calls it cubism, where he, he talks about himself as I know cubism is like a form, an art form. Don't. Don't ask me to explain that.
Co-host (Captain)
But he don't know about the arts.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
I think he called it cubing or cubism. And what he meant by that is that he has multiple sides to him. You can only see the front of the cube. Right. Each, each right side or panel of the cube is a different part of Dennis Raider of btk. BTK is one of those parts. But you can only see the front panel, the front side of the cube. That's what he chose to show everybody. And that part of the cube, to me, is everything you just said. The, the working, providing for your family, being a member of your community. Yeah, he was a member of the, the Boy Scouts with his son, but he also pretended to have a headache to go to bed early in his tent. And instead of going to bed, he actually snuck off, drove, murdered, tortured a woman and then took a bunch of pictures of her with a Polaroid camera that he would keep for later that he would bring to his happy little home with his wife and two kids. And it also goes back to the idea of all of his confessed murders. He committed them while he was married. Well, he was already supposed to be a family man when he's doing a lot of these killings. And then you're right though, I, you know, he does kind of go dormant for quite a period of time. Does resurface. We, we have to mention that he didn't get completely out of the game. He resurfaced. But when he was. After he was arrested and talking to the police. One thing that is good about BTK is he likes to talk about himself. He thinks he's something special and he's happy to share that with the world.
Co-host (Captain)
Edmund Kemper type.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
So we get to learn a lot about him. And one thing he says is that, and this is really just quite disgusting.
Co-host (Captain)
But it's called a true crime show.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
He says, I never stopped hunting. I was, I always had these projects. I just didn't go to the point of killing anybody.
Co-host (Captain)
Well, but that's what he says in the, in the new Long island serial killer documentary, BTK is saying, hey Rex, you're just one of me. And I wonder if we need to go a step further because we have these categories of organized and disorganized. And I wonder if this should be a category that they're researching is the.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
The cubism, the husband, father, family man, serial killer, which Rex Herman, Dennis Raider, the Golden State killer. All of these types are Gary Ridgeway as well.
Co-host (Captain)
The, I mean you can make an argument. Bundy was absolutely.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Yes, exactly. Because he usually had a significant other when he was committing a lot of his murders and one of his girlfriends had a, a child. And all of these types are very much of the organized type of serial killer.
Co-host (Captain)
Right.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
The next scene Here, Captain, has Dr. Wendy Carr having a one on one meeting with Holden Ford, Bill Tench's boss. This is Agent Shepard. He offers Wendy a job heading the behavioral science unit. To which she says, no, I have a job in Boston. So while much of the Wendy Carr character is very, very different from the real life version A1 Dr. Anne Burgess, who, if you attended CrimeCon Denver, you already know that Dr. Burgess is an absolute delight and a true gem and we will get to know her a bit more as we get to know the Wendy Carr character and you did.
Co-host (Captain)
A great interview with her back in the day on off the Record, which we probably should release after part three and four of our Mindhunter series.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah, because that's from the Stitcher day. So this would be. Speaking of resurfacing, that interview should resurface. Right, There you go. But so we. It's important to note here that while Dr. Burgess was never a actual FBI agent, she did absolutely work for the FBI in a very impactful and incredibly important role for many years. She was recruited by one of my favorites, the late, great and brilliant Roy Hazelwood. We have recommended his books here in the Garage. Those books are the Evil that Men do and Dark Dreams. Now, I do not believe that the Agent Shepard character is supposed to be or based on Hazelwood. They are. There's far too many differences. Roy Hazelwood had a much more hands on role with the BSU than what the shepherd character has in the show. And he was both a leader and a teacher for the BSU. Hazelwood was a profiler of sex crimes. In 1980, Roy Hazelwood developed the distinction between organized and disorganized murderers, a concept that is still used by law enforcement to help apprehend criminals. He also defined the six categories of rapists. There's the power, reassurance, Power assertive anger, retaliatory, anger excitation, Opportunistic, and gang. Of the six types of rapist categories of rapists, he says that the anger excitation is by far the most dangerous and the hardest to capture. And Roy Hazelwood also offered the theory that there is no cure for pedophilia or sexual sadistic. He did some very important work. And those are books that do not get enough recognition. They're not looked to as much as Douglas's books or Robert Ressler's books. The Wendy Carr character does not accept the job and Shepard tells her to take her time.
Co-host (Captain)
She's absolutely one of my favorite characters in this whole series. If she didn't win an award, she should have.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Her character is fantastic. The actress that plays Wendy Carr is fantastic. All three of the main characters, their acting skills are incredibly impressive. And really the way that they kind of orchestrate and choreograph their movements, their facial expressions and their reactions to each other's characters throughout the different scenes is. Is something that I think I had to go back and see a second time during this exercise here. To fully appreciate the next scene, we go to an interrogation room in Altoona continuing on with their investigation. Bill Tench has some questions for one of our murder suspects. Holden Ford is recording this interview. Tench is getting verbally aggressive with Benjamin, or Benji, as they're calling him by this point. Remember, this is Beverly Jean's supposed boyfriend. Tench wants to know, why would you do that to Beverly Jean? Benji? A fractured jaw, two black eyes, 14 stab wounds, and the list goes on and on.
Co-host (Captain)
All right, I want to thank you for joining us here in part three of our Mind Hunter series. So much more to get to stick around for the finale. And until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Sam.
TV Show Announcer
Are you ready to get spicy?
Co-host (Captain)
These Doritos Golden Sriracha aren't that spicy.
TV Show Announcer
Maybe it's time to turn up the heat.
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Or turn it down. It's time for something that's not too spicy. Try Doritos Golden Sriracha. Spicy but not too spicy.
Original Air Date: September 16, 2025
Hosts: Nic and the Captain
In Part 3 of True Crime Garage’s "Mindhunter" series, Nic and the Captain dissect episodes 4-6 of the acclaimed Netflix series Mindhunter. They draw connections between the show’s dramatization and real-world cases, delve into the psychology and methodology of serial killers (particularly BTK), and explore the burgeoning field of criminal profiling as it evolved in the 1970s. The hosts blend historical facts, true crime lore, and their signature garage camaraderie to illuminate both the series and actual investigations.
Opening Scene Analysis (03:28–04:23):
The episode opens on the ADT serviceman (BTK) in a tense scene, setting the tone for his duality—family man vs. serial murderer.
“At this point, we can infer that the ADT serviceman is becoming BTK or already has submitted to some of his deep seated and guarded urges of binding, torturing and killing…” – Nic (03:28)
Access to Victims via ADT Job:
Rader’s work allowed him regular access to homes and “future projects,” emphasizing the dangers of unchecked authority figures.
"His capacity as the ADT man allows him into the homes of many people day after day, where he is getting used to the layout of people’s homes..." – Nic (04:41)
Communication With Media & Cops:
The hosts detail real instances where BTK sent letters for recognition, such as “the I did it letter” and the “how many do I have to kill?” communiques, connecting the dramatized show to actual police missteps.
"He wanted to get his name in the paper. He wanted his moniker, BTK, to be known and feared." – Nic (21:54)
Frustrations With Rader’s Desire for Fame:
“It’s so desperate and frankly pathetic that he's creating his own name, sending a long list of suggestions of names to be called.” – Nic (24:07)
“Tench saying, we want to figure out why you do what you do. And Russell replying, yeah, I would like to know as well." – Nic (07:50)
"When Dahmer is caught and the FBI is talking to him…all he asked for is, ‘Can you help me figure out why I am the way I am?’" – Captain (08:34)
"Their experience and basically the path of their thought ways are coming through in the interrogation of this case during the show…" – Captain (15:11)
BTK’s Family and “Cubism” (38:48–47:43):
An extended discussion occurs on how Dennis Rader embodied both the suburban dad and sadistic murderer.
"He calls it cubism, where he talks about himself as...a different part of Dennis Raider of BTK." – Nic (47:43)
Can Killer’s Show Real Love?
The hosts debate whether these killers’ ‘caring’ for their families was genuine or simply a façade to aid their deceptions.
Revelations by BTK’s Daughter (43:04–44:56):
Explicit mention is made of Carrie Rawson’s revelations about her father, including the 2024 CrimeCon disclosure of sexual abuse.
Emergence of Behavioral Science Unit (30:48–34:02, 53:52–53:58):
The real-life shift toward hands-on casework, as exemplified by John Douglas’s later years, is depicted via the show’s characters and discussed by the hosts.
Dr. Wendy Carr / Dr. Ann Burgess (50:49–53:58):
They acknowledge Carr’s roots in the contributions of Dr. Ann Burgess and Roy Hazelwood, crediting the real-life pioneers of offender profiling.
“If you attended CrimeCon Denver, you already know that Dr. Burgess is an absolute delight and a true gem, and we will get to know her a bit more as we get to know the Wendy Carr character…” – Nick (51:31)
On the twisted logic of serial killers:
"These guys lie about just about everything, right? …And this is something that we find with a lot of these types." – Nic (07:46)
On serial killers wanting answers for themselves:
"All he (Dahmer) asked for is, can you help me figure out why I am the way I am?" – Captain (08:34)
On profiling’s early stumbles:
“White male loner who hunts at night is super vague, obviously. But it also would just fall into with what little they knew at the time.” – Nic (14:35)
On the compulsion for recognition:
"He wanted to get his name in the paper. He wanted his moniker, BTK, to be known and feared." – Nic (21:54)
On the “cubism” of BTK:
“He talks about himself as…a different part of Dennis Raider of BTK. BTK is one of those parts. But you can only see the front panel, the front side of the cube. That's what he chose to show everybody.” – Nic (47:43)
On abuse revelations:
"At the 2024 CrimeCon in Nashville, Tennessee…Carrie presented excerpts from her father's journal that revealed he had sexually abused her when she was a child." – Nic (44:42)
On the legacy of offender profiling:
“Roy Hazelwood had a much more hands-on role with the BSU than what the Shepard character has in the show. And he was both a leader and a teacher for the BSU.” – Nic (52:26)
True Crime Garage delivers this deep dive with its signature blend of dark humor, methodical research, and candid banter. The hosts move seamlessly from technical analysis to personal musings, showing genuine outrage at offender behavior and fascination with investigative breakthroughs. Their irreverent tone helps balance uncomfortable subject matter, and their attention to detail—both real-life and dramatic—makes the episode accessible and insightful for both seasoned true crime fans and newcomers.
Stay tuned for the finale of the Mindhunter series; as always, Nic and the Captain close with a reminder to “be good, be kind, and don’t litter.”