Wichita — Preparing for next week's sentencing of Dennis Rader, the confessed BTK serial killer who terrorized Wichita for years, the state wants a copy of a neuropsychologist's videotaped interview with him.
In papers filed Wednesday, Kevin O'Connor, the deputy district attorney for Sedgwick County, said the interview is scheduled to be broadcast Friday night on "Dateline NBC." The network has been promoting the interview conducted by Harvard neuropsychologist Robert Mendoza as "the first exclusive look inside the mind of the man."
Mendoza is a founding partner in Cambridge Forensic Consultants of Chestnut Hill, Mass., which Rader's attorneys consulted with in trying to build a defense for him.
In his motion filed with the Sedgwick County District Court, O'Connor said prosecutors are entitled to all notes, reports, psychological test results and information about fees paid to Mendoza.
"Several requests of counsel for the above information have been rejected or ignored," O'Connor said.
Defense lawyers agreed to provide any information they had from Mendoza's evaluation, but they said they did not have any videotapes that may have been made during the process.
Rader, arrested in February, pleaded guilty on June 27 to killing 10 people in the Wichita area between 1974 and 1991. In communications to police and the news media, he had given himself the nickname BTK, which stands for "Bind, Torture, Kill." After more than two decades of silence, the cryptic communications resumed last year, eventually leading to Rader's arrest.
O'Connor said in his motion that the videotaped interview was conducted after Rader entered his pleas. He said that if the defense calls Mendoza for testimony at the sentencing hearing, the state should be able to examine any reports and tapes produced during Rader's evaluation.
In written excerpts provided to The Associated Press by "Dateline," Rader explained the sexual fantasies that he says motivated him to kill.
"You have to have the control, which is the bonding. That's been a big thing with me. My sexual fantasy is of ... if I'm going to kill a victim or do something to the victim, is having them bound and tied. In my dreams, I had what they called torture chambers. And to relieve your sexual fantasies you have to go to the kill," he said.
"Dateline" also quoted Rader as telling Mendoza that he saw his victims as objects.
"I had more satisfaction building up to it and afterwards than I did the actual killing of the person," he said.
Rader also said there were "a lot of lucky people out there" he considered killing but didn't.
"I can't stop it ... it controls me. ... That's probably the reason we're sitting here. You know, if I could just say, 'No, I don't want to do this and go crawl into a hole.' But it's driving me."
It was not clear how NBC obtained the videotape it has been promoting. A spokeswoman said it is network policy not to discuss the newsgathering process. A call left at Mendoza's office Thursday was not returned.
Georgia Cole, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office, said prosecutors didn't know about the tape until NBC began promoting its program.
"Obviously, it exists somewhere," she said. "Certainly we are reviewing any options that are available to us."
Rader, 60, lived in the Wichita suburb of Park City, where he worked as a city code inspector. When he pleaded guilty and provided detailed accounts of the murders, Rader said that sexual fantasies drove him to kill.
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