Dennis Rader Addresses the Court Before Sentencing, 2005

Name: Dennis Rader Addresses the Court Before Sentencing, 2005
Uploaded: 2014-02-27
Duration: 26 min 57 s
Description: For nearly half an hour, the BTK killer compared himself with his victims, quibbled with the evidence and thanked his jailers, before a Wichita judge sent him to prison for the rest of his life.

For nearly half an hour, the BTK killer compared himself with his victims, quibbled with the evidence and thanked his jailers, before a Wichita judge sent him to prison for the rest of his life.

Subject: Dennis Lynn Rader
Recorded: August 18, 2005
Runtime: 26:57

Content warning: Rader speaks about the people he murdered, including children.

The Statement

On August 18, 2005, at the end of a two-day sentencing hearing in Wichita, Judge Gregory Waller asked Dennis Rader whether he wished to say anything in mitigation of punishment. Rader stood with a sheaf of notes and spoke for close to half an hour. The hearing was broadcast live, and his statement was widely described as rambling. This recording covers it from the judge's invitation to the end.

Historical Context

Between 1974 and 1991 Rader murdered ten people in and around Wichita, Kansas, calling himself "BTK" ("bind, torture, kill") in letters he sent to police and the press. He was a married father, a church council president and a compliance officer for the city of Park City. He resumed his letters in 2004, and in February 2005 a computer floppy disk he sent to a Wichita television station was traced to his church. He was arrested on February 25, 2005, and on June 27, 2005, pleaded guilty to all ten murders, describing each one in court.

Circumstances of the Statement

Kansas had no death penalty when the murders were committed. At the sentencing hearing prosecutors presented the evidence, including a slide presentation, and relatives of the victims spoke. Rader then addressed the court. Judge Waller sentenced him to ten consecutive life terms, reported as a minimum of 175 years before he could be considered for parole.

What the Statement Covers

Rader calls himself "self-centered" and a "sexual predator" and refers to the "Factor X" he says drove him. He goes through his victims one by one, from notes, describing things he says he had in common with each of them. He then raises what he calls "minor" complaints: about money from his house going to the victims' families rather than his wife, about a wallet of photographs, and about details in the prosecution's presentation that he says were wrong. He thanks the police, his defence lawyers, jail staff and his pastor, reads a devotional verse and a Bible passage, and ends with an apology to the victims' families.

What Makes the Recording Significant

The statement is among the most widely seen recordings in the BTK case. Rader's attempt to link himself to each victim, and his insistence on correcting small details of the evidence, were described by victims' relatives and reporters as further evidence of his self-absorption; one relative called it a "pathetic, rambling diatribe". Relatives had spoken earlier in the hearing; many left the courtroom as he began.

Archival Importance

It is Rader's last extended statement in open court. Together with his June 2005 plea hearing, it forms the core of the record of the case in his own words.

Important Caveats

Everything Rader says about himself, his feelings and his victims is his own statement. His comparisons with the victims are drawn, he says, partly from what he read in the media. The recording is a third-party copy of a live broadcast; the pool station is not identified. The machine transcription has many uncertain passages, marked in brackets.

Judge Waller: Mr. Rader, do you desire to say anything on your own behalf in mitigation of the punishment?

Rader: Your honor, the Sedgwick County victims, I do realize that the crimes I've committed, the atrocious crimes I've committed, [unclear: "have continued to"] Sedgwick County as a monster. It brought to the community, my family, the victims, dishonor, and it's all self-centered. It's what I would call a sexual predator. Today is my final judgment for me. The last couple of days in court presented by the state, the PowerPoint presentation was very powerful.

Rader: A couple of things I might point out toward the last, but overall, most of that was true. And they think the Sedgwick County ought to be proud that they do have a good state, that the evidence was there earlier, DNA, floppy. There was no way that I was going to get out of this. With remorse, responsibility, and corrections are the concepts of apology. The old me started whatever it was, Factor X, sexual predator. The volcano was the building of all those years, was the Oteros. Probably the most devastating, upsetting, let me tell everybody, is Josephine.

Rader: I just don't know. Self-centered, very selfish, and it exploded on that day. And it did continue, off and on. Dishonesty, definitely. Dishonesty is probably the first thing to the people that I encountered that they trusted me that I was going to tie them up, take their money, and leave, and then I killed them. Dishonesty for my family. I have a lie and cheat to be self-interest to employers and to the county, the taxpayer's money. Pride and responsibility, yes I've had pride back then.

Rader: To some degree I'm trying to drop down to that, but that's the media. They seem to crave the attention of the media. I think the bottom line of the old is the selfish, very just associated with society, self-centered for my own purposes, and I take [that] full burden on my shoulders. [captions add: "... through the years, that's quite a presentation, during the presentation and all the archives that I had, you can [see] that ..."] Victims. I wrote some notes down. I don't know if this is really appropriate or not. A lot of these came out of paper because I knew the people, you all know why I chose them, but I thought I'd share some things.

Rader: Kathryn Bright, and I hope I don't tread on the media because I did use some of this from the media because I didn't know this much from people. She spent time on her grandparents' farm. Well I did too, as a kid. I have many, many, many fond memories of that and I took that from her. She went to Valley Center. I was at Valley Center High School for two years there. Walked the halls, probably at the same line, shared maybe the same teachers, although they would have been older. She worked at Coleman, just like I did, trying to fill a job, as anybody would. Trying to keep our heads above water and I took that from her. Dolores Davis, she loved animals and I worked at Animal Control.

Rader: I realized that in early years I probably did have some [unclear: "girly"] animals, but I don't think anybody asked Park City or anything, they would say I was always pretty good at animals. I have a great fondness for animals. I have pets, [unclear: "but I know she had it"]. I read somewhere she had her last Christmas with her family and I did too. That was a wonderful time. I took that from her. Nancy Fox, she was a wonderful person and I did track her just like a predator. She was a wonderful young lady, well organized, hard worker, and that [unclear: "took her a lot" / "I took her away"]. Marine Hedge, she was a neighbor. I would walk by and wave [to her] in her garden. [unclear] I love to garden flowers.

Rader: She attended church, the same church I've been to with the Boy Scouts. Joseph Otero, was in the Air Force, I was in the Air Force. He was a husband, I was a husband. Although I always wanted to be a pilot, I always had a fascination with aerodynamics. [captions add: "and he was a pilot. One time he even thought about"] [unclear: "taking travel buses"] and a veteran. Our friends were close. Julie [Otero] is a lot like my wife, loving mother, raised kids and she also worked at Coleman. Josephine. She would have been a lot like my daughter at that age, played with her Barbie dolls.

Rader: She liked to write portraits. I like to write portraits. She liked to draw. I like to draw. Someone mentioned that she would like [unclear: "peace and a heart"]. I think that probably comes to this. [Joseph Jr.], too. [unclear: machine reading "Josephine Earl too"] He was just like me at one time, a boy and a dog. Again that comes from people. Many, many memories. I had a lot of memories as a kid with my pets. Boy the dog is a thing you have to have when you're a kid.

Rader: Shirley. She was a choir mother. Probably a very beloved mother and that took her life. Probably a whole lot of people. I didn't know Vicki Wegerle very much. Although I walked by her place and listened to the piano, I appreciate music. That's one thing I always wanted to do on this piano and I took her life. She's also a beloved mother. She's attended a church that I went to once, St. Andrews. I hope I haven't left somebody out on that. Okay, [unclear: "to rebuild"]. [Unclear.]

Rader: Basically humbled myself now. In the detention center [unclear: "I'm going to"]. I've tried to realize, work with the police department, work with my defense. I've tried to realize my faults. Honesty? Again, I think I cooperated with the police as well. I understand there was some smoke blowing. That was probably my demise. The afterlife, the smoke. [Unclear: "The thing about Jakey Allen"], the smoke. The [unclear: "D.G.K."] story earlier. Parts of it was smoke. The problem is I did [unclear: "lose" / "blow"] so much smoke that now nobody knows facts and fiction. And that's basically my demise. I'd be very honest with my attorneys. They work very hard. We met almost every day. Earlier we worked a plea somewhat less after that.

Rader: But it was basically all over. And Steve encouraged me not to go with an early plea. So they could do more. They did all the things they could with the floppy. They had an expert come in, go over the floppy. To see whether there was any problems with that. They did extensive research in the DNA. There was a sore spot with me when they took my daughter. But I understand in the law enforcement you have to do certain things. And I think honesty. People will say I'm not a Christian. But I play blame. Anyway, I'm faced up to the man himself now. My boss. I think that all points to accountability. And full responsibility now. And my remorse.

Rader: I think it's here. You know the victims' families won't ever be able to forgive me. I hope somewhere deep down eventually that will happen. When this happened, that was what I would say not a total in one time. Pardon me, only the thoughts that compartmentalize. That is probably, as the state started to show today, was compartmentalization of me. That's been my biggest, or I could flip back and forth. I'm not proud of that, it's just an escape mechanism, defense mechanism. I could switch back and forth fairly fast. I explained to the defense, I was kind of like an 18-wheeler, either uphill or downhill, I could switch gears very fast, very rapidly back and forth.

Rader: And as I stand here in this humble way, maybe people think that I've done that, gone back to Kirk Park once, but I don't think so. So anyway, it has given me the faith to see today and not to think of the past. Corrections, this is the full responsibility. I'm going to the [unclear: "Kendall"] institution, full board, and I do not expect anything but the hard-boarding today. I expected that on the plea, that's why I stepped up for the plea. I knew after I talked to police on the evidence, there wasn't any way I was really going to get out of this unless we found some evidence that was just totally out.

Rader: The trial would have been a long drawn out to the plea. There was no way that I was ever going to get out of this. I think the corrections, I'm away from society now. I'll do my healing process there as well as I can and start my new chapter in life. And I suppose, in all good time, as [I'm] Rader, everybody knows Rader has to complain a little bit, so I would like to do some minor ones. Not because I want to complain a day, but I want to set the record. This is my last time. He probably, the biggest problem I have right now, and we're still trying to answer, is what happened to Mendoza? I had a trust with that person. A psychiatrist. The defense was working on it. I know other people were working on it. That was a, I just don't want that. And maybe that will happen. Another one is the, and I, I'm just basically expressing this. I don't have a control on it, in which somebody would take part of it, is lien on the house.

Rader: That, the final victim, as Mr. Davis said, is my wife. Excuse me, Joe. I'll let you back down. She is my final victim. She means nothing about this, yet the laws, and I understand it because the lien on the house, is because I have property.

Rader: There's a lot of defendants that stand up here and don't have anything to go after. I know this is very expensive. Probably the defense is only somewhere 80, 90,000. It's just about what the house is sold for. If we wanted a trial, it would have been millions of years. So I just basically ask that whoever does that final judgment, that they think about the wife. The other one is, it's not a biggie. It's not a biggie. It's not this last issue that I'd ask for a wallet so I could get some personal pictures out of it. I was hoping that the defense would have a court order and before I leave today I can go through that wallet and take some timely pictures. But that's not a big issue because I understand through code of ethics the defense will turn that probably over to the family and close my clothes. Those are early, those are the only early complaints except for PowerPoint.

Rader: Again, I don't want to pick on the law enforcement. They've done a very good job. But I do want to clarify a few things just for the records because this is basically my final say. In the first one there was two actors that were brought out, [unclear: "Jane Walker"], John Wayne and James Bond. The action of that with Kevin was the shooting, not because I stood up and shined, because when I was working with the police I would say what I call a quick trial, just like that. That's what I called the John Wayne shot. It's not that he would do something like that. Secondly, we fought and for us to fight he had both his hands open. The PowerPoint said that he basically stood up, he was tied and I shot him and I said correct. He fought, I backed off, he had his hands out and I shot him again.

Rader: And again, these are only minor. It does not make any difference. It's probably irrelevant. I just want to set the record straight and that's all, sir. [Unclear: "Diane"], the PowerPoint was perceived that I was strangling Shirley and I stopped to comfort the kids. That's just the opposite. She or I both looked at kids back in the bathroom, comforted in there before we went in and what happened. So the toys and all that were put in there earlier. Let's basically clarify that on there. And this is really minor, although it makes you wonder whether the information is intended or not, evidence, and what it makes you speculate where the law enforcement did do, or what it looked like they did a good job, whether they did it 100%.

Rader: The Dolores Davis [pictures], they [unclear: "put back and forth"]. Anybody that knows anything about geology structure, those trees and stuff were not [unclear: "unlike Sheena"]. They were over in the eastern part of the United States. And those pictures that came in the mail were not the other ones. They were all from a grave site at [unclear: "Sheena"]. Probably the most damaging to me was the pornography. They displayed, yes, the pornography of what I drew, but I didn't see where they had a lot of pornography, but they brought two pictures out. The family will know that I didn't own a camper. I had a pickup with a camper top, but it didn't have any shells in it. So basically evidence was totally tainted. They either picked up a picture from somewhere else or inserted it or didn't realize it. That may have been a relative, I'm not sure. But I would think if they had more pornography, they would have shown it.

Rader: That's basically the clarifications. The other thing is, with the law enforcement, there seemed to be, I was invited as a dog catcher. I did go to [unclear: "H.A."] law enforcement. I felt like I didn't have a rapport with the law enforcement people. During the profession, as they probably said in the paper, I still probably would be talking if the defensive person didn't show up. We had a good rapport. I almost felt like they were buddies at one time. I asked about a little money and maybe coming in to have a coffee with me. So there was a rapport. I always had a great respect for law enforcement, although I wore it.

Rader: I can't believe the people that have helped me on this. Starting with, I think they use society even though I'm a criminal, I think you have to appreciate the police department. They've done a lot of work. Even though it took a long time, they gathered evidence, they added evidence, but when they got the key suspect, they zeroed in on it very rapidly. So to have the dedication, like Mr. Landwehr, for all those years, it's been great. So I think Sedgwick County really has a good police force. Defense, this has been a unique, probably a different type case than they've ever had. We've had our ups and downs, but also they've been good. It's just like a new learning curve. It's just a new curve, and the media has just been terrible.

Rader: I worked with the media afterwards, and it's just tremendous. They've done very good. Sarah is probably in my workhorse. I really appreciate her. She's done a lot of good work. Steve, he had to keep heads on all this, and I know that was a very hard point. I want to go ahead, since I worked with defense very closely, I'll make sure I go through the list here. I already mentioned Steve, Sarah McKinnon. Everybody knows Steve. Another one that happened was [name, spelling unverified: "Jomel Mitchell"]. I think she's on a case today. Is that correct, an old lady? What's the line over there? Okay. [name, spelling unverified: "Leanne Starridge"], she was a social worker that did a lot of research for me earlier, so I appreciate her helping that. There's [name, spelling unverified: "Jenny Bline"], who's a special investigator, and then [name, spelling unverified: "Jamie Chimer"].

Rader: She's the one that cut my hair and brought my clothes up. They're basically my family, so I appreciate that. I'm a professional staff, although we have some questions with... [captions add: "Robert J. Mendoza and what happened there"] I think that time will be solved but I still have to give him credit for coming in and helping me and working with me and I'm sure, I hope I pronounced that right, [unclear name] Walders, she was the other doctor that came in and they were all from Cambridge forensic society for consultants so I really appreciate the defense they've done a lot for me, kept me advised, Sedgwick County detention center. I was really scared when I first came in here, I've never been arrested before, I really didn't want to look, I was basically 43 days, 42, 43 days up there in isolation. At first the officers, control officers, they call them deputies down there, five deputies, they didn't know me, I didn't know them, but they finally opened up and they became human and I think they realized I was human too.

Rader: Eventually I moved over to pod 2 and that's a very much camaraderie, what I call the dirty dozen or the peas in the pod, there was a bunch of great guys, most of those guys are gone now, but I have a lot of respect, I sit down with them, we all have crimes, but you basically build a camaraderie with those type of people. The people that move me around, I'm what they call, I call the hot peppers or habanero, the word red, we have the special movers. Again, I hope I pronounced these, from the detention area, I hope I pronounced these people's last names right and if I leave somebody else, I apologize for that. One I have is [names, spellings unverified: "Robert Henshaw, Captain Barbara Maxwell, Captain Glenn Kurtz, Louie Kennet, Larry Braggs"], Sergeant, he's my main sergeant, he's one that's been very, very close with me and worked with me, and I have a lot of respect for him, he's been my main sergeant.

Rader: been my main name, Sargent. I'm a judicial. I'll probably mess up his last name but it's [name unclear] and I messed that up, I'm sorry. There's many, many, many more beyond those. I would be here a long time if I helped so I do appreciate all those people that helped. Pastor Clark, he has been my main man. Come see me every day, not every day, excuse me, at least once a week, sometimes twice a week. If anybody I was dishonest to, is that man right there? Under the house of God, I created these things to get to trust his acts and for him to stay with me and remain strong is good man. I appreciate that.

Rader: He also went through me earlier this week and went through a confession. I sat down and went through each of the people I killed and confessed on that. And I felt the strength in making some bonds there at that time with him. Family, the last victims. I don't mean to start with them. I feel supportive a little bit. My wife's going on, divorced. She's trying to stay out of harm's way. Since my kids are away, I don't get much letters or anything from them but they're basically supportive. Friends. Without friends, a person I don't think...

Rader: when I've been here 175, 176 days, you couldn't survive without friends. If you didn't have family to support you, if you didn't have something, or someone to come to you, like Pastor Clark, you'd go down, just mentally you'd go down. So friends have been a very key part. The people in the pod, the pod deputies, sergeant, although they can't have a real friend relationship with their friends. I got this out this morning, for the other day when I was working out. This comes from the Daily Devotions, a Christian book. It's called Touched by a Stranger, which is an article. And at the bottom, there's an article. It's by Hess, there isn't a first name for it. But it's something like a friend would do, and I really appreciate it. Like refreshing rain in the summer, or the gentle breeze in the spring, it's just a little gift of kindness, joy someone's heart can bring.

Rader: With immediate exposure, my family basically had to almost to stay away, so I really didn't have any support. There was one people, one person, that stepped up, [name, spelling unverified: "Christina Casneron"], that really helped. And I really appreciate her support. There's another one that's out on the West Coast, [name, spelling unverified: "Andy Parshall"], he's another Christian. And I really, I would have gone down a long time without their support, so I do wanna mention their names. A Christian Bible verse I found that I think is helping me, or will help me, leading me. This is John 8, 12. I am a light of the world. He who follow me shall not walk in darkness, but have life of light. Now that I've confessed, took myself out to let everybody know what's going on, I expect to heal and to have light.

Rader: And then hopefully, someday, God will accept me. I think Sedgwick County, myself, we speak of a man as an evil man. The dark side is there, but now I think light is beginning to shine. So, I appreciate the family, friends and all I can be thankful for. And I think that will keep me from finally going to the dark side [unclear: "of our hill"]. And finally, a final apologize to the victims' families. There's no way that I can ever repay them.

Rader: That's all, sir.

Judge Waller: All right, thank you very much. [Unclear: two or three words.] ---