Kansas Serial Killer Won't Shut Up

A Wichita TV station is believed to have received the 11th communication from the "BTK" serial killer since he resurfaced last year.

Fox affiliate KSAS-TV received a padded manila envelope containing a piece of jewelry, a letter and another unidentified item. The station declined to further identify the items at the request of police.

The BTK killer — the initials stand for "Bind, Torture, Kill" — has been linked to eight unsolved killings beginning in 1974 and apparently ending in 1986.

Last March, after 25 years of silence, he resurfaced with letters to the media and the police. Since his re-emergence, he has showered the community with letters and packages.

In the latest twist, the killer has apparently decided to change TV stations.

BTK has communicated primarily with KAKE-TV of Wichita, but the letter in the latest package indicated BTK wanted to spread his communications to other outlets.

"KAKE is a good station, but I feel they are starting to be single (sic) out, because of me, and causing problems among the people. Let's help the news media and WPD (Wichita Police Department) by using this package as a start," the letter stated.

The letter's return address said "PJ Fox" and listed KSAS-TV's address.

The strangler sent a wave of terror through Wichita in the 1970s. Typically, he would first cut the phone line into the home of his intended victim or victims. His victims were bound, often tortured, and then murdered, usually by strangulation.

His first victims - a couple and two of their children - were murdered in their home in 1974. Three months later, the killer struck again, stabbing a 21-year-old woman to death in her home.

The strangler then revealed himself to police with a letter to the local newspaper claiming responsibility for the slaughter of the family. The letter contained details that could have been known only to the killer.

"This is a high functioning killer. He's a sexually sadistic offender and typically they have average intelligence, so this is a more formidable adversary," former FBI profiler Gregg McCrary told CBS News Correspondent Bob McNamara.

Subsequent homicides showed that the killer had what can only be described as a warped and sadistic sense of humor. His voice was captured on tape in 1977 when he called police to report the death of a 25-year-old woman he had murdered.

And in 1978, he sent a children's nursery rhyme to the Wichita Eagle newspaper that referred to a 24-year-old woman he had killed. The newspaper said the poem was patterned after the "Curley Locks" nursery rhyme. Here's the original:

Curley Locks, Curley Locks,
Wilt thou be mine?
Thou shalt not wash dishes,
Nor yet feed the swine,
But sit on a cushion
And sew a fine seam,
And feed upon strawberries,
Sugar and cream

In letters to the media, the strangler called the force that spurs him to kill "Factor X" and compares it to the same force that triggered Jack the Ripper, Son of Sam and Los Angeles' Hillside Strangler.

In one letter, the strangler wrote, "When this monster enters my brain, I will never know. But, it's here to stay." He later said, "The pressure is great and sometimes he runs the game to his liking. Maybe you can stop him. I can't. He has already chosen his next victim or victims I don't know who they are yet. The next day after I read the paper, I will know, but it's too late."

The killer also had a passion for personal publicity. When a letter to the Wichita newspaper didn't produce the publicity he obviously craved, he sent a letter to KAKE-TV. In it, he asked, "How many do I have to kill before I get a name in the paper or some national attention?"

The last confirmed contact with the strangler came in 1979. No one knows why he suddenly decided to go public once again. One line of speculation is that he may have been jailed for an unrelated crime for which he was recently released from prison.