Trivia
NAME: Dennis rader
BORN: march 9, 1945 (age 72)
number of victims: 10
span of killing: 1974-1991 wichita, ks
sentence: 175 consecutive years with no possibility of parole
modus operandi: bind.torture.kill.
suffocation/strangle victims. extensive stalking.
"When this monster entered my brain I will never know, but it is here to stay. How does one cure himself? I can't stop it, the monster goes on, and hurts me as well as society. Maybe you can stop him. I can't."
-Dennis Rader
Beginning of the crimes
On January 15, 1974, a 13 and 15-year-old Charlie and Carmen Otero returned home from school in Wichita, KS to find their house unusually quiet. This was out of the ordinary due to the fact that their family had four children. The usually tidy house was also in a state of disarray immediately alarming Charlie and Carmen.
Carmen went upstairs looking for her mom and dad, but discovered them both strangled with her dad's "eyes bulging...my mom didn't even look like my mom." She screamed out for her brother Charlie crying that something is wrong with mom and dad but at this time he had already discovered his 11-year-old sister Josephine hanging from a noose in the basement. As well as the death of their parents and sister Josephine, they also discovered their little brother Joseph, Jr. had been murdered in a spree that would be later known as the BTK murders.
Dennis Rader was a Wichita native, father, husband, president of his church, and ADT security system installer. People that knew him described him as incredibly straight laced including his co-workers that mentioned how strict he was sticking to proper protocol. He demonstrated this through his brief stint as a volunteer dog catcher when he exploited his power by holding people's dogs that escaped hostage.
On his off time from his full-time job, he later told news outlets that during his time as a dog catcher he would troll for his next victim. Always being equipped with what he called a "hit kit" including rope and other items he would scope out for the opportune moment to strike.
What's ironic about his full-time job as an ADT Security System installer, is that he would get the majority of calls to families that were concerned about the BTK killings. He used this opportunity to study the layouts of the houses he installed systems in which later turned out to be some of his victims.
Media and police
One of Rader's trademarks was his cat-and-mouse game that he played with the media and Wichita police. He would frequently send taunting letters to the police and Wichita Eagle describing his murders and in some cases writing a poem. In one of his poems labeled Oh Death to Nancy! he parodied the folk song Oh Death! describing his murder of victim Nancy Fox.
It was in these letters that he gave various aliases but the one that ultimately stuck was BTK. "Bind. Torture. Kill." The name that was chosen because it gave a nod to his modus operandi.
He first opened the line of communication by stashing a letter in an engineering book inside the Wichita Public Library in October of 1974. He then sent a letter to television station KAKE claiming responsibility for the murders of the Oteros, Kathryn Bright, Nancy Fox, and Shirley Vian.
In 1988, after the murder of three members of the Fager family a letter was sent to a local television station claiming BTK responsible. These murders turned out to be a different perpetrator, however, BTK later responded and admired the murderer's work.
By 2004 the murder spree that started in 1974 was claimed cold. After a decade long hiatus from communication with the news stations and the police, Rader sent a letter that claimed BTK was responsible for the death of Vicki Wegerlie in 1986. He included crime scene photos and a photo copy of her drivers license which was missing at the time her body was discovered. Just like that, the BTK that people had assumed was dead was very much alive and on the hunt again.
In October 2004 a manila envelope was dropped in a UPS dropbox in Wichita. In it contained
graphic photos of children in bondage and a letter threatening the lead investigator Lt. Ken Landwehr.
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 what had become of it in a later message. Surveillance tape of the parking lot from that date revealed a distant figure driving a black Jeep Cherokee leaving the box in the pickup. In February, more postcards were sent to KAKE, and another cereal box left at a rural location was found to contain another bound doll, apparently meant to symbolize the murder of 11-year-old Josephine Otero.
In his letters to police, Rader asked if his writings, if put on a floppy disk, could be traced or not. The police answered his question in a newspaper ad posted in the Wichita Eagle saying it would be safe to use the disk. On February 16, 2005, Rader sent a purple 1.44-Megabyte Memorex floppy disk to Fox TV affiliate KSAS-TV in Wichita.
Police found metadata embedded in a deleted Microsoft Word document that was, unbeknownst to Rader, on the floppy disk. The metadata contained Christ Lutheran Church, and the document was marked as last modified by "Dennis."
At this point the police has strong circumstantial evidence against Rader but wanted to collect more to have concrete charges against him. They warranted the test results of Rader's daughter's pap smear that she had at a Kansas State University clinic. The results showed her DNA was similar to the DNA found at the crime scenes.
Victims and murders
"almost victim" and arrest
In later interviews following Rader's arrest, he described how methodical he was once he chose a victim. Rader's key virtue in his murders was that he was extremely patient. Once he scoped a victim out he would sometimes stalk them for months before he would strike. In the 1980s and early 1990s, two women filed restraining orders against Rader and one even moved away due to his incessant stalking.
In 1979 a 63-year-old Anna Williams was out at her Tuesday night hobby, square dancing. She arrived home much later than she usually does that night and inadvertently escaped death. In an interview, Rader said he waited in her home for hours. He had become obsessed with Williams and said he was "livid" when she evaded him.
Referring back to the floppy disk that BTK sent into the newspaper; With the metadata that tracked back to Rader, the security footage of his black Jeep Cherokee taping the package to the stop sign, and the DNA match found from his daughter's pap smear to the crime scene match the police had enough evidence to make an arrest.
The police traced the tag and stopped Rader while he was driving in his Jeep. When the police officer asked if Rader knew why he was being arrested he replied with "Oh I have an idea."
In a surprise move, Rader waived his right to a trial and confessed to all ten counts of first-degree murder. He also openly detailed a gruesome account of how he murdered what he called his "projects" for the prosecution. Rader was sentenced to ten consecutive life sentences and is currently incarcerated today.
- When describing the Otero family murders, Rader explained how difficult it is to strangle someone to death. The Otero mother woke up after Rader tried to strangle her to find him murdering her son.
-Rader originally wanted to murder the mother, 11-year-old daughter, and son when he entered the Otero home but was surprised to find the father. He quickly gained control of the situation though.
-Rader frequently masturbated over his victim's bodies but didn't perform necrophilia because he wanted to stay loyal to his wife.
-In letters to the press, Rader blamed his actions on what he called "Factor X." He also stated that killers like David Berkowitz, Ted Bundy, and Jack the Ripper had Factor X as well.
- Rader was a very poor student growing up. In fact, the police were convinced that his typos in the letters he sent were intended to be cryptic.
- His wife found one of his letters he drafted left out in the open. He played it off that it was an experiment for a class he was taking at Wichita State University. She later also mentioned to Rader "that you write like BTK!" However, she never put two and two together.
