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. Dennis Rader, aka the BTK Killer, murdered 10 people between 1974 and 1991. . [52], Police found metadata embedded in a deleted Microsoft Word document that was, unknown to Rader, still stored on the floppy disk. On July 26, 2005, after Rader's arrest, Sedgwick County District Judge Eric Yost waived the usual 60-day waiting period and granted an immediate divorce for his wife, agreeing that her mental health was in danger. It had to have been in the family, or it could be an uncle classically or an aunt. [50], In his letters to police, Rader asked if his writings, if put on a floppy disk, could be traced or not. All of his known crimes occurred in the state of Kansas. Shortly after Rader was arrested in 2005, his shocked wife was granted an immediate divorce. At a press conference the next morning, Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams announced, "the bottom line: BTK is arrested. After a decade-long hiatus, Rader resumed sending letters in 2004, leading to his 2005 arrest and subsequent guilty plea. He also left semen at the scene and later said that he derived sexual pleasure from killing. 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. 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 . However, he never stopped stalking potential victims or playing out murderous fantasies in his head. [9] He grew up in Wichita. On the afternoon of January 15, 1974, 15-year-old Charlie Otero and two of his siblings came home from school to . Convicted of murdering ten victims, he was planning to attack another victim at the time of his arrest. Beginning in 2006, he was allowed access to television and radio, to read magazines, and other privileges for good behavior.[75][76]. His gruesome crimes shocked and horrified the community, and his capture in 2005 brought a small measure of closure to the families of his victims. On May 3, District Court Judge Gregory Waller entered not guilty pleas to the 10 charges on Rader's behalf, as Rader did not speak at his arraignment. In 1985, he struck again. On August 18, 2005, he was sentenced to serve 10 consecutive life sentences, one life sentence per murder victim. Shortly afterward, in January 1978, Rader sent a poem to a local newspaper about the Vian killing. 2 Dennis Rader brutally murdered ten people, including two children, over a 17-year stretch With a stable job and two children to raise, he did not find time to plan out more murders. How could this man be both? This is a puzzlenot all is meeting the eye here. Rader killed her on April27, and took her dead body to his church, Christ Lutheran Church, where he was the president of the church council. Sources give Rader's place of birth as either Columbus, Kansas,[7][8] or Pittsburg, Kansas. [54] An Internet search determined that a "Dennis Rader" was president of the church council. He also engaged in mutilations of some degree. His final known victim, Dolores Davis, was taken from her home on January 19, 1991. Their marriage was blessed with 5 children: Larry, Deanna, Donna, Dale and Scott. Prior to this, it had not been definitively established that Wegerle was killed by BTK (Rader). 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. She is now 28 years old and has American nationality. Paula Rader said in her divorce petition that her mental and physical condition has been adversely affected by the marriage. Rader was raised in Wichita, Kansas. He was finally caught in February 2005 and was given 10 consecutive life sentences . What makes me think so is the frequency of the cruel behavior. Would love your thoughts, please comment. He, too, is a Christian, and his zodiac sign is Pisces. Rader's father's name is William E. Rader and his mother's name is Dorothea M. Rader. This includes one person who was saved when Rader called off his planned attack upon his arrival near the target's home due to the presence of construction and road crews nearby. On February 26, 2005, The Wichita Police Department announced in a press conference that they were holding Rader as the prime suspect in the BTK killings. The 1977 murders sent shock waves once again throughout Kansas and the police issued a public warning to the citizens, advising them to be more cautious as a serial killer was on the prowl. 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. A poem was enclosed titled "Oh! When he first lived out the fantasies he started harboring as a child, to bind, torture and kill people, he was. As part of his plea, he gave the horrifying details of his crimes in court. There were several communications from BTK from 1974 to 1979. In 1974, he began a lengthy stint as an employee ofADT Security Services. Paula Dietz is best known as the ex-wife of Dennis Rader. [14], Years later, during his "cooling off" periods between murders, Rader would take pictures of himself wearing women's clothes and a female mask while bound. He warned that he would strike again, noting, "The code words for me will be bind them, torture them, kill them, B.T.K." Kevin later described Rader as "an average-sized guy, bushy mustache, 'psychotic' eyes," according to a TIME magazine article. Rader was a census field operations supervisor for the Wichita area in 1989, prior to the 1990 federal census. They say he was the squeaky clean, oldest of four boys, very traditional parents, traditional family, went to school, did the right things etcetera, so there were no clues.. You probably call me 'psychotic with sexual perversion hang-up.'" But if its sustained on a regular basis you then end up engaging and incorporating into your behavior repertoire these behaviors more permanently and especially in an early age. 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. Powered by. [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. He gained entry into her house posing as a telephone repairman and then strangled her to death. During the sentencing, victims' families spoke about the effect. Born in Pittsburg, Kansas, U.S., He holds American citizenship. He sent her a letter to let her know that BTK had been there. Table of Biography [ show] Early Life and Childhood Dennis Rader was born on March 9, 1945, and is currently 77 years old. With many news stories marking the 30th anniversary of the Otero murders, BTK resurfaced in 2004. Both parents worked long hours and paid little attention to their children at home; Rader later described feeling ignored by his mother in particular and resenting her for it. He married Paula Dietz on May 22, 1971, and they had two children. [18] Rader married Paula Dietz on May22, 1971; they had two children, Kerri and Brian. Police began surveillance on Rader. He would torture to a large degree his victims all 10 of them intense torture really, really cruel torture and he would get some close to death and then revive them so they could live this horrific experience again, and he would do that simultaneously. Serial killer Edmund Kemper murdered six young women in the Santa Cruz, California, area and several members of his family. He then worked for a few months before entering the Kansas Wesleyan College in 1965. The following year, he killed Vicki Wegerle in her home. His father is an American serial killer known as BTK or the BTK Strangler while his mother is a former bookkeeper. Ramsland later wrote the book, Confession of a Serial Killer: The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer. . The police also knew BTK owned a black Jeep Cherokee. [32] The victims were Joseph Otero, age38; Julie Otero, age33; Joseph OteroJr., age9; and Josephine Otero, age11. He started trolling them, hanging out around their house, and fantasizing about binding and torturing them. 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. He also left packages with clues, including a computer disk that ultimately led authorities to Rader's church. In his letters to police, Rader asked if his writings, if put on a floppy disk, could be traced or not. (1973), Paul Rader{ "@context": "http://schema.org", "@type": "Person", "name": "Paul Rader", "gender": "Male" }, Bill Rader{ "@context": "http://schema.org", "@type": "Person", "name": "Bill Rader", "gender": "Male" }, Jeff Rader{ "@context": "http://schema.org", "@type": "Person", "name": "Jeff Rader", "gender": "Male" }, Brian Rader{ "@context": "http://schema.org", "@type": "Person", "name": "Brian Rader", "gender": "Male" }, born 1975, age 42 Two of the victims (Julie Otero and Kathryn Bright) worked at the Coleman Company, though not during the same period that Rader worked there. He also harbored a sexual fetish for women's underwear and would later steal underpants from his victims and wear them himself. He started his murdering spree in the mid-1970s, terrorizing the citizens of Kansas for more than 30 years before he was finally arrested. The metadata contained "Christ Lutheran Church", and the document was marked as last modified by "Dennis". [41] In October2004, a manila envelope was dropped into a UPS box in Wichita. BTK simply means Blind, Torture, and Kill. Ottis Toole confessed to killing more than a hundred people with his partner Henry Lee Lucas. [20][30], In an interview with ABC News in 2019, Rader's daughter Kerri said she still writes to her father and has now forgiven him, but still struggles to reconcile him with the BTK killer, stating her childhood seemed normal and they were a "normal American family". On July 22, 2005, a controversy erupted on CNN's Nancy Grace show over a poem that Dennis Rader had written that was passed on to someone who then sold it on an auction site that specializes in serial killer memorabilia. "BTK" stands for "Bind, Torture, Kill", which was his infamous signature. Who Is Dennis Rader? Currently, he is serving ten consecutive life sentences at El Dorado Correctional Facility in Kansas. 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. He was raised in Wichita. According to Jeff, he told the Lawrence World-Journal that he nor his family saw any signs of Rader being a murderer. Ramsland, Katherine. Then he drove to the church where he took some pictures with the dead body and eventually dumped the body in a road side culvert a few miles away from her house. He also liked to hang cats and watch them struggle until they died. [19], On July26, 2005, after Rader's arrest, his wife was granted an "emergency divorce" (waiving the normal waiting period). He would serve two more years in the reserves. The Wichita Eagle received a letter from someone using the return address Bill Thomas Killman. 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