THE SOCIAL SERIAL KILLER

Article BY SUE KUCHLI - Art by Chuck Hodi

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As long as I can remember, I have had a slight mistrust of people. They lie so easily, about the most mundane and insignificant things. How does one sort fact from fiction? There is such a thin line between who someone actually is and the person that we come to know. In between the truth and the lies, somewhere we design a perception and dub an individual with a persona. We label them and that is who they are.

Now, there are harmless white lies (Oh, I just love your new haircut), and there are devastating deceptions (I’ve been sleeping with your brother for the last three years and our youngest child isn’t yours). No matter how you cut the cards, it is the lies that define who we really are. The person we are and the person we display publicly is an area so gray, that even the crayon companies have yet to design a name for it. Everybody lies, but it takes a very demented individual to possess an entire second identity. A wolf’s soul so dark, that it must be contrasted and concealed with the brightest of sheep’s clothing. The Social Serial Killer.

It must be very difficult to insert one’s self into a “normal” life, when what lies beneath could not be any further from being so. Holding down a job and a family is work enough, but throw murderous rage into the picture, and you paint of scene of constant mental divide. We have all seen a picture of a killer flashed upon the screen with matted hair, an evil glare, unkempt teeth, and possibly even a natural disfigurement; someone who just looks like a killer, an outcast of society. Then there are the Ted Bundy’s of the world. The dashingly handsome, well educated men that we would never single out as being inherently evil, but remain so, regardless. Some killers are just less impulsive. They know what it takes to maintain a profile that allows them to let their dark side keep feeding.

Growing up, from a very young age, we are taught that when we are in danger, to reach out to the police, that law enforcement is there to serve and protect us from the evils of the world. Serhiy Tkach took a very different point of view on the matter. As a former forensics expert and police investigator, Tkach used his knowledge to misdirect Ukrainian authorities for over twenty years. He strangled, raped, and murdered girls aged 8-18, mostly along railroad tracks treated with tar in an attempt to confuse police dogs and lead the detectives to believe it was a transient, out-of-town killer. Often, he performed acts of necrophilia on his victims after strangling them, but in some cases was known to have dismembered the bodies.

Tkach, a husband and a father several times over, was known to neighbors as a kind and smart man. He treated children and women well and was there to lend a hand whenever someone needed help. While reportedly quiet and reserved, he was also a respected man of the community. At the age of 54, he was arrested in August of 2005 after being pointed out at the funeral of a close friend’s daughter, as being the last person to be seen with her. He had strangled her and sexual assuaulted her post mortem.

Serhiy Tkach was jailed and eventually convicted of killing 29 women, and the attempted murder of 11 others.. Although proven guilty of these crimes, he claimed to have killed between 80 and 100 women total, leaving police to investigate nearly 60 other crimes. The former lawman sat stone faced and emotionless as the verdict of life imprisonment was read to a hushed courtroom. He had begged for the death penalty during the nearly year long trial, but due to the Ukraine’s independence from Soviet rule several years prior, the death penalty was no longer a legal option for sentencing. Along with the tragedy of lives loss, nine men were falsely imprisoned for crimes he committed, one of which succumbed to suicide while jailed.

"The Pologovsky Maniac" gave police several reasons for the transgression of these gruesome acts of violence. At first he claimed that it was because his wives had treated him poorly, then stated it was for simple, sexual pleasure. Eventually he settled that the true motive behind his crimes were to mark his colleagues as fools. Police believe his motives were sexually sadistic in nature, but as Judge Serhiy Voloshko had stated post verdict, “No one has ever been able to determine the motives of his actions.” Had he not made the impulsive mistake to kill his friend’s daughter, the worst serial killer the Ukraine has ever known may very well still be at large.

“I was glad I was caught, because I was like shark in a pool.” These are the words of convicted serial killer and rapist, Andre Crawford of Chicago, Illinois. Between 1993 and 1999, he hid out in the open, and for 13 years delivered the Chicago-Sun Times, the very newspaper that would run hot with ink the stories of his brutality.

Crawford was a very well liked, and very well known resident of the Englewood and New City areas. He could often be found doing small chores for little cash such as shoveling snow or making minor repairs to a neighbor’s home. He complained about prostitutes in the area and often attended community meetings to track the serial killer investigation. He was an active participant in a project designed for kids in the unsavory South Side neighborhoods to be walked safely to and from school, called Operation Safe Passage. Andre was very active in helping to better the community, that was to be his hunting grounds.

Growing up being treated poorly by his mother, Andre began to have an open disdain for women. Unabashedly, he would talk about how the prostitutes of the neighborhood needed to have their “heads beaten in”. He despised drug addicts,though may have well been one himself. Often he would lure his victims into an abandoned building with offers of cash or drugs in exchange for sex. If the women asked for payment before having sex with him, he would strangle them to death, sometimes while raping them, or impale their skulls with blunt force. Either way, their demise was sealed. In at least one instance, he had sex with a victim after she was murdered, moved her to another building, and had sex with the corpse again. After committing the crimes, he would often smoke crack. He took advantage of the very people he hated, as he thought no one would care if he disposed of women he saw as unfit humans, if he saw them as humans at all.

This pillar of the community lead 11 women to their deaths and raped several others. On September 21, 1993 his first victim was discovered in an abandoned factory lot. The cause of murder was determined to be blunt force trauma to the head, and DNA was found at the scene. It is argued that the other ten murders may have been prevented if a DNA samples were taken from Crawford when he was arrested in March of 1993, for a felony theft. In 1995 Andre was also arrested for felony criminal sexual abuse, and again in 1998 and 1999 for felony possession of a controlled substance. Two more chances were not acted upon to recover evidence that would undoubtedly save lives.

Eventually on December 18, 2009 Andre Crawford was convicted of one count of attempted murder, nine counts of rape, and eleven counts of murder, all women. Because the jury that had convicted him in just ten hours could not unanimously make a decision during the sentencing phase of the trial, he was spared the death penalty and instead received life in prison. The victim’s families and the city of Chicago were outraged. According to the state of Illinois, you need only kill more than one person to receive the death penalty. Tyron Cotton, brother of victim Cheryl Cross is baffled, “How can Illinois have a death row without him? This is not justice.”

He not only viciously raped women as they lay dying, in dirty, abandoned buildings, he did it under the noses of the very people that were out to stop him. He had stood and clapped for detectives hunting for him, at meetings designed for his capture. He was brazen and bold to insert himself in the investigation. The neighbors that he kindly assisted were shocked and never would have suspected such an upstanding member of the community to be the very devil they feared. Currently he is serving his life sentence, with no hope for parole.

It would be nearly impossible to mention social serial killers without touching on Dennis Rader, also known as the BTK Killer, which stand for bind, torture, kill, his modus operandi. Mr. Rader was quite good at masking his true sadistic personality. He was quiet and polite as a child, though slightly withdrawn. Young Dennis developed fantasies of bondage at an early age, knew it was something to be hidden, and hid it well. He was an active member of the Boy Scouts, and though he started killing cats and dogs during these elementary years, he easily blended into the background, the early signs of being a psychopath going unnoticed.

During four years in the United States Air Force, he began seeking prostitutes, but his requests for acts of bondage were always denied. This is when he said he started trolling for victims. Dennis was awarded the National Defense Service Medal, the Air Force Good Conduct Medal, and the Small Arms Expert Marksman Ribbon and in 1970 returned to his native Wichita, Kansas. He married soon after his return and it seemed likely this young man had a remarkable future ahead of him.

He was an active member of the Lutheran church, and in 1974 he was employed by the security company, ADT. It was this year that he committed his first crime, one that would devastate an entire community. Rader, as BTK, killed most of the Otero family. He murdered husband and wife, Joseph and Julie Otero, as well as their two young children, Joseph Jr., and Josephine. He brought with him a kit he had fashioned that included, knives, a gun, cords, and various tools to help him enter the home. He used the gun to gain control and the rope to subdue them. Then, he suffocated them. As this was his first attempt at strangling humans, he hadn’t done it quite right and had to go back a second time to strangle Mrs. Otero. He had to do the same with Josephine, and decided to hang her from a pipe in the basement. It was clear that he received sexual gratification from the murders as there was semen present at the scene of the crime. 15 year old Charlie Otero would later be the one to discover the bodies. A true sadist was born.

Rader committed a second murder in 1974, after having stalked Kathryn Bright. Dennis had hid in her house, and when she came home was surprised when he discovered that her brother, Kevin was accompanying her. He bound the pair, putting them in separate rooms. Kevin was able to break free and confront his attacker, but was shot once in the face and once in the head. As Kevin lay bleeding, Dennis focused his efforts back on Kathryn, stabbing her in the abdomen. During this time, Kevin had managed to regain consciousness and fled for help. BTK ran from the scene upon this discovery. The young, 21 year old Kathryn died at a local hospital, while Kevin survived.

It was not enough for Rader to commit these acts of violence, he also wanted to be recognized. He informed the local paper, Wichita Eagle, that they could find a letter tucked away at the Wichita Public Library, inside of an engineering book. When the item was never discovered, he called the police instead.

The letter contained many misspellings, a very detailed description of the Otero murder and the infamous monacar to which Dennis Rader would forever be tied to, the BTK killer. It wasn’t even a year later that the Rader’s would welcome their first child into the world. Later, Rader would kill Shirley Vian, strangling her with a cord he wrapped tightly around her neck. He had locked her children in a bathroom while he murdered her, the only thing saving them was a telephone that would not stop ringing. It made BTK uncomfortable and he left without killing them. Again, semen was left at the scene.

Nancy Fox was his next victim in 1977. He made sure she knew he was responsible for the Otero murders before suffocating her. The next day, using an ADT work van, he stopped at a payphone, called the police, and stated that they should report to Nancy’s house. They found her body, bound still laying on her bed. Again, it was clear that this madman wanted full recognition for the terrible deeds he was committing. Even when the voice recording of Rader was played over and over by the media, no family members, friends, co-workers, or church members recognized Dennis’ voice.

During this time, BTK was also a Boy Scout troop leader and in 1978 welcomed a little girl as the newest addition to the Rader family. A good father, and someone who was always giving back to the community, he was flying well under the radar of being an accused serial killer.

In 1985 he killed Marine Hedge. He actually left a Boy Scout camping trip under the pretenses of a headache to commit the murder. After strangling her, he took the body to his church (he was a trusted member and had keys), and posed her in various positions while he took photographs. Later he dumped the body. This would be one of two murders he committed while on a Boy Scout camping trip.

Just a few months after the killing of Marine Hedge, he began working as a compliance and animal control officer for Park City where he enjoyed displaying what little authority he had over the community, measuring the heights of his neighbor’s lawns and citing anyone that exceeded the six inch limit. Several complaints were filed in regards to his overbearing attitude and strict enforcement of the rules, but nothing ever resulted in disciplinary action, something Rader was growing quite accustomed to.

Though years had gone by since BTK had claimed a victim, the town never forgot the awful crimes. After an article was published on the 30th anniversary of the Otero murders, Rader could hold his tongue no longer. He did not care for what was being said of him in the press, and he resurfaced. He sent crime scene photos to the Wichita Eagle. He wanted everyone to know that BTK was alive and well, and still a threat to the community. He did all of these things in between church functions and city council meetings. The township was clueless.

He began communicating directly to the police and eventually it was a computer disc that caused his demise. He had thought he erased church information from the disc, but fortunately for the police he did not. Casually, on February 25, 2005 the Wichita police arrested Dennis Rader, surrounding him on his way home from work. Lt. Ken Landwehr, who had been communicating with Rader, was there during the arrest. DNA linked Mr. Rader to the BTK murders, and he confessed matter-of-factly after apprehension.

His family, friends, and community were devastated. How could this monster have been among them for so long? This man was a city council member, a husband and father, a Boy Scout Troop Leader, a celebrated member of the United States Air Force, and an avid church leader. At his trial, he stated coldly, and in great detail the accounts of all of his murders. Dennis Rader surely wore many hats, but the hat he will always be remembered by, is that of a sadistic serial murderer.

The aforementioned killers were not marked by the typically anti-social behavior that usually accompany serial murderers or sociopaths. Often those that commit multiple murders are society’s outcasts, neglected, and often ignored or stepped over. These three men represented themselves to be the “betters” of society, men that could be trusted, men that inserted themselves into society, walked side by side with the rest of us. Their families, friends, and communities did not know who they really were until it was too late. The mark of the social serial killer, is also the mark of the greatest liar of all. How well can we ever know a lover, sibling, neighbor? Who exactly is it that is walking by our side, wolf or sheep? Only time, and a media circus will tell.