31 years of the BTK killer

After murdering four members of the Otero family, Dennis Rader spent the next several years killing again, and again, and again.  His next few victims were all young women.  In this interview with the psychologist, Rader dismisses each victim as a “project.” He says he’d begin by stalking.

Rader: Stalking stage is when you start learning more about your victims, potential victims.  Went to the library, I looked up their names, address, cross reference, called them a couple of times, drove by there whenever I could. 

And each time he struck, Rader said he was armed with what he calls his “hit kit.”

Mendoza: The hit kit contained what?

Rader:  Plastic bags, rope, tape, knife, gun, all those would be in a kit they’d be where I could have them in the house and gather them up.

Tools that would come to define the work of BTK: The victims were often discovered bound with tape or rope tied in unusual knots.

Rader: You have to have the control, which is the bonding. That’s been a big thing with me. My sexual fantasy is of, if I’m going to kill a victim or do something to the victim, is having them bound and tied. In my dreams, I had what they called torture chambers. And to relive your sexual fantasies you have to go to the kill.

Striking again
Three months after murdering the Oteros, in April of 1974, Dennis Rader struck again.

In April of 1974, three months after the Otero murders, Rader’s next victim was Kathy Bright, a 21-year-old college student.  Once again, he’d selected her randomly, while driving down her street, as he told the court in June.

Rader: I saw her go in the house with somebody else, and I thought, “That’s a possibility.”

Rader’s plan was to lie in wait and overtake Kathy when she came home. But the plan went awry when she unexpectedly showed up with her brother Kevin.  Rader said in court he was able to get brother and sister tied up, but the knots that bound Kevin were not holding.

Judge: Were you armed with a handgun at that time, also?

Rader (to judge): Yes, I had a handgun. I actually had two handguns. Well when I started to strangle him, either the rope broke or he broke his bonds and he jumped up real quick like.  I pulled my gun and quickly shot and hit him in the head. He fell over. I could see the blood. 

Rader said he thought Kevin was dead and turned to strangle Kathy when he heard Kevin move. The two men struggled again and Rader shot him for a second time in the head.  He then continued trying to strangle Kathy, but was unsuccessful, and so he stabbed her multiple times in the chest.

Meanwhile, much to Rader’s surprise, Kevin had somehow managed to escape though his head wounds from the gun shots left him unable to how about say clearly describe the killer. 

Rader: I thought the police were coming at that time. I heard the door open up. I thought, “You know, this is it.” And I stepped out there and I could see him running down the street. So I quickly cleaned up everything that I could and left.

Six months later, in October 1974, Rader announced himself to authorities in the first of many letters he sent to newspapers and other media outlets, communiques that would come to include poems and puzzles.

It began a campaign that would reveal his other motive to kill: publicity and a twisted desire for celebrity. A sick obsession of Rader's, like some other serial killers, had to be known.  And feared.

It was Rader who came up with BTK as a name for himself.  

Rader: I just put it in one of the first letters. I’m always surprised I put it up there first. I think it was just — Bind, Torture, Kill. Now I had a label on me.  It was like the “Green River Killer” and “Son of Sam” and a whole slew of others stuff—“The Boston Strangler.”

The police now knew the murders of the Otero family and Kathy Bright were linked and that they had a serial killer in their midst. For tactical reasons, though, it would be several years before they disclosed that information to the public. 

Still, they wanted to communicate with the mysterious strangler.  Police quietly placed a classified ad in the big hometown daily. “BTK- help is available.”  But there was no response. And Rader did not kill again for three years.

Rader: You know it wasn’t something I could do all the time.  So whenever it was convenient, it would have been easier, probably if you were like a spy or something where you could go, sit there and watch. But I didn’t have that. I had to work under camouflage.

The murders of Shirley Vian and Nancy Fox
Then in March 1977, he struck again. His victim, Shirley Vian, was 24 years old. He said in court he’d watched her young son walk into the house and spontaneously chose that family to victimize.

Rader: [I] knocked on the door and told ‘em I was a private detective, showed ‘em a picture and asked them if they could ID the picture And at that time I had the gun there. And I just kind of forced myself in. I just walked in, just opened the door and walked in then pulled a pistol.

Shirley Vian was home with her three small children, whom Rader corralled into a bathroom.

Rader: The kids were really banging on the door, hollering and screaming.

It’s horrifying to remember that Rader himself was a young father at this time: his own son was not yet 2 years old. But, with the sounds of the Vian children in the background, he said he simply worked as fast as he could.

Rader in court: And then I proceeded to tie her up. She got sick, threw up. I got her a glass of water, comforted her a little bit.  And then I went ahead and tied her up and then put a bag over her head and strangled her.

In another admission that reveals Rader’s depravity, he told the psychologist the thrill had little to do with the kill— or for that matter with the victim herself. 

Rader: I don’t think it was actually the person that I was after, I think it was the dream.  I know that’s not really nice to say about a person, but they were basically an object.  That’s all they were. I had more satisfaction building up to it and afterwards than I did the actual killing of the person.

"Many serial killers objectify their victims," explains Fox. "They dehumanize them. They’re tools.  They’re instruments for their own pleasure."

Magnus: How does someone who is a married, young father objectify people and kill them?

Fox:  The process is called compartmentalization.  Many people are able to divide the world into those they care about and love truly and everyone else who’s expendable.

Magnus: He says that he had more satisfaction anticipating his kill and in the aftermath of killing than he did murdering someone itself?

Fox: That’s his fantasy. The planning process, the stalking, the hunting, it’s all very enjoyable to him.  And the aftermath, once he’s killed, to see what he’s done, that’s fulfilling too.  That’s when he would literally climax.

The sexual fantasies and the obsession with bondage: Rader claims it’s been swirling in his head since he was a child. He remembers being aroused as a young child when his mother would spank him.

Rader has written in letters, which no one’s sure are true, that he secretly perused S&M magazines as a boy. He stole panties, peeped in windows, and writes of hanging a cat, and then a dog.  

Magnus: How does sexual fantasy and even an obsession with bondage lead to murder?

Fox:  It doesn’t necessarily. What makes serial killers different than other people who might fantasize about power, dominance, control is that they do not have a legitimate way to satisfy their need for power.  So they grab that power in a violent way.

At the end of 1977, in December, Dennis Rader killed his seventh victim, Nancy Fox.

Rader: And then I just selected a night, which was this particular night to try it, and it worked out.

He told the judge he’d been stalking her for quite a while.

Rader in court: I went around the back of the house, cut the phone lines. I could tell that there wasn’t anybody in the north apartment, broke in and waited for her to come home in the kitchen.

This time his plans went smoothly as the single working girl, who was just 25, came home alone.

Judge: What happened?

Rader: I confronted her, told her I had a problem, a sexual problem, that I would have to tie her up and have sex with her.

Rader said he handcuffed and tied Nancy Fox, strangled her with a belt, left his tell-tale semen by the body and got out without a hitch.  Then he called the police. Rader actually had the audacity to phone 911 and alert authorities to his own crime.

In the jailhouse interview, Rader said in hindsight, he thinks that call was dumb. 

Rader: That was kind of an impulse and really, a really stupid thing to do. I left my voice pattern and my voice on there. 

And still, Rader was not done communicating. The following month, he sent a poem written with a child’s printing set on an index card to the Wichita Eagle newspaper. The poem, patterned after a nursery rhyme, referred to Shirley Vian’s murder.

Fox: And that’s very much textbook with a man who’s arrogant, who’s narcissistic, and thinks a lot about himself. He thinks very highly of himself.  He’s important.  He’s superior. He’s a big shot. He’s a national figure. 

Several days later, he sent another letter— the most disturbing one yet— and the one that finally put the killer on the news and put the community in a tailspin.

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