Dennis Lynn Rader | BTK
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Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast.

The podcast dedicated to the study and exploration of serial murder. I am your host, Thomas Weyborg Thun, and tonight's episode is about none other than Dennis Lynn Rader, also known as BTK. Bind, torture, kill. Few words incite small feelings of dread, and yet those are exactly the three that Dennis Rader chose for his acronym.

During a period of exactly 30 years, starting in 1974, an enigmatic horror terrorized the Midwestern state of Kansas with several house invasions resulting in the gruesome deaths of at least 10 people. The police was left clueless, the neighbors fearful of their lives, and the killer apparently sated, choosing to seize the

his murderous activities for many years until he once more taunted the police as late as 2004, ultimately leading to his capture in February of 2005. So join me as we delve into the case of one of America's most iconic serial killers, who he was, what he did and how. Dennis Lynn Rader was born on March 9th, 1945.

He was the oldest of four brothers and the son of William and Dorothy, a raider. A lifelong Lutheran, he was baptized at Zion Lutheran Church in Pittsburgh, Kansas. His father was a member of the U.S. Marine Corps, who later worked for the electric utility KG&E, starting in 1948. The family moved to the largest city in Kansas, Wichita, when Dennis was a young boy. The Raiders settled into a modest but pleasant home on North Seneca Street.

which remained continually as a raider household until sold in 2005. As a child, Dennis appeared outwardly normal and unremarkable. He joined the Boy Scouts as a youth and participated in church youth group activities. He attended Riverview Elementary School, where he was an average to mediocre student with withdrawn tendencies.

By his own admission, he says he developed fantasies about bondage, control and torture from an early age, while still in grade school. As he became sexually developed, he dreamed of tying girls up and having his way with them. The TV and movie star Annette Funicello was one of his favorite targets for imaginary bondage. He admits to having killed cats and dogs by hanging them as a youth.

He learned he had to keep his developing inner world of bondage, torture and death a secret from everyone. And he did a good job of doing so. The family didn't move around much and Dennis spent almost his entire life in Wichita, Kansas. Those who knew him personally describe a quiet and polite young man who preferred to keep to himself. The young Dennis showed no interest in the music of the times

One friend described him as utterly lacking a sense of humor, but tending to be studious and focused. He was described as a person who chose his words before speaking and who would give you his full attention as he spoke. But as he did for his entire life, he was the sort of person who appeared outwardly unremarkable and who would blend into the background.

Although his demeanor was judged as unremarkable when looking at photos of a young Dennis Rader, it is clear that he was a very good-looking young man, quite tall, slim, and with a pleasant face. Rader graduated from Wichita Heights High School, class of 1963. In his adolescence, he had employment working in a supermarket. It wasn't until 1965 that he entered Kansas Wesleyan College in Salina,

too far away from Wichita to live at home. He was a mediocre student with poor grades, forced to work in order to support himself, was constantly busy and even reportedly returned to Wichita on the weekends to continue his supermarket job. He also joined a fraternity and tried to reinvent himself as more of an extrovert.

However, according to the journals he kept from the time, it was during this period that he first started trolling for victims to do harm to, although there was no mention of any success in that regard. It was also the first time he was able to successfully break and enter into homes and buildings, swiping small items of interest. He found this sort of activity exhilarating.

Like many young men in America at the time, the Vietnam era, in the summer of 1966, at age 21, Rader joined the US Air Force, apparently to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War as a foot soldier. Rader was first sent to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas for basic training. He spent time at Shepherd Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas, while doing technical training there.

In early 1967, Raider was stationed at Brookley Air Force Base in Mobile, Alabama, and appears to have been there until January of 1968, when he was sent to Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa, in the West Pacific. Raider remained stationed in Okinawa for six months. In July of 1968, he was moved to mainland Japan, stationed at the large Tachikawa Air Base located near Tokyo.

He appears to have been based there until the end of his service in 1970. By his own description, he also spent time in Korea, Greece and Turkey while serving in the Air Force, and it is probably not a stretch to say that any need to travel and see the world in Dennis was more than sated by his military service. Raider's four years on active duty in the Air Force appear to have been outwardly unremarkable.

He attained the rank of sergeant and worked in the installation of antenna equipment, among other tasks. By his own description, it was during this period that he started having sexual relations using local prostitutes. His attempts to engage in bondage activities were rejected. He was able to continue his trolling activities from time to time, but his journals make no mention of any incidents where a victim was more than stalked.

He describes one incident where he successfully broke into the base library and pilfered a book. As always, he was never caught. One former buddy from those times was totally shocked when he found out Raider was BTK in 2005. Dennis was just one of the guys, he said, just sort of blended in.

Rader received the Air Force Good Conduct Medal, the Small Arms Expert Markmanship Ribbon, and the National Defense Service Medal, and he was discharged from active duty in the summer of 1970, returned home to his hometown of Wichita, Kansas, and there he would serve two more years in the reserves.

Less than a year after his return to Wichita, on 22nd of May 1971, Dennis Rader and Paula Dietz were married. Paula was also from the same area and had attended the same high school. She was also a fellow Lutheran. Dennis was 26, Paula was 23 when they got married. They settled in Park City, not far from the Rader home in North Wichita.

Dennis was working in the meat department of an IGA supermarket. Paula was a bookkeeper. In 1972, Rader went to work at the Coleman Company, a manufacturer of camping supplies and Wichita's largest employer at the time. He worked 13 months there until July of 1973. Rader then found employment with Cessna, the small aircraft manufacturer.

He was also attending Butler County Community College in El Dorado and earned an associate's degree in electronics in 1973. In the fall of 1973, Rader began his studies at Wichita State University. It would take him six more years of night school to earn his degree. He was a poor student, even by his own description, a chronic C- or D-level.

He couldn't spell very well and may have had a learning disability, reflected in his unusually bad written grammar. In late 1973, during the oil embargo crisis, aircraft sales plummeted and he was let go by Cessna. He found himself in a low frame of mind, unemployed, unhappy, with time on his hands.

He slipped deeper into the fantasy world he had known since childhood and wanted to know, what would it feel like to strangle somebody to death? In January of 1974, Dennis Rader was in between jobs and restless. His wife worked at the VA hospital in Wichita and didn't like driving in snow and ice, so Dennis would sometimes drive her to and from work.

He enjoyed trolling, which consisted of driving or walking around certain neighborhoods or school campuses where there would be women to observe. He would focus in on a good prospect and enter into his fantasy realm of bondage, torture, and death, imagining what he would do to her. Bind them, torture them, kill them. There was a new Hispanic family that had moved into a corner house at Edgemore and Murdoch.

and one day while dropping paula off he spied julie o'toe age thirty-four and her daughter josephine age eleven he had a thing for hispanic women he admired their beauty and dark hair so raider devised a plan he gathered together his hit-kit consisting of a gun cords knives various tools for breaking and entering

He observed the Otero house for a time, getting an idea of when people left or returned, what their daily schedule was like. So on the morning of January 15, he could wait no longer. After 8 a.m., he came around the house, snuck into the yard and cut the phone line. Hesitating at the back door, unsure if he could go through with it, he barged in. Things were not as he had expected. The man of the house, Joe Otero, 38, was still home.

as were Julie, Josephine and Joey, the nine-year-old's son. Their rather vicious dog was in the house also. But raiders seized control of the situation, ordering Joey to put the dog in the backyard at gunpoint. He somehow was able to control all four people using his gun. He told them he was a wanted criminal and needed money, food and a car to escape.

At first, Joe was dumbfounded and asked him if this was some kind of joke set up by his brother-in-law. Rader paid him no mind and ordered everyone to lie down in the living room. Then he changed his mind and sent them all into a bedroom. Using his vagrant ruse, he was able to disalarm the Oat Rose enough to get them all tied up. However, everything changed when Rader put a bag over Joe's head.

Joe fought hard, tearing holes in the bag, and Rader had to devise a cord ligature to subdue him and kill him. He attempted to manually strangle Julie, but it took considerably longer and much more effort to strangle someone that he did in the movies than he's liked to watch and masturbate to. Julie passed out, but revived after a time.

The second strangulation attempt worked. She had begged Raider not to kill the children and told him, as her last words, God have mercy on your soul. In his interviews, Raider is not keen on divulging too much information regarding how he tortured and killed children, and obviously understands that this particular kind of evil is something he should be especially ashamed of.

What we do know is that nine-year-old Joey was the next one to die. The raider herded him into his bedroom and did him in through strangulation and suffocation. Little more is known of this murder and the boy apparently rolled off the bed and died face down on the bedroom floor. Raider says he brought a chair into the bedroom and sat there to watch the boy die. Due to the evidence found at the crime scene,

We know a little bit more about the fate of the 11-year-old girl Josie, a pretty and popular young girl, suddenly all alone in the world, in the hands of one of America's most evil serial killers. After an initial manual strangulation, Josie woke up again, much like her mother. Raider thus forced her to walk down to the dark and undeveloped basement.

He put a noose around her neck and informed her she would be going to heaven to join the others. He had asked her for a camera, but she said they didn't have one. When police later showed up at the crime scene, Josie was hanging from a sewer pipe in the basement, left partially disrobed. Rader had masturbated over her bare legs, leaving some semen on the pipe behind her.

Afterwards, Raider tidied up a bit, collected his things and left after a time. He took Joe's watch and a small radio, got into their Oldsmobile station wagon and drove to a nearby supermarket, Dillon's, and parked a car. He stealthily tossed the car keys onto the roof of Dillon's and exited the area on foot. After that, he claims he walked to his own car, but realized his knife was missing.

He says to have driven back to the Otero house, parked his car in their garage and then retrieved a knife from the yard. Rader had no idea that the Oteros had three other older children, all of whom had left for school before his arrival. Charlie, 15, Daniel, 14 and Carmen, 13 were the ones who found their parents dead when they arrived home from school that afternoon.

Only months later, in April of 1974, Rader was stalking a woman named Catherine Bright, 21. He had seen her one day entering the home she rented in Wichita. On April 4, he broke into her home via the back porch door and hid in a bedroom. Around 2 p.m., Catherine arrived home, accompanied by her brother, Kevin, who was 19 years old.

Kevin didn't live there, but had gone with his sister that day to the bank. Rader startled them by emerging from the bedroom, pointing a gun at them. He recited the same story he had told the Oteros. He was a wanted criminal from California on his way to New York and needed a car and money. Rader forced the two of them in a bedroom where Catherine was tied up by Kevin, forced at gunpoint.

He attempted to tie Kevin up in another room, but he hadn't brought his best hit kit materials that day and had to improvise from materials found in the home. So Kevin managed to work his way loose and got into a vicious fight for his life with Raider, nearly succeeding in taking the gun from him. Raider grabbed back the gun and got off a shot that hit Kevin in the face. Still fighting, Kevin made one more heroic attempt to overpower Raider

But he got another shot, this time also in the head. Stunned and bleeding, Kevin appeared to be dead or dying, and Rader went back to work on Katherine. Even though she was tied up, she gave him a powerful fight. So in order to end the scene quickly, Rader switched from attempted strangulation to stabbing, getting her with deep cuts to the abdomen, her back, and arms.

Meanwhile, Kevin had revived and ran out of the house for help. This necessitated Rader having to make a hasty exit and ran many blocks to where his car was parked and drove off. He was all cleaned up by the time his wife got off work and no one suspected him. Catherine died in the hospital a few hours later, despite urgent attempts to save her with surgery and blood transfusions.

Kevin was left in critical condition with two headshots, but demonstrating that killing humans are not as easy as seen in movies, he survived. He still bears the damage done to him that day, over 30 years later. In October 1974, an editor of the Wichita Eagle newspaper received a phone call directing him to a letter hidden in an engineering book at the Wichita Public Library.

He notified police instead, who found the letter at the library. It was a gruesome description of the unsolved Otero murders by someone with a good knowledge of the crime scene. It was written in poor English with numerous misspellings. The writer was concerned that the police had recently arrested the wrong men for the Otero murders and proudly proclaimed, I did it myself with no one's help. The code words for me will be...

Bind them, torture them, kill them. B.T.K. In November of 1974, Dennis Rader finally found a steady job with ADT Security, a company specializing in the installation of alarm systems. He would stay with ADT for the next 14 years. He rose to the position of installation supervisor, which gave him some flexibility in terms of where he could be during the day.

In 1975, the Raiders' first child was born, Brian. Dennis had a full schedule between ADT and night school at WSU. Even though he is not known to have committed a crime during 1975 and 1976, by his own description, the trawling for more victims never did cease then or until his arrest 30 years later.

On March 17th, 1977, Rader decided it was time for a murder one way or another. He had been trolling a particular neighborhood fairly heavily and had some women in mind there. He had met a woman named Cheryl in a bar and had found her quite interesting. Cheryl was renting a house with another woman and often had parties there in those days. Rader found out where she lived and decided it would be a go, meaning a definite hit.

Fortunately for Cheryl and her friends, no one was home when Raider came around that day. Raider states he had also cased another home in the neighborhood, but no one was there either. Desperate for the release and rush murder gave him, Raider went trolling on foot down Hydraulic Street and encountered a five-year-old boy, Steve Relford. He pulled out a photo of his own wife and son and asked Steve if he knew who they were.

Steve said he didn't and proceeded on home to complete the errand to the store his mother had sent him on. Rader soon followed and knocked on the door and Steve answered. He was posing as an official person, perhaps a detective, and managed to gain entry into the home. There were three children in the home, including Steve and an eight-year-old brother and a four-year-old sister. Rader abruptly turned off the television and lowered the blinds.

The mother emerged in a bathrobe, demanding to know what was going on. At gunpoint, the raider ordered all the children into the bathroom where he blockaded the children in. He made his intentions clear to the mother, Shirley Vian, 24 years old, that he was going to bind her up and have his way with her. However, it wasn't rape he was after as he led Shirley to believe...

And Rader claims he got her a glass of water after she threw up out of pure fear and even allowed her a cigarette to calm down. Her husband wouldn't be home until many hours later, and Rader tied her up as promised, but instead of raping her, he strangled her to death with a cord around her neck. He left semen on panties found next to the body and was gone before the children could break out of the bathroom and summon help.

Rader later stated that a ringing telephone unnerved him and caused him to leave before he could kill the children. After the trademark cooling-off period common to most, if not all, serial killers, in December of 1977, Rader became fixated on Nancy Fox, 25, stalking her from her residence and workplace.

On the evening of December 8th, he broke into her mother's duplex via a rear bedroom window after first cutting the phone line. He awaited her arrival from her evening job at a jewelry store. Nancy was the sole occupant of the duplex at that time and lived alone. The initial confrontation took place in the kitchen, presumably at gunpoint. Rader stated that he had a sexual issue and needed to tie her up to rape her.

Other than making barbed comments, Nancy did not fight back. She was ordered into the bedroom after being allowed to partly disrobe in the bathroom. Raider then tied her to the bed and undressed himself. At that point, he announced who he really was. Making it clear he was the same person who had killed the Oteros and proceeded to strangle her to death with a ligature. He left semen deposited on a nightgown found next to the body.

The following morning, after reporting to work at ADT and leaving the office in a company van, Rader stopped at a phone booth just a couple of blocks down the street. He dialed a police dispatcher and said the following: "Dispatcher?" "Yes, you will find a homicide at 8:43 south Virgin in Nancy Park." "I'm sorry sir, I can't understand you. What is your address?"

Police thus rushed to the residence and found the lifeless body still lying on the bed. A tape recording of what you just heard was eventually played repeatedly over and over in Wichita media, but no one, including Raiders co-workers or family, was able to recognize the voice.

In early 1978, Rader attempted to send a postcard with a sarcastic poem, Shirley Locks, to the Wichita Eagle, but no one recognized the significance of it until days later. It was followed by a letter that was taken quite seriously. In it, the killer took full responsibility for the Oatro, Shirley Vian and Nancy Fox murders, plus an unnamed seventh victim, later assumed to be Catherine Bright.

The letter, best read in its entirety, reads as follows. I find the newspaper not writing about a poem on vain unamusing. A little paragraph would have been enough. I know it's not the media's fault. The police chief, he keeps things quiet and doesn't let the public know there's a psycho running around loose strangling mostly women. There are seven in the ground who will be next.

How many do I have to kill before I get a name in the paper or some national attention? Do the cops think that all those deaths are not related? Golly gee. Yeah, the MO is different in each, but look, a pattern is developing. The victims are all tied up. Most have been women, the phone lines are cut. Bring some bondage. Master say these tendencies.

no struggle outside the death spot no witness except the waynes kids they were lucky a phone call saved them i was going to tape the boys and put plastic bags over their heads like i did joseph and shirley and then hang the girl god oh god what a beautiful sexual relief that would have been

Josephine, when I hung her, that really turned me on. Her pleading for mercy, then the rope took hold. She helpless, staring at me with wide, terror-filled eyes, the rope getting tighter, tighter. You don't understand these things because you're not under the influence of Factor X.

The same thing that made Son of Sam, Jack the Ripper, Havery Glattman, Boston Strangler, Dr. H.H. Holmes, Pantyhose Strangler of Florida, Hillside Strangler, Ted of the West Coast and many more infamous characters. Which seems senseless, but we cannot help it. There is no help, no cure, except death or being caught and put away. It's a terrible nightmare, but you see, I don't lose any sleep over it.

After a thing like Fox, I come home and go about life like anybody else. And I will be like that until the urge hits me again. It's not continuous, and I don't have a lot of time. It takes time to set a kill, one mistake and it's all over.

Since I about blew it on the phone, handwriting is out, letter guide is too long, and typewriter can be traced too. My short poem of death and maybe a drawing later on, real picture and maybe a tape of the sound will come your way.

How will you know me? Before a murder or murders you will receive a copy of the initials BTK. You keep that copy, the original will show up someday on Guess Who? May you not be the unlucky one. P.S. How about some name for me? It's time. Seven down and many more to go. I like the following. How about you?

The BTK Strangler, Wichita Strangler, Poetic Strangler, The Bond Age Strangler, or Psycho, The Wichita Hangman, The Wichita Executioner, The Garot Phantom, The Asphyxiator, BTK. This letter forced the Wichita Police Department to make a decision.

It was decided that it would be publicly announced that Wichita had an unknown serial killer on the loose, and citizens were urged to be extra careful about locking doors and looking out for each other. A whole generation of women grew up in Wichita that routinely checked their phones for a dial tone whenever re-entering their homes, to make sure the phone line had not been cut by an intruder.

In June 1978, Paula gave birth to Raider's second and final child, Carrie. She had been pregnant through all the events during and following Nancy Fox's murder. One might think the joy of having a newborn would still Dennis' murderous urges, but on April 1979, Raider broke into the home of Anna Williams, a 63-year-old widow who had recently lost her husband.

He waited fruitlessly for Anna to come home, but she didn't until later that evening. Raider pilfered a few small items and left disappointed. In June of that year, just days before Raider's graduation ceremony at WSU, Anna received a package in the mail with a poem entitled, Oh Anna, Why Didn't You Appear?,

a drawing of what the raider had intended to do to her and a few of the things he had stolen. The next day a similar package arrived at the studios of KAKETV in Wichita. Anna was naturally terrified and quickly moved away from Wichita. If Dennis Rader had enjoyed all the publicity BTK was getting in the late 1970s, he must have grown increasingly wary of being caught

Ahead in the game, he knew when to fold it. Nothing was heard from the killer publicly until 2004, except for one letter that was not officially acknowledged to have come from BTK in 1988. Raider continued his trolling while becoming more active in his church, and also became a Cub Scout leader when his son was old enough. In fact, son Brian would eventually attain the status of Eagle Scout, undoubtedly with ample encouragement and guidance from his father.

Rader never utilized his degree in administration of justice from WSU, but was known to have envied becoming a police officer and was also reportedly involved at times in reserve officer programs as a volunteer. By 1985, as far as anyone knows, it had been a number of years since the last kill. Rader was a busy family man, a person with no criminal record, someone apparently religious and helpful at church.

Despite all this, he took great lengths to pull off his next murder. He was 40 years old, his son was 9, and his daughter 6. Maureen Hedge, age 53, was a widowed neighbor who lived on the same street in Park City as the Raiders. She was a petite, friendly woman, mother of four grown children who had lost her husband Thomas in the past year.

In the 1970s, the Raiders had purchased their small home on Independence Street. During their walks, Dennis and Paula would sometimes wave to Maureen, who enjoyed gardening around the home, as did Dennis.

So, on the weekend of April 27th, 1985, Rader was attending a Boy Scout campout just outside of Wichita. But he left camp that evening, stating that he had a headache and needed to get into town in order to buy something for it.

Rader probably didn't lie about having a headache. Many serial killers described pain very similar to that of an addict feeling the effects of withdrawal when they go for long periods of time without murder. He parked his car by a bowling alley in the city and bought himself a beer. He swished the liquid in his mouth and spit it out. He also deliberately got some beer on his clothing so he would have a smell like he had been drinking.

Calling a cab, he pretended to be drunk and instructed the driver to take him to a park in Park City so he could walk it off before arriving home. The park adjoined the backyard of the Hedge property. He cut the phone line and quietly pried open a rear door using a screwdriver. It turns out that no one was home as he had hoped and after a while a car pulled up and Rader hid in a bedroom closet. Maureen Hedge and a male friend entered the home.

The man left for the night around 1 a.m. Rader waited while Marine went to bed and fell asleep. Much like in a horror film, Dennis Rader crept out of the closet. He flicked on the bathroom light and then pounced on Marine in the bed, manually choking the 100-pound woman to death. However, his fantasy-driven outing was far from over.

He dragged the body with the bedding to her car and put her in the trunk. Rader then drove directly to his church, where he was a person so trusted that he had the keys to the building. He dragged the body underneath some trees and entered the building down to the basement. There he taped black plastic over the basement windows so no one could see inside. Then he dragged the body down into the basement and photographed it in various poses.

It was getting late and Rader hurriedly returned the body to the car trunk and took off. He found a dumping place in a ditch along a dirt road several miles outside of Park City and semi-concealed the body under some trimmings. He left knotted pantyhose by the body, which apparently had been used for some purpose during the night.

At one point, Raider had dropped the car key onto the dashboard, and the key slid down and wedged under the windshield. So he used a rock to smash a corner of the windshield to retrieve the key. Now it was getting light, and Raider hurriedly made his way back to where he had left his car in Wichita. He parked Marine's car there after wiping it down for fingerprints, and returned to the scout camp he had deserted earlier.

He was never connected to this crime until some 20 years later when it was discovered he still had those church basement photographs in his collection. Another year of cooling off ensued. But in September of 1986, Rader had his eye on Vicky Vergerle, a beautiful 28-year-old mother of two. He would walk by her house, hearing strains of piano music as Vicky played.

On September 16, he took some time out for a PJ, or project, as he called his murder prospects. Sometime after 10am, he showed up at Vicky's door, dressed up like a telephone repairman, complete with a hard hat. He somehow managed to get Vicky to allow him inside the home and to check the phone lines. He fiddled with her phone with an improvised testing gadget and then informed her she was going to be tied up.

Presumably using a gun, he forced her into a bedroom and attempted to tie her up. But she gave him a fierce battle, scratching him in the process. Raider prevailed in the physical fight and secured her with ropes. Then he proceeded to strangle her to death using pantyhose as a ligature. He photographed the dying body in a few poses and hastily left in the girl car. Vicky had warned him that her husband would be arriving home shortly.

Rader later stated that had the husband come home, he would have been killed also. Bill did show up shortly afterwards, and even though Vicky was rushed to the hospital, she was pronounced dead on arrival. Bill the girl's life soon took a turn for the worse. Not only had he lost his wife and mother of his two children,

He was faced with a hostile and skeptical police and public who never seemed satisfied that he was innocent of this crime. This dark cloud of suspicion hung over him for the next 18 years. Nobody had heard from BTK in eight years, and the police discounted this as a BTK crime. No charges were ever filed against Bill, but the anguish of those years was keen.

At the very end of 1987, another notorious family murder occurred in Wichita. This time, three members of the Philip Fager family. The father, Philip, and two teenage daughters.

A contractor who worked for the Faggers was arrested in Florida after leaving the murder scene in the Faggers car and using a credit card stolen from them. Bill Butterworth was eventually acquitted by a jury due to a lack of fiscal evidence, but the police remain satisfied that he was the murderer.

A letter was later received by Mrs. Fager in early 1988 from BTK, who stated he did not do this crime, but admired the work of the man who did. This was never confirmed as a genuine BTK communication until police found a copy of the letter among Raiders' stash 17 years later.

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Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash serialkiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash serialkiller. He also had his own illustration of what he thought had happened that day to one of the girls, but it was not accurate to the real crime scene.

In 1988, Dennis Rader succeeded in getting himself fired from ADT Security. The official reason stated by the company was that he was not getting his work quota done. Varying reports from co-workers describe a man who could be difficult to work with, but was customer-oriented.

One description of him from that time paints a picture of a man who wanted to be a police officer, but had been forced to settle for what Rader saw as the inferior position of being an alarm installer. In any case, he was out of a steady job. There is a record of Rader working for the U.S. Census Bureau for several months in 1989 as a field operations supervisor.

Apparently, he was promoted to a state supervisory position after that in connection with the 1990 census. It afforded him ample opportunity to travel within Kansas, which Rader says he used to add more potential projects in various locations around the state.

Dennis Rader was into another PJ in January of 1991. Now 45 years old, he was wary of his so-called projects involving younger women or where a male was present. He saw older women as vulnerable. Encounters with younger ladies had been difficult when they fought back.

Males were just obstacles in the way of his intended conquests, although young male children had been subject of his bondage murders earlier. Rader focused his attention on an older woman who lived alone, 62-year-old Dolores Davis. She only lived about a mile and a half from where he did, but there's no indication he was personally acquainted with her.

Dolores had moved to the Park City area after years as an executive secretary in Wichita and was renting a house in an area without close neighbors. This undoubtedly piqued Rader's interest. He noticed her at her home one day and might have done some snooping or investigating to confirm her status as a single woman living alone. This would be another well-planned project.

Using the pretext of being away for the weekend on a scout camping outing in Harvey County, just to the north of Sedgwick County, where Rader resided, he again invented an excuse to slip away from the camp in the evening. It was a very cold night, below freezing. He drove back to his parents' home in North Wichita. Apparently they may have been away that weekend.

and changed out of his scout uniform into his hit clothes. Rader then drove to the Baptist Church in Park City and parked his car, and he set out on foot for the Davis residence. When he got there, Dolores was still awake and reading in bed. He waited out in the cold for her to turn off the lights and go to sleep. Using a cement block taken from a shed in the backyard, he rammed through the sliding glass door at the rear of the house.

Dolores came out of the bedroom thinking someone had driven a car into her house. But there was Raider. He launched into the familiar line of being a vagrant in need of food, money, and a car, and told her he had to tie her up. Raider succeeded in tying her up in the bedroom. It's not known how long Raider lingered there, but Dolores helped to ruin his party by telling him she was expecting someone to arrive any minute.

He ended her life by a ligature strangulation. Rader is known to have made a sketch of her final moments at a time soon after this murder, showing a woman in flimsy nightgown, smiling, with a ligature around her neck and feet and hands hog-tied at the back. Only four months after this episode, Rader was hired by Park City as Compliance and Animal Control Officer.

He became a combination dog catcher and local code enforcer. He was now part of the local law establishment, gained a varying reputation ranging from efficient and friendly to overzealous and petty, writing citations if a lawn exceeded six inches in grass hate. There were complaints against him and several people were said to have moved away from Park City due to his mistreatment.

No complaint ever resulted in disciplinary action, as local officials would usually side with Raider when dealing with citizens. There is only one record of a case going to court where a woman contested a $25 fine levied against her by Raider over dog control. Raider showed up in court with a satchel, a half inch thick, full of official documents, and won the case. One woman had a very disturbing story about Raider.

There was no problem until after she got divorced and a new male friend came to live with her. The raider kept issuing citation after citation for among other things, items as trivial as having the wrong color garden hose. He didn't like the inoperable vehicle in the driveway the male friend was working on. He made it clear to the woman that if the man left, the problems would cease.

Raider started looking in her windows, and one day was found examining a door that had been mysteriously broken. But it all culminated when Raider impounded her daughter's dog and had it put to sleep before anyone could reclaim it. She later claimed that when she confronted Dennis face to face about why he would do such a cruel thing, he had snarled back with a gleeful grin

Because I fucking can. The lady immediately moved out of Park City. During the 1990s, Rader served on two local boards in Park City. In 1996, his father, William Rader, died of natural causes. His mother, Dorothea, eventually began staying in a nursing home or at home with son Jeff. Rader's daughter, Carrie, attended Kansas State University, whose football team he was a huge fan of.

In 2003, Kerry married a man from Michigan and went to live there. Son Brian joined the Navy and left the area for the East Coast. Grader was elected to the church council and assumed the position of vice president starting on January 1st, 2004. According to church procedure, the vice president becomes council president after one year.

the raiders remained quite active in their Lutheran church, with Dennis a trusted leader, helper and usher. Despite all this, and with the kids gone, Dennis Rader found himself increasingly bored. I remember well, as a younger man, I was surfing the online crime library website that had published an article about the unsolved BTK case.

Everyone thought BTK was dead, jailed, or maybe institutionalized. The subject had faded, even in Wichita, and a whole generation of Wichitans were growing up without much knowledge of the case. But January 2004 was the 30th anniversary of the Ottero murders, and the Wichita Eagle ran an article about the crime and the BTK killer.

In conjunction with that came the announcement of the publication of Robert Beatty's new book about the case. These events more than captured Dennis Rader's attention. He became alarmed that someone else would be telling what was his own story, and suddenly his plans for an eventual re-emergence were greatly accelerated. On March 17th, he mailed an envelope to the Vigita Eagle from a Bill Thomas Killman,

It contained three photocopied pictures of his own photos of the dying Vicky the girl taken in 1986, as well as a photocopy of her missing driver's license. He signed it with the BTK symbol he had used in his previous letters in the 1970s. The letter was forwarded to the FBI, who confirmed its authenticity as a BTK communication. An old cold case was solved, but the uproar had only just begun.

As soon as the story hit the media, BTK was suddenly back in the spotlight like never before. This time with the added dimension of the internet. Discussion boards, chat rooms and websites sprouted up dedicated to the unsolved mystery of the BTK case. It consumed the media in Wichita and beyond. For example, right here in Norway. Some of the same fear and paranoia that had existed in the 1970s

soon became evident. The dust hadn't begun to settle when Rader sent a second letter, this time on May 5th, 2004, to the studios of KAKE TV, the Wichita ABC affiliate. This was a lengthy word puzzle consisting of columns of letters and a few numbers mixed in. Perhaps he was inspired by the notorious Zodiac Killer, who was also famous for sending in ciphers to the media.

The FBI verified that this also came from BTK, as he characteristically used his unique signature, but couldn't make any particular sense out of the puzzle. On June 9th, 2004, Rader left a package taped to a stop sign at the corner of 1st and Kansas, in the middle of the city.

This contained a disturbing collection of documents, including a letter detailing the grisly murders of the Otero family and a sketch of a nude and bound female hanging by a rope. The sketch was labeled, The Sexual Thrill is My Bill. Also enclosed was a chapter list entitled, The BTK Story, that had mimicked the chapter list of David Lohr's original article on BTK at the online crime library site.

However, chapter one was now entitled "A Serial Killer is Born". The fifth drop from the enigmatic BTK didn't occur until October 22nd, 2004, when a UPS worker found a strange manila envelope while picking up the contents of the UPS box at the Omni Center by 2nd & Kansas in Wichita.

This consisted of a very disturbing assortment of cards that had images pasted on them. There was a collage of pictures of children with bindings drawn across their bodies and faces. What the Wichita Police Department was actually doing was following the FBI's advice. Keep the killer communicating. Using lead detective Lieutenant Ken Landwehr as the sole media spokesperson, the strategy was to establish a sort of

familiarity between the criminal and the media person, so that BTK would begin to feel as though Landwehr was talking to him directly, in a personal sort of way. The idea was to not offend him, nor to overexcite him into killing more. Just keep communicating until he makes a mistake. It was a plan that led directly to the solving of the case.

BTK's sixth drop was found on December 14th, 2004. A man walking through Murdock Park that night noticed a package wrapped in white plastic leaning against a tree. Out of curiosity, he took it home with him and opened it. It contained a PJ doll. The doll's head had a plastic bag tied over it, its hands were tied behind its back and its feet were bound together.

Tied to the feet was a real driver's license belonging to BTK murder victim Nancy Fox, whom he had killed in December of 1977. The family notified KAKE TV, who arrived, and photographed the contents and notified police. KAKE agreed not to broadcast what was found in the package for fear of arousing the killer.

Eight days into the new year, Rader left a Special K cereal box. Marked with a black marker pen was the words BTK and Bomb in the bed of the pickup truck belonging to an employee of Home Depot.

At first he thought the cereal box was trash, but when police showed up at Home Depot looking for clues, he quickly realized the significance of the box and pulled it out from the trash, giving it to the police. By reviewing surveillance tape of the parking lot for January 8th, the police had their first glimpse of BTK, but the image was too far away and blurry for identification.

But by measuring the wheelbase of the black vehicle he was driving, it was determined the vehicle was a Jeep Cherokee. Despite having installed alarm systems for a living, Rader was apparently unaware that surveillance cameras had become a commonplace item. The box itself contained information about some of his PJs or projects, intended victims that he had watched or stalked.

It also contained some misleading information of how he lived in a three-story home in Wichita with an elevator that had a bomb in the basement rigged to explode if the house was invaded. Raderer also asked a peculiar question to the detectives. If he put his writings on a computer disk, would it be traceable?

He requested a response to be posted in the Wichita Eagle classified ads, in the miscellaneous category using his codename, Rex. And so, in a later drop, also a cereal box, Rader wrote, Thank you for your quick response on number 7 and 8. Thanks to the news team for their efforts. Sorry about Susan's and Jeff's colds.

Business issues. Tell WPD that I received newspaper tip for a go. Test run soon. Thanks. P.S. May want to use KTVPC etc. code number and letters from me for my verification code to you. He was referring to the newspaper ad in the Wichita Eagle placed there by the detectives to answer his question about the safety of sending a computer disk.

The responding ad had assured him, in agreed-upon code, Rex, it will be okay. The final drop arrived at the studios of KSAS-TV on February 16, the Fox affiliate in Wichita. It contained a letter, a piece of jewelry, and a purple disket referred to as Test Floppy for WPD Review.

Detectives wasted little time analyzing the diskette and found software on it from Christ Lutheran Church in Wichita and the name Dennis. Rader had apparently thought he had erased the original contents of the diskette and that it would be safe to use it for his purposes. A quick internet search brought up a website for the church mentioning its current president, Dennis Rader.

A group of detectives quietly drove by Rader's house in Park City and noted a black Jeep Cherokee parked in the driveway. Rader was placed under surveillance while a subpoena was secretly obtained for a DNA sample of his daughter from medical records. The familial DNA was a match to DNA found from semen at BTK crime scenes and the case, after over 30 years, was solved.

After leaving the office to eat lunch at home, as was his custom, on February 25th, 2005, Rader was driving home when he noticed he was suddenly totally surrounded by police, a huge number of them. He surrendered quietly and was led to a waiting police car, handcuffed. "'Hello, Mr. Landwehr,' he said once inside the car. "'Hello, Mr. Rader,' Lieutenant Ken Landwehr responded."

Once in custody, Dennis was not very cooperative. He avoided or dodged direct questions and played dumb and confused. But when he was confronted about the traced computer disk and the DNA match, he started to talk. In fact, he wouldn't stop talking. In a stunning 30-hour confession, he rambled on endlessly about his crimes, as though proudly reciting his achievements.

Never before known details of all his crimes, his methods, his mind, all came to light. Rader was astonished during the interview when he found out the detectives had lied to him about it being safe to send a computer disk. He lamented how he thought they had such a good rapport. Lieutenant Landwehr had calmly explained that they were trying to catch a serial killer.

Rader had always had a strong need to feel accepted by police on a personal level. He thrived on the camaraderie displayed by the detective. But after it was all over, his elation turned to despair. The next interviews were with lawyers, and they caused him to stop the confessing. On the 26th of February, Rader's first mugshot was taken.

This is perhaps the most famous photo of the killer, but perhaps the most uncharacteristic. He looks unkempt, unshaven, dour and with bushy hair. In all other photos, Dennis looks much more all-American, with a neat mustache, combed hair and a pleasant, albeit a bit bored, expression on his face. Dennis Rader is, as such, very similar to one of his idols, serial killer superstar Ted Bundy.

in that no one suspected that such an all-American, deeply religious family man could be hiding the stuff of nightmares behind a docile facade. And so, Rader's first court appearance occurred on April 19th, 2005. He waived his rights to a preliminary hearing and postponed entering a plea, a move that disappointed many who wanted to hear the state's case against him.

Judge Waller continued the hearing until May 3rd, at which time Rader remained mute in front of a crowded and tense courtroom, while Waller entered a plea of not guilty. During the hearing, he was, however, confronted by District Attorney Nola Folston, who notified him that he was being charged under the Kansas Hard 40 law for the 1991 murder of Dolores Davis.

That law required a minimum prison sentence of 40 years for any murder considered particularly cruel or heinous. The other nine murders occurred in years in Kansas where the minimum sentence was 15 years. The death penalty did not resume in Kansas until 1994.

so raeder was initially kept alone and separate in the sedgwick county jail only seen by his three court-appointed lawyers his pastor and whoever else he permitted to visit him his wife and children refused to visit however but they did exchange some letters

Rader soon developed a number of pen pals scattered in various locations. He wrote poetry, including an incriminating poem called Black Friday, which appeared to describe his arrest while acknowledging his dark side. In a surprise move, county jail officials decided to allow Rader

to live in a pod, where he could mingle with other hardened criminals during the daytime. He was an instant hit with his pod mates, who called him Radar, or The Suspect. He would chat about sports, religion, crime, or anything else, and play cards. He soon earned the, should we say, honorary title of The Podfather.

Dennis Rader's trial on the 10 counts of first-degree murder was set for June 27, 2005. As the date approached, with no news of a postponement, speculation erupted about what Rader was up to. It became apparent that he would use that appearance to formally plead guilty. And he did so.

The event turned into a dramatic courtroom confession as Judge Waller began to quiz Rader over some of the details of the crimes. Before millions of viewers watching live coverage on Kansas local stations, on court TV nationally and worldwide on the internet, Rader calmly revealed some of the grisly details of his murders from his own perspective.

talking about strangulations, hit kits, ruses, projects, etc., as if they were all an everyday thing. Rader was also permitted to give his own statement. He rambled on for over 20 minutes, delivering a semi-apology to everyone and going on mostly about himself. It took on the air of someone giving a speech to a church group, thanking all the people who had helped him recently. At the end of the proceeding on August 18th,

Judge Waller sentenced Dennis Rader to the maximum sentence permitted by law, a minimum of 175 years to life in prison. Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Folston requested special conditions for Rader's sentence, stating that he should be denied access to materials that could feed his fantasies.

In prison, Dennis is, for his own safety, kept isolated from other inmates. In 2014, Raiders daughter Carrie spoke out regarding an upcoming movie based on a story by Stephen King called A Good Marriage, concerning a husband who was a secret serial killer until his wife finds out about it.

King had publicly stated the idea was inspired by the BTK killer and the relationship he had with his unknowing wife, who never suspected him. Kerry said the publicity was wrong and hurtful, and no such stated link or comparison should have been made publicly by King. She also revealed that despite the trauma of finding out she was BTK's daughter in 2005,

She and her husband have gone on to lead productive lives and now have children of their own. She never has visited Dennis since he was arrested and has only sent an occasional letter since then. Dennis Rader's sentence gives no possibility for parole and he will serve out the remainder of his natural life in prison.

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I have been your host this evening and please continue to listen to the Serial Killer podcast for more episodes coming twice a month. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to it and feel free to leave a message on my website www.serialkillerpod.wordpress.com I am Thomas Weyborg Thun. Good night and good luck.