Latest / Weird Darkness:True crime & The unexplained / O bizarro serial killer BTK Dennis Rader

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O bizarro serial killer BTK Dennis Rader · Weird Darkness:True crime & The unexplained

0:05
Speaker 1: The month of January, 1974, had been rigorous in the
0:10
Speaker 1: region of Wichita, in Kansas, USA. It was winter, when
0:15
Speaker 1: on the cold afternoon of the 15th, 15-year-old Charlie Otero
0:19
Speaker 1: returned home after school, next to his two younger brothers, Tenny, 14,
0:22
Speaker 1: and Carmen, 13. The family had recently moved to a
0:23
Speaker 1: typical and modest wooden house on North Edmure Street, to
0:35
Speaker 1: the northeast of Wichita. The neighborhood they lived in was quiet,
0:40
Speaker 1: safe and common. So, the three continued talking, when Charlie
0:44
Speaker 1: realized that the family dog had been left outside, something
0:48
Speaker 1: out of the ordinary. He then decided to enter through
0:53
Speaker 1: the back door, while Danny and Carmen followed through the
0:57
Speaker 1: main entrance of the house. As soon as he opened
1:01
Speaker 1: the door, he came across his mother's purse, Julie. revirada
1:05
Speaker 1: sobre o fogão. Algo estava errado, Charlie reagiu gritando, perguntando
1:10
Speaker 1: se havia alguém na casa. A resposta veio dos irmãos que,
1:14
Speaker 1: do outro lado, disseram que os pais estavam pregando uma
1:18
Speaker 1: peça de mau gosto. Charlie ainda não sabia, mas, ao
1:22
Speaker 1: caminhar em direção ao quarto dos pais, estava prestes a
1:26
Speaker 1: presenciar algo terrível. Eu sou Brian Emendorfer. and welcome to
1:33
Speaker 1: another episode.
1:35
Speaker 2: Of Lost Bones.
1:36
Speaker 1: Today we are going to talk about the most infamous
1:40
Speaker 1: criminal in Wichita, a city that in the 1960s and
1:44
Speaker 1: 1970s held the national title of ideal American city, with
1:48
Speaker 1: a title that would be permanently stained when a man
1:52
Speaker 1: decided to turn his darkest fantasies into reality. When Charlie
2:01
Speaker 1: finally arrived at the parents' room door, he knew it
2:03
Speaker 1: wasn't just a piece of bad taste, because he ran
2:06
Speaker 1: into the bloodthirsty and lifeless body of his father, Joseph Otero.
2:09
Speaker 2: 38 years old.
2:09
Speaker 1: The man was lying on his bed, with his wrists
2:12
Speaker 1: and ankles tied. His 34-year-old mother, Julie, was lying on
2:16
Speaker 1: the bed, tied and bitten. In front of the horrible scene,
2:30
Speaker 1: Charlie ran out of the house and sought help in
2:32
Speaker 1: the neighbor's house, and returned alone to the Isotero's residence.
2:35
Speaker 1: After witnessing the morbid scene with his own eyes, the
2:39
Speaker 1: neighbor tried to call the police, but noticed that the
2:45
Speaker 1: telephone lines in the house had been cut. When the
2:48
Speaker 1: authorities finally arrived at the crime scene, they were equally
2:52
Speaker 1: shocked by the scene, because in addition to Joseph and Julie,
2:56
Speaker 1: The investigators also found the body of Charlie's brother, Joey,
3:01
Speaker 1: who was only 9 years old. According to the sources,
3:04
Speaker 1: the little boy was bruised on the floor of the room,
3:06
Speaker 1: with his wrists and torsos tied with three hoods wrapped
3:10
Speaker 1: around his head. In addition, a chair present in the
3:14
Speaker 1: crime scene indicated that the killer had... observed Joseph while
3:19
Speaker 1: he was slowly suffocating. However, the investigations at the Isotero's
3:24
Speaker 1: residence Soon they proved even darker, when in the basement,
3:29
Speaker 1: the investigators found the body partially stripped of the couple's daughter, Josefine,
3:35
Speaker 1: 11 years old. She was bitten and hanged on her
3:39
Speaker 1: neck in a closet pipe. The crime scenes made the
3:44
Speaker 1: police presence rise in weight in the Isotero's residence, awakening
3:48
Speaker 1: the media's interest in what had happened. However, the investigators
3:53
Speaker 1: only shared that the four family members had been strangled
3:57
Speaker 1: with pieces of rope cut.
3:59
Speaker 2: From a Venetian persian.
4:01
Speaker 1: It was reported that this item was not found in
4:03
Speaker 1: the house of the esoteric, indicating that the killer had
4:06
Speaker 1: brought with him a string kit, in addition to other
4:10
Speaker 1: items such as tapes and stickers, a cutting pliers for
4:13
Speaker 1: the telephone line and even a gun. In an interview,
4:17
Speaker 1: the Wichita police captain, Paul Dodson, said that no victim
4:22
Speaker 1: had suffered sexual violence, but shared that semen fluids were
4:26
Speaker 1: found in some scenes of the crime, pointing out that
4:30
Speaker 1: the killer had masturbated in some of the victims. There
4:34
Speaker 1: were no clear signs of robbery, robbery or fight, strengthening
4:38
Speaker 1: the idea that the killer entered through the front door
4:41
Speaker 1: or from the armed background. In the lawyer's report, he
4:45
Speaker 1: confirmed that the victims were killed before noon, around 8
4:47
Speaker 1: or 9 in the morning. The investigators still discovered that
4:54
Speaker 1: Josef Otero's watch had been taken by the criminal, just
4:57
Speaker 1: like his vehicle. When the neighbors were interviewed, they said
5:01
Speaker 1: they saw a man in dark skin leaving with Otero's car. Later,
5:06
Speaker 1: the vehicle was located in a parking lot, a few
5:09
Speaker 1: kilometers from the crime scene.
5:11
Speaker 2: With this, the.
5:12
Speaker 1: Authorities produced and disclosed a sketch of the suspect. Then,
5:17
Speaker 1: the Wichita Police Department organized investigations to analyze the family's past.
5:22
Speaker 1: They discovered that Julie and Joseph, both from Puerto Rico,
5:27
Speaker 1: had known each other when they were still teenagers. Later,
5:31
Speaker 1: they got married and left for New Jersey, where they
5:34
Speaker 1: took over the administration of a family candy store.
5:37
Speaker 2: At that time, Joseph had.
5:38
Speaker 1: Already started his military career in the US Air Force.
5:43
Speaker 2: Between 1959 and 1964, they had four children.
5:45
Speaker 1: In 1967, the family moved first to Panama and then
5:46
Speaker 1: to Puerto Rico, before finally establishing themselves in Wichita in 1973.
5:50
Speaker 1: Upon arrival, Josef continued his military career, acting as a
5:54
Speaker 1: mechanic and flight instructor. At the time of the crime,
5:57
Speaker 1: he had recently retired. According to the discoveries, Joseph was
6:12
Speaker 1: described as a talented boxer, again strengthening the idea that
6:17
Speaker 1: the killer was armed at the time of the crime.
6:19
Speaker 1: His friends said that he was a good man and
6:22
Speaker 1: that they did not know the reasons that could have
6:24
Speaker 1: led someone to kill him. Julia Otero had a similar profile.
6:29
Speaker 1: She was the mother, had personal defense knowledge and knew judo.
6:35
Speaker 1: She had recently been fired from the company she worked for,
6:38
Speaker 1: but the owners intended to re-contract her when the business improved.
6:42
Speaker 1: Josephine and Joey were described as good children who also
6:47
Speaker 1: practiced judo and had knowledge in personal defense. In a
6:50
Speaker 1: short time, the investigators realized that the motivation for the
6:53
Speaker 1: crime was much heavier than they wanted to admit. This
6:58
Speaker 1: is because the crime had been planned, possibly for a
7:01
Speaker 1: long time, The impression was that the killer was already
7:04
Speaker 1: watching the Otero family and that he knew.
7:07
Speaker 2: When it would be smart to act.
7:08
Speaker 1: And this commitment seemed to point to sexual motivations. In
7:14
Speaker 1: an interview for the newspaper Wichita Eagle, police chief Floyd
7:19
Speaker 1: Hanlon reported suspicions that due to the way the members
7:22
Speaker 1: of the Otero family had been killed, the crime indicated
7:26
Speaker 1: a sexual fetish by the killer. In the following years,
7:31
Speaker 1: the investigations continued slowly until, in September 1974.
7:36
Speaker 2: There was a confession.
7:37
Speaker 1: According to the investigators, three brothers with criminal history who
7:42
Speaker 1: had been hospitalized for psychiatric treatment ended up confessing the crime. However,
7:47
Speaker 1: the statements soon presented inconsistencies with the details of the
7:51
Speaker 1: crime scene. With that, in the following month, about nine
7:54
Speaker 1: months after the murders of the Otero family, One of
7:57
Speaker 1: the members of the Wichita Eagle newspaper, Don Granger, received
8:00
Speaker 1: an anonymous call.
8:01
Speaker 2: The person on.
8:03
Speaker 1: The other side of the line told him that he
8:05
Speaker 1: should go to the Wichita Public Library, where he would
8:09
Speaker 1: find a mechanical engineering book. Following these clues, Don arrived
8:13
Speaker 1: at the book, where he found a letter written by
8:16
Speaker 1: someone who would reaffirm the murders of the Otero family,
8:20
Speaker 1: still promising that he would make more victims. When the
8:23
Speaker 1: letter was analyzed by the authorities, they confirmed that it
8:27
Speaker 1: had details that only the killer could know. In the
8:31
Speaker 1: face of this, the investigators asked the newspaper to keep.
8:34
Speaker 2: The letter a secret.
8:35
Speaker 1: The newspaper Wichita Eagle decided to accept the request. However,
8:40
Speaker 1: the same did not happen when the Wichita Sun newspaper,
8:44
Speaker 1: which had less than three months of existence, also received
8:47
Speaker 1: a copy of the same letter. When the letter arrived
8:49
Speaker 1: in the hands of reporter Kathy Henkel, She published part
8:53
Speaker 1: of it in an article dated.
8:55
Speaker 2: December 11, 1974. Those three individuals you have under.
8:57
Speaker 3: Custody are just talking to get publicity for the murder
9:00
Speaker 3: of Otero. They know absolutely nothing. I did it all alone,
9:03
Speaker 3: without anyone's help. As the letter went on, the author
9:06
Speaker 3: still strengthened sordid details.
9:09
Speaker 1: About the scenes of the crimes that only the author
9:12
Speaker 1: of those terrible acts could describe in that way. At
9:20
Speaker 1: the end, he wrote an observation.
9:22
Speaker 3: That said, In Portuguese, tie, torture and kill. Although it
9:26
Speaker 3: had not been presented to the public, BTK used to
9:28
Speaker 3: sign his name with the letters BT and K from
9:30
Speaker 3: top to bottom. The signature formed a drawing.
9:37
Speaker 1: Of female breasts. This information was not shared with the
9:48
Speaker 1: public because the authorities used it to distinguish possible attempts
10:00
Speaker 1: of false communication by people obsessed with crimes, something common
10:05
Speaker 1: in cases of that nature. Even so, the fact is
10:08
Speaker 1: that the letter left the public opinion and the Wichita
10:12
Speaker 1: Police Department in shock, because they would not know when
10:16
Speaker 1: the BTK would attack again. He was a terrible man
10:19
Speaker 1: who seemed to have a good knowledge of criminal psychology
10:23
Speaker 1: and who was being moved by a strange sexual impulse,
10:28
Speaker 1: but strong enough to lead him to commit four murders,
10:30
Speaker 1: taking his life even from children. Ishita still did not know,
10:35
Speaker 1: but he was the worst criminal the city had ever witnessed.
10:43
Speaker 1: Although the presence of the PTK has scared Ishita, For
10:47
Speaker 1: some unknown reason, three years would pass without new crimes
10:52
Speaker 1: similar to the murder of the Otero family. The cruel
10:55
Speaker 1: and mysterious killer seemed to have not fulfilled his promise
10:58
Speaker 1: of new victims. For many investigators, he could have ended
11:03
Speaker 1: up arrested for another crime, moved out of town, or
11:06
Speaker 1: even died naturally. At least that's what the Oishita Police
11:09
Speaker 1: Department and the citizens of the city theorized. The truth, however,
11:12
Speaker 1: was different. On March 17, 1977, the police received an
11:21
Speaker 1: occurrence on South Hydraulic Street. According to preliminary information, three
11:28
Speaker 1: children had managed to escape an aggressor inside their own house.
11:32
Speaker 2: However, the case was much worse.
11:34
Speaker 1: Inside the house, they found the naked body of the
11:37
Speaker 1: children's mother, Shirvey Van Helfort, 26 years old. Notably, her
11:43
Speaker 1: feet and hands were tied. but his head was strangely
11:49
Speaker 1: covered by a plastic bag. The surprise came when the
11:52
Speaker 1: bag was removed and the police observed a cord tied
11:56
Speaker 1: to the young man's neck, a cord similar to what
11:59
Speaker 1: they had already seen in the Eutero family's case. When
12:02
Speaker 1: the children were questioned, they said they were locked inside
12:05
Speaker 1: the bathroom. Apparently, the killer had ordered Shirvey to help
12:11
Speaker 1: him put some toys and blankets with them to make
12:13
Speaker 1: them comfortable. In addition, he tied one of the bathroom
12:19
Speaker 1: doors so that they could not open it. Then he
12:21
Speaker 1: asked for help from Shirley to drag a bed to
12:25
Speaker 1: block the second door that.
12:27
Speaker 2: Existed in the room.
12:28
Speaker 1: In the following minutes, Shirley was tied and strangled to
12:32
Speaker 1: death in the bedroom's bed. According to the children, at
12:38
Speaker 1: some point the phone rang and they shouted saying that one.
12:41
Speaker 2: Of the neighbors was about to arrive. And it seems that.
12:45
Speaker 1: The killer fled when he heard that. So, alone, they
12:49
Speaker 1: managed to free themselves and call the authorities. One of
12:53
Speaker 1: Shirvey's sons, Steven, still reported that he had been approached
12:57
Speaker 1: by the criminal on the street, who showed photos of
13:00
Speaker 1: a woman and a child, asking for information on how
13:03
Speaker 1: to get to their residence. The boy naively pointed out
13:06
Speaker 1: that the woman in the photo was his mother and
13:08
Speaker 1: took him to his house. This act would step on
13:10
Speaker 1: Steven's life forever.
13:16
Speaker 2: Shirley was a.
13:17
Speaker 1: Single mother, natural from Mexico and quite present in the
13:20
Speaker 1: church choir in the neighborhood she lived in. Investigators believed
13:24
Speaker 1: that the responsible was the BTK, because just like in
13:27
Speaker 1: the Otero family case, the crime had occurred during the
13:30
Speaker 1: day and the operandi mode was compatible. The children, including Steven,
13:35
Speaker 1: were questioned about the criminal's appearance, but they were traumatized
13:39
Speaker 1: too much to share any relevant characteristic of the face
13:42
Speaker 1: of Shirley's killer. In the following months, the city of
13:47
Speaker 1: Uishita entered into a kind of outbreak. Everyone was afraid
13:50
Speaker 1: that the BTK.
13:52
Speaker 2: Would make a visit.
13:54
Speaker 1: Families began to check frequently the surroundings of their houses,
13:58
Speaker 1: in the suspicion that the telephone line had been cut.
14:01
Speaker 1: Many people even refused to go out at night and others.
14:05
Speaker 2: Opted to buy firearms.
14:06
Speaker 1: It was so until the first week of December 1977,
14:12
Speaker 1: when the authorities received an anonymous phone call in the
14:15
Speaker 1: emergency line. The guy on the other side said to
14:20
Speaker 1: go to the address on Pershing Street, number 843. But
14:24
Speaker 1: before investigating the track, the police service managed to trace
14:28
Speaker 1: the call to a telephone booth in the city center,
14:29
Speaker 1: where dozens of witnesses were interviewed. In the end, they
14:32
Speaker 1: got the description of a blond man about 1.80 meters tall.
14:35
Speaker 1: The recording was also recovered, but its quality was too
14:43
Speaker 1: bad to be used in voice analysis. In the meantime,
14:47
Speaker 1: a group of policemen had reached the address mentioned by
14:50
Speaker 1: the suspect. And there, they found a small residence with
14:54
Speaker 1: one of the windows broken, enough to allow entry into
14:58
Speaker 1: the house. In a short time, the investigators found the
15:02
Speaker 1: body of a young woman with a nylon skirt wrapped
15:05
Speaker 1: around her neck. The victim was identified as Nancy Jo Fox,
15:10
Speaker 1: 25 years old. At the time, she lived alone and
15:14
Speaker 1: worked in at least two jobs, including one in a
15:17
Speaker 1: jewelry store. The suspicions were that BTK was responsible, but
15:22
Speaker 1: the crime had some different characteristics. The first was that
15:27
Speaker 1: the victim was completely dressed, followed by the fact that
15:32
Speaker 1: she had been killed at night. On the other hand,
15:35
Speaker 1: as in the case of the Otero family, Nancy had
15:39
Speaker 1: not been sexually abused, but Semen was found in the
15:44
Speaker 1: crime scene. Another relevant point is that the victim's driver's
15:48
Speaker 1: wallet was not found, indicating that the killer took it
15:52
Speaker 1: as a trophy. The same happened with Joseph Otero's watch.
15:58
Speaker 1: These characteristics seemed to connect the crimes, but it was
16:02
Speaker 1: still too early for the Wichita police. The following month,
16:05
Speaker 1: on January 31, 1978, the newspaper Wichita Eagle Beacon received
16:13
Speaker 1: a letter. When they opened it, they found a sick
16:16
Speaker 1: poem about the murder of Shirley Vann, who died in
16:20
Speaker 1: March of the previous year. However, apparently, BTK wanted the
16:24
Speaker 1: letter to come to the public. So, in February, he
16:29
Speaker 1: sent a letter to a TV station in Wichita. The
16:33
Speaker 1: letter had a provocative tone.
16:36
Speaker 2: It said.
16:36
Speaker 3: How many people do I need to kill? before having
16:40
Speaker 3: my name in the newspaper or any national attention?
16:44
Speaker 1: In addition to this scary question, the author claimed to
16:47
Speaker 1: have killed seven people, including Nancy Jo Fox. However, the
16:51
Speaker 1: count of victims did not match the history of cases
16:54
Speaker 1: in the Wichita Police Department. With this, an investigation took
16:58
Speaker 1: place in search of the unknown case. Through the pattern,
17:03
Speaker 1: the investigators soon identified the unsolved murder of 21-year-old academic
17:07
Speaker 1: Catherine Bright. The crime had happened on April 4, 1974,
17:11
Speaker 1: just three months after the Otero family's case. According to sources,
17:15
Speaker 1: Catherine and her 19-year-old brother, Kevin, were arrested by an
17:21
Speaker 1: armed intruder at the young woman's house. After being released,
17:26
Speaker 1: the criminal said he needed money and a car to
17:29
Speaker 1: escape from the California police. However, he then demanded that
17:34
Speaker 1: Kevin tie his sister to a chair, and then was
17:37
Speaker 1: taken to another room where he was tied and bitten.
17:42
Speaker 1: Before Kevin could notice, the intruder tried to strangle him
17:46
Speaker 1: with a rope, but he resisted with force, forcing the
17:49
Speaker 1: criminal to make two shots against his head. During the confrontation,
17:55
Speaker 1: Kevin could hear the cries of despair of his sister.
17:58
Speaker 1: making him join the rest of his strength and adrenaline
18:02
Speaker 1: to ignore his wounds and fight the aggressor and flee
18:05
Speaker 1: the residence in search of help. Catherine was found alive, bleeding,
18:10
Speaker 1: and with one of her hands.
18:12
Speaker 2: On the phone.
18:12
Speaker 1: Still in the crime scene, the paramedics identified clear signs
18:17
Speaker 1: of strangulation and three knife wounds in the abdomen. Catherine
18:21
Speaker 1: was taken to the hospital in a hurry, but died
18:24
Speaker 1: five hours later due to the wounds caused.
18:26
Speaker 2: By the stabs.
18:28
Speaker 1: Kevin survived and shared a portrait of the intruder, describing
18:34
Speaker 1: him with.
18:34
Speaker 2: A round face and mustache.
18:36
Speaker 1: Although the attack had happened in broad daylight, at the
18:39
Speaker 1: time the case was not connected to the PTK. In
18:41
Speaker 1: the 1978 letter, BTK also attributed his crimes to what
18:52
Speaker 1: he called Factor X, something he alleged to exist in
18:56
Speaker 1: other famous criminals such as Jack the Stripper, David Berkowitz
19:00
Speaker 1: and the Rioside Stranglers. According to BTK, he was being
19:05
Speaker 1: forced to kill by this so-called Factor X, and he
19:09
Speaker 1: also described it as a supernatural element. Along with these words,
19:15
Speaker 1: the killer wrote a poem entitled Oh, Death to Nancy,
19:19
Speaker 1: At the end of the letter, the criminal still advised
19:21
Speaker 1: the authorities to answer him through a hidden message. The
19:26
Speaker 1: investigators were able to analyze the letter in depth, reaching
19:30
Speaker 1: a copycat in the library of the Uichita State University.
19:32
Speaker 1: The theory was that the killer could be a student,
19:35
Speaker 1: but it was like picking a needle in a stick.
19:37
Speaker 1: In the next few months of 1978, the Uichita police
19:46
Speaker 1: decided to follow BTK's advice and try to keep in
19:48
Speaker 1: touch with him. In a fraction of a second, the
19:41
Speaker 1: investigators put together a message that said, Now call the boss,
19:44
Speaker 1: along with a drawing of a pair of head-down glasses. However,
20:07
Speaker 1: the attempt did not result in any new contact with
20:09
Speaker 1: the killer. Thus, the BTK disappeared again. Until more than
20:15
Speaker 1: a year later, in April 1979, the Uishita police received
20:20
Speaker 1: a complaint from 63-year-old housewife Anna Williams. According to her,
20:24
Speaker 1: her house had been demolished and some items had been stolen.
20:29
Speaker 1: The police had nothing to do. but the story became
20:36
Speaker 1: darker when, two months later, Ana received a ticket along
20:41
Speaker 1: with one of her personal clothes and two fasteners. A
20:46
Speaker 1: text on the ticket was entitled.
20:49
Speaker 3: Oh Ana, and said, Oh Ana, why didn't you appear?
20:53
Speaker 3: Thank you for not being here, because I was. In
20:55
Speaker 3: the end, there was the B.T.K.
20:56
Speaker 1: Signature, along with the drawing of a naked woman tied up.
21:06
Speaker 1: Even before the contact, some investigators already suspected that the
21:10
Speaker 1: robbery was BTK's work. They believed that the criminal had
21:14
Speaker 1: watched the woman for days before deciding to act, but luckily,
21:19
Speaker 1: Diana didn't come home that day. With the ticket, the
21:24
Speaker 1: suspects were confirmed, something that put BTK as a cunning,
21:29
Speaker 1: sadistic and cruel criminal. After all, he could have opted
21:34
Speaker 1: to return the next day and put his fantasy into practice,
21:39
Speaker 1: but instead he decided to satisfy himself by using a
21:43
Speaker 1: huge fear in Ana's mind, which would not disappear so soon.
21:48
Speaker 1: After that, BTK would disappear again, but that time for
21:52
Speaker 1: much longer. In 1983, when the BTK case already seemed
22:00
Speaker 1: distant from any solution, two entire teams of investigators were
22:04
Speaker 1: highlighted for something different, starting from scratch. It wasn't just
22:08
Speaker 1: about reviewing files or reading old reports, but about identifying
22:11
Speaker 1: some track left behind and exploring new investigative lines. For this,
22:16
Speaker 1: these teams used new technologies available at the time, One
22:29
Speaker 1: of them involved a computer system capable of identifying patterns. Thus,
22:35
Speaker 1: more than 200 men, including from different states, were listed
22:40
Speaker 1: as promising suspects, taking into account lifestyle, appearance and criminal history.
22:48
Speaker 1: One by one, they were approached, interviewed and invited to
22:52
Speaker 1: provide samples of saliva and blood. However, when the test
22:57
Speaker 1: results began to arrive, Most of them were removed from
23:02
Speaker 1: the list of suspects. At the end of the process,
23:05
Speaker 1: there were only 12 names of interest left. Among them,
23:09
Speaker 1: five who had not accepted to offer samples of saliva
23:14
Speaker 1: and blood. Meanwhile, the media and public opinion continued to
23:18
Speaker 1: ask for answers, demonstrating frustration with the little-expressed results of
23:23
Speaker 1: police investigations. In response, in mid-July 1984, the task force,
23:31
Speaker 1: the Ghost Hunters, was created. At that time, the police
23:36
Speaker 1: would still have the presence of a computer consultant who
23:39
Speaker 1: had the job of organizing all the data of the
23:42
Speaker 1: case on an IBM 5150 computer. This computer model was
23:47
Speaker 1: described at the time as the future of technology.
23:51
Speaker 2: And also criminal investigation.
23:52
Speaker 1: Due to its processor and memory, He managed to support
23:57
Speaker 1: all the police data and organize a list of suspects
24:00
Speaker 1: with patterns that the investigators had not been able to
24:03
Speaker 1: identify before. For example, it was through him that the
24:07
Speaker 1: task force discovered that all the murders of the BTK
24:09
Speaker 1: had occurred in a radius of less than 5.6 kilometers.
24:14
Speaker 1: In other words, the BTK was a pragmatic criminal who
24:17
Speaker 1: did not attack by chance, that is, he chose territories
24:21
Speaker 1: that he felt completely safe. This made a list of
24:26
Speaker 1: names of white men who lived less than 400 meters
24:29
Speaker 1: from the Otero family's house.
24:32
Speaker 2: In January 1974 was created.
24:34
Speaker 1: Later, the same was done, focusing on the surroundings of
24:37
Speaker 1: the residences of Shirley Halford, Nancy Fox.
24:40
Speaker 2: And Katherine Bright.
24:41
Speaker 1: After that, in the fall of 1984, the Task Force
24:44
Speaker 1: sent the letter sent by the BTK in February 1978
24:45
Speaker 1: to a headquarters of the company Xerox, In Syracuse.
24:54
Speaker 2: New York.
24:56
Speaker 1: There, the letter was analyzed by professionals who reported that
24:59
Speaker 1: that letter was not original. If we are talking about
25:03
Speaker 1: the fifth copy of the letter originally written by BTK,
25:08
Speaker 1: this made it practically impossible to identify the exact origin
25:12
Speaker 1: of the document. However, according to the technician responsible, the
25:16
Speaker 1: machine used to generate that specific copy corresponded to a
25:20
Speaker 1: model that, curiously, existed in the library of the Uichita
25:24
Speaker 1: State University. This made the task force return to the
25:30
Speaker 1: analysis of the poems written by BTK. In the case
25:34
Speaker 1: of the poem about the victim Shirley, sent by the
25:36
Speaker 1: criminal in January 1978, The analysts discovered that its structure
25:42
Speaker 1: was inspired by a children's book called Curly Locks, published
25:48
Speaker 1: shortly before in a hobby magazine called Games. From then on,
25:53
Speaker 1: the researchers requested the complete list of subscribers.
25:57
Speaker 2: Of the magazine.
25:57
Speaker 1: Another poem analyzed was O Morte Anense. which proved to
26:03
Speaker 1: be inspired by a poem of the same name found
26:06
Speaker 1: in a didactic book used at the State University of Wichita.
26:10
Speaker 1: The material was part of an American folklore discipline administered
26:15
Speaker 1: a few years earlier. In the face of this, the
26:18
Speaker 1: investigators requested a list of students who had attended.
26:21
Speaker 2: That specific class.
26:23
Speaker 1: Another list created was that of white male students who
26:26
Speaker 1: had attended the State University of Wichita between 1974.
26:32
Speaker 2: And 1979.
26:33
Speaker 1: From the moment when all these lists were finally concluded,
26:38
Speaker 1: the investigators resorted again to the computer system that crossed
26:42
Speaker 1: data and focused on 225 suspects. Most of them no
26:47
Speaker 1: longer lived in Uishita, resulting in a tiring job of
26:51
Speaker 1: verifying alibis and interviews. And while this was happening, The
26:57
Speaker 1: forensic laboratory also worked through the analysis of the semen
27:00
Speaker 1: found in the scenes of the crimes. The final report
27:04
Speaker 1: determined that the material corresponded to a type found in
27:07
Speaker 1: less than 6% of the male population of Wichita. It
27:12
Speaker 1: was then that, at the end of October 1987, the
27:14
Speaker 1: task force was surprised when the semen of the 15-year-old
27:20
Speaker 1: adolescent Shannon Olson was found in a lake. located in
27:25
Speaker 1: an area of the BTK's operation. It had multiple
27:30
Speaker 1: perforations through the body. His hands and feet had been tied,
27:33
Speaker 1: a detail that generated a wave of panic and speculation,
27:38
Speaker 1: suggesting that the BTK strangler was back. And just two
27:43
Speaker 1: months later, another case struck Ishita.
27:47
Speaker 2: Philip Fogger, 37, was found shot dead in his house.
27:54
Speaker 1: In the basement of the house, inside the water bath,
27:57
Speaker 1: the Wichita authorities found the bodies of two daughters, Kelly, 16,
28:02
Speaker 1: and Cherry, only 10. Both had been tied and strangled.
28:08
Speaker 1: As in the previous case, the information of the case
28:11
Speaker 1: made the name BTK be mentioned again. And to make
28:12
Speaker 1: matters worse, shortly after the murders, Philip's wife received a
28:16
Speaker 1: letter in which the author claimed to be BTK himself, However,
28:24
Speaker 1: he claimed not to have committed the crimes, but declared
28:28
Speaker 1: admiration for anyone who had done them.
28:31
Speaker 2: The message was.
28:33
Speaker 1: Disturbing, but FBI specialists said it was not possible to
28:37
Speaker 1: confirm with absolute certainty that the letter had been written
28:40
Speaker 1: by the real BTK. Investigations into the murder of the
28:45
Speaker 1: Fager family resulted in the imprisonment and trial of a businessman,
28:49
Speaker 1: but he ended up being acquitted. On the other hand,
28:54
Speaker 1: the Wichita Police Department declared to believe in the employer's authorship,
28:59
Speaker 1: claiming that the BTK was not responsible for those deaths.
29:02
Speaker 1: With that, the following years returned to become pacts, without
29:08
Speaker 1: any sign of the BTK strangler. The efforts of the
29:11
Speaker 1: task force did not result in any prison, and they
29:15
Speaker 1: began to amaze the minds of the investigators, increasingly convinced
29:19
Speaker 1: that the killer would never end up being identified and arrested.
29:25
Speaker 1: They just needed him to make a single mistake, but
29:30
Speaker 1: BTK seemed too smart for that.
29:32
Speaker 2: In 1991, the BTK case.
29:38
Speaker 1: Already assumed the position of largest archived case of the
29:43
Speaker 1: Wichita Police Department. This position was frustrating, so much so that,
29:50
Speaker 1: at some point, a small team of researchers specialized in
29:53
Speaker 1: archived cases was put to work on the old archives,
29:57
Speaker 1: but the effort did not take place anywhere. Six years later,
30:02
Speaker 1: in 1997, a new attempt happened. At that time, the
30:06
Speaker 1: authorities had the help of the respected and veteran of
30:11
Speaker 1: the FBI, Robert Ressler, who decades before had coined the
30:15
Speaker 1: term serial killer. The goal was to create a full
30:18
Speaker 1: profile of the unknown killer, something Robert did very well.
30:20
Speaker 1: According to him, the killer probably had a higher academic background.
30:24
Speaker 1: He could be a postgraduate student or even a professor
30:34
Speaker 1: in the criminal justice area at UChita State University. At
30:37
Speaker 1: the time of the crimes, it was estimated that he
30:40
Speaker 1: was between 25 and 30 years old. Robert also noted that, possibly,
30:45
Speaker 1: the BTK was a compulsive reader of books and news
30:49
Speaker 1: about serial killers. Interestingly, the expert also mentioned that there
30:53
Speaker 1: was a disturbing possibility to explain the BTK's prolonged silence.
30:59
Speaker 1: As no similar pattern of murders had been registered in
31:03
Speaker 1: Uishita since the end of the 1970s, the criminal could
31:08
Speaker 1: have left the region dead or be confined to a
31:12
Speaker 1: psychiatric institution or prison. Still, Robert made it clear that
31:17
Speaker 1: the absence of crimes did not mean the absence of perversity,
31:21
Speaker 1: that is, the BTK could be living normally, but doing
31:24
Speaker 1: small evils in the region where he lived. The following year,
31:32
Speaker 1: his old partner John Douglas also decided to talk about BTK.
31:36
Speaker 2: For this, John.
31:37
Speaker 1: Launched the book Obsession, where he dedicated one of the
31:42
Speaker 1: chapters to decipher BTK's mind. In his first observations, John
31:49
Speaker 1: said that the contents of the letters sent to the
31:51
Speaker 1: police were always too detailed. This point had led the
31:56
Speaker 1: specialist to the conclusion that probably the BTK photographed.
32:01
Speaker 2: The scenes of the crimes.
32:02
Speaker 1: In addition, of course, to some stolen items, the killer
32:05
Speaker 1: was using the photographs as trophies, which worked even better
32:09
Speaker 1: for him to be able to relive the moment several
32:12
Speaker 1: and several times. The photographs would mean so much to
32:16
Speaker 1: the criminal that they could guarantee his fantasies for years,
32:19
Speaker 1: without causing him to feel the need to kill again
32:21
Speaker 1: so early. John also pointed out that BTK could be
32:27
Speaker 1: a policeman, or wanted to look like one. Now, about
32:32
Speaker 1: his social aspects, in his profile, the killer was a
32:36
Speaker 1: lonely man, displaced, with difficulty connecting with people and possibly
32:42
Speaker 1: with 20 or 30 years during the crimes. He could
32:46
Speaker 1: have less serious sexual crime antecedents, because John believed that
32:52
Speaker 1: BTK's pleasure was completely under control, domination and prolonged fantasy,
32:57
Speaker 1: and not in the sexual act itself. For the retired
33:01
Speaker 1: and new investigators, BTK's profile was scary. Among all the
33:06
Speaker 1: serial killers that had emerged since his death, he was
33:11
Speaker 1: the most mythical, cold and diabolical. It is worth mentioning
33:17
Speaker 1: that two years after the profile developed by John Douglas, Dr.
33:21
Speaker 1: Deborah Shurman Coughlin also presented a profile of the killer,
33:25
Speaker 1: At the time, Deborah was not so acclaimed, but in
33:28
Speaker 1: the future she would become responsible for the training of
33:31
Speaker 1: thousands of FBI and U.S. Attorney General's investigators. In her profile,
33:37
Speaker 1: she contributed to new details, describing BTK as a tall
33:40
Speaker 1: man of approximately 1.85 meters, short hair and discreet posture.
33:44
Speaker 1: For her, anyone could easily confuse him with a kind person,
33:48
Speaker 1: that is, His facade was good enough to hide a
33:53
Speaker 1: level of alarming psychopathy. Deborah did not describe him as
33:58
Speaker 1: someone moved by inner demons or delusions. The BTK knew
34:03
Speaker 1: exactly what he was doing and why he was doing it.
34:06
Speaker 1: In addition, she described him as a deeply sad, but
34:11
Speaker 1: egocentric and unable to see the suffering of others. pointing
34:15
Speaker 1: out that it was quite unlikely that the BTK had
34:19
Speaker 1: passed the years of 1974 and 1977 without committing any
34:24
Speaker 1: similar crime. Debora reported that the criminal was an immature man,
34:30
Speaker 1: but at the same time extremely patient, meticulous and controlling.
34:34
Speaker 1: The violence in his crimes was not caused by the
34:39
Speaker 1: use of alcoholic beverages or drugs, theorizing that BTK's violence
34:42
Speaker 1: was something of internal origin, of his psyche. Finally, the
34:48
Speaker 1: specialist said he had no access to the letters or
34:50
Speaker 1: photos of the crime scenes, but described him as someone
34:53
Speaker 1: incapable of maintaining a long-term relationship with a woman.
34:59
Speaker 2: For Deborah, the BTK.
35:00
Speaker 1: Strangler was an empty man. It was just another common
35:08
Speaker 1: day in the editorial office of the newspaper The Wichita Eagle,
35:11
Speaker 1: Nothing indicated that on Friday, March 19, 2004, the past
35:16
Speaker 1: would return to haunt Ishita. Among the correspondence delivered, a
35:23
Speaker 1: letter called the attention of the members of the newsroom.
35:26
Speaker 1: It was in the name of Bill Thomas Kilman. At
35:29
Speaker 1: first glance, there was nothing strange, but that changed when
35:33
Speaker 1: the letter was opened. In it, the author claimed to
35:37
Speaker 1: be the BTK and assumed the authorship of an archived case.
35:40
Speaker 1: The murder of Vicky Wegerlund, killed on September 16, 1986.
35:46
Speaker 1: Alongside the letter, there was a photocopy of Vicky's driver's
35:52
Speaker 1: license and three photographs of her lifeless body. At the time,
35:57
Speaker 1: Vicky was a young mother and wife. She was found
36:02
Speaker 1: lifeless by her own husband, Bill Wegerlund. The case occurred
36:07
Speaker 1: in Wichita, and Bill would remain for years as the
36:10
Speaker 1: main suspect in the crime. Now, with the letter in hand,
36:15
Speaker 1: a quick investigation concluded that Bill Thomas Kilman was a
36:19
Speaker 1: fake name and his address corresponded to.
36:22
Speaker 2: A barren land.
36:23
Speaker 1: Two months later, a letter arrived to the K-TV station
36:27
Speaker 1: in Kansas. At that time, the envelope had the referent
36:32
Speaker 1: identified as Thomas B. King. and kept a three-page document.
36:36
Speaker 1: Right on the first page, the title, The History of BTK,
36:42
Speaker 1: was read, and below there was a list of chapters
36:45
Speaker 1: with their own titles. The second page brought crossed words
36:51
Speaker 1: and vertical columns of letters. On the third and last page,
36:55
Speaker 1: there were photocopies of documents of identity belonging to two men,
36:59
Speaker 1: a former employee of the telephone company, Southwest & Bell,
37:04
Speaker 1: and a former employee of the Wichita Public School District.
37:10
Speaker 1: The employee of the telephone company was located, but informed
37:12
Speaker 1: not to understand why his document appeared in that correspondence.
37:17
Speaker 1: On the other hand, the former school employee did not
37:20
Speaker 1: correspond to any real person, that.
37:22
Speaker 2: Is, a fake document.
37:23
Speaker 1: Some time later, the FBI confirmed that the letter belonged
37:28
Speaker 1: to BTK. but the Uishita authorities believed that the criminal
37:32
Speaker 1: had returned because he lacked attention. In response, the city
37:37
Speaker 1: of Uishita returned to a state of alert. Families returned
37:41
Speaker 1: to lock their houses earlier, windows were reinforced, alarms and
37:45
Speaker 1: security systems had their sales increased, as well as weapons,
37:49
Speaker 1: pepper sprays and other personal defense items. In June 2004,
37:56
Speaker 1: a package was found, glued with adhesive tape, on a
38:01
Speaker 1: party sign at the intersection of First and Kansas Streets.
38:03
Speaker 2: In Wichita.
38:04
Speaker 1: In it, the authorities found graphic descriptions of the murders
38:08
Speaker 1: of the Otero family and a sketch entitled, The Sexual
38:14
Speaker 1: Emotion Is My Account. Later, it was reported that, in
38:19
Speaker 1: these last contacts, BTK was sharing false information about himself,
38:25
Speaker 1: such as being a soldier, liking trains and being born
38:27
Speaker 1: in 1939. This information would be shared with the public,
38:31
Speaker 1: but it did not result in anything. Months later, on
38:33
Speaker 1: October 22 of the same year, a new suspicious letter
38:37
Speaker 1: was found in a collection box of the UPS transport
38:40
Speaker 1: company on the outside of the Omni Center building in Uishita.
38:42
Speaker 1: It contained several cards with horror arts, a threat to
38:54
Speaker 1: one of the investigators of the case, a false autobiography
38:57
Speaker 1: and references to child slavery. In December 2004, an unidentified
39:05
Speaker 1: man found a white plastic bag tied with elastic bands
39:09
Speaker 1: in Murdock Park, in Wichita. Confident, he took the object
39:13
Speaker 1: home and decided to look at its contents, where he
39:16
Speaker 1: found some items that seemed to belong to some of
39:19
Speaker 1: the BTK's victims. When the authorities examined the material, a
39:25
Speaker 1: motorist's wallet belonging to Nancy Fox was found, in addition.
39:29
Speaker 2: To a letter.
39:29
Speaker 1: and other objects, such as a doll that was symbolically
39:33
Speaker 1: tied by the hands and feet, with a plastic bag
39:36
Speaker 1: tied to the head. The letter reminded the same sent
39:40
Speaker 1: in May 2004, which contained a list of chapters about
39:45
Speaker 1: the history of BTK. However, at that time there were
39:48
Speaker 1: some changes. Chapter 13 now appeared with the title of
39:53
Speaker 1: There Will Be More? On the other hand, chapters 1,
39:57
Speaker 1: 2 and 8 were completely blank, unlike the May correspondence.
40:04
Speaker 1: Communication with BTK now became even more enigmatic than it
40:08
Speaker 1: had been decades ago. However, this new chapter in BTK's
40:13
Speaker 1: horror story would lead the criminal to make a mistake.
40:18
Speaker 1: In mid-January 2005, when the worst snowstorm in the history
40:22
Speaker 1: of Kansas covered Wichita, the authorities were questioned by the
40:26
Speaker 1: murderer himself, who asked them about a cereal box he
40:31
Speaker 1: had left at Home Depot in Wichita.
40:35
Speaker 2: When the investigators.
40:36
Speaker 1: Went after this item, they discovered through the security cameras
40:40
Speaker 1: that the box was left on the body of a truck,
40:41
Speaker 1: but the owner of the vehicle discarded it in the trash.
40:48
Speaker 1: When it was recovered by the authorities, they found a
40:51
Speaker 1: tied doll in it. But the main find came through
40:53
Speaker 1: the security images, which showed the BTK disembarking from a
40:57
Speaker 1: black Cherokee jeep and leaving the box in the truck. Unfortunately,
41:01
Speaker 1: the images did not record the suspect's face. The following month,
41:11
Speaker 1: more postcards were sent to Emissora Cake and another cereal
41:15
Speaker 1: box left in a rural place was found containing another
41:19
Speaker 1: tied doll in a piece of pipe, symbolizing the murder
41:23
Speaker 1: of Josephine Otero, only 11 years old. It was in
41:26
Speaker 1: this intense communication that BTK would finally make its biggest mistake.
41:33
Speaker 1: In one of the letters, He asked the investigators if
41:38
Speaker 1: their writings could be traced, if they were recorded on
41:41
Speaker 1: a floppy disk. Through an ad published in the Wichita
41:46
Speaker 1: Eagle newspaper, the police affirmed that there would be no
41:51
Speaker 1: problem in using this type of media. So, on February 16, 2005,
41:55
Speaker 1: an envelope arrived at Fox's subsidiary in Wichita, AXAS TV.
41:58
Speaker 1: Inside it, there was a purple Memorex floppy.
42:09
Speaker 2: Disk of 1.44 megabytes.
42:11
Speaker 1: Next to the floppy disk, there was also a letter,
42:15
Speaker 1: a photograph of the cover of the romance Rules of Prey,
42:18
Speaker 1: published in 1989, which tells the story of a serial killer,
42:22
Speaker 1: in addition to a golden necklace with a large medallion.
42:26
Speaker 2: The forensic analysis.
42:27
Speaker 1: Of the floppy disk quickly revealed a erased Word document,
42:33
Speaker 1: but that was soon recovered. Through a software, the spirits
42:38
Speaker 1: found written information about the Lutheran Church of Christ, but
42:44
Speaker 1: the main thing was that the file had been modified,
42:48
Speaker 1: one last time, by a user called Dennis. Without much effort,
42:55
Speaker 1: the spirits searched the church's website and, right on the
42:59
Speaker 1: congregation's list, they found the suspect. His name was Dennis Rader,
43:07
Speaker 1: President of the Congregation Council. From that moment on, after decades,
43:13
Speaker 1: the Wichita authorities finally had a promising name in their hands.
43:19
Speaker 1: And as everything indicated, it was the man behind the
43:23
Speaker 1: infamous BTK. With this new suspect in sight, the investigators
43:31
Speaker 1: decided to appeal to the best option they had, the
43:34
Speaker 1: DNA comparison. For this, they got a mandate to access
43:40
Speaker 1: medical records of Carrie Rader, Dennis' daughter, and collect a sample,
43:47
Speaker 1: which they sent for comparison with the semen collected in
43:50
Speaker 1: one of the crime scenes of the BTK. In a
43:53
Speaker 1: short time, the laboratory concluded that Dennis Rader was the BTK.
43:59
Speaker 1: At the end of the morning of February 25, 2005,
44:01
Speaker 1: he was arrested while approaching his house in a dark-colored
44:06
Speaker 1: sedan car. The house and his vehicle were searched. Investigators
44:12
Speaker 1: collected computers, electronic equipment, a half-black pants found in a
44:17
Speaker 1: warehouse and a suspicious cylindrical container. When his office in
44:23
Speaker 1: the church was searched, the investigators also found several evidence
44:28
Speaker 1: that confirmed his authorship in the crimes. After the prison,
44:32
Speaker 1: Dennis spent hours talking to the police, claiming that several
44:36
Speaker 1: reasons had made him return, including that he was bored,
44:41
Speaker 1: because his children had grown up and he now had
44:43
Speaker 1: too much time on his hands. During the conversation, he
44:46
Speaker 1: confessed to believing that, in life after death, the Otero
44:49
Speaker 1: family Would he serve as a slave? In addition, Dennis
44:55
Speaker 1: confessed crimes unknown to the investigators.
44:57
Speaker 2: The first was from the end.
44:58
Speaker 1: Of April 1985, dealing with the murder of his neighbor,
45:00
Speaker 1: Maureen Hedge, 53 years old. At that time, the case
45:02
Speaker 1: was archived and did not seem to be a crime
45:04
Speaker 1: of the BTK. Maureen had disappeared from her house and,
45:07
Speaker 1: found days later, naked, with half of his pants tied
45:22
Speaker 1: around his neck on a fence more than 10 kilometers
45:24
Speaker 1: from his house. According to Dennis Rader, Maureen's murder was
45:29
Speaker 1: his cookie project, where he challenged himself to commit a
45:34
Speaker 1: murder near his house and get out unpunished, but being
45:37
Speaker 1: careful to change his way of operating. The details of
45:41
Speaker 1: the crime were disturbing. Dennis reported having strangled Maureen in
45:46
Speaker 1: his house, then wrapped her in blankets and taken in
45:49
Speaker 1: the trunk of his car to the Lutheran Church of Christ,
45:53
Speaker 1: where he acted as the leader of the congregation.
45:56
Speaker 2: There, he positioned the.
45:58
Speaker 1: Woman's body in a sexual way, took pictures and then
46:01
Speaker 1: discarded it in the vault. The second case was dated
46:04
Speaker 1: January 1991, six years later. This is the archived case
46:06
Speaker 1: of the murder of Dolores Davis, 62 years old, found
46:15
Speaker 1: strangled miles away from his house. Dennis called the case Dogside,
46:21
Speaker 1: due to the number of canes near the victim's house.
46:25
Speaker 1: The details of that crime were even worse. He would
46:28
Speaker 1: have taken advantage of an annual ritual of the scouts
46:31
Speaker 1: to escape their obligations, return to the church and get
46:35
Speaker 1: his murder kit. Then, he followed the church grounds and
46:40
Speaker 1: walked through wheat fields, crossing a cemetery until he arrived
46:45
Speaker 1: directly at Dolores' residence. Dennis reported that it was around
46:49
Speaker 1: 11 o'clock at night when he saw the woman reading
46:52
Speaker 1: inside the house. Normally, he would wait for another time,
46:57
Speaker 1: but the intense cold made him wait for Dolores to
47:00
Speaker 1: turn off all the lights in the house to immediately
47:03
Speaker 1: throw a concrete block against the sliding glass door from
47:07
Speaker 1: the back. The noise caused him to be confronted by Dolores.
47:12
Speaker 1: Dennis invented a story saying that he just needed food
47:17
Speaker 1: and the woman's car, but then he just ran over
47:19
Speaker 1: her and strangled her with a sock that he had
47:22
Speaker 1: brought with him. Then he dragged the body to Dolores'
47:26
Speaker 1: car and dropped it in a bush near the Kansas
47:29
Speaker 1: Department of Transportation.
47:31
Speaker 2: Dennis then... He walked back to the.
47:35
Speaker 1: Church to pick up his car, drive back and pick
47:38
Speaker 1: up the body to discard it under a bridge in
47:41
Speaker 1: a rural region of Wichita. During the confession, he said
47:44
Speaker 1: he wanted to have taken pictures of the body, but
47:47
Speaker 1: it was already late and he needed to return to
47:50
Speaker 1: the camp of the shoemakers. For both cases, the investigators
47:55
Speaker 1: found photos or evidence at Dennis' residence that confirmed his acts. Thus,
48:01
Speaker 1: the Wichita Police Department officially announced, in a press conference,
48:05
Speaker 1: that Dennis was considered the main suspect of the 10
48:09
Speaker 1: murders committed by BTK. But the question that came to
48:13
Speaker 1: mind was, who was the man behind Alcunha, the worst
48:18
Speaker 1: criminal in the history of Wichita? According to two sources,
48:21
Speaker 1: Dennis Lynn Rader was born on March 9, 1945, in Wichita, Kansas.
48:29
Speaker 1: was the firstborn of four brothers, son of William Rader
48:32
Speaker 1: and Dorothea Cook. He grew up and lived in middle-class neighborhoods,
48:37
Speaker 1: attended high schools and traveled a fairly normal path, without
48:40
Speaker 1: drawing attention. After finishing his studies in high school, Dennis
48:45
Speaker 1: entered the Wesleyan University of Kansas, where he graduated in 1966.
48:48
Speaker 1: Shortly after, he entered the US Air Force, passing through
48:55
Speaker 1: various places such as Texas, Alabama, South Korea, Greece and Turkey.
49:00
Speaker 1: In 1970, when returning to the country and leaving the
49:03
Speaker 1: military life, Dennis bought a residence in the Park City suburb,
49:08
Speaker 1: north of Wichita. Initially, he got a job in the
49:11
Speaker 1: meat sector at the Lickers IGA supermarket, where his mother
49:15
Speaker 1: worked as an accountant. During that period, he met Paula Dietz,
49:19
Speaker 1: with whom he soon married. Two years later, he graduated
49:23
Speaker 1: from an electronic electronics associate degree at Butler County Community College,
49:30
Speaker 1: in El Dorado. From there, he changed his job to
49:34
Speaker 1: work as a builder at Coleman, a company that makes
49:36
Speaker 1: camping equipment. In mid-1973, he entered Uishita State University, where
49:42
Speaker 1: he would graduate with a bachelor's degree in Justice Administration.
49:46
Speaker 1: In the same year, Dennis and Paula had their first son, Brian.
49:49
Speaker 1: Less than a year later, in January 1974, the Otero
49:51
Speaker 1: family was murdered. Followed by Katherine Wright, who died in April,
49:55
Speaker 1: Dennis was 29 years old at the time of the crime.
50:06
Speaker 1: Already in November of the same year, he started working
50:09
Speaker 1: at the company ADT Security Services, specialized in the sale
50:13
Speaker 1: and installation of alarm systems.
50:16
Speaker 2: From then on, he.
50:18
Speaker 1: Would focus on his married and father's life, remaining in
50:22
Speaker 1: the security company for years, occupying several positions, including the
50:27
Speaker 1: installation manager. In mid-1977, Dennis, at the age of 32,
50:33
Speaker 1: committed two more murders. and a year later, his second daughter, Carrie,
50:38
Speaker 1: was born. In the following years, he continued an even
50:42
Speaker 1: more home life, helping companies and residences to protect themselves
50:46
Speaker 1: from invasions while hiding their true nature. It was like
50:50
Speaker 1: this until 1985 and 1986, at the age of 40,
50:52
Speaker 1: when he committed two more murders, including the one of
50:55
Speaker 1: his neighbor, Marion Hedges. In 1988, he left the insurance
51:05
Speaker 1: company and, in the following year, acted for three months
51:09
Speaker 1: as a field operations supervisor for the census in the
51:13
Speaker 1: Wichita region. In the same year, Dennis heard about the
51:16
Speaker 1: Kelly family case and confirmed to the investigators that he
51:20
Speaker 1: really was the author of the letter sent to the
51:23
Speaker 1: widow of Philip Fogger, who showed interest in the crime.
51:27
Speaker 1: Shortly after, in January 1991, Dennis, at the age of 46,
51:29
Speaker 1: murdered Dolores Davis, and later took on the role of
51:36
Speaker 1: Supervisor of the Department of Conformity in.
51:39
Speaker 2: The Park City suburb.
51:41
Speaker 1: This function was quite comprehensive, including things like being responsible
51:45
Speaker 1: for animal control, housing inspection, zoning, licenses and various cases
51:51
Speaker 1: of disturbance of the public order. The department had only
51:56
Speaker 1: two employees, so the power concentrated in the hands of
51:59
Speaker 1: Dennis was significant. So much so that, for the neighbors,
52:04
Speaker 1: he was known for his excess of zeal and his
52:07
Speaker 1: almost obsessive rigidity, like when he sacrificed the dog of
52:12
Speaker 1: a resident without any plausible justification. Dennis was also an
52:16
Speaker 1: active member of the Lutheran Church of Christ, a congregation
52:21
Speaker 1: with about 200 members. According to the investigations, Dennis attended
52:26
Speaker 1: the church almost 30 years ago and For that reason,
52:30
Speaker 1: he ended up elected president of the Congregation Council. To
52:34
Speaker 1: complete the portrait of a common man and father of
52:37
Speaker 1: a family, Dennis was still the leader of the Mirim
52:41
Speaker 1: Scouts of Wichita. For the community at the time, he
52:46
Speaker 1: was just another public official, a father of a family,
52:49
Speaker 1: a rigid, correct and common man. However, it is worth
52:52
Speaker 1: noting that after his imprisonment, Fox News reported that Dennis
52:57
Speaker 1: was frequently described as a bureaucratic valentine.
53:00
Speaker 2: According to the reports.
53:02
Speaker 1: He filmed neighbors in search of small infractions and came
53:05
Speaker 1: to measure the height of a lady's grass to prove
53:09
Speaker 1: a violation of municipal law.
53:12
Speaker 2: But at the same time, he was also.
53:14
Speaker 1: Described by other neighbors as a nice gentleman. Some of
53:19
Speaker 1: them even knew Dennis since they were kids, defining him
53:23
Speaker 1: as the type of man who talked a lot and
53:24
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time talking right there on the street.
53:27
Speaker 1: For the media, Dennis Rader, or BTK, was an egocentric,
53:34
Speaker 1: arrogant and obsessed with rules. Although he camouflaged all this
53:38
Speaker 1: with small moments of rudeness and good Samaritan, it was
53:44
Speaker 1: something he was far from being. The trial of one
53:51
Speaker 1: of the greatest criminals in the history of the United
53:53
Speaker 1: States finally began at the end of June 2005, where
53:58
Speaker 1: Dennis Rader surprised everyone by simply confessing the murder of
54:03
Speaker 1: ten people. In front of the court and the families
54:06
Speaker 1: of the victims, he presented an extremely graphic testimony of
54:09
Speaker 1: each of the murders. About the murder of the Otero family,
54:14
Speaker 1: Dennis described that it was their house between 7.
54:17
Speaker 2: And 7.30 in the morning.
54:19
Speaker 1: He claimed that he didn't know them completely, but that
54:22
Speaker 1: he chose Julie Otero and his daughter Josefine to participate
54:25
Speaker 1: in a sexual fantasy. For this, Dennis confirmed that he
54:30
Speaker 1: had been chasing them for two months, observing their routines.
54:33
Speaker 1: It was like this until he decided to act, choosing
54:38
Speaker 1: a time when only Julie, Josefine and Joey were at home. However,
54:43
Speaker 1: on the day of the crime, he was surprised by
54:45
Speaker 1: the presence of the patriarch, Joseph Otero. But while he
54:49
Speaker 1: was thinking about the crime, he was surprised by little Joey,
54:53
Speaker 1: who opened the back door to let go of the
54:56
Speaker 1: family's dog. Upon being seen, Dennis decided to act and
55:00
Speaker 1: quickly took out his gun and entered. He informed the
55:04
Speaker 1: family members that he was a corrupt criminal and that
55:07
Speaker 1: he needed their help, promising not to hurt anyone. The
55:11
Speaker 1: family apparently believed and trusted the story, allowing them to
55:13
Speaker 1: be tied up. But the truth is that, in front
55:19
Speaker 1: of the court, the BTK confessed that he ended up
55:22
Speaker 1: realizing that he wasn't wearing a mask and that everyone
55:25
Speaker 1: in the house could identify him, resulting in his decision
55:29
Speaker 1: to kill everyone. About Catherine Bright's murder, he was questioned
55:34
Speaker 1: about the reason for choosing her. Dennis responded that there
55:39
Speaker 1: used to be several personal projects with different people and
55:43
Speaker 1: Catherine was one of the chosen ones. He also explained that,
55:47
Speaker 1: in his world, his projects are called potential successes, and
55:53
Speaker 1: if one didn't work out, he'd just switch to another.
56:00
Speaker 1: Dennis then wrote his methodology.
56:03
Speaker 2: As the serial killer.
56:04
Speaker 1: First, he identified the victim and checked the mailbox to
56:07
Speaker 1: find out his name and workplace. His goal was to
56:09
Speaker 1: find out as much as he could, because The more
56:15
Speaker 1: he knew, the more comfortable he felt on the day
56:18
Speaker 1: of the crime. After all his confessions, the prosecution presented
56:23
Speaker 1: several evidence such as photographs that Dennis himself had taken
56:27
Speaker 1: of himself, where he wore socks and tights and practiced
56:31
Speaker 1: bondage on himself.
56:32
Speaker 2: Among the evidence, there.
56:35
Speaker 1: Were also some dolls that he used to play bondage
56:40
Speaker 1: with ropes and amulets. During the second phase of the trial,
56:45
Speaker 1: Captain Sam Houston of the Wichita Police reported that Dennis
56:49
Speaker 1: had confessed that, while torturing Dolores Davis, he put a
56:53
Speaker 1: thin plastic mask painted on her face to make her
56:57
Speaker 1: a little more beautiful and make her look more feminine.
57:01
Speaker 1: The mask was found in the crime scene. The court
57:05
Speaker 1: was also brought to the court the fact that, in
57:08
Speaker 1: the photographs found at Dennis' residence, there was one that
57:14
Speaker 1: he appeared using a similar mask and lying partially covered
57:18
Speaker 1: in a cave that was initially intended for Dolores. The
57:23
Speaker 1: purpose of the promotion with all this evidence was clear,
57:26
Speaker 1: to present the man that Tênis truly was, a sadistic
57:30
Speaker 1: man and without consideration for human life. In August 2005,
57:35
Speaker 1: in the hearing of the sentence, the families of the
57:39
Speaker 1: victims made several statements to Dennis. After hearing, he had
57:44
Speaker 1: the right to speak a few words, but before starting,
57:47
Speaker 1: the families of the victims left the court. Even so,
57:51
Speaker 1: Dennis continued and presented a kind of 30-minute monologue, which
57:57
Speaker 1: the promoter compared to the thanks of some actor for
58:00
Speaker 1: winning the Oscar. Finally, Dennis Rader was sentenced to 10
58:05
Speaker 1: years in prison, with a minimum sentence of 175 years,
58:10
Speaker 1: which he would fulfill at the Eldorado Correctional Center in Kansas. Notably,
58:16
Speaker 1: during the journey to prison, Dennis talked about things without meaning,
58:21
Speaker 1: but cried when the statements of the families of his
58:24
Speaker 1: victims were broadcast on the radio. In the following years
58:27
Speaker 1: of his prison, the media took advantage of the story
58:30
Speaker 1: of BTK. But among all the characters in this veridical
58:33
Speaker 1: and tragic story, Dennis Rader's daughter Carrie Halston was one
58:39
Speaker 1: of the most present. Her fame, so to speak, came
58:44
Speaker 1: in the mid-2019, when she finally decided to bring out
58:48
Speaker 1: her story about how it was to be known as
58:51
Speaker 1: the daughter of a serial killer. For that, she published
58:55
Speaker 1: a book with the same name. In an interview after
59:00
Speaker 1: ABC News, Carrie affirmed that she had forgiven her father.
59:06
Speaker 1: In a Netflix series about her, Gary mentions about his
59:09
Speaker 1: visit to the prison in 2023, where she saw an
59:12
Speaker 1: unhappy man, attributing that she would never see him again.
59:18
Speaker 1: The following year, she also presented excerpts from Dennis' diary,
59:21
Speaker 1: which seems to indicate that he had possibly sexually abused her. Finally,
59:28
Speaker 1: Since the BTK's imprisonment and condemnation, many other jurisdictions started
59:33
Speaker 1: to investigate old archived cases that seemed to fit into
59:38
Speaker 1: the criminal's operandi. Obviously, Dennis denied any involvement in other
59:43
Speaker 1: cases besides the ones he confessed, something that the Wichita
59:46
Speaker 1: Police confirms, although they are sure that there were many
59:49
Speaker 1: other potential victims, but that were spared. That's because in
59:54
Speaker 1: his own testimony, he stated that there were many surprised people. Currently,
1:00:03
Speaker 1: Dennis is 80 years old, in the year 2026, and
1:00:05
Speaker 1: remains in the Eldorado Correctional Center, where he will possibly
1:00:11
Speaker 1: spend the rest of his life, until death.