Dennis Rader

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Dennis Rader Full Name: Dennis Lynn Rader Alias: BTK The BTK Strangler The BTK Killer Bill Thomas Killman Origin: Pittsburg, Kansas, United States Occupation: ADT Security Services technician (former) Coleman Company assembler (former) Skills: Belt Knife Nylon stocking Plastic bag Rope Hobby: Torturing and strangling people Sending taunting letters to the authorities Goals: Get away with his murders. (partially succeeded; arrested 31 years later) Crimes: Serial murder Torture Cruelty to animals Stalking Harassment Assault Breaking and entering Domestic abuse Canicide Theft Voyeurism Misogyny Kidnapping Type of Villain: Sadistic Serial Killer

“	You have to have the control, which is the bonding. That’s been a big thing with me. My sexual fantasy...if I’m going to kill a victim or do something to the victim, is having them bound and tied. In my dreams, I had what they called torture chambers. And to relieve your sexual fantasies you have to go to the kill.	„
	~ Dennis Rader

Dennis Lynn Rader (March 9^th, 1945) is an American serial killer known for killing 10 people in and near Wichita, Kansas between 1974 and 1991. He was known as the BTK Strangler (or simply BTK), which stood for his modus operandi: "Bind, Torture, Kill". He would also send taunting letters to police and newspapers describing the details of his crimes.

After a decade-long hiatus, Rader resumed sending letters in 2004, leading to his 2005 arrest and subsequent guilty plea. He received 10 consecutive life sentences - one for each of his victims - and is currently incarcerated at the El Dorado Correctional Facility in Butler County, Kansas. His last communication with the media was in 2005.

Criminal history

On January 15^th, 1974, four members of the Otero family were murdered in Wichita, Kansas. The victims were father Joseph Otero, aged 38, mother Julie Otero, age 33, and two children: Joseph Otero Jr. age 9, and Josephine Otero age 11. Their bodies were discovered by the family's eldest child, Charlie Otero, who was in 10th grade at the time, as he returned home from school. After his 2005 arrest, Rader confessed to killing the Otero family. Rader wrote a letter that had been stashed inside an engineering book in the Wichita Public Library in October 1974 that described, in detail, the killing of the Otero family in January of that year.

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 that stuck: BTK. He demanded media attention in this second letter, and it was finally announced that Wichita did indeed have a serial killer at large. A poem was enclosed titled "Oh! Death to Nancy," a parody of the lyrics to the American folk song "O Death."

He also intended to kill others, such as Anna Williams, who in 1979, aged 63, escaped death by returning home much later than expected. Rader explained during his confession that he became obsessed with Williams and was "absolutely livid" when she evaded him. He spent hours waiting at her home, but became impatient and left when she did not return home from visiting friends.

Marine Hedge, aged 53, was found on May 5^th, 1985, at East 53rd Street North between North Webb Road and North Greenwich Road in Wichita. Rader had killed her on April 27^th, 1985 and he took her dead body to his church, the Christ Lutheran Church, where he was the president of the church council. 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 remote ditch. He had called his 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 this crime. Additionally, two of the women Rader had stalked in the 1980s and one he had stalked in the mid-1990s filed restraining orders against him; one of them also moved away.

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

Capture and aftermath

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 a shed, and a cylindrical container. The church he attended, his office at City Hall, and the main branch of the Park City library were also searched. At a press conference the next morning, Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams announced, "the bottom line: BTK is arrested.

On February 28, 2005, Rader was charged with 10 counts of first degree murder. Soon after his arrest, the Associated Press cited an anonymous source alleging Rader had confessed to other murders in addition to those with which he had been connected; the Sedgwick County district attorney denied this but refused to say whether Rader made any confessions or if investigators were looking into Rader's possible involvement in more unsolved killings. On March 5, news sources claimed to have verified by multiple sources that Rader had confessed to the 10 murders he was charged with, but no other ones.

At Rader's August 18 sentencing, victims' families made statements, after which Rader apologized in a rambling 30-minute monologue that the prosecutor likened to an Academy Awards acceptance speech. 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 of the murders. On August 19, he was moved to the El Dorado Correctional Facility, where he remains incarcerated.

Victims

Name	Sex	Age	Date of Death	Place of Death	Cause of Death	Weapon Used
Joseph Otero	M	38	January 15, 1974	803 North Edgemoor Street, Wichita	Suffocated	Plastic bag
Julia Maria Otero	F	33			Strangled	Rope
Joseph Otero, Jr.	M	9			Suffocated	Plastic bag
Josephine Otero	F	11			Hanged from a drainage pipe	Rope
Kathryn Doreen Bright	F	21	April 4, 1974	3217 East 13th Street North, Wichita died at Wesley Medical Center.	Stabbed 3 times in abdomen	Knife
Shirley Ruth Vian Relford	F	24	March 17, 1977	1311 South Hydraulic Street, Wichita	Strangled	Rope
Nancy Jo Fox	F	25	December 8, 1977	843 South Pershing Street, Wichita	Strangled	Belt
Marine Wallace Hedge	F	53	April 27, 1985	6254 North Independence Street, Park City	Strangled	Hand(s)
Vicki Lynn Wegerle	F	28	September 16, 1986	2404 West 13th Street North, Wichita	Strangled	Nylon stocking
Dolores Earline Johnson Davis	F	62	January 19, 1991	6226 North Hillside Street, Wichita	Strangled	Pantyhose

Trivia

• Rader is currently incarcerated in the same prison as John Robinson, another serial killer. Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr. (a convicted mass shooter and white supremacist), was also incarcerated in the same prison until his death in 2021.

• He is a featured character on the Netflix-original television series Mindhunter, where he is portrayed by Sonny Valicenti.

• Stephen King says his novella A Good Marriage, and the film based on it, was inspired by Rader.

• According to Rader, he never raped any of his victims because he didn't want to be "unfaithful" to his wife.

Gallery

Images

• File:220px-Dennis Rader booking.jpg
• File:4FA671F600000578-6125213-Dennis Rader murdered 10 people including two children in Wichit-a-6 1535972250318.jpg
• Dennis with his daughter Kerri.
  Dennis with his daughter Kerri.
• File:Dennis-Rader-sentencing-hearing-2005.jpg
• File:E4fa5cca7f22df04ba07f1e3b7b879d4.jpg
• File:RADER.jpg
• Sonny Valicenti as Rader in Mindhunter.
  Sonny Valicenti as Rader in Mindhunter.

Videos

• File:BTK Killer - Dennis Rader SERIAL KILLER FILES 7
• File:Infamous Killers Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer A&E
• File:Who Was the BTK Serial Killer?