Latest / When Killers Get Caught with Brittany Ransom / BTK: The Killer Who Lived a Perfect Life Next Door

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BTK: The Killer Who Lived a Perfect Life Next Door · When Killers Get Caught with Brittany Ransom

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A church leader, A compliance officer, A husband.
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A father. The kind of man neighbors
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trusted without question. The kind you wouldn't look twice
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up. And then there was the name he
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gave himself. Bind.
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Torture. Kill.
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Dennis Rader built a life that looked ordinary, on purpose.
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Stable, structured, predictable. But underneath it, he was
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feeding something controlled, calculating and patient.
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In the 1970s in Wichita, KS, they were shaken by a series of
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brutal murders. The victims were chosen, watched
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and studied long before he made contact.
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Families and women who lived all alone.
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People who never saw him coming. And then it just stopped.
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The killings ended, the messages stopped.
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Time passed and the leads dried up.
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The case went cold. But Dennis Rader didn't
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disappear. He worked, went to church,
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raised his family, and built a life that made suspicion almost
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impossible. It was never just about the
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violence, it was always about control.
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And for decades he held on to that control quietly, until the
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silence wasn't enough anymore. Because eventually, being
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forgotten becomes worse than being caught.
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So Dennis came back, and that decision cost him everything.
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I'm Brittany Ransom and This is When Killers Get Caught, a
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podcast where I examine the people, the psychology, and the
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moments that lead to the most extreme acts of violence and
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what happens when the truth finally catches up.
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Today's story is about control and what happens when someone
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needs that control more than they need freedom.
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Dennis Rader was born in 1945 in Kansas and to what looked like a
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completely ordinary working class family.
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There was no chaos that stood out, no obvious warning signs
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that would make someone step in and say that something's wrong.
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On the surface, it was structured, stable, the kind of
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upbringing that blends into thousands of others.
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But inside that home, there was a different kind of absence.
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Rader would later describe his parents as emotionally distant.
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His mother works long hours. His father was strict and not
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particularly engaged. There was discipline, but not
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connection. And for a child already wired
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differently, that gap mattered. Because it didn't start with
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violence. It started with his imagination.
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At a young age, Rader begin developing fantasies that
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centered around control. Not just dominance, but total
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control. The kind where another person's
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fear, their restraint, and their helplessness became the focus.
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He was drawn to bondage in an early age, long before he even
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knew what it was, fascinated by the idea of simply tying someone
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up and taking away their ability to move or escape, and instead
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of being interrupted, questioned, or redirected, all
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of those thoughts were allowed to grow.
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He never talked about it, though.
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He didn't act on it in a way that would immediately cause
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alarm at school. He just internalized it, and
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that internal world became detailed over time, more
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specific and more consuming. There were also early behaviors
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that, in hindsight, feel like warning signs.
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Rader admitted to acts of animal cruelty.
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He engaged in voyeurism. He watched others without their
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consent. He began stalking in very small,
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quiet ways, following, observing and learning his community's
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routines. But from the outside, none of
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this really defined him. He was quiet, reserved, a rule
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follower, the kid who didn't bring any attention.
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And that's the part that made this stage of his life so
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unsettling. There were two versions of
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Dennis that were developing simultaneously, the one the
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world saw and the one that no one else did.
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And the hidden one was being reinforced through secrecy to
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repetition and the fact that nothing and no one had
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interrupted this progression. Each thought, each behavior,
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each private moment added another layer to something that
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was becoming more structured, more intentional.
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Because fantasy, once it's fed long enough without consequence,
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doesn't just stay a fantasy. It evolves.
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And for Rader, those early years weren't just a phase or a set of
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passing thoughts. They were the foundation, the
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place where control became the center of absolutely everything,
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where imagination stopped being harmless and started becoming
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something else entirely. It didn't start with murder.
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This started with the imagination of a small child.
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Now, as Dennis moved into early adulthood, those two versions
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did not separate. They became more organized.
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On the outside, his life flowed like a clear, structured path.
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He joined the US Air Force, a decision that gave him
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discipline, routine, and a sense of order, things that he all
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valued. For most people, that
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environment actually reinforces stability.
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But for Raider, it did something else.
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It gave structure to a mine that was already fixated on control.
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After he finished his service, he returned to Kansas and began
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building what looked like a conventional adult life.
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He got married. He had children.
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He settled as the kind of routine that signals
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reliability. It looked like he was doing
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everything right. But underneath that stability,
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the internal world he had been developing since childhood
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hadn't disappeared. It had become more deliberate.
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Rigor didn't act randomly. He planned.
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He observed and practiced. He referred to all of these
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women he was obsessed with as projects, a word that stripped
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away their humanity and replaced it with a process.
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That language alone tells you what he was thinking.
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This wasn't about emotion. It wasn't his impulse.
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This was how methodical he spent time stalking, watching people
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on their daily routines. Even people that he wasn't
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interested in causing harm to, he still watched them all the
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time. He was constantly testing
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boundaries. These were his rehearsals, his
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dry runs, moments where he would get close enough to feel the
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control without fully acting on it.
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And at the same time, the roles that he was choosing in his
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professional life only reinforce that need for authority.
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See, he got a job working installing security systems.
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This job is rooted in protection.
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He was entering people's homes, showing them how to stay safe
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and how to protect their space. It's almost a disturbing irony
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that the man who helped make people feel protected was the
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same man studying those same people for vulnerability.
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Later, he would become a compliance officer, a position
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that gave him direct power over others.
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He enforced rules, issued citations, dictated what people
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could and couldn't do. This was about control, and it
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was a legitimate control base job.
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And that really defined the stage of his life.
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He wasn't chaotic, he wasn't spiraling.
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It was all structure, routine, and access.
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Everything about this environment allowed him to
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refine what had always been growing.
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The discipline of his lifestyle didn't suppress any of his
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impulses. It sharpened them.
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Because Dennis wasn't losing control, he was perfecting it.
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By 1974, though, the line between fantasy and reality had
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finally been crossed. Dennis had spent years
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imagining, rehearsing, refining what control would look like.
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But when he acted, it didn't really unfold the way he
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envisioned. On January 15th, 1974, he
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targeted the Otero family in Wichita, KS.
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Joseph senior, 38, Julia, 33, and their children Joey and
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Josephine, 9 and 11. Now, this wasn't an impulsive
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act. Rader had been watching them for
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two solid months. He had learned their routines,
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and that night he parked at a distance, climbed a fence, cut
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the phone lines before he approached the house, and waited
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until little Joey stepped outside to let the dog out.
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He then confronted Joey and forced himself in at gunpoint.
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At first, Joseph Senior didn't really take him seriously, but
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Rader very quickly made it clear that this wasn't a joke.
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He claimed he was armed with a loaded 22 caliber pistol and
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told the family he was a wanted man, someone very dangerous.
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He ordered them all to lay onto the living room floor.
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From there he separated the group, moving them women into
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the bedroom and binding them with rope that he brought with
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him. The entire scene carried the
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appearance of a robbery, and so the family responded as if
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that's what it was. They tried to cooperate.
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They explained they were uncomfortable being bound and
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just laid flat on the floor. Joseph Senior Joseph Senior
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mentioned prior injuries, saying the restraints were causing him
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pain, and Rader responded in a way that on the surface, seemed
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considerate. He gave them pillows, adjusted
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their positions as if he was going to make them more
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comfortable. Later, he would say that this
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was the moment when he decided he was going to kill them.
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Up until then, the situation had the shape of something else, a
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burglary, a threat, something that could end without violence.
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But in Dennis's mind, the purpose had shifted.
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Control was not enough anymore. And that's when the nightmare
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turned into something worse. He started with Joseph Senior
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placing a plastic bag over his head.
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The first time it failed, Joseph was able to bite through the
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plastic, disrupting writers attempt and forcing him to try
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again. The second time though, he
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secured it more tightly and watched Joseph slowly suffocate.
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He then turned to Julia. He used a rope to strangle her,
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but it didn't go the way he expected.
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Strangulation takes a lot of time and strength, and during
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the process of trying to stab her, she regained consciousness,
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begging him to spare her children.
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That interruption, however, did not stop him.
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When he tried again, he made sure this time she didn't wake
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up. With Joey Rader adjusted for his
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earlier mistake, he plays 2 bags over the little boy's head,
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ensuring there would be no chance of escape, and then
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watched him suffocate. Finally, Josephine was taken to
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the basement. He removed her clothing and tied
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a noose to a pipe overhead. At one point, he asked her if
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there was a camera in the house, as if he wanted to document what
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he had done. When she asked what was going to
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happen, he told her she would be in heaven with her family.
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He then hoisted Josephine into the air and masturbated while
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she struggled to survive. Afterward, he took the family's
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car and abandoned it at a local grocery store.
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But even then, the night wasn't over.
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He had to return to the Otero house to retrieve a knife he had
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left behind. For someone that had spent years
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building this moment up in his mind, he messed absolutely
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everything up. There were so many mistakes,
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interruptions and adjustments, and that all mattered because it
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didn't stop him. He just realized that next time
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he had to do it better. What followed wasn't really an
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escalation in violence, it was the creation of an identity.
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See, Dennis Raider didn't just want to be another killer, he
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wanted a name. BTK, bind, torture, and kill. 3
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words that reduced. 3 words that reduced the human life into a
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process, a formula. His signature.
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And once that he had that identity, he needed it so that
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he could exist outside of himself.
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He began writing letters to the police, to the media.
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He described the crimes, inserted himself into the
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investigations, and demanded attention.
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These weren't confessions that were driven by guilt.
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They were performances Because it wasn't just enough to kill.
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He needed to be seen now. The Witch of the Eagle, a
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newspaper, got a letter from BTK labeled I Did It, taking full
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responsibility for the Otero family murders.
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Three brothers had actually already confessed to this
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murder, but Dennis made sure to leave in some details that had
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never been published publicly to let the police know that he was
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the real killer. In July, a man in Washington DC
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was arrested for the murders, but he was cleared after
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fingerprint analysis. The Wichita Beacon would
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actually respond to these letters by running a classified
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ad that said BTK help is available and leaving a phone
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number. Dennis never called.
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As the murders continued, that need, that need to be seen and
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acknowledged, it only grew stronger.
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He lasted 3 months before killing again.
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Catherine Bright was 21 when she was attacked in her home, barely
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surviving. Dennis referred to this attack
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as Project Lights Out. He had been sloppy here too
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because he didn't realize that Catherine had a 19 year old
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brother living in the house with her and on April 4th, 1974 he
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broke a glass sliding door and waited inside her home.
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He must have been nervous because he accidentally
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discharged his gun too and that caused him to almost panic and
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abandoned the killing because he was worried that when Catherine
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opened the door she would smell the gunpowder.
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When both Catherine and her brother returned home, Dennis
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told them he was a wanted man from California and he needed
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money for food, forced them into a bedroom and made Kevin tie up
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his sister and then tie Kevin up himself.
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Now this time he used household items that he found around the
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Bright House. He didn't want the police to
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connect into the Otero murders, not yet.
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He turned the radio up as loud as possible and then when he
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went to kill Kevin, Kevin was free and Kevin attacked him as
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soon as he walked through the door.
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This ended in a scuffle and Kevin got shot in the forehead.
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Rader then tried to strangle Kevin on top of the shot, but
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that was also inefficient and Kevin fought him back.
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He had to shoot Kevin two more times, once above his mouth and
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then another simply grazed the side of his face.
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At this point, Kevin decided the best thing to do here was just
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play dead and as soon as Dennis was out of the room, he ran and
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called the police from a neighbor's house.
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Dennis then immediately went to Catherine's room and tried to
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strangle her, but she started fighting him after he said he
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had shot and killed her brother. Rader kind of lost composure and
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began stabbing Catherine in the upper stomach area below her
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ribs. That was when Rader heard Kevin
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call for help again and he just decided it was time to abandon
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Shep. He stole Catherine's keys, but
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when her truck didn't start, he just ran away.
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When the police arrived, Catherine was alive and holding
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her phone, but she was unresponsive and she died during
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emergency surgery. Kevin survived, but he didn't
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give enough information for the police to be able to find the
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man who killed his sister. Now while Rader craved the
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attention from these murders, the disaster of the murder made
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him pause for about 3 years actually.
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That is until he could deny the compulsion no longer.
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And on March 17th, 1977, he targeted 26 year old Shirley
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Veen Ralford. Dennis had actually planned to
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kill a completely different woman but she wasn't home so he
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just picked a Random House on the block.
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This is one of those interesting moments in crime because part of
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Raiders pathology is that he had this intense need for control
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but the need to kill was stronger and so he actually in
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this vein wrist capture. To get the release from the ACT.
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Dennis would stand on the block and just kind of wait until he
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noticed a 5 year old boy walking home.
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The little boy was Steven Relford, and he would run out to
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grab soup for his mom, who was sick.
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Dennis pretended to be an undercover detective and showed
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the boy a photo of his own wife and daughter.
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The little boy said that looks like my mom and sister.
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And so Dennis followed him home. Inside the Ralford house, he
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kept up the detective ruse. He asked the family about the
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photo, and when Shirley was looking, Dennis pulled his gun
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out. He told her he was a wanted man
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and she was being robbed. And just like before, Dennis
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struggled to properly secure his victims.
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He tried to tie up the children. They were too wiggly, so he
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ended up forcing them into a bathroom and then barricading
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the door. He actually made Shirley help
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him barricade them in. But before he locked the door,
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he did give the children their toys.
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And then he went to go kill their mother.
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He strangled Shirley after covering her head with two
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plastic bags. And Dennis said that he
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originally intended to kill the children too, but the phone rang
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and one of the children in the bathroom yelled, that's someone
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coming to visit us. And so Dennis ran away.
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He decided the next time he would get, he would get it
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right. And so this time, Dennis spent
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more time stalking his next victim, Nancy Joe Fox.
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He waited until December 8th, 1977, to execute Project Fox
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Hunt, as he called it. That night, he broke into her
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house through a back window and waited for her to return home
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from work. When Nancy found him in her
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home, she actually began screaming full voice to get out
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and threatening that she was going to call the police.
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Rader told her he'd already cut the phone lines and very calmly
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told her he was going to bind her, take photographs, and that
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he was going to rape her. Rader undressed himself and
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allowed Nancy to undress in the bathroom.
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How polite. She resisted, and Dennis decided
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to handcuff her instead. He didn't actually rape her, he
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actually kind of sat on top of her and he used his belt to
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slowly choke her, releasing the pressure enough that she would
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wake up and then he would choke her until she passed out again.
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He never admitted how many times he did this, but the following
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morning he called the police from a phone booth and told them
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that they could find Nancy's remains in her home.
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That call would be released in 1979, but it never actually led
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to any roll. Around January 31st, 1978, Rader
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sent a bizarre letter to a local classified department of the
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Wichita Beacon. It contained a poem he wrote
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that began Shirley Lux, Shirley Lux, and then it went into
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explicit details of how he murdered Shirley Ralford.
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One month later, on February 10th, he sent another letter to
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the Wichita TV station KAKE Cake and took responsibility for the
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Otera murders as well as Bright, Ralford and Fox.
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This letter was important to the investigation because Rader
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asked how many do I have to kill before I get a name in the paper
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or some national attention? Very clearly detailing his
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compulsive need for attention. He also took time with this
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letter to compare himself to Jack the Ripper, son of Sam and
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the Hillside Stranglers. He wrote another poem titled
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Death to Nancy. He told the police to send him a
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hidden message. The police instead traced the
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letter to Wichita State University, where Dennis was a
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student. BTK wasn't a nickname that was
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given by the public. It was something that he
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created, something he fed, and something that Dennis needed.
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Every letter, every message, and every taunt was part of him
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constructing this identity because the act of killing
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people was only part of it. He needed that recognition and
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as long as he was being watched, talked about, and chased, he was
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getting exactly what he wanted. Dennis tried to kill again in
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April of 1979. This time his target was 63 year
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old Anna Williams. Just like with Nancy, he stalked
19:11
her for months, preparing his attack and approach, even
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breaking in ahead of time and stealing from her.
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The break in actually caused Anna to hire a security company,
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and while we don't know if Dennis installed her specific
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system, we do know that he worked for ADT and he used his
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job to spy on his victims. The night that he broke into
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Anna's home, he was confident that he knew her routine, but
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Anna had been invited out by her friends to go square dancing and
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she stayed out late. Dennis waited in her home for
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hours and frustrated, went home and penned the poem.
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Oh Anna, why didn't you appear? He dropped that letter off at
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Anna's house and inside of the envelope included the drawing of
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a nude woman tied up, and then he added in a scarf and two
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plastic hair clips. The scarf and the clips had
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belonged to Anna and they had been stolen during the earlier
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break in. He delivered that letter to her
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in June. The police wouldn't hear from
20:07
BTK again until 1988. After 77, the violence stopped.
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As far as the police knew, there were no new bodies, no new
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messages, no signs of BTK. For investigators, it felt like
20:19
the case had simply gone quiet. Another killer who disappeared
20:22
without explanation. This wasn't anything new.
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Maybe he'd moved to another part of the country.
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Maybe he died. Maybe he lost his nerve.
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But Dennis didn't disappear. He settled in.
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This is the part of the story that's easy to misunderstand,
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because on the surface it looks like restraint, like something
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inside of him shut down. But nothing about Rader suggests
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he suddenly became a different person.
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If anything, he became more controlled.
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There are a few ways we can explain the law.
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His children were growing up. His responsibilities were
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expanding. A stable home life requires
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time, attention, and consistency.
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It's possible that maintaining that image just became his
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priority. It was more important to him
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that people saw him as the every man, the everybody's dad.
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There's also the question of fear.
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By the late 70s, law enforcement was paying attention.
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His letters had drawn focus. The risk was real.
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And let's be real, his prior murders had not been clean and
21:21
easy. He left behind a lot of DNA
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evidence. And even though we weren't in a
21:25
state of technological advancement to do anything with
21:28
that evidence, all it would take was one mistake and he would be
21:32
caught and humiliated. But for someone like Raiders,
21:35
stopping doesn't necessarily mean they lose the urge.
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If we follow Robert Ressler and John Douglas FBI profiling
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system, Dennis will be classified as a classic
21:45
organized serial killer. And nothing about this subset of
21:48
individuals is impulsive. Everything is about constant
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routine control, controlling the crime scene, maintaining your
21:54
social focus, and above all else, patients.
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Organized killers are known to have very long cool down
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periods, and Rader is not the first killer of his kind to
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suppress his urge for years. For Dennis, those years of
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suppression were focused on him building an almost untouchable
22:15
social reputation and image. He was the church president.
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He was a Boy Scout leader, a city compliance officer.
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Positions that all signal trust, authority and good moral
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standing. The kind of roles that don't
22:27
just blend into your community, they actually anchor you into
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it. He was the dependable neighbor.
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Never BTK that same person who had committed those murders was
22:38
now enforcing the rules, mentoring children and leading
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people spiritually within his church.
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Not as a cover in the traditional sense, but this was
22:46
a fully integrated aspect of his identity.
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This isn't what you would call a fracture.
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Like other killers we discussed over the years who might be
22:53
suffering from multiple personality disorder, Dennis
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just had two sides to himself who he could flip between very
23:01
easily. And he was fully cognizant of
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both aspects of his identity, the father and the killer.
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They were all parts of the same man.
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He had combined these identities and he learned how to control
23:14
both. Whatever existed in those
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earlier years hadn't disappeared.
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He contained it. Dennis Rader didn't stop being
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BTK. He got better at hiding him.
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Now, as the murder stopped, The investigation didn't.
23:30
Law enforcement in Wichita formed what became known as the
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BTK Task Force, a dedicated group focused on identifying a
23:36
killer who had already shown he was methodical, patient and
23:38
capable of disappearing. They weren't dealing with
23:42
someone reckless, they were dealing with a person who could
23:44
blend in, and that made their job exponentially harder.
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In the 1970's, the tools we think of today simply didn't
23:51
exist. No modern DNA profiling, no
23:53
national database to instantly cross reference evidence.
23:57
Investigators relied on physical evidence, witness statements,
23:59
and behavior patterns, all of which only go so far when the
24:02
offender doesn't leave much behind.
24:05
And DNA only matters if you can actually compare it to a person.
24:11
So the fact that he had left behind so much DNA didn't mean
24:16
anything. And despite all of the early
24:19
mishaps, Rader was still careful.
24:21
He was actually quite meticulous in cleaning his time scenes.
24:27
He didn't leave any obvious connections between his victims.
24:30
There were no clear suspects who stood out.
24:33
Instead there was just this growing list of possibility.
24:36
Hundreds of names that became thousands.
24:38
Men who lived in the area, men with criminal records, men who
24:40
seemed just a little bit weird, but nothing that definitely, but
24:45
nothing that definitively ever pointed to just one person.
24:49
And at the same time, the case had another problem time.
24:53
As the years passed without any new murders or communication,
24:56
public fear began to fade. What had once felt immediate and
24:59
urgent just became distant. People moved on.
25:03
Leads went cold. Resources shifted.
25:05
And for investigators, that creates a different kind of
25:08
pressure, because the longer a case that's without movement,
25:11
the harder it will be to revive. When this memories fade,
25:14
evidence degrades. Momentum disappears.
25:17
But the task force never stopped.
25:19
They reviewed files, revisited evidence, followed leads that
25:22
continued to go nowhere, tried to build a profile of someone
25:27
who, by all accounts, had simply vanished.
25:30
And that was the problem. They weren't chasing somebody on
25:33
the run. They were hunting a ghost that
25:35
had just decided to stand still. Dennis wasn't running.
25:39
He was living his life exactly the way he always had been, and
25:42
as long as he stayed quiet, there was never anything that
25:46
would pull him back into the light.
25:49
After six years of silence. Though Dennis killed again
25:53
Marine Hedge, whom Raider called Project Cookie, she lived just a
25:57
few houses down from him. He chose her for a specific
26:00
reason. He wanted to see if he could
26:02
kill one of his neighbors and get away with it.
26:05
On April 27th, 19. 85 Rader created an alibi.
26:09
He left a Cub Scouts outing early, feigning sickness,
26:12
changed his clothes, stopped at a bar to make himself appear,
26:14
talks intoxicated, and he even called a taxi and used a fake
26:19
slurred voice so he could be dropped off near his
26:21
neighborhood without any suspicion.
26:23
He cut Hedges phone line, broke into her home and hid in her
26:27
closet. When she returned with her
26:29
boyfriend, he waited only after the boyfriend left, and Marie
26:35
only after the boyfriend left and Maureen went to bed, the
26:38
dentist make his move. He startled her awake, subdued
26:41
her and strangled her. But for Rader, the killing
26:44
wasn't the end here. He took her body to his church,
26:48
a place where he had the keys and privacy.
26:51
There he staged her body and took photographs, turning the
26:54
scene into part of his fantasy. Before morning, he cleaned
26:58
everything up, removed her body and later dumped it in a remote
27:02
area. Days later, her car was found
27:05
abandoned and shortly after that her body was recovered 7 miles
27:08
away from home. His next murder was.
27:12
Vicki, wet girl. At the time, Rader was still
27:16
working for ADT and while on the job he noticed 28 year old Vicki
27:20
and began watching her, later calling her project Piano.
27:24
On September 16th, 1986, he used his job as a disguise, wearing a
27:29
hard hat and posing as a phone technician.
27:32
He first entered a neighbor's home to make his presence seem
27:34
legitimate, and then he went to Vicki.
27:39
Once inside, he. Made small talk while pretending
27:42
he was checking her phone line. Then he pulled a gun and forced
27:45
her into the bedroom. Vicki fought back.
27:48
She actually managed to break free from the original bindings,
27:51
and she scratched his face hard enough that he later admitted
27:55
that that marks scarred. The struggle, along with the
27:58
barking dogs and open windows made Raider very nervous, and he
28:02
knew his time was limited. Even so, he couldn't stop.
28:04
He had to finish the ritual after killing her.
28:07
He took photos of her body before driving away in her car.
28:10
He actually passed her husband on the way away from her home
28:15
and then abandoned the vehicle nearby and returned home.
28:19
For years, Vicky's husband was the number one suspect.
28:26
It wouldn't be until nearly two decades later that Rader finally
28:28
admitted the truth in 2004. At the time, her case was
28:34
actually unconnected, another tragedy without a clear answer.
28:38
But even in silence, Rader wasn't disconnected from
28:41
violence. In January of 1988, there was a
28:43
woman named Mary Fager and she received an envelope postmarked
28:47
January 5th and inside was a poem titled Oh God.
28:51
He put Kelly Sherry in the tub along with a disturbing drawing
28:56
of a bound young girl near a pool just days earlier.
29:00
Mary's husband, Melvin and her two daughters had been murdered
29:04
in their home. The details were horrific, and
29:07
it absolutely matched the poem. But Rader was never actually
29:10
linked to those killings, and he never claimed responsibility.
29:14
He just inserted himself because he wanted to be a part of the
29:18
investigation. He referenced the crime he wrote
29:21
about. It created his own version of
29:23
the scene. It wasn't accurate, but it's
29:26
still caused a lot of trauma for Mary Fager.
29:31
It was like he was observing, analyzing, and responding from a
29:34
distance. He actually later described
29:36
admiration for this killer, saying another one prowls the
29:40
deep abyss of lewd thoughts and deeds.
29:43
Even without committing an act, he wanted proximity to it.
29:48
And then he went quiet for another few years.
29:51
His. Last and final murder was. 1981
29:54
he targeted 62 year old Dolores Davis after watching her near
29:57
her home, referring to her as project dog side.
30:00
He had been casing her house for quite some time, waiting for the
30:03
right moment. Finally, on January 18th, he.
30:07
Created another alibi. Similar to before he left a.
30:10
Boy Scout outing. Early changed clothes, made his
30:13
way to her home on foot through fields in a cemetery.
30:16
The cold pushed him to act quickly, and instead of quietly
30:19
entering, he just broke in. He waited until Davis went to
30:22
bed and then forced his way inside her room.
30:24
At first he told her he was going to tie her up and take her
30:27
car. She resisted, and when he
30:29
threatened her with weapons, she decided to comply.
30:32
He ransacked the kitchen to maintain the illusion of a
30:35
robbery, but when Dolores started pleading for her life,
30:39
he just strangled her. Now initially.
30:43
Dennis intended to stay longer with Dolores body, but he had to
30:47
leave sooner than expected. He moved her body, drove it to a
30:50
remote area and abandoned it and he returned to her house to
30:53
clean up parts of the scene and re establish his alibi before
30:57
anyone had noticed he was gone. Weeks later they found her body
31:01
under a bridge and then just like before, it stopped.
31:05
No communication, no activity that law enforcement could tie
31:08
back to BTK. And the cases just sat.
31:12
The name BTK faded. The fear that once gripped
31:15
Wichita slowly dissolved into something more distant.
31:18
But silence. For someone like Dennis Rader,
31:21
it's not permanent because being forgotten becomes its own kind
31:25
of pressure. And in 2004, that pressure
31:28
broke. It started on March 19th, 2004.
31:32
The Wichita Eagle received a letter from someone named Bill
31:35
Thomas Killman, A moniker, and it took credit for Vicki
31:39
Weggol's murder. He included photographs from the
31:42
scene and a copy of Vicki's driver's license before.
31:46
This moment, police. Had never known that Vicki was
31:48
killed by BTK. Now what?
31:51
Dennis didn't realize. Was that in 2004?
31:53
There was new evidence and new technology.
31:55
Vicki had DNA under her nails from where she scratched him.
31:58
And the police began to DNA test hundreds of men in the region,
32:01
professors, police officers, anybody who was in a position of
32:04
power. And in the end they ended up
32:06
doing 1300 tests the samples. Were.
32:10
Court ordered to be destroyed after eliminating A suspect.
32:14
They may not have found BTK, but they knew they had his DNA and
32:18
they could link it to all of his past crimes in.
32:21
May of 2000 and. 4K Ake received a letter with chapter headings
32:26
for the BTK story. It came also with fake IDs and a
32:31
word puzzle. On June 9th, graphic images of
32:35
the Otera murders were found taped to a stop sign at the
32:39
corner of 1st and Kansas roads in Wichita.
32:42
It also included a sketch labeled The Sexual Thrill Is My
32:45
Bill. And there were more chapter
32:48
headings for this unwritten book that he decided would be called
32:51
The BTK Story. This sort.
32:56
Of story he wrote about himself was very similar to a 1999 story
33:02
that had been written about him by a Court TV writer named David
33:06
Lore. So apparently BTK said you did a
33:10
good job, but here, let me fix this.
33:13
In July, a package was dropped in a return slot at the local
33:16
Public Library that took credit for a suicide in Argonia, KS.
33:21
Police weren't sure if this was a copycat or Dennis just playing
33:24
mind games with them. In all of these correspondences,
33:28
he gave entirely too much personal information about
33:31
himself. He told him he was former
33:33
military. He told him he loved trains.
33:34
He did try to mislead them by saying he'd been born in 1939.
33:38
But what the police didn't know was that Dennis was trying to
33:41
kind of rally himself to get ready for another kill.
33:44
He'd actually set a date in October of 2004.
33:48
He was in the process of stalking his next victim, and he
33:51
wanted people to remember the fear of the 70s when he started
33:55
up again. We don't know why he didn't go
33:57
through with it. Instead, though, he continued
34:00
his campaign with the local media.
34:02
In the month of October, he dropped a Manila envelope in a U
34:05
PS: box with cards of images of just horrible violence against
34:09
women, and he also had drawings he did himself of children in
34:13
bondage. It also contained A threatening
34:15
poem about the lead investigator, Lieutenant Ken
34:18
Landware, and a fake autobiography about his life
34:23
then in. December.
34:24
Police found another package at the local Murdoch Park that had
34:27
Nancy Fox's driver's license and had a doll that was bound at the
34:31
hands and feet with a small plastic bag over the doll's
34:34
head. But in January of 2005, Dennis
34:38
left a cereal box in the bed of a pickup truck at Home Depot,
34:42
and when the owner saw it, he immediately threw it in the
34:44
trash. Dennis had to write a letter to
34:46
the police asking. So you guys didn't get my new
34:49
package? And telling them where he had
34:52
left it and the police had to go recover the items from the
34:55
garbage. Surveillance videos showed a
34:57
figure in a black Jeep Cherokee leaving the box, but old school
35:00
CTTV was pretty bad so they couldn't see his license plate
35:04
or really any details on his face.
35:06
In February, he sent more cards to Cake and another cereal box
35:11
with a doll inside of it. Then Dennis made a mistake.
35:18
In one of his letters. He asked the police a simple
35:20
question. Can a floppy disk be traced?
35:24
Investigators saw an opportunity.
35:26
They responded through a classified ad in The Wichita
35:28
Eagle telling him it would be safe.
35:30
One line, Rex, it'll be OK. And Dennis believed them.
35:36
On February 16th, 2005, Rader sent a purple Memorex floppy
35:40
disk to a local TV station with a letter, a fake gold necklace,
35:43
and a photocopy of a book titled Rules of Prey.
35:47
It was another attempt to insert himself into the story, another
35:50
way to be seen. But this time he'd gone too far.
35:53
Because what Rayder didn't understand, or maybe he just
35:56
chose to ignore, was that that disk held more than just the
35:59
files he intended to send. It held information about him.
36:04
The metadata they pulled from the disk LED investigators to
36:07
Christ Lutheran Church in a simple Google church showed that
36:12
only one man at the church was named Dennis, and Dennis had
36:17
edited a file that was on that floppy drive.
36:22
This man who had spent. Decades controlling every little
36:27
detail had just handed himself over to the police and he didn't
36:31
even realize it. Surveillance would follow and
36:34
police felt very confident after seeing the black Jeep Cherokee
36:38
that they had the right guy. The problem was, this is still
36:41
circumstantial evidence. OK, we have the floppy Dr. that
36:46
has a man named Dennis who works at the church editing the file.
36:50
And yeah, Dennis does drive the same car that we saw drop off
36:54
that cereal box, but it wasn't enough.
36:58
Police started to do something. Unique at the time, they
37:00
obtained a search warrant to analyze a Pap smear sample from
37:04
Dennis Rader's daughter. She's gotten her pap smear.
37:08
When she was in school at Kansas State University.
37:13
They got that information. From the medical clinic, DNA
37:16
testing revealed there was a familial match between the
37:20
sample and the DNA recovered from under Vicki Weggarl's
37:24
nails. The result indicated that the
37:28
killer was a close relative of Dennis Rader's daughter, and
37:32
when combined with the other evidence, it gave investigators
37:35
enough to move forward with an arrest.
37:38
Dennis Rader was arrested while driving near his home on
37:40
February 25th, 2005. An officer asked him, Mr. Rader,
37:45
do you know why you're going downtown?
37:47
And he replied, oh, I have suspicions.
37:50
Why? Now on February 28th. 2005
37:55
Dennis was charged with 10 counts of first degree murder.
37:58
It was rumored that during interrogation he confessed to
38:00
other murders, but the DA chose to go with cases they had direct
38:03
DNA evidence to convict. The DA would later say that this
38:07
was not true, but it does kind of follow how most DAS work.
38:11
You want the confirmed kill, not potentially others.
38:14
That would make the case more confusing.
38:19
Interestingly enough, Dennis. Was particularly worried about
38:21
the death penalty and he was also worried about general
38:24
population in prison. He specifically said he didn't
38:26
want to be with the loonies in Gen. pop as if he's not one of
38:30
the loonies. On March 1st, his bail was set
38:33
at $1 million and then on March 3rd a not guilty plea was
38:36
submitted on his behalf because he stood in court and refused to
38:39
say anything. Then on June. 27th he decided to
38:43
change his plea to guilty. That, coincidentally, was the
38:46
first day of his pretrial hearing.
38:50
So in order. For them to want to work with
38:53
him, they said you need to stand in front of us and tell us
38:56
everything. So he did.
38:59
Dennis did. In court, there was no
39:00
breakdown, no visible remorse, no moment where the weight of
39:04
all he had done seemed to catch up with him.
39:06
Instead, he spoke. He was calm, clear and in
39:09
detail. He waved his right to a trial
39:12
and he delivered a full confession, walking through each
39:15
murder as if he were recounting a simple series of tasks.
39:19
He used his own language, his own structure, referring back to
39:23
the same patterns he developed years earlier.
39:26
Binding, strangulation, control. No hesitation, no emotional
39:30
shift as he talked about the victims, not even the children.
39:33
No acknowledgement of the lives he had taken beyond the
39:35
mechanics of how he did it. At times it sounded like a
39:39
confession and other times a report.
39:43
In fact, sometimes when the DA asked him questions, he
39:47
corrected details, clarified the timelines, added information
39:53
that only he would know, not to express his guilt, but to make
39:56
sure the story was accurate and complete, because even then he
40:01
was still trying to control the narrative.
40:03
Families of the victims sat in the courtroom and listened as he
40:06
described their loved ones final moments with the same tone
40:10
someone might use to just explain taking the trash out.
40:14
And that's what made it so unsettling.
40:16
There was no distance. From this, for him, he was never
40:20
overwhelmed by what he had done. He was reliving it in court, in
40:24
front of the families of his victims.
40:28
And in that moment, the same need that drove him to write
40:31
those letters, to name himself, to come back after decades of
40:34
silence, it was still there. He needed to be heard.
40:38
He needed to be understood and to make sure that nobody got his
40:42
story wrong. Sorry on June. 27th, 2005 Dennis
40:51
Rader was sentenced to 10 consecutive life sentences,
40:53
ensuring he would spend the rest of his life in prison.
40:57
Even then, though, the control he chased for decades, it didn't
41:00
fully disappear. Remember, he didn't confess over
41:04
guilt. He wanted to be heard and as he
41:08
was being transported to El Dorado Correctional Facility.
41:12
It was just a regular day for him.
41:14
The contrast actually was striking.
41:16
During the drive, the driver said he made small talk about
41:19
the weather as if nothing had changed in his life.
41:23
But then as they were listening to the radio, as they were
41:25
driving to the prison, the victim impact statements played
41:29
over the radio. And Dennis cried.
41:33
Not in the courtroom, not while he confessed, but they're in
41:36
private. And then the door closed on his
41:39
cell. He was placed in solitary
41:42
confinement for his own protection, a status that will
41:45
probably remain for the rest of his life.
41:47
He was removed from the public, separated from other inmates,
41:49
stripped of the environment that he had control over.
41:53
But that doesn't mean that the need for control ever
41:55
disappeared, just adapted. In prison, he continued to seek
41:58
out attention in whatever ways were available to him.
42:01
He was corresponding with outsiders, talking to his fans
42:06
and warned by president officials about these ongoing
42:11
communications that he was crossing lines.
42:13
At one point, he was granted limited privileges for good
42:16
behavior, access to ATV books and art supplies.
42:20
Even that, though, sparked concern with prosecutors arguing
42:24
that exposure to media and imagery could actually allow him
42:27
to relive his crimes. Essentially, if you guys give
42:30
him crayons and pencils, he's going to draw his murders again.
42:34
And they had a good point because for Dennis Rader, the
42:38
story never really ends. It just changes form for him.
42:42
They're even reports of him setting rules for how people can
42:45
contact him, conditions and boundaries, requirements, even
42:49
now in a prison cell, attempting to dictate the terms of
42:52
interaction, reinforcing the same pattern that defined his
42:56
life outside these walls. Control over access, control
43:00
over communication, control over how he is being perceived and.
43:05
Outside the prison. The fascination still hasn't
43:07
gone away. Profilers study him, his
43:10
behavior, his communication, his psychology, his name.
43:14
Continues to surface. In discussions about criminal
43:16
profiling, in the evolution of serial offenders, books have
43:19
been written, interviews have been given.
43:22
His story is revisited again and again in podcasts like these.
43:27
Even his home families had to confront this reality.
43:30
His daughter, Carrie Rawson, has spoken publicly about the
43:33
impossible task of reconciling the father she knew with the man
43:37
she now understands him to be. A childhood that felt normal,
43:43
refrained by something hidden in plain sight.
43:46
For years, Carrie tried to find a path forward.
43:48
She spoke about forgiveness, about faith, about trying to
43:50
make sense of it. But that changed In 2021.
43:54
She made a decision to cut off contact with her father.
43:57
What she had learned, what she had uncovered, made any
44:00
relationship impossible to maintain.
44:02
As investigators revisited old evidence, they found journals.
44:05
Radar had kept detailed, coded records of his thoughts and
44:08
actions. Carrie helped decode parts of
44:11
them, and what surfaced was deeply personal.
44:14
One entry read Carrie back slash BND, back slash Game 1981.
44:21
BND was Dennis's shorthand for bondage, and in 1981 Carrie was
44:27
a toddler. In October of 2023, she
44:31
confronted him in prison face to face, and what followed was not
44:35
accountability. I sat feet across from.
44:39
You. You crumpled up, rotting away in
44:41
a wheelchair, me standing tall and brave and confronted you
44:45
with the hard bare truth you had kept hidden from me for over 4
44:48
decades. You denied it.
44:50
Gas let me emotionally and verbally abused me and asked me
44:54
what PTSD is and then when I explained it told me I had
44:59
brought this all on myself. Even then.
45:03
Faced with all the information, he refused to admit what he had
45:07
done to carry. And at the same time,
45:11
investigators in Osage County have continued examining
45:14
hundreds of drawings and writings recovered from Raiders
45:17
home in 2005, hoping they may connect him to additional
45:21
crimes, including the 1976 disappearance of Cynthia Kenny.
45:26
But Dennis remains silent, and in that silence, the pattern
45:30
continues. Because even now, control is the
45:33
one thing he refuses to give up. It's the one thing that no one
45:36
can take from him. The truth and.
45:39
It's still sitting exactly where he wants it.
45:42
The odds are that he has actually committed more crimes,
45:45
but he has absolutely no intention of telling us anything
45:49
about it. Dennis intends.
45:51
To die with that truth. Dennis Raider didn't look like
45:58
a. Monster.
45:59
That's the part that usually stays with people.
46:02
He wasn't hiding in the shadows, he wasn't disconnected from
46:05
society. He was a part of it.
46:08
A neighbor, a Co worker, a man trusted to enforce the rules, to
46:11
lead and to protect people. And all the while, there was
46:15
someone else living beneath the surface.
46:19
That's why we keep talking about.
46:20
Him. That's what makes this all so
46:21
unsettling, because it enforces you to confront the reality that
46:25
most people don't want to accept.
46:27
Someone can appear completely normal, completely ordinary, and
46:33
still be capable of extraordinary harm.
46:36
In the end it. Wasn't the crimes that brought
46:39
Dennis Raider down, it was his ego the same?
46:43
Need. That pushed him to name himself,
46:45
to write those letters, to insert himself into other
46:48
investigations. It's all what exposed him.
46:51
The media gave him a platform, and after a long time, he used
46:56
it exactly the way he wanted to until it became a trap.
47:00
Because the more he reached out, the more he needed to be
47:02
recognized, the more he revealed, piece by piece, detail
47:06
by detail, until there was enough information to find him.
47:09
And at the center of all this was control.
47:12
Dennis wanted to control his victims, control his image,
47:15
control over when he would appear and when he would
47:18
disappear. But control for Dennis.
47:21
Wasn't just a desire, it was an addiction.
47:24
And like many addictions, it eventually cost him everything.
47:30
What he wanted the most. To be seen.
47:33
It's what led him to be at caught.
47:35
And once that happened, the version of himself he spent
47:37
decades building collapsed, leaving behind not a mystery,
47:42
but a man. A very real human man who chose
47:47
over and over again to be something else.
47:50
Because the truth is, Dennis Rader didn't just hide in plain
47:53
sight, he depended on it. I'm.
47:56
Brittany Ransom. And this has been another
47:58
episode of When killers get Caught.
48:01
And remember, the truth always leaves the trail.