Latest / The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories / BTK Killer： The Decades Long Hunt For The Monster

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BTK Killer： The Decades Long Hunt For The Monster · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:07
Speaker 1: He was the most heenous serial killer Kansas has ever seen.
0:11
Speaker 2: He would be driving down the street and he would
0:14
Speaker 2: see a woman and he would look at her and
0:16
Speaker 2: he would say, you're next.
0:19
Speaker 1: He called himself bt K. Bind them.
0:23
Speaker 3: He would take his kit in with him, the cord
0:26
Speaker 3: that he would tie up, where he had plastic bags
0:29
Speaker 3: that he would put over her head.
0:30
Speaker 1: Torture them.
0:31
Speaker 4: My mother begged for her life.
0:34
Speaker 5: Yeah, he showed no remorse.
0:36
Speaker 1: Kill them he will in three For three whole decades
0:45
Speaker 1: he would taunt the police and press in a perverted
0:48
Speaker 1: game of cat and mouss There.
0:50
Speaker 3: Was nothing else that we could do except, unfortunately, wait
0:55
Speaker 3: for the left victim.
0:56
Speaker 1: But was bt K born to kill?
1:00
Speaker 6: In my mind, there was two people in that body.
1:03
Speaker 6: One of them was a husband and father, the boy
1:07
Speaker 6: scout leader. The other one was an absolute animal.
1:38
Speaker 7: Broke into the house and waited for her to come home.
1:41
Speaker 1: This is the statement of a sadistic murderer.
1:45
Speaker 5: Were you armed with a handgun at that time?
1:47
Speaker 7: On what happened when I actually had two handguns?
1:51
Speaker 1: Finally caught after terrorizing a community for decades, He would
1:55
Speaker 1: describe his methods and motives in chilling detail.
2:00
Speaker 7: The strangulation wasn't working on I used.
2:03
Speaker 1: A knife for giving an insight into the mind of
2:06
Speaker 1: a psychopath.
2:08
Speaker 8: If you read much about serial killers, they go through
2:10
Speaker 8: what they call the different phases.
2:12
Speaker 1: And answering a mystery that had puzzled a city for
2:16
Speaker 1: thirty years. Wichita, Kansas, once nicknamed Cowtown due to its
2:28
Speaker 1: position on the cattle drives from Texas, and now better
2:32
Speaker 1: known for its heritage as an aviation city. It's a
2:35
Speaker 1: peaceful place in the heart of the Bible Belt that
2:38
Speaker 1: frequently gets bombarded by tornadoes. But in nineteen seventy four
2:44
Speaker 1: it was to get hit by a very different kind
2:46
Speaker 1: of storm.
2:48
Speaker 2: For the people of Wichita. This was absolutely chilling, absolutely startling,
2:54
Speaker 2: because murders like this they happened in New York, or
2:58
Speaker 2: on the West Coast, or in Europe, but they didn't
3:00
Speaker 2: happen here in the heartland.
3:04
Speaker 1: At the time, Richard Lamannion was a captain in the
3:06
Speaker 1: Wichita Police Department.
3:10
Speaker 3: Was well established, neighborhood, extremely low crime rate. Certainly wouldn't
3:20
Speaker 3: think for a second that you would have this kind
3:25
Speaker 3: of murder over here.
3:28
Speaker 9: That's the house right there, It's on Murdoch and Edgemore.
3:34
Speaker 9: This is the actual.
3:37
Speaker 3: Area, and he went in the back door. There he
3:39
Speaker 3: cut the phone wire and then went.
3:41
Speaker 9: In the back door.
3:45
Speaker 1: Inside the house, Detectives would be presented with a scene
3:49
Speaker 1: they would never forget.
3:52
Speaker 3: We had a mother and a father and two children
3:55
Speaker 3: that were killed in a ritual.
3:57
Speaker 9: Type of.
4:01
Speaker 1: The Aeteriro family had only recently moved into the peaceful
4:04
Speaker 1: suburban area. An intruder had strangled the father, Joe and
4:11
Speaker 1: his wife Julie, then turned his attention to their son.
4:16
Speaker 10: There was evidence with Joey, who is nine, that he
4:21
Speaker 10: put the bags and whatnot over Joey's head to suffocate slowly,
4:25
Speaker 10: and that he drew up a chair to sit and watch.
4:28
Speaker 10: When he finally realized he had, you know, the parents
4:32
Speaker 10: and the boy dad, he takes Josephine, the eleven year
4:37
Speaker 10: old girl, down to the basement and hangs her.
4:47
Speaker 1: The slaying of the Aeto family would be just the
4:50
Speaker 1: first in a series of murders the would last decades
4:53
Speaker 1: and wouldn't be fully explained until the perpetrator finally spoke
4:57
Speaker 1: out thirty years later.
5:02
Speaker 7: Is this something you were doing for your personal pleasure?
5:05
Speaker 7: Sexual fantasy?
5:06
Speaker 11: Sir Dennis Raider was born in nineteen forty five in
5:21
Speaker 11: Pittsburgh and Kansas, but spent most of his childhood in Wichita.
5:26
Speaker 11: In Kansas. He was the eldest of four boys and
5:31
Speaker 11: had a pretty unremarkable childhood.
5:35
Speaker 1: Roger Farthings started school on the very same day as
5:38
Speaker 1: Dennis Raider and grew up alongside him in the small
5:43
Speaker 1: community on the outskirts of Wichita. Raider had a seemingly
5:47
Speaker 1: untroubled childhood.
5:51
Speaker 6: His mother worked at a grocery store, his dad worked
5:54
Speaker 6: at the railroad, and for a number of years, very
5:58
Speaker 6: very nice people. Dennis was very laid back, very quiet.
6:03
Speaker 6: We lived close to the river. We spent a lot
6:06
Speaker 6: of time on the river, either fishing or hunting or
6:09
Speaker 6: this kind of thing. And that was the kind of
6:12
Speaker 6: thing he was into, more than the sports and athletics
6:15
Speaker 6: and this kind of thing.
6:18
Speaker 3: You know.
6:18
Speaker 6: He was never outstanding in anything. He never came to
6:21
Speaker 6: the forefront in any way, but he always participated. He
6:24
Speaker 6: was always there. He was part of the group.
6:28
Speaker 1: Although Radas seemed to fit in with his friends, albeit
6:31
Speaker 1: on the fringes, dark and alarming feelings and thoughts were
6:35
Speaker 1: developing in his young.
6:36
Speaker 12: Mind when he was growing up. One of the things
6:40
Speaker 12: that he mentioned was that he had a very distinct
6:43
Speaker 12: recollection of his grandmother killing chickens, and that he became
6:48
Speaker 12: thrilled with that type of activity.
6:53
Speaker 6: A lot of us hung out down at the river
6:54
Speaker 6: and this kind of thing, and he trapped and fished
6:57
Speaker 6: and that kind of thing. A couple of my classmates,
7:00
Speaker 6: who were probably with him a lot more than I was,
7:03
Speaker 6: away from school, a couple of them have indicated to
7:07
Speaker 6: me that they saw at a young age that he
7:11
Speaker 6: would go after like turtles and this kind of stuff
7:14
Speaker 6: and and and as opposed to to maybe, you know,
7:20
Speaker 6: killing them the way a lot of us would have
7:22
Speaker 6: if it was a snapping turtle or something like that. Uh,
7:26
Speaker 6: they said that he would hang them. Well, I never
7:30
Speaker 6: saw that. I didn't hear about that till till after
7:33
Speaker 6: he had been convicted.
7:36
Speaker 11: He would subsequently reveal he enjoyed torturing animals and that
7:41
Speaker 11: he had a fetish for women's underwear. Neither of those
7:45
Speaker 11: behaviors were apparent at the time, but both those behaviors
7:50
Speaker 11: would be relevant in relation to the serial killer that
7:54
Speaker 11: Dennis Rader would become.
7:57
Speaker 1: One event, in particular, would prove to be a potential
8:00
Speaker 1: pivotal moment in shaping Raider's sexual deviancy.
8:06
Speaker 10: When he was about eleven or twelve years old, a
8:10
Speaker 10: teacher humiliated him a class him. He was very angry
8:14
Speaker 10: about it, and he went around to her house later
8:17
Speaker 10: that day in the evening to peek in a window
8:20
Speaker 10: at her, and he had broke with them. He tied
8:22
Speaker 10: it around his waist, tied it tight, and as he
8:25
Speaker 10: watched her through the window, he had an orgasm. So
8:30
Speaker 10: now we have the rope very much associated with sexual
8:34
Speaker 10: pleasure as well as with boyeurism and the feeling of
8:38
Speaker 10: being powerful over another person. So these things are beginning
8:42
Speaker 10: to fuse as he's developing into a young man. Right
8:47
Speaker 10: there in his early teens. This all becomes part of
8:50
Speaker 10: his fantasies later in life.
8:52
Speaker 1: The young Dennis Raider, who grew up in this peaceful,
8:55
Speaker 1: small community and whose childhood seemed to all around him
8:59
Speaker 1: completely normal, was now experiencing inner turmoil. But no one
9:04
Speaker 1: could foresee the devastating outcome of these growing fantasies. Dennis
9:18
Speaker 1: Lynn Raider grew up on the outskirts of Wichita, Kansas,
9:23
Speaker 1: the eldest of four sons. Although he had a seemingly
9:27
Speaker 1: solid family life. By his mid teens, Raider was undergoing
9:31
Speaker 1: changes that set him apart from the other boys.
9:36
Speaker 2: By the time he was in the eighth or ninth grade,
9:40
Speaker 2: he was having sexual dreams and sexual feelings that he
9:44
Speaker 2: knew no other young man was having. He said, by
9:48
Speaker 2: that time, I knew my future. I knew what I
9:52
Speaker 2: was going to be.
9:55
Speaker 1: Following university, Dennis Raider spent four years in the United
9:59
Speaker 1: States Air Force as a mechanic, then returned to Kansas,
10:03
Speaker 1: settling in Park City, north wichital In May nineteen seventy one,
10:09
Speaker 1: Raider would marry a local girl, but despite the happy
10:12
Speaker 1: family image he betrayed he was still living with his
10:16
Speaker 1: inner demons.
10:19
Speaker 13: Raider, from a distance looked like a pillar of the community,
10:23
Speaker 13: but nobody really understood his inner life, which he kept very,
10:27
Speaker 13: very private from everybody, including.
10:29
Speaker 5: His wife, who was highly encapsulated.
10:34
Speaker 1: Raider would read detective magazines that often depicted scenes of
10:37
Speaker 1: torture and bondage, and he would also put his twisted
10:41
Speaker 1: fantasies onto paper in scores of lurid drawings.
10:49
Speaker 4: You know, so many people read those detective magazines, but
10:52
Speaker 4: they don't do the actions. For the cereal is they
10:57
Speaker 4: see it and they can follow that, they can do
11:00
Speaker 4: what is in their hand.
11:01
Speaker 5: Now he decalled that factor X.
11:03
Speaker 13: What he's really talking about is a deviant sexual arousal
11:08
Speaker 13: pattern where he's stimulated by not only killing, but by
11:12
Speaker 13: sexually degrading the victim in some type of sadistic fashion.
11:16
Speaker 13: And he was bright enough to read up on serial
11:19
Speaker 13: killing to understand himself. He then became quite expert on
11:23
Speaker 13: how to avoid apprehension, and he knew what other serial
11:28
Speaker 13: offenders did wrong to get themselves caught.
11:34
Speaker 1: Denis Rader's thoughts, plans, and fantasies finally spilled into the
11:38
Speaker 1: real world when on January fifteenth, nineteen seventy four, he
11:42
Speaker 1: viciously murdered the Oteros. It would take just over thirty
11:47
Speaker 1: years for police and the people of Wichitaur to learn
11:51
Speaker 1: exactly what happened, and they would hear it from Denis
11:54
Speaker 1: Rader himself in this unique and chilling court footage.
12:00
Speaker 12: Otero killings, first of all, were precipitated by his vision
12:05
Speaker 12: of the wife and their little daughter. And I think
12:10
Speaker 12: it was a sexually motivated initial contact that brought him
12:15
Speaker 12: to the Otaro house.
12:17
Speaker 8: Well, I like, infront of the family, pulled a pistol
12:21
Speaker 8: in front of mister Otaro. There I realized that, you know,
12:26
Speaker 8: I was already I didn't have a mask on everything.
12:28
Speaker 7: They already could id me. Made a decision to go
12:31
Speaker 7: ahead and shut them down. I guess her strangled first
12:37
Speaker 7: of all.
12:37
Speaker 8: Mister Otaro, bag put over his head and strangled. After that,
12:42
Speaker 8: I did missus Oltero. Then I strangled Josephine. She was down,
12:50
Speaker 8: and then I went over to Junior and put the
12:52
Speaker 8: bag on his head. And then when I went back,
12:59
Speaker 8: Josephine had.
13:00
Speaker 7: Walked back up. What did you do then?
13:03
Speaker 8: And I took her to the basement and eventually hung her.
13:08
Speaker 7: Did you do anything else at that time? Yes, I
13:11
Speaker 7: had some sexual fantasies.
13:17
Speaker 1: After indulging himself with the ateros Rada hurried home as
13:21
Speaker 1: his unsuspecting wife was soon to be back from work
13:24
Speaker 1: and he wanted to be there to greet her.
13:27
Speaker 14: You had asked him about his wife, you know, how
13:29
Speaker 14: could you? How did she not know? He said that
13:32
Speaker 14: one time back in the I think the seventies or
13:35
Speaker 14: the early eighties, when they had put one of his
13:38
Speaker 14: messages on the front page of the paper, that he'd
13:40
Speaker 14: been sitting there at the breakfast table reading the paper
13:43
Speaker 14: when his wife came up behind and looked over his
13:45
Speaker 14: shoulder and looked down and pointed at it and said,
13:47
Speaker 14: look at that. He misspells that word the same way
13:49
Speaker 14: that you do. And Dennison said, I thought I was
13:52
Speaker 14: going to have to kill her then, but she didn't
13:55
Speaker 14: say anything more, so I just let it go.
13:58
Speaker 1: With the city still reading from the Horrific Slaughter of
14:01
Speaker 1: the Atero Family, Dennis Rader was watching searching for his
14:06
Speaker 1: next victim. He spied twenty one year old Kathy Bright
14:10
Speaker 1: picking up her mail outside her house on Wichitur's East
14:14
Speaker 1: thirteenth Street.
14:15
Speaker 3: Kathy was a Wichita State University student and she had
14:20
Speaker 3: come home during the day with her brother, who was
14:24
Speaker 3: also a student, and unbeknownst to them, BTK was inside
14:30
Speaker 3: waiting on them.
14:33
Speaker 1: Raider was not expecting Kathy's brother, Kevin, to be there.
14:38
Speaker 7: Taka hit him. Tie her up first, and then I
14:41
Speaker 7: tied him up, or vice versa.
14:43
Speaker 3: The brother was able to get loose, he got up
14:46
Speaker 3: and started yelling and screaming, and BTK came out and
14:51
Speaker 3: shot him in the head.
14:53
Speaker 8: I could see the blood, and as far as I started,
14:56
Speaker 8: you know, I thought he's down, and then.
14:59
Speaker 7: Started to strangle.
15:02
Speaker 8: Catherine, and then we started fighting because the bonds were
15:06
Speaker 8: very good, and so after forth we fought.
15:10
Speaker 3: BTK then took a knife and stabbed Kathy several times,
15:16
Speaker 3: killing her. When the brother came to, and even though
15:24
Speaker 3: he was disoriented and didn't know a lot of what
15:26
Speaker 3: was happening, he was able to run out the front
15:28
Speaker 3: door screaming for help.
15:31
Speaker 8: Oh, I'll tell you what I thought. I thought the
15:32
Speaker 8: police were coming at that time. I heard the door open.
15:34
Speaker 8: I thought that's it. And I stepped out there and
15:38
Speaker 8: I could see him running down the street. So I
15:40
Speaker 8: quickly cleaned up everything that I could and left.
15:43
Speaker 1: Despite planning this murder beforehand, Raider had failed to bring
15:47
Speaker 1: all his bindings with him.
15:49
Speaker 8: If I had brought my stuff and used my stuff,
15:53
Speaker 8: Kevin would probably be dead today.
15:55
Speaker 7: I'm not bragging on that. It's just a matter of fact.
15:59
Speaker 10: When you look at his early murders, he was lucky
16:03
Speaker 10: because there were mistakes made that he could have been
16:06
Speaker 10: caught first or second one easily, And he really thought
16:10
Speaker 10: he was going to get caught. He thought there was
16:13
Speaker 10: a witness. He certainly had been clumsy, probably had left
16:17
Speaker 10: some things behind, and he was very nervous he was
16:20
Speaker 10: going to get caught. He thought he had made a
16:22
Speaker 10: pretty serious error.
16:25
Speaker 9: We were able to go back to the brother several times.
16:29
Speaker 3: Obviously, because of the traumatic injury that he had to
16:32
Speaker 3: the brain, he was unable to really give us much
16:37
Speaker 3: insight except we did know he was a Caucasian, and
16:41
Speaker 3: we knew an approximate age, and that was about the
16:45
Speaker 3: extent of what we could get out of him.
16:48
Speaker 1: It was not long after the murder of Kathy Bright
16:50
Speaker 1: that the press reported that a group of three other
16:53
Speaker 1: men had been implicated in the Otero killings.
16:56
Speaker 10: Raider hears that someone else is getting for the murders
17:01
Speaker 10: and he can't stand that.
17:04
Speaker 3: That prompted the first communication from BTK, and the way
17:10
Speaker 3: that came to us was through a letter.
17:12
Speaker 11: He tells the police, this is not going to end.
17:15
Speaker 11: He's going to continue to do this. If you don't
17:18
Speaker 11: catch me, more people in this community are going to die.
17:25
Speaker 1: It would be three years before he would strike again.
17:29
Speaker 3: The next one is in nineteen seventy seven, and I'm
17:32
Speaker 3: the chief at this point. Shirley was a single mom
17:38
Speaker 3: at home and had some children there.
17:40
Speaker 8: The kids were really banging on the door, hollered and screaming.
17:43
Speaker 8: She got sick through up, got our glass of water,
17:48
Speaker 8: offered her a little bit and what hadn't tied her up,
17:51
Speaker 8: and then a bag overhead and strangled her.
17:55
Speaker 1: Because of the length of time since the last killings,
17:58
Speaker 1: police investigators not immediately connect the Vayan murder to those
18:03
Speaker 1: of the Attaro family or Kathy Bright.
18:06
Speaker 10: Part of the distance between some of the murderers had
18:09
Speaker 10: to do with him having a son and then later
18:11
Speaker 10: having a daughter.
18:12
Speaker 2: He was able to compartmentalize his life, and by being
18:16
Speaker 2: able to compartmentalize his life, he could be the good
18:19
Speaker 2: father and he could also kill.
18:23
Speaker 1: Nine months later, in December of nineteen seventy seven, bt
18:28
Speaker 1: K struck again in what he would later dub his
18:32
Speaker 1: perfect hit.
18:34
Speaker 3: Nancy was a single lady, a beautiful young lady who
18:37
Speaker 3: lived alone.
18:39
Speaker 7: So I went around the back of the house, cut
18:41
Speaker 7: the phone lines, broke in and waited for her to
18:45
Speaker 7: come home.
18:46
Speaker 3: She came into her apartment, of course, unaware that he
18:49
Speaker 3: was there, and he gained control of her.
18:54
Speaker 8: Told her there I had a problem, sexual problem that
18:58
Speaker 8: I would have to tire up and have sex with her.
19:04
Speaker 7: She was lit upset.
19:07
Speaker 8: We talked for a while, A handcoffed her had to
19:10
Speaker 8: lay on the bed, and then I tied her feet,
19:12
Speaker 8: and then I got on top of her and then
19:15
Speaker 8: reached over, took the belt and then strangled her with
19:18
Speaker 8: a belt at that time.
19:21
Speaker 3: And what he would do is he would choke her
19:24
Speaker 3: until she almost died. And then while he's doing this,
19:28
Speaker 3: he's masturbating into her neglige.
19:32
Speaker 13: What is arousing for somebody like Raider is to prolong
19:36
Speaker 13: the victim's agony, because that's what's stimulating.
19:40
Speaker 5: To the individual.
19:42
Speaker 13: The definition of sadism is essentially afflicting pain on someone else,
19:46
Speaker 13: and the inflicting of pain is one way the sadist
19:49
Speaker 13: assures himself that he is in fact in control.
19:53
Speaker 5: And so what Raider would do and many.
19:56
Speaker 13: Other serial sexual murders would do, is fe'll kill with
19:59
Speaker 13: a ligature, and then as the person is ready to die,
20:02
Speaker 13: they'll loosen the ligature, let them revive themselves, and then
20:06
Speaker 13: apply additional pressure. In this way, it prolongs their suffering
20:11
Speaker 13: and prolongs Raider's experience of sexual stimulation.
20:16
Speaker 1: In fact, Rada was so satisfied and proud of what
20:19
Speaker 1: he thought he had achieved that he did something extraordinary
20:23
Speaker 1: in order to gain credit from the press and police.
20:27
Speaker 11: He himself the following day reports the murder to the police.
20:33
Speaker 3: He called us on a payphone and informed us that
20:38
Speaker 3: we would find a homicide and gave us the address you.
20:42
Speaker 12: Will find a Homo tib three.
20:48
Speaker 3: The officers went down, investigators founded, and that that was
20:55
Speaker 3: clear to us obviously that BTK had come back and
20:58
Speaker 3: we had a serial killer.
21:00
Speaker 1: On February tenth, nineteen seventy eight, two months after the
21:04
Speaker 1: murder of Nancy Fox, local television station KAK received him
21:09
Speaker 1: MacB letter. It was from BTK, and in it he
21:13
Speaker 1: claimed responsibility for the murders of the Atos Shirley Vayanne,
21:18
Speaker 1: Nancy Fox, and another unidentified victim. He demanded media attention
21:24
Speaker 1: and enclosed a poem titled O Death to Nancy, along
21:29
Speaker 1: with the drawing of Fox lying dead on her bed.
21:32
Speaker 3: It was shortly after that that I made the announcement.
21:36
Speaker 3: We were working with the FBI, we were working with
21:39
Speaker 3: other local agencies with the Kansas Bureau Investigation, knowing that
21:44
Speaker 3: we had a serial killer.
21:47
Speaker 2: And that's really when those lock sales and gun sales
21:50
Speaker 2: went up. At that point, because we had never had
21:52
Speaker 2: any of that here, that had never happened in Wichita, Kansas.
21:57
Speaker 1: Raider was now getting the attention. So craved.
22:02
Speaker 11: Raider wants status. Raider wants to think of himself as
22:08
Speaker 11: cleverer than other people in his community. And the way
22:12
Speaker 11: that he can demonstrate that is not just at his
22:15
Speaker 11: crime scene where he expresses his dominance over his victims.
22:21
Speaker 11: He can demonstrate that status and cleverness and power by
22:26
Speaker 11: taunting the police that they are not able to arrest him.
22:32
Speaker 3: From a policing standpoint, it was extremely frustrating. She might win,
22:35
Speaker 3: will it In said, It's not like he was doing
22:38
Speaker 3: this every month or two. He'd take off a year,
22:40
Speaker 3: take off two years, take off three years. There was
22:43
Speaker 3: nothing else that we could do that we weren't doing except, unfortunately,
22:49
Speaker 3: wait for the next victim. And that's a sad part.
22:52
Speaker 1: The police were at a loss, and the taunting letters
22:55
Speaker 1: from BTK kept coming.
22:56
Speaker 5: In.
22:58
Speaker 1: Wichitan's were left on a knife, wondering when he would
23:02
Speaker 1: kill again and which one of them would be next.
23:16
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy seven, Wichita and Kansas had been in
23:20
Speaker 1: the grip of a terrifying serial killer for almost four years.
23:25
Speaker 1: The police still had no leads, and the perpetrator, Dennis Rader,
23:30
Speaker 1: who had dubbed himself bt K bind Torture Kill, would
23:35
Speaker 1: now wait almost seven years before striking again. But just
23:39
Speaker 1: what was distracting Raider from his dark career as a
23:43
Speaker 1: serial murderer.
23:45
Speaker 10: After Raider had killed seven people, he went back to
23:49
Speaker 10: school in criminal justice, and that wasn't about being a
23:55
Speaker 10: good person and being a law abiding citizen. That was
23:58
Speaker 10: about really sharpening.
24:01
Speaker 2: His trade.
24:04
Speaker 1: Rates. Stalking of his victims and meticulous planning of their
24:08
Speaker 1: murders became apparent through the BTK letters.
24:12
Speaker 7: I had many what I call them projects.
24:15
Speaker 8: There were different people in the town that I followed watch.
24:19
Speaker 7: It was basically a selection process.
24:21
Speaker 12: His projects would entail the stalking, the determination of how
24:25
Speaker 12: he was going to kill the person, how would be
24:28
Speaker 12: best to surprise them. He had to make sure that
24:32
Speaker 12: he left no trace. He had to make sure of
24:35
Speaker 12: all of these contingencies were covered. And he would work
24:39
Speaker 12: all these things through with mental acuity that involved his
24:45
Speaker 12: obsessive nature. He had to have everything planned just right.
24:50
Speaker 3: He would take his kit in with him as a
24:52
Speaker 3: black bags. What it was, it had the cord that
24:56
Speaker 3: he would tie up where he had plastic bags that
24:59
Speaker 3: he would put over their head.
25:00
Speaker 9: He would have a duct tape.
25:02
Speaker 3: He had his gun, he had knives, so he had
25:05
Speaker 3: everything he needed that he would carry.
25:07
Speaker 9: With him I called my kit.
25:11
Speaker 1: Despite his meticulous nature, the actual selection of btk's victims
25:16
Speaker 1: seemed completely indiscriminate.
25:19
Speaker 8: If you read much about serial killers, they go through
25:21
Speaker 8: what they call the different phases. That's one of the
25:24
Speaker 8: phases they go through as a as a trolling stage. Basically,
25:27
Speaker 8: you're looking for a victim at that time, and that
25:29
Speaker 8: you could be trolling for months or years, but once
25:33
Speaker 8: you lock in on a certain person that you become
25:34
Speaker 8: a Stockings that's the victim.
25:37
Speaker 2: He would be driving down the street and he would
25:41
Speaker 2: see a woman walking or sitting on her front porch
25:44
Speaker 2: or going in her front door, and he would look
25:47
Speaker 2: at her and he would say, you're next.
25:51
Speaker 1: Dennis Raider did not have far to troll for his
25:53
Speaker 1: next victim. She lived just four doors down from him.
25:58
Speaker 15: The search began first thing this morning on the eastern
26:01
Speaker 15: edge of Sedgwick County for a woman who's been missing
26:03
Speaker 15: seven days. Fifty three year old Marine Hedge was last
26:07
Speaker 15: seen a week ago by a friend who'd taken her
26:09
Speaker 15: to dinner. She was home by one am Saturday. Later
26:12
Speaker 15: that day her door was found ajar, her phone lines cut,
26:16
Speaker 15: and Marine Hedge was missing.
26:22
Speaker 1: The night's Marine Hedge was murdered, Rada had his alibi
26:25
Speaker 1: at the ready.
26:28
Speaker 2: He took a son to a boy scout camp and
26:31
Speaker 2: then Dennis Rader gets up at one o'clock in the morning,
26:35
Speaker 2: goes out, kills a woman, and then comes back to
26:38
Speaker 2: the boy scout camp as if nothing happened.
26:42
Speaker 8: Eventually moved her to the trunk of the car, took
26:45
Speaker 8: a car over to Christ Lutheran Church and she was
26:51
Speaker 8: already dead. So I took pictures of her in different
26:53
Speaker 8: forms of bondage.
26:55
Speaker 12: She was a deacon at the church, and he posed her.
27:00
Speaker 12: And it was so despicable because in the photographs you
27:04
Speaker 12: could see the choir robes in the basement area, and
27:08
Speaker 12: so when we looked at that, it was like these
27:10
Speaker 12: were taken in a church. He wanted to play with
27:15
Speaker 12: her dead body. I mean, that's pretty sick.
27:20
Speaker 1: Nine days after Marine Hedge was murdered, her body was discovered.
27:25
Speaker 16: It was a dead dog there right beside. Ray's little
27:29
Speaker 16: father was a fuck.
27:32
Speaker 15: The body was nude, and police say badly decomposed. A
27:36
Speaker 15: pair of knotted pantyhose were found lying in the ditch
27:38
Speaker 15: beside it.
27:40
Speaker 1: This wasn't the first time that Raider had used his
27:42
Speaker 1: position in the Scouts as a cover story for other exploits.
27:47
Speaker 12: He was a boy Scout leader, and so it gave
27:49
Speaker 12: him time, free time to be away from home, and
27:52
Speaker 12: so on a couple of these occasions, what he did
27:55
Speaker 12: was to leave the campsite where the boy Scouts were,
27:58
Speaker 12: and then he was very into auto erotica and to
28:02
Speaker 12: trying to hang himself carefully. He did dig a grave,
28:06
Speaker 12: and he put a mask on, and he put himself
28:09
Speaker 12: in it, dressed in women's garments undergarments, and he attached
28:13
Speaker 12: a camera to on a cord, a polaroid, and would
28:17
Speaker 12: take photographs of his accomplishments.
28:20
Speaker 14: He talked about everything in such a matter of fact manner.
28:24
Speaker 14: It is almost like, well, everybody does this, you know,
28:27
Speaker 14: I just did this, and all in this picture here,
28:30
Speaker 14: I've decided to dig a grave, you know, out in
28:34
Speaker 14: the and then wrap myself in saran wrap and put
28:37
Speaker 14: on painty hoose, in a mask and height. You know,
28:40
Speaker 14: it's like, no, everybody doesn't do that. It was kind
28:45
Speaker 14: of weird, and this is when I'm like, you're just
28:48
Speaker 14: not right.
28:49
Speaker 12: There were occasions where he'd engaged in auto eerotic behavior
28:54
Speaker 12: and he couldn't get himself undone, and he thought he
28:56
Speaker 12: would be found by the Boy Scouts and that probably
28:59
Speaker 12: would have been humiliated, but it was all part of
29:02
Speaker 12: his of being another person.
29:08
Speaker 1: After the killing of Marine Hedge, there would be two
29:10
Speaker 1: more murders. First was Vicki Wagily in nineteen eighty six.
29:18
Speaker 3: With the wegglely case that was pretty organized. He broke
29:21
Speaker 3: into the back of this house. She came home with
29:24
Speaker 3: her baby from shopping.
29:29
Speaker 8: I drew a pistol letter and asked her if she'd
29:31
Speaker 8: go back to the bedroom with me.
29:33
Speaker 3: He tortured her, tied her up, left her on the bed.
29:37
Speaker 3: When the husband came home mid afternoon, he cut her loose,
29:43
Speaker 3: thinking maybe she was still alive, and obviously she wasn't.
29:49
Speaker 9: It was clear that it was BTK.
29:52
Speaker 1: Four years later, in nineteen ninety one, Raider would kill again.
29:57
Speaker 13: Investigator is say a fifteen year old boy discovered the
30:00
Speaker 13: body early this morning while he was walking his dog.
30:03
Speaker 1: This time, sixty two year old Delores Davis.
30:07
Speaker 8: Handcuffed her and then tied her up and then eventually
30:09
Speaker 8: strangled her or.
30:11
Speaker 7: Had a plan on leaving and.
30:13
Speaker 8: Put her in a blanket and drug her to the
30:15
Speaker 8: car put her in the trunk of the car.
30:17
Speaker 7: This gets complicated, we think.
30:19
Speaker 9: Now.
30:20
Speaker 17: Investigators here in the scene are not giving any details
30:23
Speaker 17: as to what condition the body was found in, but
30:25
Speaker 17: at this time they were treating this case as a homicide.
30:30
Speaker 3: After that, he, if you will, kind of dropped out
30:33
Speaker 3: of the public eye.
30:35
Speaker 1: Wichito was again left on tenter hooks waiting for BTK
30:39
Speaker 1: to strike once more. But no attack came, and.
30:43
Speaker 13: Many of the authorities in Kansas thought, well, maybe he
30:45
Speaker 13: was arrested for some other crime, which often happens in
30:48
Speaker 13: many of these cases.
30:50
Speaker 5: But he wasn't arrested. Raider was out there in the community,
30:52
Speaker 5: hiding in plain sight.
30:54
Speaker 3: You know, everybody had their own theories. I was convinced,
30:58
Speaker 3: if he wasn't dead, that he was still one of us.
31:02
Speaker 3: I just figured he'd gotten too old and was backing off.
31:06
Speaker 13: But what he had done is he took souvenirs and
31:09
Speaker 13: trophies from the various crime scenes and collected them in
31:13
Speaker 13: a treehouse he had in his backyard along with detective
31:16
Speaker 13: magazines and other types of self created pornography. And I
31:22
Speaker 13: believe he was able to satisfy himself to a large
31:25
Speaker 13: extent by looking at self created crime scene photos, souvenirs
31:31
Speaker 13: and trophies that he took from his victims, and he
31:34
Speaker 13: knew where they came from, and this was very stimulating
31:37
Speaker 13: to him.
31:38
Speaker 1: During this time, Rada's children were growing up and he
31:42
Speaker 1: changed job. He became a compliance officer, a role that
31:46
Speaker 1: gave him the chance to exercise a position of authority
31:49
Speaker 1: in the community.
31:50
Speaker 18: Dennis was a Park City compliance officer. What he did
31:54
Speaker 18: was he wrote tickets for people not complying with city code.
31:58
Speaker 10: You know.
31:58
Speaker 18: He was known to even take a room uler and
32:00
Speaker 18: measure of grass, and if it was too tall, he
32:03
Speaker 18: would write people tickets for it.
32:05
Speaker 13: He gave a woman a ticket for her dog being
32:08
Speaker 13: not on a leash, and so the woman went to
32:10
Speaker 13: court to fight the ticket, and the lawyer representing the
32:13
Speaker 13: woman was shocked with respect to how Raider handled himself.
32:17
Speaker 18: He spent hours and hours and hours and days on
32:21
Speaker 18: just trying to prove these four tickets. I do criminal
32:24
Speaker 18: defense and I have major felony, you know, rape cases
32:27
Speaker 18: sometimes that they don't have this much stuff on.
32:30
Speaker 13: You know, Raider prepared for that very minor municipal ticket
32:34
Speaker 13: hearing like he would for a capital murder case.
32:37
Speaker 5: That's a picture.
32:38
Speaker 18: Dennis took the dog outside the gate, and that's his
32:44
Speaker 18: evidence of that the dog was out. A normal dog
32:47
Speaker 18: compliance officer would more likely behold the gate up and
32:50
Speaker 18: come on and get back in here, you know, and
32:51
Speaker 18: see if there's a reason a way that the dog
32:53
Speaker 18: got out. But no, did Denis do that. No, he
32:56
Speaker 18: was trying to shoot the dog with a tranquilizer gun.
32:58
Speaker 13: And I think that speaks volumes to understanding Rader. He
33:02
Speaker 13: is incredibly controlling of everything around him. There is no
33:07
Speaker 13: way Raider was going to let himself lose that very
33:10
Speaker 13: minor court case.
33:11
Speaker 18: I could see Dennis killing dogs, you know, he was
33:14
Speaker 18: trying to shoot Shadow from the backyard.
33:16
Speaker 9: But I never thought that he.
33:18
Speaker 18: Would be the kind of person to kill people.
33:26
Speaker 1: Over the years, Wichitaur slowly crept back to normal life,
33:30
Speaker 1: and a new generation grew up not knowing the horror
33:33
Speaker 1: of the past. Then, in two thousand and four, thirty
33:37
Speaker 1: years after btk's brutal murder of the Otero, family. He
33:41
Speaker 1: would resurface tonight.
33:43
Speaker 19: Wichitan's are on edge. The serial killer who terrorized Wichita
33:47
Speaker 19: for years causes new fears.
33:50
Speaker 1: And Wichita would be plunged once again into the fear
33:54
Speaker 1: it had known before. BTK had savagely tortured and murdered
34:09
Speaker 1: ten people in the midwestern city of Wichita between nineteen
34:13
Speaker 1: seventy four and nineteen ninety one. Then for thirteen years
34:17
Speaker 1: he just disappeared. But there was to be yet another
34:21
Speaker 1: twist to this tale of terrible crimes.
34:29
Speaker 2: The Witchdog Eagle did a little article on the anniversary
34:32
Speaker 2: that this had been thirty years or so since the
34:34
Speaker 2: Otero killing. Well, apparently BTK saw that and decided that
34:39
Speaker 2: he needed more publicity, that he wasn't quite done yet.
34:43
Speaker 3: But I remember I was sitting here in my city office.
34:45
Speaker 3: My secretary said the Chief Williams is on the line.
34:48
Speaker 9: Needs to talk to you. So I picked up the.
34:51
Speaker 3: Phone and he said, chief going to believe this. He said,
34:54
Speaker 3: we just got a communication from BTK. And I said,
35:00
Speaker 3: you gotta be kidnaping and he said no, He said
35:02
Speaker 3: you need to come and see it tonight.
35:04
Speaker 19: Wichitan's are on edge. The serial killer who terrorized wichitav
35:08
Speaker 19: for years causes new fears.
35:10
Speaker 3: My first reaction was I thought, maybe he was coming back.
35:14
Speaker 3: Perhaps it was remorse, you know, regret that brought him back.
35:19
Speaker 9: But it wasn't. It was just arrogance. He's just evil.
35:25
Speaker 1: After decades, bt K was back and he was ready
35:29
Speaker 1: to play cat and mouse with the press and police.
35:33
Speaker 12: He started to play these little games of sending us
35:36
Speaker 12: on scavenger hunts around the city, putting serial boxes, serial
35:41
Speaker 12: killer boxes filled with dolls that were posed in positions
35:46
Speaker 12: of victims, and pieces of jewelry of some of his victims,
35:50
Speaker 12: and he would hide them in the city and then
35:52
Speaker 12: he'd call the media and he'd send them a little note,
35:54
Speaker 12: a little clue where you might find these things.
35:57
Speaker 20: There was a lot of confidence that if he kept going,
36:00
Speaker 20: we would eventually catch him.
36:02
Speaker 12: His gamesmanship was just I think he really wanted to
36:06
Speaker 12: get caught.
36:07
Speaker 20: Everybody in the department, I'm sure, to some extent, hoped
36:09
Speaker 20: to be the one to find that magic pollok. They
36:11
Speaker 20: would find him.
36:12
Speaker 12: He was doing things that were stupid, and law enforcement
36:15
Speaker 12: gaining a lot of perspective into this individual.
36:18
Speaker 1: BTK was to make a final blundering mistake clearly not
36:22
Speaker 1: that familiar with computer technology. He handed the police a
36:26
Speaker 1: golden opportunity. It was the moment they had been waiting for.
36:32
Speaker 12: He sent a note saying, if I send you a disc,
36:37
Speaker 12: will you be able to identify I mean, be honest
36:39
Speaker 12: with me. I want to know. As the officers responded
36:45
Speaker 12: back by newspaper, it's okay, Rex, which is what he
36:48
Speaker 12: wanted to hear, and that's when he did send the disc.
36:52
Speaker 1: Randy Stone was the detective on the forensic Computer Crime
36:55
Speaker 1: Unit who was charged with obtaining information from the disc
36:59
Speaker 1: that BTKS in.
37:02
Speaker 20: Open it up. There was one one file and from
37:05
Speaker 20: that we're able to identify that the software was registered
37:09
Speaker 20: to Christ Lutheran Church and that the person who last
37:13
Speaker 20: saved the document was logged into his computer under the
37:17
Speaker 20: count name of Dennis.
37:20
Speaker 1: That man was Dennis Raider, the president of the congregation
37:23
Speaker 1: at Christ Lutheran Church in north Wichita BTK, and we
37:30
Speaker 1: were like, oh my god.
37:32
Speaker 12: And then that's when everything just started to move very
37:37
Speaker 12: very very rapidly.
37:38
Speaker 1: On February twenty fifth, two thousand and five, they arrested.
37:43
Speaker 8: Him Gus.
37:46
Speaker 7: Well say Samuel.
37:51
Speaker 1: Once Rader had confessed it all spilled out and he
37:55
Speaker 1: talked for thirty three hours. Over the next two days,
37:59
Speaker 1: it was time for Wichito police departments to let the
38:02
Speaker 1: public know the identity of the monster that had plagued
38:05
Speaker 1: them for over thirty years.
38:08
Speaker 6: I said, when they make the announcement of the name,
38:10
Speaker 6: come out and tell me who it is. And I'm
38:12
Speaker 6: bent over under the hood of my son's car. And
38:15
Speaker 6: they came out and they said the guy's name was
38:18
Speaker 6: Dennis Raider, and I almost fell into the car. Just
38:21
Speaker 6: couldn't believe it. At our class reunions, we always take
38:30
Speaker 6: a group photo, and we were all there at our
38:33
Speaker 6: fortieth high school class reunion, which was shortly before he
38:37
Speaker 6: was arrested. My wife and I basically we sat right
38:41
Speaker 6: across the table from he and his wife. We carried
38:44
Speaker 6: on quite a conversation. It was a very enjoyable evening.
38:50
Speaker 6: You just can't believe that you misread somebody this bad
38:54
Speaker 6: for so long.
38:56
Speaker 14: I've lost track of how many murders that I've defended
38:59
Speaker 14: over the years. He's not even in my top ten
39:02
Speaker 14: of people that I would consider dangerous just by how
39:06
Speaker 14: you meet them and talk with them.
39:08
Speaker 9: I've had other people that are just.
39:09
Speaker 14: Exue you know, meanness and fear. It's like this guy
39:16
Speaker 14: I don't even want to be in the same room
39:18
Speaker 14: with him, But not Dennis. I mean, I didn't get
39:21
Speaker 14: that from him. I think that's why he was able
39:23
Speaker 14: to go so long, because when he wasn't actually doing
39:27
Speaker 14: his acts, he had this persona, this aura of normalty
39:33
Speaker 14: that nobody suspected that he could be a killer.
39:38
Speaker 6: It was very, very hard to listen to him describe
39:41
Speaker 6: some of the things he did, in some cases in
39:43
Speaker 6: front of this woman's children.
39:46
Speaker 14: So you put a bag overhead and strang over, what
39:48
Speaker 14: did you stranglever with?
39:50
Speaker 7: I actually had think on that.
39:52
Speaker 8: I had tied tighter legs to the bit post and
39:54
Speaker 8: worked up with a rope all the way up, and
39:56
Speaker 8: then when I had left over, I looped over for him.
40:00
Speaker 6: Something that you try to put out of your mind,
40:02
Speaker 6: and that's the way I've tried to do it.
40:05
Speaker 11: In his warped, immoral worldview, behaving as he has done,
40:12
Speaker 11: killing all these people is something that he should be
40:15
Speaker 11: proud of, not ashamed of, And that's why he's so
40:19
Speaker 11: keen to help the police, And that's why he's so
40:22
Speaker 11: keen to talk about these things at court, not because
40:25
Speaker 11: he's ashamed, But because he's proud.
40:28
Speaker 2: I would tell you that the suit code did not.
40:30
Speaker 1: Because Dennis Raider was pleading guilty, there was to be
40:33
Speaker 1: no trial, but a plea hearing was arranged to make
40:36
Speaker 1: sure that the evidence was heard and to give the
40:39
Speaker 1: relatives of btk's victims a chance to have the final word.
40:45
Speaker 14: No action or sentence bestowed upon Dennis Rader will begin
40:48
Speaker 14: to compare with the reckoning he will endure when his
40:51
Speaker 14: time for judgment comes before the Lord.
40:54
Speaker 8: Right now, he's not any remorse, no remorse, no compassion. No,
41:00
Speaker 8: he had no mercy, and I think that's what he
41:03
Speaker 8: ought to receive.
41:04
Speaker 11: As far as.
41:04
Speaker 4: I'm concerned, Dennis Raider does not deserve to live.
41:09
Speaker 15: I want him to suffer as much as he made
41:13
Speaker 15: his victims suffer.
41:15
Speaker 17: If I had your devil nature, I would delighten the
41:17
Speaker 17: fact that your congregation has turned its back on you,
41:19
Speaker 17: that your friends have deserted you, that your wife has
41:22
Speaker 17: divorced you, that your own children have disowned you. And
41:24
Speaker 17: then I would remind you that you will never have
41:26
Speaker 17: any warm, loving hum of contact again for the remainder
41:29
Speaker 17: of your twisted existence.
41:39
Speaker 1: So was Dennis Raider born to kill.
41:44
Speaker 10: I don't think there's an evil seed there that bloomed
41:48
Speaker 10: and inevitably forced his hand. I definitely think it was
41:51
Speaker 10: a series of orgasmic conditioning is what we call it,
41:56
Speaker 10: that could have gone a different way.
41:59
Speaker 6: It had nothing to do with his upbringing. It has
42:02
Speaker 6: nothing to do with where he grew up. He was
42:06
Speaker 6: in no way an abused child.
42:08
Speaker 14: Given the fact that there doesn't seem to be any nurture,
42:11
Speaker 14: I think by default you have to say that it
42:13
Speaker 14: was inside him. I just don't think you can kill
42:16
Speaker 14: ten people and be sane. There is something seriously wrong
42:20
Speaker 14: with your inner workings if you are able to kill people,
42:23
Speaker 14: especially children, and to do some of the things that
42:27
Speaker 14: he did and just continue functioning and go on with
42:31
Speaker 14: your life like nothing else is wrong.
42:33
Speaker 13: The serial sexual murder is a biopsychosocial problem with a
42:39
Speaker 13: heavy emphasis on neurobiology. If you ask a heterosexual, do
42:43
Speaker 13: you remember any watershed event in your life that made
42:47
Speaker 13: you heterosexual? Most will say no, that's just the way
42:49
Speaker 13: I am. If you ask someone who's gay the same thing,
42:53
Speaker 13: is there something that happened to you in your life
42:55
Speaker 13: that caused you to be gay?
42:56
Speaker 5: Most will say no. That's the way I.
42:58
Speaker 13: Am, and it's the same with these deviant arousal patterns.
43:01
Speaker 5: That's the way Raider was born.
43:04
Speaker 13: Now, that doesn't mean he's destined to kill somebody because
43:07
Speaker 13: he could control it.
43:09
Speaker 16: Dennist Raider killed my wife in nineteen eighty six. The courts,
43:15
Speaker 16: the news media, the general public knows the vicious, cruel
43:21
Speaker 16: individual he is.
43:23
Speaker 5: All we can do.
43:24
Speaker 16: There's no punishment that you can exact upon him that
43:28
Speaker 16: will satisfy our needs.
43:30
Speaker 6: In my mind, there was two people in that body,
43:33
Speaker 6: and one of them was a husband and father, the
43:39
Speaker 6: boy scout leader in this kind of thing. The other
43:42
Speaker 6: one was an absolute animal, and it just didn't seem
43:46
Speaker 6: like the dentist that we all knew. It was a
43:47
Speaker 6: totally different person.
43:50
Speaker 19: Shirley Byan, my mother.
43:54
Speaker 12: You know.
43:55
Speaker 18: I'd just like for him to suffer for the rest
43:58
Speaker 18: of his life.
44:00
Speaker 3: Was he harmed as a little child or did he
44:02
Speaker 3: do this or what caused him to do it? He
44:05
Speaker 3: just did it because he's evil.