Ken Landwehr, head of the multiagency task force that was trying to catch him. A few weeks later, such a disk from BTK was sent to a local television station. The disk was quickly traced to Rader through a computer at his church. Within days, the serial killer who had terrorized the Wichita area beginning in the s was in custody.
BTK had killed a total of 10 people before seemingly vanishing into thin air in He resurfaced two years before his arrest, communicating with the police and the media, after a news report speculated he was dead or in prison. Rader, who turned 61 on March 9, is now serving 10 consecutive life sentences in a Kansas state prison after pleading guilty last June to 10 counts of first degree murder.
Rader was still smarting about the apparent betrayal in the hours after his Feb. How come you lied to me? The idea going into the interrogation, Landwehr says, was to get Rader talking and keep him talking. At first, Rader tried to play a cat-and-mouse game with detectives, talking in hypotheticals and referring to BTK in the third person. But once he realized the jig was up, he gave a full confession, recounting in chilling, unemotional detail the cold blooded torture and murder of 10 people, including a 9-year-old boy and an year-old girl.
Rader felt a strange bond to him—and to police in general—Landwehr says, even remarking at one point that they were fellow law enforcement officers. Rader was actually a code compliance officer in the Wichita suburb of Park City. In fact, he displayed such an infatuation with himself that he seemed to believe the police were his friends.
Strangulation and souvenir-taking would become part of his modus operandi, or pattern of behavior. He also left semen at the scene and later said that he derived sexual pleasure from killing. The Oteros' year-old son, Charlie, came home later that day and discovered the bodies.
Rader struck again a few months later: On April 4, , he waited in the apartment of a young woman named Kathryn Bright, before stabbing and strangling her when she returned home. Rader also twice shot her brother, Kevin, though he survived. Kevin later described Rader as "an average-sized guy, bushy mustache, 'psychotic' eyes," according to a TIME magazine article.
In October , Rader placed a letter in a public library book in which he took responsibility for killing the Oteros. The letter ended up with a local newspaper, and the poorly written note gave authorities some idea of who they were dealing with. Rader wrote, "It's hard to control myself.
You probably call me 'psychotic with sexual perversion hang-up. Rader's next known crimes occurred in In March of that year, he tied up and strangled Shirley Vian, after locking her children in the bathroom.
In December, he strangled Nancy Fox in her home, and then called the police to report the homicide. Shortly afterward, in January , Rader sent a poem to a local newspaper about the Vian killing. Several weeks later, he sent a letter to a local television station stating that he was responsible for killing Vian, Fox and another unknown victim. He also made allusions to several other notorious killers, including Ted Bundy and David Berkowitz , also known as the "Son of Sam.
Despite his cat-and-mouse game with authorities, Rader was able to keep the lid on his secret, murderous life. Rader was getting older. His methods involved overpowering a victim, and manoeuvring her body around. But the idea of sliding into obscurity rankled Rader. He sent a package to the press, giving up important souvenirs and trophies.
He didn't want people to start thinking he was dead or in prison for something else," Howard said. A forgotten Microsoft word document led police to Rader's door. The disk contained more of Rader's peacocking. But when police computer experts examined the disk they discovered metadata from an old word document Rader had deleted, unaware of the digital fingerprint he had left behind.
The metadata revealed the name of the church where Rader worked, the Christ Lutheran Church. Detectives were also able to establish the name of the last user to have modified the document, a person called "Dennis".
A quick search of the Internet showed a man named "Dennis Rader" was listed as president of the Christ Lutheran Church council. Suddenly the cold case was burning hot. Police built a damning file of circumstantial evidence against Rader. Their case was bolstered by analysing the DNA from a pap smear Rader's daughter had taken while studying at a university in Kansas.
Analysis showed it closely matched DNA evidence taken from the fingernails of woman Rader had killed in Joseph Otero, 38, January 15, Julie Otero, 33, January 15, Joseph Otero Jr, 9, January 15, He seems a little bit off, but why, we can't totally be sure. In the newly released Mindhunter season 2, those vignettes continue.
This time, they're much more bone-chilling — and it becomes obvious that the man we're seeing in these short scenes is the infamous BTK Killer. Still, though, Mindhunter takes place in the late s and early s, when the BTK Killer was not in prison, but very much in the midst of his violent crime spree. Which begs the question: How does BTK's story end? To help answer that, we took a look back at BTK's crimes, and everything Mindhunter 's mysterious vignettes haven't told you about Dennis Rader, the real BTK killer — yet.
In all facets of his public-facing life, Dennis Rader appeared to be just a "regular" guy. Born in , Dennis spent his childhood in the Wichita, Kansas area, and after a brief stint in the U. The couple lived together in Park City, a suburb of Wichita, and had two children: a son and a daughter. After earning an associate degree in he later earned a bachelor's degree, as well , Dennis went on to work a job at ADT Security Services , installing security alarms in local homes from to He then went on to hold a job as a city compliance officer, while also serving as the president of the Christ Lutheran Church council and a Cub Scout leader.
On the afternoon of January 15, , year-old Charlie Otero and two of his siblings came home from school to find a horrific scene: Their parents, year-old Joseph and year-old Julie, and their two youngest siblings, 9-year-old Joseph Jr.
The murders shook the small Kansas community, but the killer wasn't immediately found.
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