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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 2:22 pm Post subject: Is this going to be a movie or what? |
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The guy looks like Jack Nicholson. And get a load of the name. 
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Rader Details How He Killed 10 People
WICHITA, Kansas (CNN) -- Dennis Rader, the BTK serial killer who terrorized the Wichita area from the 1970s to the 1990s, pleaded guilty Monday and described in cool and dispassionate detail how he killed 10 people to satisfy his sexual fantasies. Rader, 60, entered the plea on what was supposed to be the first day of his jury trial, saying a long and drawn out trial would only result in his guilt at the end.
He listened matter-of-factly as Sedgwick County District Judge Greg Waller read him each charge and asked if understood, even stopping Waller to correct him when the judge misread a date from the charge sheet. At Waller's direction, Rader went down the list of charges, explaining in a calm, dispassionate voice how he carried out each of the killings.
Rader, who had been the president of his Lutheran church council, taunted authorities and the media with letters and packages he sent them over several years, some with before-and-after photos of the victims. Christ Lutheran Church pastor Michael Clark said Rader, also a former Boy Scout leader, had been involved in church leadership for 30 years and was elected church council president just before his arrest.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/27/btk/index.html |
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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 3:44 pm Post subject: |
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| That guy was incredible (i.e monsterous) I caught some of his testimony today and the way he described everything it was like he was describing how he built soapbox racers with boy scouts or birdhouses for little old ladies. Then he methodically started describing stages of serial killing comparing behavioural science findings with his own experience. Really chilling stuff. If you turned the sound off and didn't recognize his face you'd swear it was some expert giving technical evidence, or a high school teacher, or something. No iilusions whatsover about what he was doing- no angst, remorse, no emotion, no dogs telling him to kill, no demon voices... |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:43 pm Post subject: |
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See Foucault's I, Pierre Riviere...
Last edited by Gopher on Sun Jun 18, 2006 2:45 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Bulsajo wrote: |
| No iilusions whatsover about what he was doing- no angst, remorse, no emotion, no dogs telling him to kill, no demon voices... |
The lack of these things will make many, many people very uncomfortable. Better to say that he's crazy (and affirm that we're not) and that explains it.
Here's a guy who's not only not obviously crazy, but a fairly stable community leader.
The question that remains for me is "why?". We all have dark sides. Why did his dominate?
Last edited by Gopher on Sun Jun 18, 2006 2:48 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 11:23 pm Post subject: |
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When I read this story this morning, I couldn't help but think that there are some moral, anthropological, and philosophical issues raised by what Raeder did...perhaps even political ones. The article says that after investigation there was no reason to find him insane or mentally ill...so yes, I guess we are confronted with how to deal with the concept of a perfectly sane, by all accounts rational, respected member of a community doing such horrible things. I at least, feel I've been personally confronted, at an intellectual and moral level, in reading this story. How do I deal with the reality that some normal people are capable and willing to do such things?
This may be a simplistic explanation...but I guess I must acknowledge that there are some people who feel an utter lack of responsibility for the physical integrity and well-being of other human beings. Or who have, over a long period of time, allowed their sense of responsiblity and empathy to so erode, that they can take on the systematic murder of other people as "projects".
Me, I just can't even...conceive of that. I can acknowledge that it happens, and has happened in history. I think I could live with myself if I had to kill another person in absolute self-defense. But I don't think I could ever live with myself, if I deliberately murdered another person. I'd be murdering myself; my sense of the value of my own life would be completely thrown away. Gone. I wouldn't want to live after that.
I suppose it's almost a selfish reason not to commit murder...but in all honesty, if you deliberately go out and murder 10 people...how is your own life of any value anymore? To yourself or to anyone else?
Murder. I guess I just don't get it.   |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 11:49 pm Post subject: |
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| There's a great Woody Allen film with Alan Alda that touches on these themes. Can't recall it's title, though. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 12:12 am Post subject: |
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| There's a great Woody Allen film with Alan Alda that touches on these themes. Can't recall it's title, though. |
CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS.
In that story, if I recall, the murderer at least had some understandable(though not defensable) reason to kill his wife(I think he wanted to marry his mistress or collect insurance, something like that). And I also seem to recall that he felt remorse over what he had done. The point of the story was that since he was guaranteed to get away with it, the only person who would ever judge him was himself.
It's been awhile since I've seen it, someone can fill in the blanks if they want. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 1:03 am Post subject: |
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deleted
Last edited by Gopher on Thu Nov 01, 2007 3:52 am; edited 1 time in total |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 1:14 am Post subject: |
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His mistress flipped and threatened to tell his wife, blowing his standing in the community, etc.
I don't think he ever felt guilty about the death as much as worried that God would punish him or the police would catch him. His brother talked him out of turning himself in. There was a really symbolic moment with a blind rabi, I recall.
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Thanks for the corrections, Gopher. Like I said, it's been awhile. |
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eddiebaby
Joined: 13 May 2005
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| Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 2:50 am Post subject: |
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Ive always been of the belief that people are essentially good, but I have also always believed that our enviroment dictates our personality, how we turn out. I dont know but I think that these are in conflict with each other. If a sane human being is capable of monstrosities even though s/he has lived a "happy", "normal" life then does that mean that anyone of us could snap at any moment? This is a scary thought  |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 2:53 am Post subject: |
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[deleted]
Last edited by Gopher on Sun Jun 18, 2006 2:46 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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jinglejangle
Joined: 19 Feb 2005
Location: Far far far away.
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| Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 3:07 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| eddiebaby wrote: |
| does that mean that anyone of us could snap at any moment? |
I'd think that the writers I cited above would say "yes." What's unanswered is why most of us don't.
Haven't you looked around at people in a subway station and thought, I could just push one of them in front of the train? Why didn't you? |
Yes, I think that. Or I'll be having a great conversation and start wondering what the other one would do if I just punch them in the face mid-sentence. Or drinking a beer by the tracks and watching a train go by thinking about jumping. Not because I want to die. Just because.
But those aren't actually temptations I deal with though. They are non entities. Sudden urges, quickly recognized as ridiculous.
I think that is a long way from what this guy did.
Still leaves the real question unanswered though.
But ya'll are right. It bears thinking about, though maybe not dwelling upon.
Gopher especially seems to have hit the nail on the head though. Soon enough someone "respectable" will come up with a nice pat little explanation for this guy to ward away the night shadows. There will be a nice little documentary, probably with lots of interviews of this guy and victim's family members and such. And X-perts.
Then these little explanations and theories will be studied as fact by psychology students on campuses everywhere, and we'll all go about our happy little lives, for the most part sedated to the reality that there is something beastial and irrational inside of man, and that at any moment the people around you are capable of suddenly deciding to turn around and stab you to death with a ball point.
Have a nice night folks.
Wish I knew why I'm so morose tonight. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 4:05 am Post subject: |
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[deleted]
Last edited by Gopher on Sun Jun 18, 2006 3:04 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 4:19 am Post subject: |
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I guess I'm going to have to disagree. Rader is not 'sane' except in a legal sense. Insanity is kind of like obscenity--hard to define but recognizable when you see it.
Normal people don't troll the streets looking for victims. They just don't. He is clearly a psychopath who, for whatever reason, doesn't have a conscience. He knows what society says is right and wrong, but doesn't have the capacity to care. For society's safety, he needs to be locked far, far away.
Those impulse references are interesting. We all have them. Mine involve driving across the dividing line or off a steep hill. The difference is that normal people have impulse controls built in that prevent us from doing that kind of harm to other people or ourselves. Some people don't.
Psychology is really fascinating, but frustrating, because they are just beyond the surface of understanding what's really going on inside our heads. A lot of what makes us tick is chemical, which upsets a lot of people's world view. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 5:47 am Post subject: |
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Yeah, but Boy Scout troup leader, in the leadership of his church for over three decades, and president of his church council by election?
That's a lot of people for a sociopath to fool, and for an awful long time, isn't it? |
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