Rader was born on March 9, 1945, in Pittsburg, Kansas, and grew up in Wichita. Rader sent local media outlets and authorities several letters filled with items related to his crimes, including pictures, a word puzzle and an outline for the "BTK Story." In October 1974, Rader placed a letter in a public library book in which he took responsibility for killing the Oteros. On February 28, 2005, Rader was formally charged with 10 counts of first degree murder. He also said he was bored, because his children had grown up and he had more time on his hands. He studied for only two semesters there and joined the US Air Force in 1966. The metadata contained "Christ Lutheran Church", and the document was marked as last modified by "Dennis". [32] The victims were Joseph Otero, age38; Julie Otero, age33; Joseph OteroJr., age9; and Josephine Otero, age11. The same year, he began his studies at Wichita State University. Rader was raised in Wichita, Kansas. Also included was a poem threatening the life of lead investigator Lt. Ken Landwehr and a false autobiography containing many details about Rader's life. In March 2004, a series of 11 communications from BTK (Rader) to the local media led directly to his arrest in February 2005. AMERICAN serial killer Dennis Rader known as BTK, killed 10 people, including two children, over a 17-year period. This is a nature explanation for Rader's gruesome acts. [23], In May 1991, Rader became a dogcatcher and compliance officer in Park City. He is currently serving 10 consecutive life sentences at the El Dorado Correctional Facility. She apparently was terrified and told him to go get help. On February16, 2005, Rader sent a purple 1.44-Megabyte Memorex floppy disk to Fox affiliate KSAS-TV in Wichita. Even if later murders are linked to the BTK killer, it was originally unclear whether the death penalty would come into play, as the Kansas Supreme Court declared the state's capital punishment law unconstitutional on December 17, 2004. [43] DNA collected from under Wegerle's fingernails provided police with previously unknown evidence. Powered by. . READ NEXT: How did Robert Hansens Wife & 2 Kids Have No Idea He Was a Serial Killer? Immediately after, law enforcement officials, including a Wichita Police bomb unit truck, two SWAT trucks, and KBI, FBI, and ATF agents, converged on Rader's residence near the intersection of I-135 and 61st Street North. The UK's supply crisis puts extra pressure on Prime Minister Boris. Dennis Rader, in full Dennis Lynn Rader, byname BTK or BTK Killer, (born March 9, 1945, Pittsburg, Kansas, U.S.), American serial killer who murdered 10 people over a span of three decades before his arrest and confession in 2005. He gained entry into her house posing as a telephone repairman and then strangled her to death. Wichita Police Detective Arlyn G. Smith II and his partner George Scantlin traced BTK's photocopied communications to two photocopy machines, one at Wichita State University and a second at the Wichita Public Library. Dennis Rader, known as the BTK killer, was convicted of 10 murders in Wichita and Park City, Kansas in 2005. Rader was born in Pittsburg, Kansas on March 9, 1945, but raised in Wichita. His father is an American serial killer known as BTK or the BTK Strangler while his mother is a former bookkeeper. He also intended to kill others, notably Anna Williams, 63, who in 1979 escaped death by returning home much later than he expected. with Paula Rader{ "@context": "http://schema.org", "@type": "Person", "name": "Paula Rader", "gender": "Female" }, View Dennis Rader's Family Tree and History, Ancestry and Genealogy, Dennis Rader's father is William Rader Dennis Rader's mother is Dorothea Rader, Dennis Rader's son is Brian Rader Dennis Rader's daughter is Kerri Rawson, Dennis Rader's former wife is Paula Rader, Dennis Rader's brother is Paul Rader Dennis Rader's brother is Bill Rader Dennis Rader's brother is Jeff Rader, Dennis Rader's son in law is Darian Rawson, Ted Bundy{ "@context": "http://schema.org", "@type": "Person", "name": "Ted Bundy", "gender": "Male" }, John Wayne Gacy{ "@context": "http://schema.org", "@type": "Person", "name": "John Wayne Gacy", "gender": "Male" }, Angelo Buono{ "@context": "http://schema.org", "@type": "Person", "name": "Angelo Buono", "gender": "Male" }. [69][70][71], At Rader's August 18 sentencing, victims' families made statements, after which Rader apologized in a rambling 30-minute monologue that the prosecutor likened to an Academy Awards acceptance speech. But psychologist and professor Dr. Terence G. Leary, who helps lead the largest non-governmental serial killer database in the world, Radford/FGCU Serial Killer Research at Gulf Coast University, told Heavy he thinks there are even more secrets in Raders childhood that made him the serial killer he grew up to be. Who Is Dennis Rader? He spent four years (19661970) in the United States Air Force, then upon discharge, he moved to Park City, a suburb located seven miles north of Wichita. He made his first appearance via videoconference from jail. In 1977, Dennis Rader struck twice. https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/dennis-rader. The police corresponded with the BTK Killer (Rader) in an effort to gain his confidence. [47], In January 2005, Rader attempted to leave a cereal box in the bed of a pickup truck at a Home Depot in Wichita, but the box was discarded by the truck's owner. [53] The metadata contained the words "Christ Lutheran Church", and the document was marked as last modified by "Dennis". Death to Nancy", a botched version of the lyrics of the American folk song "O Death". [67] On May 3, the judge entered not guilty pleas on Rader's behalf, as Rader did not speak at his arraignment;[68] however, on June 27, the scheduled trial date, Rader changed his plea to guilty. Upon his return to Wichita, Dennis Rader took up a job at the meat department of an IGA supermarket. 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. Rader mentioned the interview during his sentencing statement. [58] An officer asked, "Mr. Rader, do you know why you're going downtown?" Similarly, she is a Christian with the solar sign of Virgo. A narcissist who took pride in the murders he committed, he sent a series of anonymous letters to the police along with a few pieces of evidence claiming himself to be responsible for the murders. Their marriage was blessed with 5 children: Larry, Deanna, Donna, Dale and Scott. Bail was continued at $10 million. Surveillance tape of the parking lot from that date revealed a distant figure driving a black Jeep Cherokee leaving the box in the pickup. [41], His final victim, Dolores E. Davis, was found on February1, 1991, at West 117th Street North and North Meridian Street in Park City. She is now 28 years old and has American nationality. He also liked to hang cats and watch them struggle until they died. Dubbed the "Night Stalker," Richard Ramirez was an American serial killer who broke into California homes, raping and torturing more than 25 victims and killing at least 13 over a two-year rampage. Dennis Rader has been an enigma to many of us in the field because I dont think the people who claim to be experts are, regarding Dennis, and Ill tell you why, Leary said. The police answered his question in a newspaper ad posted in the Wichita Eagle saying it would be safe to use the disk. The 10 known murders are now believed to be the only murders that Rader is actually responsible for, although Wichita police are fairly certain that Rader stalked and researched a number of other potential future victims. On October 25, 2005, the Kansas attorney general filed a petition to sue Mendoza and Tali Waters, co-owners of Cambridge Forensic Consultants, LLC, for breach of contract, claiming that they intended to benefit financially from the use of information obtained through involvement in Rader's defense. Even though he started developing some disturbing habits during his childhood, he managed to keep them hidden from the world. Dennis Rader is the oldest of four sons, born to Dorothea Mae (ne Cook) and William Elvin Rader. If Rader felt like he was ignored by his mother, that may have led to his need for attention, according to Leary, which he exemplified by writing letters to the media about his crimes during the years he was committing them, giving himself the moniker BTK which he said stood for bind them, torture them, kill them., Leary said, He also is narcissistic the very very strong need to be recognized. He later shared that he got little attention from his parents, as they had to work a lot, and didn't spend much time with their kids, with him in particular, and even having three brothers by his side, he felt very lonely during all childhood and youth. He told the reporter they could not talk to Dorthea, saying, Its too hard on my mother. He unemotionally described the murders in detail and made no apologies. Currently, he is incarcerated at the El Dorado Correctional Facility in Kansas. In terms of his family, he was born to William Elvin Rader and Dorothea Mae Rader. [39], Marine Hedge, aged 53, was found on May5, 1985, at East 53rd Street North between North Webb Road and North Greenwich Road in Wichita. But I did have a little a little bit of a grudge against Momma.. Other cold cases in Kansas were reopened to see if Rader's DNA matched crime scenes, but Rader's confession was limited to the 10 known victims, and police and prosecutors do not believe there were any more victims because of the extensive records and memorabilia he kept on each of his victims. Rader dropped out of college and joined the U.S. Air Force in the mid-1960s. His neighbors and fellow church members were stunned by the news, unable to believe that the man they knew was the serial killer that had haunted the area for so long. Because Kansas had no death penalty at the time the murders were committed, life imprisonment was the maximum penalty allowed by law.On August 19, Rader was moved from the Sedgwick County Jail to the El Dorado Correctional Facility, a Kansas state prison, to begin serving his consecutive life sentences as Kansas Department of Corrections #0083707 with an earliest possible release date of February 26, 2180. We strive for accuracy and fairness. The ten known murders are now believed to be the only murders for which Rader is actually responsible, although Wichita police are fairly certain that Rader stalked and researched a number of other potential victims. A pay phone that the killer used to report a murder in 1977 was located a few blocks from Rader's place of work (ADT Security) at the time. From a nurture standpoint, one must start at childhood. [49] This time, the package was found in Wichita's Murdock Park. [17] On discharge, he moved to Park City (a suburb of Wichita), where he worked in the meat department of an IGA supermarket where his mother was a bookkeeper. [1], Rader was born on March 9, 1945, to Dorothea Mae Rader (ne Cook) and William Elvin Rader, one of four sons. A poem was enclosed titled "Oh! As the serial killer known as BTK, Rader killed 10 people in the Wichita, Kansas area between 1974 and 1991. The late 1970s and the early 1980s marked a busy time for Dennis Rader. His father was a member of the US Marine Corps, who later worked for the electric utility KG&E. He then worked at the Wichita-based office of ADT Security Services from 1974 to 1988, where he installed security alarms as part of his job, in many cases for homeowners concerned about the BTK killings. David Berkowitz, known as Son of Sam, murdered six people in New York City from 1976 to 1977, claiming he received orders from a demon-possessed dog. ", The Raven that Refused to Sing Concert Review, B.T.K. According to reports, Rader took pleasure in exerting his limited authority over his neighbors and other members of the community. Rader has always maintained that he was not physically or sexually abused as a child, according to an ABC News interview with his daughter, Kerri Rawson. [18] Rader married Paula Dietz on May22, 1971; they had two children, Kerri and Brian. Asked about the reported confessions, Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston said, "Your information is patently false", but she refused to say whether Rader had made any confessions or whether investigators were looking into Rader's possible involvement in more unsolved killings. In his letters to police, Rader asked if his writings, if put on a floppy disk, could be traced or not. He collected items from the scenes of the murders he committed. He had been arrested for the murders five days earlier. On May 10, 2007, Mendoza settled the case for $30,000 with no admission of wrongdoing. The church he attended, his office at City Hall, and the main branch of the Park City library were also searched. [19][22] Rader was a census field operations supervisor for the Wichita area in 1989, before the 1990federal census. 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 a week. Many observers noted that he described the gruesome events without any sign of remorse or emotion. It was later retrieved from the trash after Rader asked what had become of it in a later message. He also left semen at the scene and later said that he derived sexual pleasure from killing. Chapter One was titled "A Serial Killer Is Born". For over 30 years, serial killer Dennis Rader struck fear in the hearts of citizens of Wichita, KS, by committing 10 horrific murders. This will likely continue indefinitely. Rader was arrested on February 25, 2005, and later charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder. After exhaustive investigations, none of these agencies discovered any further murders attributable to Rader, confirming early suspicions that Rader would have taken credit for any additional murders that he had committed. Reportedly an attentive husband, he and his wife had a son in 1975 and a daughter in 1978. But do note that it is not possible to be certain of a person's genealogy without a family's cooperation (and/or DNA testing). There were four people present inside: Julie Otero, her husband Joseph Otero, and two of their children, Joseph Jr. and Josephine. He broke into her home on April 27, 1985, killed her, undressed the body, and loaded it into her car. Dennis Rader is a serial killer from the United States, and his moniker BTK stands for "bind, torture, kill." Between 1974 and 1991, Paula's ex-husband, Dennis Rader, murdered ten people in Wichita and Park City . DNA tests showed a "familial match" between the pap smear and the sample from Wegerle's fingernails; this indicated that the killer was closely related to Rader's daughter, and combined with the other evidence was enough for police to arrest Rader. [72] His statement has been described as an example of an often-observed phenomenon among psychopaths: their inability to understand the emotional content of language. [63] Soon after his arrest, the Associated Press cited an anonymous source alleging that Rader had confessed to other murders in addition to those with which he had been connected. Beginning April 23, 2006, having reached "Incentive Level Two," Rader has been allowed to purchase and watch television, purchase and listen to the radio, receive and read magazines, and have other privileges for good behavior. He started trolling them, hanging out around their house, and fantasizing about binding and torturing them. "BTK" stands for "Bind, Torture, Kill", which was his infamous signature. Shortly after Rader was arrested in 2005, his shocked wife was granted an immediate divorce. After graduating from Wichita Heights High School,[16] Rader attended Kansas Wesleyan University, but received mediocre grades and dropped out after one year. Officers were seen removing a computer from his City Hall office, but it is unclear if any evidence was found at these locations. Between 1974 and 1991, he killed ten people in Wichita and Park City, Kansas, and sent taunting letters to police and media outlets describing the details of his crimes. From online or printed sources and from publicly accessible databases. Rader also sent trophies to police in his letters, and others were discovered in his office. Ramsland later wrote the book, Confession of a Serial Killer: The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer. Dennis Lynn Rader (born March 9, 1945) is an American serial killer and mass murderer who murdered ten people in Sedgwick County (in and around Wichita, Kansas), between 1974 and 1991. [40], In 1988, after the murders of three members of the Fager family in Wichita, a letter was received from someone claiming to be the BTK killer, in which the author of the letter denied being the perpetrator of the Fager murders. Even though they hadnt identified him. At a press conference the next morning, Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams announced, "the bottom line BTK is arrested". Apparently, Rader had waited for several hours inside the home of Anna Williams but left when she still had not returned hours later. Armed with a gun and some tools, Rader broke into the Otero home one morning, and killed four members of the familyincluding two young children. Police in Wichita, Park City, and several surrounding cities looked into unsolved cases before, during, and after 1974 and 1991 in cooperation with the state police and the FBI. Police in surrounding states such as Nebraska, Missouri, Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas also investigated cold cases that fit Rader's pattern to some extent. Dennis Rader is an American serial killer also known as the BTK "Bind, Torture, Kill" Killer or the BTK Strangler. This would be his last killing. Brian Rader is an American famous youth who is known as the son of an American serial killer or BTK strangler, Dennis Lynn Rader. "use strict";(function(){var insertion=document.getElementById("citation-access-date");var date=new Date().toLocaleDateString(undefined,{month:"long",day:"numeric",year:"numeric"});insertion.parentElement.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(date),insertion)})(); Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives. [50], In his letters to police, Rader asked if his writings, if put on a floppy disk, could be traced or not. From a Freudian perspective: Dennis Rader is the result of suppression. BTK murder victim Kathryn Bright's brother Kevin, who was shot twice by BTK, reported that the killer had asked him if he had seen him at the university. Victims' families made statements, followed by Rader, who apologized for the crimes in a rambling, bizarre 30-minute monologue that District Attorney Nola Foulston likened to an Academy Awards thank you speech. Married with children by now, he now focused more on his career and rose to the position of installation supervisor. Born in 1945 in Pittsburg, Kansas, Dennis Rader went on to live a double life: Devoted family and company man by day, he also terrorized the Wichita, Kansas, area as the. See the Elon Musk family tree here at FameChain. Serial killer Edmund Kemper murdered six young women in the Santa Cruz, California, area and several members of his family. Convicted of murdering ten victims, he was planning to attack another victim at the time of his arrest. Ive always loved her. He was arrested on February 25. [82], Interview with Misty King; A&E Documentary SpecialThe BTK Killer Speaks, A&E Documentary Special The BTK Killer Speaks, obsessivecompulsive personality disorders, List of serial killers in the United States, List of serial killers by number of victims, "The BTK Killer Brutally Murdered 10 People. This is a puzzlenot all is meeting the eye here. He also attacked her brother Kevin and shot him twice, but Kevin managed to survive. Death to Nancy", "City's 'BTK Strangler' claims he's killed 7", "BTK took body to church, says investigator", "BTK Strangler resurfaces after 25 years", "Police destroy 1,326 DNA samples taken in BTK investigation", "After 31 years and 10 deaths pieces fall in place", "How vanity and a rogue Microsoft Word document led to the capture of evil 'BTK' serial killer", "How the Cops Caught BTK: Playing to a serial killer's ego helped crack the case", "BTK Kansas Serial Killer Full BTK Story", "Policeman details capture of BTK killer", "From DNA of Family, a Tool to Make Arrests", "CNN.com Report: Daughter of BTK suspect alerted police Apr 19, 2005", "BTK Serial Killer Suspect's Charges State of Kansas v. Dennis Rader (page 6)", "BTK Suspect Said to Confess to 6 Slayings", "Rader has admitted to killings, daily says", "Victim's brother describes killing linked to BTK", "Families of BTK victims prepare to wait", "US Serial Killer pleads guilty to ten murders", "BTK killer sentenced to 10 consecutive life terms", "Dennis Rader's listing on the Kansas Department of Corrections, "Everything You Need To Know About BTK, The Disturbing Killer Shown In 'Mindhunter', "Daughter of Wichita serial killer BTK; Stephen King 'exploiting my father's 10 victims', "Ahead of the Season 22 Premiere, We Ranked the 30 Best Law & Order: SVU Episodes Ever", "11 episodes of 'Criminal Minds' that were likely inspired by real-life crimes", "That creepy ADT guy on 'Mindhunter'? He was represented by a public defender. However, he was good at hiding his dark side and came across to the outside world as a polite and shy young man. Serial Killers that Charmed Their Victims. Rader initially worked as an assembler for the Coleman Company, an outdoor supply company. In other words, the animal instinct inside Rader drove him insane, and urged him to do extreme actions in an attempt to satisfy his hunger to be animalistic. Dennis Rader married Paula Dietz on May 22, 1971. An internet search determined that a "Dennis Rader" was president of the church council. According to Rolling Stones write up on the book, Early on, he started cutting out Slick Ads, female figures from magazine advertisements. Rader lived on the same street as Marine Hedge, just houses away. He did credit the killer with having done "admirable work". Dr Ramsland is the leading academic authority on the BTK killings and wrote the 2016 book Confession of a Serial Killer: The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer, drawing on hundreds of . Dennis Rader, a bespectacled, balding 59-year-old compliance officer at the time of his arrest, would later to confess to killing 10 victims and share the secret, deviant behavior he'd kept. However, that ruling was reversed by the United States Supreme Court on June 26, 2006, in the case of Kansas v. Marsh, and the Kansas death penalty statute was upheld. On March 5, news sources claimed to have verified by multiple sources that Rader had confessed to the 10 murders he was charged with, but no additional ones. Even though all the murders committed by Dennis Rader were equally gruesome, the Otero family murders he committed in 1974 were probably the most shocking. [51] When investigators drove by Rader's house, a black Jeep Cherokeethe type of vehicle seen in the Home Depot surveillance footagewas parked outside. "BTK" stands for "Bind, Torture, Kill", which was his infamous signature. Convicted serial killer and sex offender Jeffrey Dahmer murdered 17 males between 1978 and 1991. [12][13] Rader acted out sexual fetishes for voyeurism, autoerotic asphyxiation, and cross-dressing; he often spied on female neighbors while dressed in women's clothing, including women's underwear that he had stolen, and masturbated with ropes or other bindings around his arms and neck. The police department replied that there was no way of knowing on what computer such a disk had been used, which was in fact not true. [43] Before this, it had not been definitively established that Wegerle was killed by BTK. Between 1974 and 1991, he killed ten people in Wichita and Park City, Kansas, and sent taunting letters to police and media outlets describing the details of his crimes. Known as a shy and studious boy, he had a darker side to his persona even as a teenagerhe used to kill dogs and cats in secret. And he felt the first stirrings of arousal over this. A poem in one of the killer's letters was similar to a folk song taught by a professor on that campus in that time period, though Rader himself dismissed any connection. Mendoza diagnosed Rader with narcissistic, antisocial and obsessivecompulsive personality disorders: He observed that Rader has a grandiose sense of self, a belief that he is "special" and therefore entitled to special treatment; a pathological need for attention and admiration; a preoccupation with maintaining rigid order and structure; and a complete lack of empathy. Several weeks later, he sent a letter to a local television station stating that he was responsible for killing Vian, Fox and another unknown victim. On August 18, 2005, he was sentenced to serve 10 consecutive life sentences, one life sentence per murder victim. It had the driver's license of Nancy Fox, which was noted as stolen from the crime scene, as well as a doll that was symbolically bound at the hands and feet, and had a plastic bag tied over its head. According to Jeff, he told the Lawrence World-Journal that he nor his family saw any signs of Rader being a murderer. [10][11] He also exhibited zoosadism by torturing, killing, and hanging small animals. He installed alarms as a part of his job, and many of his clients had booked the company to stop BTK from ever entering their homes, unaware that BTK himself was installing them. [52], Police found metadata embedded in a deleted Microsoft Word document that was, unknown to Rader, still stored on the floppy disk. Rader stated in his police interview that "there are a lot of lucky people", meaning that he had thought about and developed various levels of murder plans for other victims. Dennis Rader spent four years on active duty in the Air Force. [54] An Internet search determined that a "Dennis Rader" was president of the church council. Rader pleaded guilty in 2005 to 10 counts of first-degree murder for claiming the lives of 10 people who he chillingly referred to in court as his "projects" after defense attorneys said the evidence against him was too "solid" to refute, NBC News reported. Strangulation and souvenir-taking would become part of his modus operandi, or pattern of behavior. The author of the letter claimed that he had murdered Vicki Wegerle on September 16, 1986, and enclosed photographs of the crime scene and a photocopy of her driver's license, which had been stolen at the time of the crime. William Elvin Rader, Dorthea Mae Rader (born Cook), er,
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