There are two questions that viewers typically ask after completing David Fincher and Joe Penhall’s fantastic new Netflix series, Mindhunter: Will there be a second season, and who was that creepy ADT security guy that keeps showing up?
The good news is that yes, Mindhunter was renewed for a second season before the first season even aired. In fact, Joe Penhall has reportedly outlined five seasons for the series, which makes sense considering the source material. The series is based on Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit, which catalogs the 25-year FBI career of John Douglas, the inspiration for Holden Ford, the character played by Jonathan Groff in Mindhunter. (He’s also the model for Jack Crawford in Thomas Harris’ Hannibal novels.)
As for the ADT security guy played by Sonny Valicenti who shows up in the beginning of seven of the season’s eight episodes? That’s Dennis Rader, better known as the BTK Killer. Rader sexually assaulted and raped numerous women and killed ten people over a 31-year period in Wichita, Kansas. He was known as the “BTK” Killer, a name he chose for himself, because his signature was to bind, torture, and kill his victims. From the outside, Rader appeared to be an unexceptional man. He was married; he had two children; he was president of his church’s council; and he was a Cub Scouts leader. The serial killer also took an 11-year hiatus between murders at one point.
Those expecting the Netflix series to track the BTK Killer in the second season, however, may be disappointed. The first season of Mindhunter begins in 1978, and the second season is expected to cover the Atlanta Child Murders. Between the years of 1979 and 1981, 29 African-American children, teens, and young adults were kidnapped and murdered. 23 of those killings have been attributed to serial killer Wayne Bertram Williams. John Douglas was instrumental in the conviction of Williams.
The BTK Killer, however, wasn’t apprehended until 2005, 31 years after he committed his first murder. According to a Refinery29 interview with Holt McCallany, who plays Bill Tench in the series, Mindhunter may never get to the BTK Killer case.
We try to remain true to the details of the crimes… Let’s hope to God that we get to do this for five seasons. [But] we may never catch the guy. Our journey begins in 1978, are we really going to go up to 2005? I don’t think so.
The BTK Killer likely will surface again in the second season. John Douglas provided some advice to detectives searching for the BTK Killer back in the 1970s, although he had little to do with Rader’s subsequent capture in 2005. In fact, Douglas had long since retired before Dennis Rader was apprehended. However, Douglas did interview Rader after his conviction and imprisonment, and that interview appears in another Douglas book, Inside the Mind of BTK: The True Story Behind the Thirty-Year Hunt for the Notorious Wichita Serial Killer. It’s certainly not out of the question to think that the series could eventually end on that interview. However, don’t expect to see that until the fifth season, if the Netflix series lasts that long.
Dennis Rader, by the way, is 72 years old and serving 10 consecutive life sentences at the El Dorado Correctional Facility in Kansas.
