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The Poet (Assailant)
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Narrator (Rachel Brown)
Ruth is driving as fast as she can. She just escaped the Poet. He attacked her in the mall parking lot. She got away. But now as she drives, she notices a growing pain in her side.
Reporter Fred Mann
Turning the wheel became a real struggle for her.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
That's reporter Fred Mann.
Reporter Fred Mann
She could sense, like somebody poured something down her back, hot and wet and sticky. As she drove, she kind of reached back there and she could feel the handle of a knife,
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
a knife handle sticking out of her side. The Poet had stabbed her. He could still be following her, trying to finish the job. But she knows she needs help now. So she pulls off the road.
Reporter Fred Mann
She went into the parking lot of a convenience store, which had some phones on the outside, and she calls Bernie Derosky's number. But Derosky wasn't in. Police Captain Al Timish took the call.
Police Captain Al Timmish
She called me in my office and said I'd just been stabbed. Somebody was after her.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
From Sony Music Entertainment and New Metric Media, this is the poet. Episode 3 the Stabbing. Four months earlier in the summer of 1979, the poet had gone quiet. After Ruth's abduction, there was a flurry of letters, then nothing. Had he finally given up?
Reporter Fred Mann
Months would go by, nothing would happen, and everybody was sort of okay again. Some of the cops said he's done playing his game. He's gone.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
Every summer, Ruth and Ed go on a trip to Colorado. While packing for this year's trip to a dude ranch, Ruth realizes she needs a new pair of jeans. So after dinner, she shouts to Ed, who's in the middle of a yard project, that she's headed to the mall. Ed stops her. Is that a good idea? Since the abduction, he'd been going with her on all her errands. But that was nine months ago. And sure, they've still been getting letters from this creep, but they haven't even had one of those in a month. So they decide it's a quick errand, and it's still light out at 7pm in August. She should be fine to go alone. Ruth gets to the mall without a problem. She buys her jeans, and just as she's about to head back, she remembers that the little candy jar she keeps at home is empty. So she heads back into the mall for that one last thing. As she's coming back out with her candies, the sun is lower in the sky. There aren't a lot of cars left in the parking lot.
The Poet (Assailant)
Hey, Ruth. I didn't think you'd make this so easy.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
A hand clamps down on her wrist.
Reporter Fred Mann
She fought with him. She wrestled her way to the car. She had the keys to the ignition in her hand, but that wasn't going to work on the door, which was locked, so she had to fumble for the keys.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
She's frantic to get into her car, but he's on top of her now. She manages to get the door open and he starts forcing his way in, trying to get into the backseat.
Reporter Fred Mann
All the while he's muttering in her ear, breathing on her. I'm going to take you to this road out east of the town and I'm going to kill you there.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
He throws a brown paper bag in the back. Ruth knows she can't let him into the car. If she does, she's done for. He tries to shove her head down into the car. He pulls out a knife and stabs her in the back. But finally she gets a foot in the car and shoves him away.
Reporter Fred Mann
Ruth was able to squirm free and get in the car and shut the door on him. During the struggle, he had bashed her head against the window and that had knocked the window down a little bit.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
The man reaches through as Ruth frantically cranks the window up. At the last second, he pulls his arm out, but his brown glove gets trapped, dangling from Ruth's window. She speeds out of the parking lot and makes it to a phone bank.
Police Captain Al Timmish
I was in my office on the sixth floor and she called, said, I just got stabbed.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
She holds it together to tell him what's happened.
Police Captain Al Timmish
She was in a controlled hysteria. I hollered at Bernie and said, bernie, get out there and see what's going on.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
Captain Timmish tells Ruth to stay put, he'll send an ambulance. But Ruth is still worried the guy could be following her. She tells Timmish she's going to drive home. She gets back in her car and Captain Timmish calls Ed to warn him. She's Coming.
Reporter Fred Mann
And Ed was waiting in the front yard. And Ed got her out of the driver's seat, had to move her, take her around the back of the car to get into the passenger seat. And now he saw the knife. And Ed drove it like a bat to the nearest hospital.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
Sitting in the passenger seat, wedged sideways to accommodate the knife sticking out of her, Ruth starts to slip in and out of consciousness.
Reporter Fred Mann
As she was really tired and woozy now, she began to remember pools of water. When she was a kid, she used to go to lakes and swim. And she looked at the sky now, an inviting pool of water. She wanted to get into this water and fall asleep. And Ed kept yelling at her, stay awake. Stay awake. Don't fall asleep. Don't fall asleep. We're almost there.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
They get to the hospital and the orderlies get Ruth on a gurney immediately. The pain has become unbearable. Lt. Jawadski arrives at the hospital along with some other cops. He rushes to Ruth. In the er. Ruth is in agony. She can barely speak. But she manages to tell Drawski bluntly, He stabbed me. When he sees the handle of the knife still in her side, he whistles in surprise. This is no pocket knife. The handle alone is probably 5 inches long, wrapped in a red bandana. The hospital staff begin to turn Ruth onto her front. That's when they realize this isn't one stab wound. She has been stabbed three times in the upper, middle, back and around her left torso. As they turn her over, the knife shakes loose.
Reporter Fred Mann
Eventually, it just sort of fell out onto the gurney. She heard a clank of the knife falling out.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
The police get a look at the knife now. It's a boning knife, something you'd use to gut a fish. The blade is 8 inches narrow and curved. Her injuries are deep.
Reporter Fred Mann
The doctors told the cops, look, there was one wound there that was pretty deep that had nicked a kidney. And if she hadn't come in, she could have died.
Detective Mike McKenna
The doctors report said that, yes, she had been stabbed numerous times in her back. Three times in her back. Inside.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
That's Detective Mike McKenna. He'd been privately harboring doubts about Ruth since his trip to Fort Scott, wondering if she was really giving police the full story. But now, seeing the doctor's report and seeing this knife fall out of Ruth's side, he believes her.
Detective Mike McKenna
And you got to admit that that's pretty convincing. She's telling the truth.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
Now the Wichita PD have more evidence to work with. The knife wrapped in the red bandana used to stab Ruth. The brown glove that was stuck in the window of her car and the paper bag the assailant had thrown in her backseat. In that bag, they find a knife, a bottle of wine, A roll of tape, and a piece of rope. It looks like a kill kit. The day after surgery, Ruth feels slightly better, physically, at least. The police send their psychologist, Dr. Donald Schrag, and an amateur artist to talk to Ruth and create a sketch of the suspect.
Detective Arlyn Smith
So in the mid to late 1970s, the Wichita Police department didn't have a real police artist to do sketches of suspects and so on.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
This is Arlyn Smith, a detective who investigated Ruth's case.
Detective Arlyn Smith
There was a couple of ladies that were volunteers that would come down and do the best they could, and some of them were not bad. But we didn't employ a police artist that just wasn't anywhere close to the budget. Smith Wesson company made a thing called the identikit, which was just an overlay, a series of overlays. You know, you had like, 500 noses and 500 sets of lips and 500 ears and hairstyles, and you would overlay these things and ask your victim, you know, what do I need to change Here and there. But it wasn't really stellar. But somewhere in there, somebody came up with a composite of the poet.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
Ed Findlay had drawn a sketch of the assailant the previous year after Ruth was abducted, and her description of the stalker remained the same. A white man, 45 to 50 years old. His hair is graying at the temples, and he wears gold or black rimmed glasses.
Detective Arlyn Smith
To me, he looked old and wrinkled, which was easier to say when I was 27. You know, there wasn't any real identifying mark. It wasn't any big scar or missing teeth or nothing that really stood out about the guy. You know, kind of gaunt, maybe had a rough life, but it wasn't anything to really make him stand out. So you couldn't really drive down the street and say, that looks like the guy.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
The description of BTK was similar and similarly nondescript. A white guy with dark hair, around the same height and in the same age range. Journalist Fred Mann was on the police beat that summer.
Reporter Fred Mann
So in the meantime, the stabbing was in the media. Now the newspaper did a story. It was not a page one story. It ran on the front page of an inside section, but now it was public. They named her, but did not get into the history at all.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
The cops release the new sketch of the attacker to the media, and soon it's everywhere.
Reporter Fred Mann
I would meet with Drawski daily and One day I was sitting in Drawotsky's office and I said, okay, was there anything on the stabbing? And I said, no. But he started telling me a little bit about we got history with somebody here. And he started telling me about the letters and the. She bumped into this guy a couple times and there was a phone call and apparently this woman had been attacked when she was teenagers. And he kind of started laying out this story and I'm like, wow, this is something. So I came back and I. I wrote about it, that there was some history here. And at that point, things started to blow up a little bit.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
Headlines in the Wichita Beacon and other newspapers declared, woman stabbed, resisting abduction. Mall attacker known to woman and victim received threats in the mail before stabbing. Ed's boss even puts up a $3,000 reward for information. Every part of Ruth's harrowing ordeal becomes public knowledge. The cops didn't dare tell the terrified public that they were still wondering if this was btk. But even still, a middle aged woman being stabbed multiple times by a stalker was enough to send Wichita reeling.
Larry Hadteberg (TV News Correspondent)
The case just went up several notches.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
Larry Hadteberg was a TV news correspondent for KTV at the time.
Larry Hadteberg (TV News Correspondent)
Because now we have a woman who's actually been assaulted by the guy who said he wanted to kill her. And it's terrible because all of the other women out there say, that could be me, that could be happening to me. And so it's a terrorist threat, really, for the community, it was a huge story and we wanted to make sure that we were a force for good in the story to do anything we could to help catch this maniac.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
Ruth spent nine days recovering in the hospital before doctors approved her release. Sending her home put the investigators on high alert. At the hospital, Ruth had been easy to protect. At home, she's at risk. Her stalker knows where she lives. Ed picks up Ruth from the hospital and Drawski follows them home in an unmarked car. He scopes out the house, the yard, the whole neighborhood. He even goes to the trouble of deputizing Ed, giving him a more official role in the investigation. Police teach Ed how to clear the house himself and how to shoot a gun in the proper police stance. Since the attack, Ruth had been feeling fragile and depressed. She's become resigned to the idea that her stalker is going to win. So her community rallies around her to celebrate her recover.
Reporter Fred Mann
And there was kind of a big welcome home party. Some relatives gathered. You know, they had some fried chicken.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
Juratsky was even there. He and his wife were now in the finlays inner circle. Then Jarotsky gets a call. He has a hushed conversation on the phone, then returns to the group to
Reporter Fred Mann
report back and he said, ruth, somebody came to the hospital looking for you.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
Jacky had just learned that a man had come to the hospital and asked the attending nurse if there was a Ruth Finley there. She told him Ruth had gone home and he turned around and left in a hurry. Ten minutes later that nurse happened to look at the newspaper where she saw the artist rendering of Ruth's stalker. It looked just like the guy. She turned away. Same relative age and height, same graying hair and wire framed glasses. Juawacki reports all this to Ruth and
Reporter Fred Mann
he said it looks like the guy and Ruth got sick and she ran the bathroom and threw up.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
Jarotsky realizes if the poet came to the hospital and learned that Ruth had been discharged, he was probably on his way to the Findlay home. Now they were no longer safe where they were.
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Narrator (Rachel Brown)
Drawacki gets Ruth to hide in the backseat of a car and he puts a blanket over her. He drives her across town to her sister's house to stay. He comes back to the Finley's house to wait for the stalker to show up. He stakes out their house for two days, but the man never shows. Eventually, Juratsky lets Ruth move back into her home. Back at the police station, all of the evidence from the paper bag in Ruth's car had been processed, but there were no usable prints. The police needed some new leads, so they set Up a tip line for people to call if they recognized the sketch of Ruth. Stalker tips flood in with people calling to report men they've seen who fit the description. Two workers at the mall where Ruth had been stabbed recognized the sketch as a regular shopper. That man is questioned by police at the mall and they get a handwriting sample. Others call in to point fingers at men they've seen around town acting strangely.
Detective Mike McKenna
Someone called and told us that they had seen an individual matching the description. Believe it or not, we found this guy. I was amazed and surprised that we found somebody that looked like the drawing and this individual looked like he posed for it. And he lived in Winfield, Kansas, which is a small town south of Wichita. But he had an iron tight alibi. It was not him.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
Around this time, the Wichita police were getting creative with their BTK serial killer investigation. The trail had gone cold. There hadn't been any action in the case since Anna Williams was stalked and sent a poem with leads running dry. The police release a recording of BTK's voice that they'd captured two years earlier on a 911 call. The clip circulated on local radio and TV with its own hotline for people to call if they recognized the voice. They get a smattering of leads for btk. But even this line gets a bunch of tips about Ruth's stalker. Even the public seems to think they could be one and the same. Ed and Ruth continue to live in fear, always wondering what this guy is going to do next. Then Ed gets an idea. He writes directly to the stalker in the classified section of the eagle beacon.
Reporter Fred Mann
Ed took out an ad in our personal section saying, poet, tell me what you want.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
Ed calls him the poet, and that
Reporter Fred Mann
gave the case its name.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
The media picked up on this nickname and so did the poet himself.
Reporter Fred Mann
And the poet responded to the ad, to the newspaper. And we would take the ad to the cops, and we knew to put it in an envelope and one of us would take it to the cops and they would process it.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
The letters from the poet picked right back up, as if he was relishing in the attention and his new moniker. The poet responds to Ed with taunting rhymes and signs his correspondences. The poet.
Reporter Fred Mann
The poet expanded his writing to include TV stations, the newspaper, as well as the police and Ruth. So a TV station, for example, would get these rambling poems threatening Ruth Finley and all this. They'd go to the cops, what's going on? And it built like that.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
He's taunting them and they have nothing. Ruth is still getting threatening poems. And so is Drawski, the police station, and even news reporters.
Reporter Fred Mann
I started getting letters.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
What did that first letter say?
Reporter Fred Mann
Yeah, the first letter was a plan. He came up with a plan for a meeting. He wanted to meet. And he said, we're going to go meet at the bridge. I'll give you details later. You know, she's an awful female, a whore, all this. And at that point, the police came to the newspaper and said, we think he's trying to communicate. We see an opportunity to use somebody as a go between. Maybe somebody to confide in. Maybe instead of these random poems, he'll send some notes that'll lead somewhere. And it's always kind of a delicate situation. Where cops and the media work together.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
But they come to an arrangement. Fred gets access, and all he has to do is befriend the poet. The police ask Fred to write back to the poet via the classifieds. And to speak to him in his language. Poetry.
Reporter Fred Mann
They asked me to take out an ad on my own in rhyming couplets. To kind of get on his wavelengths. And they became the hardest things I had to write. I could write other stories just fine. But coming up with two lines that rhymed. And to say what needed to be said, that became a chore.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
Do you remember what you wrote?
Reporter Fred Mann
The first one was, I've done what you ask. As you can see. If you want anything else, feel free to contact me. Yeah, it was just an ad in the paper. And the poet wrote back right away and said, thanks, Fred. I knew could count on you. I bet you hate females, too. You're a man. This is going to be man to man.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
They wait for the poet to arrange a time and a bridge to meet on.
Reporter Fred Mann
He never followed through that. That happened a couple of times.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
The police ramped up their efforts to keep Ruth safe. They surveilled her on her lunch breaks. She'd sometimes go out accompanied by a female police officer. When she walks downtown. They wire her up for sound. Just in case the poet approaches her on the street again. But they didn't get anything new. And yet the letters keep on coming.
The Poet (Assailant)
Thoughts of me in your fucked up mind. Makes you perspire. You're fucked up. Up brain wants me to retire. Your fucked up head knows I will win this war.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
So far, the poet did have the cops on their back foot. But they were about to bring in a new kind of expert to help them crack the case. Criminal profilers.
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Narrator (Rachel Brown)
time the idea of criminal profiling was just becoming mainstream. Five years earlier the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit was formed and police forces around the country are starting to think about serial offenders having patterns or mos. The Poet investigators need help to get an idea of who this guy really is and what he might be capable of. First they get an analysis from Dr. Schrag, the local psychologist who interviewed Ruth at the hospital. He says Ruth's story is truthful and her memory of the events is sharp. He thinks the Poet is withdrawn, secretive, suspicious. There was also the suggestion at this time that the Poet may be a Vietnam veteran and might have a service related injury. Then police collect all the letters from the Poet together that had been sent to Ruth, Jawacky, Fred Mann and others. By this point There were over two dozen of them and they mailed them out to Dr. Murray Myron for psychological analysis. Myron is a big deal. He's a criminal psycholinguist who the FBI consulted on the Son of Sam's serial killer case, among other high profile criminals. He writes back with a profile. Here's a selection of what he wrote read by an actor I have rarely
Dr. Murray Myron (Criminal Psycholinguist)
seen as deteriorative a set of communications as these Unsub is clearly and severely psychotic.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
Unsub being the word at the time for unknown subject.
Dr. Murray Myron (Criminal Psycholinguist)
The volume of his projections, the regressive infantilism, narcissism and wordplays are all characteristically definitive of schizophrenic psychosis. Such disorder can produce the sort of
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
ide fixe, meaning an unstoppable preoccupation of
Dr. Murray Myron (Criminal Psycholinguist)
the mind which makes the subject's victim a persistent target of his attention which cannot be expected to cease or improve.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
He went on to note that schizophrenia as a diagnosis would not alone make this person a danger, but that this unsub was attacking even in moments of lucidity, Exaggerating his symptoms.
Dr. Murray Myron (Criminal Psycholinguist)
He can be expected to spend long hours in solitude and to be a loner.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
Dr. Myron believes the poet would not be capable of holding a job, but that he was a prolific reader, Especially of psychological materials. He said the assailant was unpredictable and highly likely to act again.
Dr. Murray Myron (Criminal Psycholinguist)
As we approach the Christmas holidays, I believe that ansub will not be able to resist the urge to attempt to provide a gift for his victim. In my opinion, this subject should be considered extremely dangerous.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
Myron's profile suggested that the poet was educated, Even referencing academic textbooks in his letters. So they recruited the most literary member of the police department to do an analysis of the poet's vocabulary. Robert c. Eli was the Wichita police's chaplain. The spiritual leader for the police, he found there was a distinct evolution in the poet's writing. Here's a selection of the chaplain's profile read by an actor.
Robert C. Eli (Police Chaplain)
In later letters, the author becomes very bold in revealing the breadth of his vocabulary to us as and seems to take special pleasure in working these sophisticated terms into his poetry.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
He finds 107 unusual terms in the letters, like consentaneous, damify, objurgate, and puissance.
Robert C. Eli (Police Chaplain)
In the earlier letters, there is almost a complete absence of such terminology, and the vocabulary and sentence structure remains quite simple and crude, as though the authority was making deliberate attempts in that direction.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
He thinks the poet is intentionally trying to underplay his intelligence in the letters. For example, the poet will write his letter n backwards, but not consistently, Though he notes, as you also might have noticed, that the poetry is pretty amateur, Generally speaking.
Robert C. Eli (Police Chaplain)
Both his rhyming and meter come out extremely awkward.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
Eli's analysis of the poet letters leaves them with a warning.
Robert C. Eli (Police Chaplain)
There is little doubt that his mental condition and control factors are deteriorating rapidly and that he will make an overt attempt on Ruth Findlay's life.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
The police gathered all the information from their new profiles and tried to connect the dots. Here's detective Mike mckenna.
Detective Mike McKenna
The criminal profile of the poet was an individual that may have been in the military or always wanted to be in the military, felt that society owed him something and that in this case, with Ruth findley, He was going to get paid back what he felt he was owed.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
A member of the Wichita police department leads a press conference filmed by cake TV to reveal to the public what they'd learned and to make an appeal to the poet himself.
Larry Hadteberg (TV News Correspondent)
We consider him extremely dangerous. He's virtually a pathological person. That's what the doctors say. He probably spends long hours in solitude. Probably a loner. The outward appearance is probably a friendly type person, but the man has a psychological problem. He's sick. We could still get help for him if he'd just come forward.
Dr. Murray Myron (Criminal Psycholinguist)
Unsub will not be able to resist the urge to attempt to provide a gift for his victim.
Robert C. Eli (Police Chaplain)
He will make an overt attempt on Ruth Finley's life.
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
Christmas decorations up around the house nestled in for the night. The Finlays are hosting their family. It's Christmas Eve. Their youngest son Bruce goes to make a phone call and finds the line is dead. This is especially alarming because this was BTK's MO he would cut his victims telephone lines so they couldn't call for help when he attacked. Wichita residents were told to check their phone lines whenever they returned home. If the line was dead, they were told to get out. Ruth and Ed race outside in their backyard. They see that their telephone line has been crudely cut. They report the incident to the police who rush over. They take the cut phone line into evidence. Detectives are placed inside the findlay home on 24 hour surveillance. They are going to make sure no matter what that Ruth gets through Christmas alive. Next time on the Poet. The Findlay residence becomes the site of Ruth's torment.
Detective Mike McKenna
Then things started happening at the house
Narrator (Rachel Brown)
that were unexplainable and the police get a break in the case.
Police Captain Al Timmish
So we went to that location. We showed that composite to next door neighbor and the neighbor said, yeah, that's our neighbor. That's him.
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Narrator (Rachel Brown)
The Poet is a production of Sony Music Entertainment, New Metric Media and Muse Entertainment. The show is hosted by me, Rachel Brown. The series is written and produced by Pippa Johnstone and Rachel Brown from New Metric Media. Our executive producer is Chris Kelly from Sony Music Entertainment. Our executive producers are Catherine St. Louis and Jonathan Hirsch for Muse Entertainment. Our executive producer is Courtney Dobbins. Sound design and original music by Mark Angley. Nathan Howe is our story editor and associate producer consultant Gene Stone. Fact checking by Maya El Hawari and Alexis Green. Our lawyers are Daniel Henry, Garland Anthony and Austin Wong. Voice acting from Cassandra Sison, Morgan Murray and Antony McMahon. Special thanks to Andres Lara, Patrick McConnell, Sami Allison, Allison Haney, Emily Raczek and the rest of the team at Sony Music Entertainment.
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Host: Rachel Brown (Sony Music Entertainment)
Release Date: July 13, 2026
This gripping episode details the escalation of Ruth Finley’s torment by "The Poet," a mysterious and violent stalker in late 1970s Wichita. The episode’s central event is Ruth’s brutal stabbing in a mall parking lot, triggering a new phase in the investigation. Police, media, and psychological experts mobilize, employing evolving criminal profiling techniques—unprecedented at the time—to crack the case. The episode vividly portrays the terror inflicted upon Ruth and the city, culminating in an unsettling Christmas cliffhanger.
“Hey, Ruth. I didn’t think you’d make this so easy.” – The Poet (04:20)
“She called me in my office and said I’d just been stabbed. Somebody was after her.” – Captain Al Timmish (02:13)
“Stay awake. Don’t fall asleep. We’re almost there.” – Ed, as recounted by Fred Mann (07:00)
“You got to admit that that’s pretty convincing. She’s telling the truth.” – Detective Mike McKenna (09:18)
“It’s a terrorist threat, really, for the community... all of the other women out there say, that could be me.” – Larry Hadteberg (14:00)
“Ruth got sick and she ran the bathroom and threw up.” – Fred Mann (16:36)
“Ed took out an ad in our personal section saying, poet, tell me what you want.” – Fred Mann (20:41)
“They asked me to take out an ad on my own in rhyming couplets. To kind of get on his wavelengths.” – Fred Mann (22:52)
“Unsub is clearly and severely psychotic...regressive infantilism, narcissism and wordplays are all characteristically definitive of schizophrenic psychosis.” – Dr. Myron (read by actor) (27:12) “He can be expected to spend long hours in solitude and to be a loner.” – Dr. Myron (27:57)
“In later letters, the author becomes very bold in revealing the breadth of his vocabulary...” – Chaplain Eli (read by actor) (29:02) “Both his rhyming and meter come out extremely awkward.” – Chaplain Eli (29:55)
Chilling Taunt from The Poet (24:11)
"Thoughts of me in your fucked up mind. Makes you perspire. Your fucked up brain wants me to retire. Your fucked up head knows I will win this war." – The Poet
Reporter’s Role as Unlikely Intermediary (22:52-23:34)
"They asked me to take out an ad on my own in rhyming couplets...But coming up with two lines that rhymed...that became a chore." "The poet wrote back right away and said, thanks, Fred. I knew could count on you. I bet you hate females, too. You’re a man. This is going to be man to man." – Fred Mann & The Poet
Profiling the Unknown
Dr. Myron (profile excerpt) (27:12 - 28:17):
“I have rarely seen as deteriorative a set of communications as these...ide fixe...which makes the subject’s victim a persistent target of his attention which cannot be expected to cease or improve."
Chaplain Eli (profile excerpt) (29:02):
“There is little doubt that his mental condition and control factors are deteriorating rapidly and that he will make an overt attempt on Ruth Finley’s life.”
City’s Anxiety Echoed by TV News
"The case just went up several notches. Now we have a woman who’s actually been assaulted by the guy who said he wanted to kill her." – Larry Hadteberg (13:52-14:00)
True to the podcast’s immersive and tense style, the narration captures both Ruth’s courage and the city’s mounting fear. The investigative voices—police, psychologists, journalists—add authenticity and period realism, while archival quotes and dramatic reconstructions convey the chilling presence of the Poet.
“The Stabbing” marks a severe escalation in Ruth Finley’s ordeal, making her private nightmare an urgent crisis for Wichita and an early test case for criminal profiling. As the Poet becomes emboldened, taunting media and investigators alike, the lines between local terror and national infamy blur. The episode closes on a nerve-wracking holiday, police and family huddled in fear, wondering if Christmas will bring another attack.