The BTK Killer

Life and Background -

Dennis Rader was born March 9, 1945, and is the oldest of four sons born to Dorothea Mae Rader and William Elvin Rader. He had Danish, German and Swiss ancestry. Though born in Pittsburg, Kansas, he grew up in Wichita. He had a sexual fetish for women’s underwear and stole underwear from his victims and wore them himself.

Rader spent 1966-1970 in the United States Air Force. Upon discharge, he moved to Park City, where he worked in the meat department of a leekers IGA supermarket where his mother was a bookkeeper. He married Paula Dietz on May 22, 1971, and they had two children. He attended Butler County Community College in El Dorado, earning an associate degree in electronics in 1973. He then enrolled at Wichita State University, and graduated in 1979 with a bachelor’s degree in administration of justice.

Rader worked as an assembler for the Coleman Company, an outdoor supply company. He worked at the Wichita based office of ADT Security services from 1974 to 1988, where he installed security alarms as a part of his job, in many cases for homeowners concerned about the BTK killings. Rader was a census field operations supervisor for the Wichita area in 1989, before the 1990 federal census. In May 1991, he became a dog catcher and compliance officer in Park City. In this position, neighbors recalled him being sometimes overzealous and extremely strict. One neighbor complained that he had killed her dog. Rader at one point was also a Cub Scout leader.

On July 26, 2005, after Rader’s arrest, his wife was granted an “emergency divorce”.

Murders -

On January 15, 1974, four members of the Otero family were murdered in Wichita, Kansas. The victims were the father, Joseph Otero, 38, the mother, Julie Otero, 33, and two children, Joseph Otero Jr., 9, and Josephine Otero, 11. Their bodies were discovered by the eldest son, Charlie Otero, who was in 10th grade at the time and found the bodies when he returned home from school. After his 2005 arrest, Rader confessed to killing the family. Rader wrote a letter that he stashed in man engineering book in the Wichita Public Library in October 1974, that described in great detail, the killing of the Otero family.

In early 1978, he sent another letter to television station KAKE in Wichita, claiming responsibility for the murders of the Oteros, Kathryn Bright, Shirley Vian and Nancy Fox. He suggested many possible names for himself including the one the stuck, BTK, which he said stood for “Bind, Torture, Kill” He demanded media attention in this letter, and it was finally announced that Wichita had a serial killer at large. A poem was included with the letter, the poem was titled “Oh! Death to Nancy”, a parody to the lyrics to the American folk song “O, Death”.

He also intended to kill others, such as Anna Williams, who in 1979, at 64-years old, escaped death by returning home much later than Rader had expected. Rader explained during his confession that he became obsessed with Williams and was “absolutely livid” when she evaded him. He spent hours waiting for her to return home, but became impatient and left when she didn’t return from visiting friends.

Marine Hedge, 53, was found on May 5, 1985, at East 53rd Street between North Webb Road and North Greenwich Road in Wichita. Rader had killed her on April 27, 1985, and took her body to his church. There, he photographed her body in various bondage positions. Rader had previously stored black plastic sheets and other materials at the church in anticipation for the murder and then later dumped the body in a ditch. He called this plan “Project Cookie”.

In 1988, after the murders of three members of the Fager family in Wichita, a letter was received from someone claiming to be the BTK killer, in which the author of the letter denied being the perpetrator of the Fager murders. The author credited the killer with having done “admirable work”. It was not proven until 2005, that this letter was in fact, written by Rader. He is not considered by police to have committed the Fager murders. Additionally, two of the women Rader had stalked In the 1980’s, filed restraining orders.

His final victim, Dolores Davis, was found on February 1, 1991, at West 117th Street and North Meridian Street in Sedgwick. She had been killed by Rader on January 19, 1991.

Cold Case -

By 2004, the investigation of the BTK killer was considered a cold case. Then, Rader began a series of 11 communications to the local media that led directly to his arrest in 2005. In March 2004, the Wichita Eagle received a letter from someone using the return address Bill Thomas Killman, the initials BTK. The author of the letter claimed that he had murdered Vicki Wegerle on September 16, 1986, and enclosed photographs of the crime scene and a photocopy of her driver’s license, which had been stolen at the time of the crime. Before this, it had not been definitively established that she was killed by the BTK killer. DNA collected from under her fingernails provided police with previously unknown evidence. Police then began DNA testing hundreds of men in an effort to find the killed. Altogether, over 1,300 DNA samples were taken and later destroyed.

In May 2004, television station KAKE in Wichita received a letter with chapter headings for the “BTK Story”, Fake id’s and a word puzzle. On June 9, 2004, a package was found taped to a stop sign at the corner of First and Kansas in Wichita. It had graphic descriptions of the Otero murders and a sketch labeled “the sexual thrill is my bill”. Also enclosed was a chapter list for a proposed book titled “The BTK story”, which mimicked a story written in 1999 by David Lohr.

In July 2004, a package was dropped into the return slot at a downtown library containing bizzare material, including the claim that the BTK killer was responsible for the death of 19-year old Jake Allen in Argonia, Kansas, earlier that month. This claim was false and Allen’s death was ruled a suicide.

After his capture, Rader would admit that he was stalking his next intended victim in October 2004. In October, a Manila envelope was dropped into a UPS box in Wichita. It contained cards with photos of children in bondage pasted on them, a poem threatening the life of lead investigator Lieutenant Ken Landwehr, and a false autobiography with many details about Rader’s life, which were later released to the public.

In December, Wichita Police received another package. This time, the package was found in Wichita’s Murdock Park. It contained the driver’s license of Nancy Fox, which was missing from the crime scene, as well as a doll that was bound at the hands and feet and had a plastic bag over its head.

In January 2005, Rader attempted to leave a cereal box in the bed of a pickup truck at a Home Depot in Wichita, but the box was discarded by the truck’s owner. It was later retrieved from the trash after Rader asked about it in a later message. Surveillance tape from the parking lot showed A figure driving a black Jeep Cherokee leaving the box. In February, more postcards were sent to KAKE, and another cereal box was found at a rural location, which contained another bound doll. The doll was apparently meant to symbolize the murder of Josephine Otero.

In his letters to police, Rader asked if his writings, if put on a floppy disk, could be traced back to him. The police answered his question in a newspaper as posting in the Wichita Eagle saying it would be safe to use the disk. On February 16, Rader sent a purple 1.44-megabyte Memorex floppy disk to Fox TV affiliate KSAS-TV in Wichita. Also enclosed were a letter, a gold necklace with a large medallion, and a photocopy of the cover of a 1989 novel titled “Rules of Prey”, which is about a serial killer.

Police found metadata embedded in a deleted Microsoft Word document which was, unknown to Rader, still stored on the floppy disk. The metadata contained the words “Christ Lutheran Church” and the document was marked to have been last edited by ”Dennis”. An internet search showed that a Dennis Rader was president of Christ Lutheran Church’s council. When investigators drove by Rader’s home, there was a black Jeep Cherokee parked outside.

Police obtained a warrant to test the DNA of a Pap smear Rader’s daughter had taken at the Kansas State University Medical Center when she was a student there. The DNA was processed by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation at their lab in Topeka, and demonstrated a familial match to the sample taken from Wegerle’s fingernails. This indicated that the killer was closely related to Rader’s daughter, and was enough evidence for the police to make an arrest.

Arrest -

Rader was arrested while driving near his home in Park City shortly after noon on February 25, 2005. An officer asked, “Mr.Rader, do you know why you’re going downtown?” Rader replied, “Oh, I have suspicions why“. Wichita Police, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, the FBI and ATF agents searched Rader’s home and vehicle, seizing evidence including computer equipment, a pair of black pantyhose retrieved from the shed, and a cylindrical container.

Legal Proceedings -

On February 28, 2005, Raider was charged with 10 counts of first degree murder. Soon after, an anonymous source began doing interviews alleging that Rader had confessed to additional murders however, the Sedgwick County District Attorney denied these claims.

On March 1, Rader’s bail was set as $10 Million, and a public defender was appointed to represent him. On May 3, the judge entered a not guilt plea for Rader, as Rader didn’t speak during the arraignment; however, on June 27, Rader changed His plea to guilty. He described the murders in great detail and made no apologies during the trial.

At Rader’s August 18 sentencing, the victims’ families made statements, after which Rader apologized in a thirty-minute monolouge. His statement has been described as an example of an often observed phenomenon among psychopaths: their inability to understand the emotional content of language. He was sentenced to 10 consecutive life sentences, with a minimum of 175 years. Kansas had no death penalty at the time. On August 19, Dennis Rader was moved to the El Dorado Correction Faciltiy, where he still resides.

He is now in solitary confinement for his protection, with one hour for exercise per day, and showers three times a week. Beginning in 2006, he was allowed access to television, radio and magazines due to good behavior.

Further Investigation-

Following Rader’s arrest, police in Wichita, Park City and other surrounding cities, as well as police in other states such as Nebraska, Missouri, Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas began looking at unsolved cases in their area that could have been done by Rader.

After extensive investigations, none of the agencies were able to connect Rader to any additional murders. The ten known victims and now believed to be the only murders committed by Rader, although Rader did stalk a number of other potential victims.

2019 Update -

Rader’s daughter, Kerri Rawson, releases the book titled “A serial killer’s daughter: My story of faith, love, and overcoming”. Where she discusses growing up with her father and struggling to understand his double life as a serial killer after his arrest.

Photos -