The Wichita Police are out swabbing a retired ex-cop turned fiction writer to find the BTK Strangler:
You think you've had some weird stuff happen to you in your lifetime? Let me tell you about weird:
Try being at work when, from out of nowhere, you are approached by two Wichita police detectives. They inform you that because someone has phoned in a tip to the BTK hot line, they'd like you to submit your DNA for comparison. No particular reason -- just someone apparently thinks you're strange enough that you ought to be checked.
What are you gonna do? Refuse? Sure. It's definitely your right to not cooperate and to refuse testing. But how does that look to the detectives? And if you know you haven't done anything, then no problem, right?
I was told that the person who called me in figured I was weird enough because I publish a quarterly horror and sci-fi magazine and have a Web site connected with it, on which I occasionally post my own "creepy" stories.
Well, get a life! They're just stories. Better swab Stephen King, Gene Roddenberry and a few hundred other writers while we're at it.
Anyway, I gave the swabs, and soon I'll be cleared from the suspect list. Those who think me weird can perhaps rest a little easier.
In the meantime, maybe I'll form a support group for BTK ex-suspects.
KENNETH J. CRIST
Wichita
Kenneth James Crist is a retired police officer living in Wichita, KS and the owner/editor of Black Petals, a Horror/Science Fiction print magazine. He began writing in 1994 and has had about 50 short stories and poems published. He has also placed four novels with an agent and is working on two more.
Reader's Views [Kansas.com, 3-May-04]
"God's Canyon" by Kenneth James Crist
BTK (Bind, Torture, & Kill) Strangler Info & Voice Recording [consolidated information- Johnsville News]
