THE MINDSET LIST CRIME BEAT

MISS MARPLE AND BTK

Tom McBride

Agatha Christie amateur detective Miss Marple is a doddering but commanding old lady who brings only a few weapons to the task. One of these is that she disbelieves most people and is suspicious of what they say.. Another is that she believes in evil, plus “everlasting life..”  

One thinks nowadays that these are both bad ideas. How can you live from day to day if you have to fact-check everyone? And isn’t everlasting life a superstition?  But these values work in the world of Miss Marple crime fiction, where it’s a wicked world and gullibility is a disadvantage. “The world is too wicked for us to believe everything that people say, I fear.”  

That’s Miss Marple’s mantra. 

One wonders what she would do with Dennis Raer, the BTK Killer of Wichita, Kansas, finally arrested and convicted in 2004-5. Rader bound, tortured, and killed at least ten people. Everyone, until he was caught, believed him when he said, more or less, that he was just a dog catcher, a Scout leader, a family man, and a church deacon.  Miss M. would say that the world is far too malevolent for us to take Rader at face value. She would have been right about that. People were shocked when it was revealed that Rader was BTK. Miss Marple would not have been. 

What about evil? Was Rader evil? IS he? It’s not a word that psychologists use. They have reported that Rader is narcissistic and antisocial. Ironically, Radar himself might agree more with Miss Marple. He’s said that he was compelled to B,T, and K because of what he called “Factor X.” One has the impression of some demon that he could not resist.  

External demons: sounds a lot like evil. Score another point for Miss Marple. Busy, suburban Wichita is far removed from Miss Marple’s quiet English village. 

Or is it? 

mcbridet@beloit.edu