By Chris Bartholomew
Kansas, the home of The Wichita Massacre, also known as The Wichita Horror, The killers, Richard "Dick" Hickock and Perry Smith, of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, and the BTK Killer, Denis Rader.
I spent my childhood between California and Wichita, Kansas. I was on the now defunct catchBTKkiller.com message board from 2003 until he was caught. It is thought by the people who gathered there to try and figure out who was responsible for the killings that Denis Rader spent some time reading the forum and that he might have posted at least once. I was there when he was arrested and brought in; it was something to see when justice was finally coming for this ender of life.
He was known to 'dote' on his wife at church. He wasn't a mean man, and everyone was surprised when he was arrested. It was another, 'he seemed like such a nice person' kind of thing. College educated, upstanding member of his church, good father, a Boy Scout leader and community worker. Dennis Rader has also been described as having a tight Christian control over his family, and as a by-the-numbers type of person, arrogant, rude, confrontational, meticulous, neat, efficient, friendly, a regular guy, and petty.
Between killings he and his wife had two children. They were married for 34 years. Did she know about the murders he was committing? She knows now and probably there were signs that she either ignored and/or wanted not to believe, like the poem he wrote about one of his victims, she found it and he shrugged it off as being for a class about the BTK Killer. Her comment to him was that he wrote just like the BTK killer, still, she didn't know.
He named himself The BTK Killer, (Bind them, Torture them, Kill them), and murdered 10 people in and around Sedgwick County, Wichita Kansas, between 1974 and 1991. He was caught in 2005 when he sent the police a letter on a computer disk that the police were able to trace back to the church where Denis Rader was president. His daughter offered her DNA for testing, it was a match.
The Zodiac Killer began his murder spree on October 30, 1966 and wrote his first letter to the police almost one month later on November 29, 1966. Even more interesting is the fact that the Zodiac, after three years of silence, sent the first of a series of four letters to the San Francisco Chronicle on January 29, 1974. Chances are that B.T.K. had read about this in the newspaper and decided to open the lines of communication with the media and police.
Dennis Rader was not illiterate, and neither was the Zodiac Killer suspected of being illiterate, yet both of them misspelled words and used poor grammar. Below is one of BTK's letters:
"I write this letter to you for the sake of the tax payer as well as your time. Those three dude you have in custody are just talking to get publicity for the Otero murders. They know nothing at all. I did it by myself and with no ones help. There has been no talk either. Let's put this straight
Joe: Position: Southwest bedroom, feet tie to the bed. Head pointed in a southerly direction. Bondage: Window blind cord. Garrote: Blind cord, brown belt. Death: The old bag trick and strangulation with clothes line rope. Clothed: White sweat shirt, green pants. Comments: He threw up at one time. Had rib injury from wreck few week before. Laying on coat.
Julie: Position: Laying on her back crosswise on the bed pointed in southwestern direction. Face cover with a pillow. Bondage: Blind cord. Garrote: Clothes line cord tie in a clove-hitch. Death: Strangulation twice. Clothes: Blue house coat, black slack, white sock. Comments: Blood on face from too much pressure on the neck, bed unmade.
Josephine: Position: Hanging by the neck in the northwest part of the basement. Dryer or freezer north of her body. Bondage: Hand tie with blind cord. Feet and lower knees, upper knees and waist with clothes line cord. All one length. Garrote: Rough hemp rope 1/4 dia., noose with four or five turns. Clothes: Dark bra cut in the middle, sock. Death: Strangulation once, hung. Comments: Most of her clothes at the bottom of the stairs, green pants, and panties. Her glasses in the southwest bedroom.
Joseph: Position: In the east bedroom laying on his back pointed in eastern direction. Bondage: Blind cord. Garrote: Three hoods; white T-shirt, white plastic bag, another T-shirt Clothes line cord with clove-hitch. Death: Suffocation once, strangulation-suffocation with the old bag trick. Clothes: Brown pants, yellow-brown stripe T-shirt Comments: His radio is blaring.
All victims had their hands tie behind their backs. Gags of pillow case material. Slip knots on Joe and Joseph neck to hold leg down or was at one time. Purse contents south of the table. Spilled drink in that area also, kids making lunches. Door shade in red chair in the living room. Otero's watch missing. I needed one so I took it. Runs good. Thermostat turn down. Car was dirty inside, out of gas.
"I'm sorry this happen to society. They are the ones who suffer the most. It hard to control myself. You probably call me 'psychotic with sexual perversion hang-up.' When this monster enter my brain I will never know. But, it here to stay. How does one cure himself? If you ask for help, that you have killed four people they will laugh or hit the panic button and call the cops.
"I can't stop it so the monster goes on, and hurt me as well as society. Society can be thankful that there are ways for people like me to relieve myself at time by day dreams of some victims being torture and being mine. It a big complicated game my friend of the monster play putting victims number down, follow them, checking up on them, waiting in the dark, waiting, waiting.... the pressure is great and sometimes he run the game to his liking. Maybe you can stop him. I can't. He has already chosen his next victim or victims. I don't know who they are yet. The next day after I read the paper, I will know, but it to late. Good luck hunting.
"YOURS, TRULY GUILTILY
"P.S. Since sex criminals do not change their M.O. or by nature cannot do so, I will not change mine. The code word for me will be....Bind them, toture them, kill them, B.T.K., you see he at it again. They will be on the next victim."
He said his reason for killing was that his sexual fantasies that had to be fulfilled. That they (the fantasies) just got bigger and bigger until he had to act them out. He claimed he had no control. His mode of killing was to cut telephone lines, break into homes, tie up victims, and force them to suffer a slow death.
Jan. 15, 1974 Denis Rader's first victims were four of eight members of a family: Joseph Otero, 38, strangled. Julie Otero, 34, was struck, gagged and bound before being killed. Josephine Otero, 11, was hung in the basement on a sewer pipe. Joseph Otero II, 9, was also strangled. He was found tied up with three hoods over his head. Three hoods because in the pandemonium he was able to tear a hole in the plastic bag that first covered his head. Denis Rader gained access through a back door that one of the kids opened for him, one of the children also let their dog out.
This was a violent first killing and in Rader's own words, he kept strangling people thinking that they were dead, and then he'd go back and find he had to strangle them again. Being his first time he had no idea how much pressure to apply to strangle a human, nor for how long, though he had strangled animals before.
About the murders of these four family members, Rader said in court:
RADER: Well, I mean, I strangled Mrs. Otero and then she went out. She passed out. I thought she was dead. She passed out. And I strangled Josephine. She passed out. I thought she was dead. And then I went over and put bag on Jr.'s head, and then, if I remember right, Mrs. Otero came back. She came back and...
Rader's fifth victim was Kathryn Bright, 21, found stabbed in her home on April 4, 1974. She was bound with cord, partially dressed and had been stabbed several times and choked. Her brother was with her, shot but not killed. Denis Rader hid until Kathryn came home, not expecting Kevin, her brother to be with her. He tied Kevin up in one bedroom and then tied Kathryn up in another. Kevin fought with him during the binding, and when Denis went back to further tie Kathryn up, Rader finished strangling Kathryn and while fighting with her he had to stab her as she must have put up quite a fight. Kevin got loose and got out of the house during the fight.
Rader's sixth victim was Shirley Vian, 24, found strangled in her home on March 17, 1977. She was partially dressed with a plastic bag over her head, and cord was wrapped around her neck, hands and feet. Vian had three children who were in the house but were unharmed. BTK later wrote that a telephone call interrupted his plans to kill them. Rader put the three children in the bathroom, with Shirley Vian's help to keep them safe. They put blankets and toys in there with them, and then Denis Rader tied the door shut.
Rader had this to say about the Vian murder in court:
RADER: Well, the kids were really banging on the door, hollering, screaming. And then the telephone rang. And they had talked about earlier that the neighbors were going to check on them, so I cleaned everything up real quick-like and got out of there, left and went into my car.
The seventh victim, Nancy Fox, 25, was strangled with stockings in her home on Dec. 8, 1977. Her telephone cord was cut and she was partially clothed. Her killer called police from a pay phone, giving her name and address.
Marine Hedge, 53, victim number eight was found along a dirt road eight days after she was abducted from her Park City home on April 27, 1985. She had been strangled, and a knotted pair of pantyhose was found nearby. She lived on the same street as Rader.
Victim number nine was Vicki Wegerle, 28, whose husband found her strangled in her bed on Sept. 16, 1986. Her 2-year-old son was home but was not harmed.
His tenth victim was Dolores Davis, 62, abducted from her home near Park City on Jan. 19, 1991, and found 13 days later under a bridge. She had been strangled, and her hands, feet and knees were bound with pantyhose. She was the last known victim of the BTK killer.
He did try again, at one time he hid in a closet of a woman who didn't come home when expected and when it got too late, Denis Rader had to sneak back out of the house. That was one lucky woman.
Because there was no death penalty in Kansas at the time of the murders, they couldn't impose death, but he did get the maximum allowed per the law: He is to serve 10 consecutive life terms with no chance of parole for 175 years.
At El Dorado Correctional Facility, a Kansas state prison, Dennis Rader is now being held in the EDCF Special Management unit, also known as solitary confinement, for "the inmate's own protection", a designation he most likely will retain for the remainder of his incarceration. He is confined to the cell 23 hours a day with the exception of voluntary solo one-hour exercise yard time, and access to the shower three times per week.
Nightmare in Wichita: The Hunt for the BTK Strangler by Robert Beattie
Unholy Messenger: The Life and Crimes of the BTK Serial Killer by Stephen Singular
The BTK Murders: Inside the Bind, Torture, Kill Case That Terrified America's Heartland by Carlton Smith
Bind Torture Kill, the Inside Story of the Serial Killer Next Door by the Wichita Eagle.
My Boss Was the BTK Killer by Mary Capps
Inside the Mind of BTK by John Douglas
The Hunt For The BTK Killer, Director: Stephen T. Kay
B.T.K. Killer, writer and director horror writer, Ulli Lommel
Editor's note: this piece ran in Serial Killer Magazine and is published as the author wrote it, spellings included. She spells his first name Denis in most places and Dennis in others; it is Dennis. Two of the quoted documents are his own writing and are reproduced with his spelling and grammar untouched, which is the point the article makes about them. The Zodiac paragraph needs a caution. The dates given, a spree beginning October 30, 1966 and a first letter on November 29, 1966, belong to the murder of Cheri Jo Bates in Riverside and the letters that followed it. Whether the Zodiac killed Bates has never been settled, and the killings that are securely his begin on December 20, 1968 at Lake Herman Road. The four letters to the San Francisco Chronicle in January 1974 are real. So the parallel the article draws, that Rader may have taken the idea of writing to the press from reading about the Zodiac, is speculation resting on a disputed attribution, and it is the author's rather than anything police concluded. On the sentence, Kansas had reinstated the death penalty in 1994, after Rader's last killing, and it could not be applied backwards. That is why ten murders produced ten consecutive life terms and a 175 year minimum instead. He remains at El Dorado. This archive carries a second article on the same case, written later and from the roster, which covers the floppy disk and the thirteen year silence in more detail.