The BTK killer is a serial killer who police believe killed ten people in the vicinity of Wichita, Kansas, United States, between 1974 and 1977, and up to three more between 1985 and 1991. The name, chosen by the killer, stands for Bind, Torture, and Kill, which was his modus operandi. Letters were written soon after the killings to police and to local news outlets, boasting of the crimes and knowledge of details. After a long hiatus, these letters resumed in 2004.

On Friday, February 25, 2005, Dennis Lynn Rader (born March 9, 1945), a city inspector, Cub Scout leader, and church council president, was arrested near his home in Park City, Kansas, and accused of the BTK killings. At a press conference the next morning, Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams flatly asserted, "the bottom line is that BTK has been arrested." As of April 2005 Rader has yet to be tried or convicted.

Victims

The BTK killer's victims include four members of one family (Joseph Otero, his wife Julie Otero, and two of their five children: Joseph Otero II and Josephine Otero); Kathryn Bright, Shirley Vian, Nancy Fox, and Vicki Wegerle. Two later murders, Marine Hedge and Delores Davis, were only recently affirmatively linked to the series. Police officials say the BTK killer murdered at least ten people between 1974 and 1991 and may be responsible for others as well.

Semen found on or near the bodies of his victims appears to be the critical evidence linking Rader to the crimes. Other cold cases in Kansas are being reopened [1] to see if Rader's DNA matches evidence collected at those crime scenes.

Letters

The BTK killer made headlines again in March 2004 when the Wichita Eagle newspaper received a letter from someone using the pseudonym Bill Thomas Killman. The writer claimed that he murdered Vicki Wegerle on September 16, 1986, and enclosed photographs of the crime scene and a photocopy of her driver's license, which had been stolen at the time of the crime. In December 2004, Wichita police received another package purportedly from the BTK killer. This time, the package was found discarded in Wichita's Murdock Park. It reportedly contains the driver's license of Nancy Fox, which was noted as stolen at the scene of crime, and other items which remain undisclosed to the public.

Most believe that the serial killer chose to resurface in 2004 as it was the thirtieth anniversary of his first killings in 1974. A number of experts hypothesized that he could have been incarcerated during this hiatus. In his letters, the BTK killer claimed to be born in 1939 and to have spent most of his youth living near railroads. He also claimed that his father was killed in World War II, and that he was raised by his mother thereafter.

Suspect

Dennis Lynn Rader (born March 9, 1945) has been named by Wichita police as the prime suspect in the BTK killings. He is a 59-year-old city inspector who lives in Park City, a Wichita suburb seven miles north of the city.

Rader was born in 1945, one of four brothers. He grew up in Wichita and graduated from Riverview School and later Wichita Heights High School. Rader first attended Wichita State University in 1964 and later spent four years (1965–1969) in the U.S. Air Force as a mechanic, including time in South Korea, Turkey, Greece and Okinawa. When he returned, he attended Butler County Community College in El Dorado and Kansas Wesleyan University in Salina before returning to Wichita State in the fall of 1973. There he graduated in 1979 with a major in Administration of Justice. During his time in college, Rader worked for a while in the meat department at an IGA in Park City.

From 1970 to 1973, Rader worked as an assembler for the Coleman Company, a camping gear firm, as did two of BTK's early victims. From November 1974 to July 1988, Rader worked at a Wichita-based office of ADT Security Services, a home security company (which saw increased business as a result of public fear of BTK). There he held several positions that allowed him into customers' homes, including installation manager. He moved to Park City in 1976.

Rader was the census field operations supervisor for the Wichita area for the 1990 federal census.

Rader has worked since 1990 as a supervisor of the Compliance Department at Park City, a two-employee, multi-functional department in charge of "animal control, housing problems, zoning, general permit enforcement and a variety of nuisance cases." In this position, neighbors recalled him as sometimes overzealous and extremely strict.

Rader served on both the Sedgwick County's Board of Zoning Appeals and the Animal Control Advisory Board (appointed in 1996 and resigned in 1998). He was also a member of Christ Lutheran Church, a Lutheran congregation of about 200 people. He had been a member for about 30 years and had been elected president of the Congregation Council. He was also a Cub Scout leader.

Rader and his wife Paula (née Dietz) are the parents of two adult children, Brian and Kerri. Both were born after the BTK killings started.

Arrest

The BTK killer's last known communication with the media and police was a padded envelope which arrived at FOX affiliate KSAS-TV in Wichita on February 16. A purple, 1.44-megabyte Memorex computer disk was enclosed in the package, and police reportedly traced it to Rader after FBI analysis of deleted data on the disk. Also enclosed were a letter, a photocopy of the cover of a 1989 novel about a serial killer (Rules of Prey) and a gold-colored necklace with a large medallion. Once the computer disk was analyzed, police began surveillance of Rader.

Sometime during this period, police obtained a warrant for the medical records of Rader's daughter, Kerri. A tissue sample seized at this time was tested for DNA and provided a familial match with semen at an earlier BTK crime scene. This, along with other evidence gathered prior to and during the surveillance, gave police probable cause for an arrest.

Rader was stopped while driving near his home and taken into custody shortly after noon on February 25, 2005. Immediately, law enforcement officials—including a Wichita Police bomb unit truck, two SWAT trucks, and FBI and ATF agents—converged on Rader's residence near the intersection of I-135 and 61st Street North. Rader's home and vehicle were searched, and evidence—including computer equipment, a pair of black pantyhose retrieved from a shed, and a cylindrical container—was collected. The church he attended, his office at City Hall and the main branch of the Park City library were also searched that day. Officers were seen removing a computer from his City Hall office, but it is unclear if any evidence was found at these locations.

Legal proceedings

Kansas reinstated the death penalty in 1994. The last known BTK killing was in 1991, making all known BTK murders ineligible for the death penalty. Even if later murders are linked to the BTK killer, it is unclear at this time whether the death penalty would come into play, as the Kansas Supreme Court declared the state's capital punishment law unconstitutional on December 17, 2004. The Sunday after his arrest, Associated Press reports cited an anonymous source that Rader had confessed to other killings in addition to the ones with which he was already connected. One of the alleged new murders was after the instatement of the Kansas death penalty. Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston called these reports "patently false." [2] On March 5, it was reported and verified by multiple sources that Rader had confessed to the ten murders he is charged with but no additional ones. [3] It is not clear from the most recent reports exactly when the reported confessions took place. No officials have denied the more recent reports of confession.

On March 1, Rader was formally charged with ten counts of first degree murder (AP via the Wichita Eagle [4]). He was arraigned via videoconference from jail. He was represented by public defender. Bail was continued at $10 million.

Links to victims

Some circumstantial evidence also links Rader to the BTK killings:

• Rader lived on the same street as Marine Hedge, just houses away. The BTK killer's other victims were in and around central Wichita.
• The Coleman Company was located a few blocks from a payphone that the killer used to report a murder, and two of the victims (Julie Otero and Kathryn Bright) worked at Coleman during the same period that Rader worked there.
• Rader and Joseph Otero, one of the first victims, both worked as Air Force mechanics.
• Rader had attended Wichita State University in the 1970s. The BTK killer used a photocopier on campus to copy one of his letters. A survivor of the attack on Bright reported that the killer had asked him if he had seen him at the university. A poem in one of the killer's letters was similar to a folk song taught by a professor on that campus in that time period.

Critics believe that Rader might have been identified years earlier had more of these links been followed and analyzed.

Preliminary news reports indicate that physical evidence, probably including DNA and trophies such as driver's licenses, will form the basis of the prosecution.

==Notes==Twiddy, David. "BTK suspect's career in security probed." Associated Press. February 28, 2005. [5]

⇧Williams, Sarah T. "Camp novel crops up in the BTK case." Minneapolis Star-Tribune. March 3, 2005. [6]

External links

• BTK Wichita Serial Killer Blog
• BTK Photo Album
• Bind Torture Kill Strangler – The Crime Library
• BTK Strangler News Timeline
• Tom Voigt. CatchBTK.com. Retrieved December 16, 2004.
• Authorities Examining Suspected 'BTK' Serial Killer Package (December 15 2004). ABC News.
• Wilhelm, Kim (December 15, 2004). WSU crime expert says if authentic, latest BTK package is significant. KWCH 12 Eyewitness News.
• The B.T.K. Strangler fact sheet. Retrieved December 16, 2004.
• Crime & Justice
• ACCJ. BTK Strangler
• Coverage of Rader's capture and related stories from the Wichita Eagle
• Collection of KSN articles and videos on BTK, including a brief clip of 2001 footage of Rader interviewed by KSN in his capacity as an animal control officer.
• Sedgwick County 18th Judicial District collection of legal documents related to the Rader case