Dennis Rader: The BTK Killer

On Friday, Murder By Design will be doing a live with special guest, Katherine Ramsland. She’s a forensic psychology professor and the author of over 50 books. One of those books is Confession of a Serial Killer: The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer where among other things, it’s revealed that Rader was stalking an 11th victim at the time of his arrest. Fancy talked a bit about the case today in her True Crime Tidbits Live and today, I’m going to give you some more details before tomorrow’s live.

Dennis Rader was born in 1945 in Pittsburg, Kansas and grew up in Wichita. He had 3 younger brothers and from outside appearances he experienced a normal, happy childhood. However, young Dennis was hiding a lot of disturbing things like his hobby of hanging and torturing stray animals. He also showed inappropriate sexual behavior and he would later say that he watched porn as a kid which led to him having violent sexual fantasies and a desire to inflict pain on others. He would steal women’s used panties and wear them. He became skilled at hiding all these little secrets as he grew up.

In the 1960’s Rader joined the US Air Force and when he returned to Kansas, he married his wife, Paula in 1971. In 1974 he started a job with ADT Security Services where he would work for 14 years. He installed security alarm systems in homes and the crazy thing was he would talk to these people while doing the installations and they would tell him that they were worried about BTK. The monster they wanted protection from was coming into their homes and providing them with that “protection”.

Dennis and Paula started a family. They welcomed their son Brian in 1975 and their daughter Kerri in 1978. They were a normal suburban family and Dennis was a good provider. His daughter Kerri would later say “My dad was the one who taught me my morals”. Rader continued his schooling and in 1979, he graduated from Wichita State University with a degree in Administration of Justice.

Dennis Rader was known by his friends, family and neighbors to be a good, God fearing man, devoted husband and father. He was known as a loyal worker and an upstanding member of his church. Everyone that knew him would be shocked when they found out that between 1974 and 1991, while living this upstanding life, Rader was also living another life. He was a serial killer who murdered 10 people in the Wichita, Kansas, area.

The Otero Family
On January 15, 1974, four members of the Otero family were strangled to death in their home in Wichita, Kansas. Joseph 38 and Julie Otero, 34 and two of their children, Josephine 11 and Joseph Jr. 9 . Rader tied them up and used a plactic bag to suffocate them all. Joseph and Joseph Jr. died from the suffocation but the mom, Julie and daughter, Josephine didn’t. He then strangled Julie with his hands and took Josephine down to the basement. He hung her from a drain pipe and masturbated as she cried for her mother until she died. The Oteros were found by their 15 year old son, charlie, when he came home from school. Raderr took only a watch and a radio from the home but he left his DNA at the scene in the form of semen. He would leave semen at several of the crime scenes, but he never had sex with any of his victims because he felt it was wrong to cheat on his wife. Apparently, adultery was worse than murder in Dennis Rader’s eyes.

Kathryn Bright
On April 4, 1974, Kathryn Bright, 21, returned home and Rader was waiting in her apartment. Rader expected Kathryn to be alone but her younger brother Kevin was with her when she arrived. Rader forced Kevin at gunpoint, to tie Kathryn up. Then Rader tied Kevin to the bed but he tried to get away. Rader stangled Kevin and shot him twice in the head. He then attempted to strangled Kathryn as well, but she fought him with every bit of strength she had. Rader stabbed her several times and fled from the apartment. Kathryn was able to get to the phone to call the police but she ended up dying from the injuries Rader inflicted on her. Her brother Kevin, 19, miraculously survived and would later describe the BTK killer as “an average-sized guy, bushy mustache, ‘psychotic’ eyes”.

Bind them, Torture them, Kill them
In October 1974, Dennis Rader contacted the media and led them to a letter he had written and put in a library book, to prove that he was the one responsible for the murders. Rader was brazen and he seemed to really get a kick out of playing this game with the authorities. The letter said things like “It’s hard to control myself. You probably call me ‘psychotic with sexual perversion hang-up.’” In this letter, he let them know that he wasn’t done killing. He wrote “The code words for me will be bind them, torture them, kill them, B.T.K.” After that, Rader was known as the BTK killer or just BTK.

Shirley Vian Relford
In March 1977, a woman named Shirley Vian Relford, 24, was bound and strangled to death by Rader. He posed as a detective to get inside the house and while holding a gun on her 3 kids, he ordered them to go into the bathroom and locked them inside. He calmed Shirley down by giving her a glass of water and smoking a cigarette with her. Then, Rader tied her up and choked her to death by putting a plastic bag over her head and tying a cord around her neck. He left semen on her panties.

Nancy Fox
In December 1977, Rader waited in the home of Nancy Fox, 25 after stalking her for months. He tied her up and as he was strangling her to death with his belt, he told her who he was and about the murders he committed. He called the police to report the murder while he was on his way to work the next morning. Her body was found with her nightgown next to her. He left his semen on the nightgown.

In January 1978, BTK sent a sarcastic poem to a local newspaper about the murder of Shirley Vian Relford. A local tv station received a letter from BTK a few weeks later. In the letter, he took responsibility for the murders of Shirley Vian Relford, Nancy Fox and the other victims. He also referred to serial killers Ted Bundy and David Berkowitz in the letter.
BTK continued to taunt the police and the media and nobody knew when he would murder again.

Anna Williams
In April 1979 a woman named Anna Williams, received a letter and a poem from BTK. He said that he had been waiting for her in her home while she was out, but he left before she came back. The police released the recording from 1977 when BTK had called the police to report that he had murdered Nancy Fox to the public, hoping that someone would recognize his voice.
This is the poem he wrote:
Oh, Anna Why Didn’t You Appear
T’ was perfect plan of deviant pleasure so bold on that Spring nite
My inner felling hot with propension of the new awakening season
Warn, wet with inner fear and rapture, my pleasure of entanglement, like new vines at night
Oh, Anna, Why Didn’t You Appear
Drop of fear fresh Spring rain would roll down from your nakedness to scent to lofty fever that burns within,
In that small world of longing, fear, rapture, and desparation,the game we play, fall on devil ears
Fantasy spring forth, mounts, to storm fury, then winter clam at the end.
Oh, Anna Why Didn’t You Appear
Alone, now in another time span I lay with sweet enrapture garments across most private thought
Bed of Spring moist grass, clean before the sun, enslaved with control, warm wind scenting the air, sun light sparkle tears in eyes so deep and clear.
Alone again I trod in pass memory of mirrors, and ponder why for number eight was not.
Oh, Anna Why Didn’t You Appear
BTK, 1979

Marine Hedge
On April 27, 1985, Rader left a Cub Scout camping trip in the middle of the night to break into his neighbor’s home. The body of 53 year old Marine Hedge, was found on the side of the road a few days later. After stranging Hedge, he put her body into the trunk of her car, brought her to the basement of his church and took pictures of her body in several different positions. He then put her body back in the car, drove away and dumped her body in a ditch along the road close to where they lived.

Vicki Wegerle
On September 16, 1986, Rader knocked on Vicki Wegerle’s door pretending that he was there to fix her phone lines. The 28 year old let him and he forced her into the bedroom at gunpoint, and choked her to death with a rope. He took photos of the body in different positions and then stole the family’s car. Her husband later recalled that as he was arriving home, he saw the car driving away, but he couldn’t see the driver.

Dolores Davis
BTK’s 10th and last known victim, Dolores Davis, was 62 years old on January 19, 1991.He tied her up in her bedroom and strangled her to death. He took the body and put her in the trunk of her car. He hid the body by a lake near Park City, drove her car back and left it at her home, and later moved the body, leaving it under a bridge in Sedgwick County.

He Was Living His Best Life
After 1991, the BTK Killer seemed to disappear but Dennis Rader was always there and he was never far away. He had become a Boy Scout troop leader, teaching the boys things like how to tie knots, kind of like the ones he used when tying up his victims. The Raders were very active at Christ Lutheran Church. His wife Paula sang in the choir and Dennis was President of the Church Council. He had started a new career as a Compliance Supervisor for Park City in 1991 and was known to enjoy the little bit of authority his position gave him in the community.

2004 marked the 30 year anniversary of the Otero murders and with that came some media attention. Never one to be shy, Rader couldn’t resist taunting the authorities and once again, BTK was back. He sent letters to the local media outlets using the name Bill Thomas Killman for the return address.and left packages of clues to be found. They were filled with information about the murders, souvenirs he had taken from his victims, pictures and various other items like dolls in cereal boxes, which was a play on the term serial killer.

Until…
In a classic case of Ok, Boomer, Rader began to slip up. He left one of his packages in the back of a pickup truck in a Home Depot parking lot but it was never acknowledged because the truck’s owner threw it away thinking it was garbage. Rader wanted to know why the package was never talked about on the news, so of course, he went ahead and asked. The police went to the Home Depot and reviewed surveillance footage and it showed BTK dropping off the package and driving a black Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Rader wrote many letters to the police and in one of them he literally asked the police, who are trying to catch him, if a floppy disk could be tracked back a computer. The police took out an ad in the local newspaper so that they could respond to Rader. They assured him that no, a floppy disk couldn’t be tracked and Rader, not as smart as he thought he was, believed them. A few weeks later a local TV station received a package from BTK. Included in the package was a floppy disk. The floppy disk was tracked to a computer at Christ Lutheran Church and the username was “Dennis.” A quick Google search showed a Dennis Rader listed as president of the church council. When authorities went by his house, there was a black Jeep Grand Cherokee parked outside.

Law enforcement knew they had their man, but they needed something more substantial. They found out that Rader’s daughter Kerri had a pap smear done at a hospital while she was in college. They got a court order and compared the DNA profile from the pap smear to the DNA profile of the semen left at the Otero crime scene in 1974. The samples were a close match which proved that BTK was related to Kerri, who was 26 at the time. Now, they were certain that Dennis Rader was BTK and they had DNA to prove it.

On February 25, 2005, Dennis Rader was arrested and charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder. In June 2005 he plead guilty to all charges. He later gave the heinous details of his crimes in the courtroom, but it never seemed to phase him. He was stone cold and matter of fact through it all. He was sentenced to 10 consecutive life sentences, 1 life sentence for each of his victims. He wasn’t eligible for the death penalty even though it was reinstated in Kansas in 1994, because his crimes were committed before then.

The Prison Pet

Dennis Rader is currently serving his 10 life sentences in the El Dorado Correctional Facility in Prospect Township, Kansas. In 2019, Rader told The Daily Mail “I believe I’m the facility ‘pet’, they take good care of me but sort of hide the world or keep me under close wrap, but I have all the segregation privileges.”

Originally published at https://madgingerentertainment.com.