Dennis Rader

• Born: March 9, 1945
• Place of Birth: Wichita, Kansas

AMERICAN SERIAL KILLER

MAJOR OFFENSES: Murder and attempted murder

ACTIVE: 1974–91

SENTENCE: Ten consecutive life sentences

Early Life

From all accounts, Dennis Rader had a normal childhood, though some have reported his early bullying and abuse of animals (often an indicator of future violence). Rader attended Wichita State University and went on to join the Air Force, in which he served from 1965 until 1969, when he was discharged. In 1974 Rader began working for ADT Security Services.

Criminal Career

Rader would work for ADT until 1989. He also worked for the US Census Bureau in 1989, collecting information at residences. In the 1970s, he married and had two children. When not working, Rader volunteered his time with a local Boy Scout troop and was active in his church. He later was employed as a compliance officer in Park City, Kansas. Through his various employments, Rader easily could have gained trust and access to people’s homes and personal information.

Rader’s murders began in 1974. His first victims were four members of the Otero family. Joseph and Julie Otero were found dead, tied up and suffocated. Two of their five children, their daughter Josephine and son Joey, were also found dead in the house. Other murders soon followed.

Approximately nine months after the Otero murders, an anonymous phone call was placed to the Wichita Eagle, giving directions to a textbook in the public library. Inside the book a letter was found claiming credit for the Otero murders and promising more. Because the letter contained details that had not been released by the police, its authenticity was not questioned. This exchange began an extended correspondence between Rader and the police or media. The killer was dubbed BTK, for “Bind, Torture, Kill,” which was often the signature Rader used when communicating with law enforcement authorities or media.

Rader killed at least ten people and attempted to murder at least six more during his criminal career. Like some other serial killers, he enjoyed writing and phoning the press or law enforcement authorities. He reported his murders and enjoyed taunting police, using this outlet to terrify Wichita residents already fearful of an unknown serial killer in their neighborhood. Rader tended to wait for his selected victims in their homes. After the victims arrived, they would be bound, sometimes partially clothed, tortured, then strangled. Often, items were missing from the crime scenes, indicating that the killer was taking souvenirs of his crimes with him, possibly to relive the incidents at a later date. Although semen was found at some of the crime scenes, autopsies revealed that the victims had not been sexually assaulted.

As quickly as the murders had begun in 1974, they seemed to stop in 1979. The BTK case became cold through the 1980s with no new murders, tips, or leads. Then, in 2004, the investigation was reopened after a letter sent to the Wichita Eagle claimed responsibility for a 1986 murder. After other correspondence from BTK was traced and investigated, Rader was arrested on February 26, 2005.

Legal Action and Outcome

After being arrested and tried for the BTK murders, Rader was sentenced to a minimum of 175 years in prison without the possibility of parole. The sentence was the toughest one the judge could impose for Rader’s crimes because Kansas allowed no death penalty at the time the crimes were committed.

Impact

Dennis Rader provides one of several examples of how a seemingly “normal” individual can lead a double life. Like serial murderers Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy, Rader did not appear to be the cold-blooded killer he eventually turned out to be. He appeared to be a normal middle-class husband and father. He worked in a “normal” job and was active in church and community affairs. Secretly, however, he held fantasies of torture and murder and acted upon them, killing at least ten people in Wichita and terrorizing the community by taunting the press and police. His eventual arrest shocked those who knew him, victims’ families, and others within the community.

Before Rader’s notoriety, many had believed that serial murderers stop killing only when they are jailed or otherwise incapacitated, move away, or die. Rader, who proved that sometimes serial killers “lie dormant,” had stopped killing in the late 1970s and had seemed to disappear. When the thirtieth anniversary of his first murders drew near and a new book about the killings was ready for publication, he resurfaced to recapture the publicity he had received as BTK, which ultimately led to his arrest. His narcissistic and perverted need for attention and control speaks not only to the personality disorders of such sociopaths but also to Americans’ obsession with fame and notoriety, which may help explain Rader’s wanting to be heard from once again as BTK, even though it resulted in his undoing. Upon the death in 2014, after a battle with cancer, of the Wichita detective responsible for tracking down Rader as the killer, some media reports included reminders about how the detective was able to exploit Rader's narcissistic tendencies to trick him into increased correspondence; he was then able to reconstruct deleted information from a floppy disk that Rader submitted which, in combination with DNA left at the first crime scene tested against one of Rader's family members, led to his arrest.

That same year, it was revealed that Rader was cooperating with author Katherine Ramsland, who was working on writing a book about his crimes designed to offer his perspective. While many books had been written on the subject already, this was the first that would be a true collaboration with the killer; upon publication, it was reported that approximately 80 percent of the book was in Rader's own words. Ramsland conducted several phone interviews and corresponded in writing with Rader for some time. The book, Confession of a Serial Killer: The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer, was published in 2016. In a letter from prison, Rader expressed that he saw the collaboration as an attempt to repay his debt to society by giving greater insight into the mind of a serial killer.

Although he remained incarcerated at the El Dorado Correctional Facility, Rader again made the news in 2023 and 2024 when new details about the BTK killings surfaced. In August 2023, an Oklahoma lawman decided to look deeper into the death of sixteen-year-old Cynthia Kinney. Kinney disappeared in 1976; she was last seen in a laundromat across the street from a bank that had an ADT security system installed. Though he was unable to determine if Rader had installed the system, the lawman, Osage County Sheriff Eddie Virden, suspected Rader may have been responsible. As they followed the investigation, Virden and his staff uncovered potential links to the death of Shawna Beth Garber, a twenty-two-year-old whose body was found in Missouri in 1990. Around the same time, investigators discovered "trophies," or items such as clothing and jewelry, that Rader kept from his victims. The items were buried near Rader's former home. This discovery, along with some of Rader's own writings and tips from the public, prompted a new investigation into cold case killings from the area that could be related to the BTK killings. Their suspicions that Rader was involved in the death of Kinney were heightened when they took a new look at a word puzzle first sent to authorities in 2004. The puzzle included the names of the ten known victims of BTK but also included clues that pointed to Kinney as a victim. These included her name and the words "laundry mat," a possible reference to the last place she was seen alive.

In addition, police were following up with interviews of several people who claimed they had nearly become victims of Rader but escaped. Authorities said that the investigation would remain open and active while they followed all the new leads and information.

Bibliography

Beattie, Robert. Nightmare in Wichita: The Hunt for the BTK Strangler. New American Library, 2005.

Del Valle, Lauren and Jean Casarez. "Oklahoma Authorities Work to Find Long-Hidden ‘trophies’ that BTK Serial Killer Gave Locations of, Sheriff Says." CNN, 12 Sept. 2023, www.cnn.com/2023/09/12/us/btk-serial-killer-dennis-rader-trophies-national-task-force/index.html. Accessed 25 Sept. 2024.

Hollingsworth, Heather. "BTK Serial Killer is in the News Again. Here’s Why and Some Background About His Case." Associated Press, 24 Aug. 2023, apnews.com/article/btk-serial-killer-investigation-bf9b2d69bdd3e696d7567608c1964593. Accessed 25 Sept. 2024.

Morris-Grant, Brianna. "BTK Serial Killer Dennis Rader Sent a Word Puzzle to Media — Two Decades Later, It May Close a Missing Persons Case." Australian Broadcast Corporation, 18 May 2024, www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-19/btk-dennis-rader-word-puzzle-may-solve-cynthia-dawn-kinney-case/103856702. Accessed 25 Sept. 2024.

Schaub, Michael. "BTK Serial Killer Dennis Rader Cooperating on a Book about Murders." Los Angeles Times, 6 Oct. 2014, www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-btk-killer-book-dennis-rader-20141006-story.html. Accessed 26 Oct. 2017.

Shteir, Rachel. "The Serial Killer's Co-Author." The New York Times Magazine, 15 Sept. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/magazine/the-serial-killers-co-author.html. Accessed 25 Sept. 2024.

Singular, Stephen. Unholy Messenger: The Life and Crimes of the BTK Serial Killer. Simon & Schuster, 2006.

Smith, C. The BTK Murders: Inside the Bind Torture Kill Case That Terrified America’s Heartland. St. Martin’s Press, 2006.