WASHINGTON—Calling the upcoming collaboration their most “ambitious foray yet into the field of human suffering,” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials announced Wednesday that they had tapped Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer, to design their latest migrant detention center.
In a press release, the Department of Homeland Security praised Rader, who rose to prominence for a string of brutal slayings committed in Kansas between 1974 and 1991, as the “obvious choice” to design the forthcoming 800,000-square-foot prison megacomplex. Saying he and his colleagues were lifelong fans of the convicted serial killer, acting ICE director Todd Lyons told reporters his agency was confident that Rader’s decades of experience terrorizing innocent communities and his “out of the box ideas” would maximize physical and emotional harm for thousands of migrants throughout the space.
“We are thrilled to commission Mr. BTK for this project and believe he is the perfect candidate to bring our shared vision of unbridled pain to life,” said Lyons, adding that Rader intuitively understood how to infuse his signature brand of bloodlust into both form and function. “All design elements—from the windowless interrogation rooms to the solitary confinement cells to the sweltering and overcrowded open-air cages—were painstakingly selected by the BTK Killer himself in order to create an experience that can only be described as ‘a fate worse than death.’”
“This place isn’t just a detention center—it’s also an ode to his many years of binding, torturing, and killing,” Lyons continued. “Any migrant would be lucky to die there.”
The BTK Megacomplex, which will cost an estimated $1.2 billion and house 50,000 migrants, has been described as DHS’s “most expansive” detention center to date and will feature a dedicated Binding Wing for securing migrants with rope and duct tape, an expansive female-only Torture Block equipped with belts and pantyhose, and several flexible Killing Spaces designed to foster ICE agents’ creativity. Also included is a Juvenile Unit for tormenting migrants as young as 5.
Rader’s early concept sketches were sent to ICE officials on bloody, frayed paper and depict sleek prison hallways strewn with victims who have been alternately stripped nude, shot in the head, or asphyxiated with a plastic bag. They show how agents could move effortlessly throughout such a space, strangling a migrant in one room, dumping their body in the next, and then taunting and killing their family right down the hall.
Many other accomplished individuals in the field of experiential murder were reportedly considered for the role, including luminaries such as Ed Kemper, David Berkowitz, and Golden State Killer Joseph DeAngelo, who is currently under contract to design a training facility for ICE agents in El Paso, TX. But officials said Rader’s “ingenious design” easily won out.
“I say this as someone who has worked in many of these facilities: What the BTK Killer has done here is art,” local ICE agent Patrick Barnes told reporters, remarking that Rader’s “inspired” choices opened his eyes to the pain and suffering a building could bring. “Seriously, it’s like BTK was inside my head when he designed this. I never thought about adding a record player to each room in order to drown out the screams. And giving each agent a locker to store mementos from their victims like money, jewelry, and underwear is such a nice touch!”
“Usually I just tell migrants that their family is dead, but this layout will actually allow me to show them,” Barnes added. “Once this thing is built, I really feel like I’ll be able to finally spread my wings and fly.”
In exchange for his services, President Donald Trump has personally commuted Rader’s 175-year prison sentence, presented him with a ceremonial balaclava, and approved plans to honor the killer this spring with a retrospective of his pioneering work at ICE headquarters in Washington.
Rader publicly thanked both immigration officials and a supernatural force called “factor X” that he credits with compelling him to kill for the opportunity to embark on what he called an “exciting new venture in intuitive torture design.” He did so in the form of a poem.
“Here’s to you, sweet DHS / For locking up thousands at my behest,” read the handwritten note, which was mailed to major media outlets across the country and included several rudimentary drawings of migrants screaming and crying for help while locked in cages. “Regardless of where these people are from / If they’re not dead yet, their day will come.”
“Inside these walls, they’ll die by our hand,” the poem continued. “We’ll murder across this promised land.”
At press time, President Trump announced that he had replaced Rader as lead architect after many right-wing commentators accused BTK of a record that was “soft on immigration,” noting that he had only ever murdered one Hispanic family.
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