31 years of the BTK killer

Fear in Wichita
Would he kill again? That was the question consuming much of Wichita Kansas in the weeks after serial killer BTK announced himself in 2004 following years of silence. 

Here, in the heartland fear of the unknown monster among them penetrated yet a new generation.

People were learning karate, buying guns, beefing up security systems, and looking at strangers with a suspicion not felt in years.

In his jailhouse interview, Rader claims he didn’t know he was having this effect.

Rader: I didn’t realize that the city really lived in fear of that bad.  I only heard spurts of it on the news. Women would come home and look under their doors and under their beds and just really lived in fear.  I didn’t realize that I had that potential.

To that, Loewen dropped his jaw and made a note on a piece of paper.  "And I just scrawled 'liar.' Once again, even with the learned psychologist there, he’s playing a game."

At the very least, says criminologist James Fox, Rader is being completely disingenuous.  He says for the serial killer, the fear is all part of the twisted fun.

Fox: Part of the enjoyment that serial killers have is not just manipulating the victims, tying them up.  But manipulating a community, and tying them up in a grip of terror.

BTK CONFESSIONS Why BTK stopped killing in 1991 What’s now known is that Rader hadn’t taken a life since 1991. His explanation to the psychologist about why he stopped at 10 victims  is once again chillingly matter-of-fact: Rader:  Why aren’t there more? It seemed like as I got older I started making well physically I was just wasn’t up to it. I knew if I’d have to fight with somebody it would have to be an older person because I’d be just winded or wouldn’t be able to fight physically. I don’t know, I think I was starting to mellow out a little bit. Criminologist James Alan Fox believes it’s probably not just coincidence that Rader stopped committing murder around the time he got that job as a compliance officer. "Now he really had some power. He didn’t have to do it with physical violence. He could do it through his job."

The killer still lusted for notoriety, however.  So after first revealing himself in that letter to the Wichita Eagle, he sent a slew of letters and packages throughout 2004 and into early 2005 — to local TV stations, the police, even leaving clues in a public park.   

The clue was a doll with dark hair, her face colored with makeup. Her arms were bound behind her by a pair of pantyhose. Her head contained in a plastic bag. Next to the doll, was a copy of the driver’s license of one of BTK’s victims, Nancy Fox. There was also a handmade word puzzle—which investigators now see contains a group of letters spelling D. Rader and the numbers of his address.

It all put Wichita’s serial strangler front and center again.  Just how he liked it. 

Mendoza:  Was that exciting to you?  Was that sexually exciting to you?

Rader: Probably the media.  Not in any sexual but the media attention.  I had listened to the news quite a bit.  And yeah, I’d get pretty excited to read the paper.

Mendoza:  Did you ever think you were going to get caught?

Rader:  No.  This guy was not going to get caught— Absolutely not. No I didn’t want to get caught.

Mendoza: Ok.

Rader: I wanted to put everything on floppies, they would go from a floppy to a CD.  The CD would either go in a safe deposit or a very hiding hole.  And I could always bring it back out.

Many have speculated that Rader’s repeated messages were indeed a cry to be captured, but James Fox says it’s just the opposite.

Fox: He felt invincible.  Unstoppable.  And that’s why many serial killers do communicate with the police.  Not because they’re looking for capture.  Because they feel that the police are no match for their skill, their cunning, their stardom, their brilliance.  So what often happens among most serial killers is they get to feel so cocky and they make a mistake.

And that’s just what happened. It was Rader himself who helped bring police to his door.

How Rader got caught: 'What nailed him was his hubris'
It started in January 2005, when Rader placed a letter in a pick-up truck at this Home Depot which eventually made its way to police.  In it, Rader, identifying himself only as BTK, asked the police whether they could catch him if he used a computer disc to communicate.  He asked the police to respond in a classified ad and he asked them to “be honest.”

Mendoza: And you actually asked the police if they could catch you.

Rader:  And they said no.

Mendoza:  They said no.  Did you really think they were gonna tell you the truth?

Rader:  No.  I thought they would.   I thought they wanted me to finish the story. I really thought I had a rapport with them—you know.  And I really did.

So naturally the police lied, and told the killer they couldn’t trace a disk to him. They waited to see if he would fall for it. 

Magnus: Doesn’t that seem kind of dumb?

Lamunyon:  (Laughs) Well, yeah it does.

Magnus:  To believe the police would tell you the truth about something like that?

Lamunyon:  I mean, he’s been playing games with us for 30 years.  And you think we’re going shoot straight with you. I don’t think so.

Rader fell for it. His last communication was a computer disc filled with more taunts and puzzles.  He sent it to a local TV  station.  The police were able to trace it to a “Dennis” and a computer at Rader’s church.  By googling the church name and “Dennis,” police quickly zeroed in on Dennis Rader. 

Magnus: What nailed him ultimately was the last floppy disk he sent.

Loewen: What nailed him was his hubris.  He went too far.

Police also used a surveillance tape from that Home Depot to figure out that the person who’d dropped off the BTK letter  was driving a car registered to Dennis Rader’s son.

But to make certain they had their man, they needed a DNA match.  So authorities got a warrant for a tissue sample from Rader’s daughter, on file at a Kansas medical clinic. Tests showed it was a close match to the evidence drawn from the crime scenes.

It was now early in the week of February 21^st, 2005.

And former police chief Richard Lamunyon remembers quite well when he got the news he’d waited more than 30 years to hear:

Lamunyon: Simply said we’ve got him.  He said it’s just a matter of time, we got him.

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