It was a hot June evening in Wichita, Kansas, and Ruth Finley was home alone.

Ruth was under a great deal of stress.

Ed, her husband, was staying the night at a hospital after collapsing from what they believed

to be a heart attack the night before.

It was 1978, and for four years, Wichita had been plagued with disturbing reports of a serial

killer who called himself BTK for bind, torture, kill.

The humid summer air and the paranoia caused by the unknown predator on the loose left Ruth

feeling suffocated until.

Ruth picked up the phone.

On the other end was a stranger who quickly revealed he knew about a traumatic event from Ruth's past.

At 16, she had been attacked and branded by a crazed maniac.

Ruth's heart stopped.

But the stranger wasn't done.

He knew where Ruth lived, where she worked,

and he was determined to make her life a living hell.

I'm Emily Campano, and this is the Fox True Crime podcast.

Thank you. True Crime Podcast. Ruth didn't know what to make of the menacing phone call at first, but she decided to tell Ed about the upsetting ordeal. But the following month, Ruth would have another encounter with her stalker,

this time in person.

On a busy Wichita Street, the man approaches Ruth and tells her,

some people's dreams are other people's nightmares.

Over time, Ruth began receiving cryptic, puzzling letters written in bizarre prose.

These letters prompted Ed to name the anonymous stalker the poet.

...