Detroit Free Press columnist Susan Ager writes:

Serial killers tend to isolate themselves, perhaps because it's hard to keep evil from oozing out your eyes.

Dennis Rader didn't hide from his family, his friends or the house of his God. His eyes were wide open.

Well, Ted Bundy appeared to be one upstanding guy, too,... an honors student, well-liked....

But the respectable profile that emerged after Rader was named Saturday by police as Wichita's notorious "BTK" killer, responsible for at least 10 murders since the 1970s, was no shock at all to experts who track the diverse collection of psychopaths and psychotics who have written their names in blood across the American crime landscape.

"Nothing about this surprises me," said Katherine Ramsland, a professor of forensic psychology at DeSales University in Pennsylvania. "A person diagnosed as psychopathic would be chameleonic. They know the right behavior, the right words, but they don't feel anything. They are able to compartmentalize. They can live their lives sincerely, and also be out there killing, because they set those parts apart." [â??Suspect Fits Serial Killer Profileâ? by John Riley, Newsday, March 1, 2005]

Susan Ager also notes:

But it's easy to believe -- and satisfying, even encouraging to believe -- that in the end he was betrayed by his own conscience choking, finally, on all the lies it had to tell itself.

His conscience? If he had one, that wouldnâ??t fit the typical profile for a serial killer. Most serial killers have an alarming lack of guilt, fear, or empathy. Reid Melloy, forensic psychologist, once stated:

"There is no evidence that thereâ??s successful treatment or rehabilitation for serial murderers."

Susan Ager mentions, â??... experts suspect he wanted, finally, to be caught, after at least 10 murders and 30 years of deceit.â? Why would he want to be caught? Some unlikely newfound remorse? At least I can agree with Candice DeLong, a former FBI profiler, that Dennis Rader was probably seeking the limelight again.

In either case, he got his wish.