Kansas

Dennis Rader

Basic Facts

Full name: Dennis Lynn Rader. Nicknames include BTK, BTK Killer and BTK Strangler.

Lived: March 9th, 1945 – Present day.

Date Apprehended: February 25th, 2005.

Victims: 10

Criminal Penalty: 10 consecutive life sentences without the chance of parole for 175 years.

BTK, meaning “Bind, Torture, Kill”. This is what Rader did to his victims before sending taunting letters to the police and the media describing details of his crimes. His taunting and playing with the police over 30 years finally caught up with him and in the end, was the reason for the police learning his identity and resulted in his arrest.

Dennis Rader was seen as a good man in society. He spent 4 years in the United States Air Force and then after his discharge, ended up working in a supermarket for a while. He married at 26 years-old and had two children with his wife. After this, he earned a bachelor’s degree at Wichita State University in administration of justice. He was even elected by the church council at his church, Christ Lutheran Church, as president. He was also a Cub Scout leader and was friends with many people in his local area. However, at 29-years-old, Rader began committing murder after being married to his wife for 3 years.

On January 5th, 1974 four members of the same family were murdered. This included the father, mother and two of their children. The bodies were found by the couple’s eldest son who had returned from school later that day. He was in the 10th grade. Rader left the scene with a watch and a radio. This souvenir taking continued to be a common pattern in his later crimes. Police also found semen at the scene, Rader later saying he derived sexual pleasures when murdering people. He wrote down the details of the crime he committed and left it inside an engineering book at the Wichita Public Library in October that year. A few months later, he struck again. He strangled a woman in her apartment before stabbing her. Her brother trying to come to her aid was shot twice in the head. He managed to survive and described Rader as “an average-sized guy with a bushy moustache with psychotic eyes”. 4 years later, he again wrote a letter and sent it to a television station named KAKE. In the letter, he claimed responsibility for the 2 murders along with 2 other women he had killed. He named himself as ‘BTK’ and demanded media attention. The Media reported there was a serial killer at large in Kansas and the name Rader had given to himself stuck, BTK.

When Rader was eventually arrested in 2005, he admitted he had planned to kill again in 1979. He had been following a 63-year-old woman and was waiting for at her home one evening. However, she didn’t return home when he expected her to so Rader got impatient and left the scene. He left a note saying BTK had been there. Rader later admitted he was frustrated she had gotten away.

Rader’s next known murder was on April 27th, 1985 when he killed a 53-year-old woman. Rader took her dead body to his church where he photographed the body in various bondage positions. He then disposed of her body in a nearby ditch where she was discovered on May 5th. It was also suspected by the police that BTK killed 3 people in 1988 but Rader sent the media a letter saying this was not the case, however he did admire the perpetrators work. Rader’s final victim was killed on January 19th, 1991 though she was not found until February 1st. After this, the case went cold.

Rader admitted he began focusing on his career and his family during this time though many believe he couldn’t live with not getting the attention and recognition for the murders he committed. On the 30th anniversary of his first murder in March 2004, Rader began a series of 11 communications to the local media, sending letters directly to them and leaving packages around Wichita, Kansas. The case was considered to be cold and if it were not for Rader’s letters, it is thought he could have gotten away with it. In one of the letters, Rader confessed to another murder the police didn’t think was linked to BTK in 1989. Enclosed in the letter were pictures of the crime scene and a photocopy of the victim’s driver’s license. When the police tested the body of the victim, they found evidence under her fingernails. They then began DNA testing hundreds of men in the local area in order to find the BTK killer. In the end, over 1,300 DNA samples were taken and later made to be destroyed by court order after Rader’s arrest. Also included in the letters were, fake IDs, word puzzles, graphic descriptions of the murders and even a chapter list for a proposed book titled, ‘The BTK Story’. Other items found in packages around Wichita included drivers licenses from his victims and bound dolls supposedly symbolising some of his victims.

On February 16th, 2005 Rader sent a floppy disk to Fox TV. With it, he sent a letter, a gold coloured necklace and a photocopy of a 1989 book cover from a book about a serial killer named ‘Rules of Prey’. Unbeknownst to Rader, there was metadata embedded in a Microsoft Word Document Rader had deleted still stored on the floppy disk. The metadata contained the words, “Christ Lutheran Church” and the document last modified by someone named ‘Dennis’. They looked up the church online and found Dennis Rader was the president there. The police also knew that BTK had a black Jeep Cherokee, so they drove by Rader’s house and sure enough, parked outside was a black Jeep Cherokee. However, there was not enough direct evidence to charge Rader. Therefore, they detained a warrant to obtain a cervical smear test Rader’s daughter had completed during her time as a student at Kansas State University. They compared her DNA to the DNA found under one of the BTK’s victims and there was a familial match. This was all the evidence they needed to arrest Dennis Lynn Rader.

On February 25th, 2005 Rader was arrested and 3 days later charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder. News sources claimed that Rader had confessed to all 10 of those murders. Those in the local community and his wife were allegedly shocked by Rader’s arrest and his wife filed for emergency divorce and it was granted.

On May 3rd, 2005 the judge entered a not-guilty plea on Rader’s behalf, as Rader did not speak at his hearing. However, on the scheduled trail date on June 27th, Rader changed his plea to guilty. He then described the murders in detail and made no apology. When sentenced, on August 18th, Rader spoke for 30 minutes, rambling and apologising for his actions. The prosecutor compared his monologue to an Academy Award acceptance speech. Rader was then sentenced to 10 consecutive life sentences with a minimum of 175 years as Kansas had no death penalty at the time.

Rader is now in solitary confinement for his protection and was allowed 1 hour of exercise per day and showers only 3 times a week. Since 2006, he has been allowed privileges such as access to TV and magazines due to good behaviour.