31 years of the BTK killer

The arrest
Dennis Rader spent the morning of February 25, 2005 on the job in Park City, where as the town’s compliance officer Rader was responsible for things like corralling mad dogs, or chewing people out if their grass grew too high.

Rader: [It was a] normal work day. I didn’t have any suspicions.  Although I’d been really careful about watching people and actions and stuff.  I was usually pretty good about that.

He says he noticed nothing unusual, except maybe a moment when he overheard on his police radio the FBI was up to something in his town.

Rader: And I thought, well you know, maybe something’s coming down.  Shall I run? But where would I have ran if they were after me?  I just took a calculated guess that that was something else and hope for it.

Then at midday, the killer went home for lunch.

Rader: Drove home and just as soon as I got started turn down, it was Frontage Road, I saw this whole line of police cars up.  That’s not good.  And —they were right on me.  Just that quick.  I thought maybe it was a traffic stop or something.  But as soon as one of ‘em’s behind me with the red lights and sirens, I knew that was it.

With that, Dennis Lynn Rader, the man believed to be BTK, was finally in custody after 31 years.

Rader: They arrested me, yep.  They got out of the car.  They pulled guns on me.  Told me to lay down.  And I sprawled out and they grabbed me real quick like in handcuffs and stuck me in a car.  "Mr. Rader, do you know why you’re going downtown?"  And I said, “Oh, I have suspicions why.”

At first it was kind of—kind of a cat and mouse game.  That they had a suspect.  But it, but it, but it did kind of hurt, you know.  Like you said, I had the power, you know, I was a law enforcement officer technically and here I am—these law enforcement officer were trying to do my duties.  That kind of hurt a little bit.

Rader confesses to the police, and enjoys it
But before long, Rader, in his self-obsessed was talking up a storm — and says in this interview with the psychologist he actually was having a good time connecting to the police officers.

Mendoza: During the interrogation it seemed as though you were enjoying being one of them at times.  And it’s almost like colleagues—

Rader:  Yeah,

Mendoza:  —talking shop?

Rader:  Camaraderie?  Camaraderie, yeah.  Yeah, we talked shop.  I know a lot of the police terminology.  I know how they do things.  So it yeah, it’s kinda a bonding type thing,  you know.

Mendoza:  Did you enjoy that on any level?

Rader:  Yes I did.  All I knew was sunk or it soon would be but yeah, I enjoyed it.  And once the confession was out and I admitted who I was, then, then the bonding really started  You know, I just really opened up and you know we shared jokes and everything else.  It’s just like we were buddies.

"He’s proud of what he’d done," says Loewen. "He was having in a perverse way fun talking with his colleagues, the police."

Magnus: What do you make of the camaraderie he says he enjoyed with all of the police officers who were interrogating him when he was arrested?

Fox: Well it implies a certain degree of control here of the situation.  “I’m a good guy.  They’re a good guy. We’re all in the same profession here.  I worked in law enforcement technically.” He was a wannabe cop. It makes him feel better to think of them as peers.

But however much Rader may have imagined he was still in control, the reality was just the opposite. Richard Lamunyon, who once headed up the police department, says the script was going their way now.

Magnus: Were they, in fact, playing him?

Lamunyon: Absolutely. These officers that were interviewing him were hand-picked.  They have studied him. They knew the characteristics.  They were playing to his ego, to his strength... they were bringing him up —  making him think,  “Hey we’re buddy buddies.”

Then, just as quickly, they shut him down. The interview ended, the attention stopped, and the officers went home.  It was only then, Rader tells the psychologist, that the reality of his past and the impact on his future finally started to sink in.

Rader: Was there any way of getting out of this? You know, is there any possible way and I thought, “No, there isn’t any way.  They’ve just got too much on me.”  And then most of my thoughts went back to my family.  You know, how my family was holding up?  How were they taking this?

And, and it was main thing just you know, you’re caught.  Incarcerated and all those things that you enjoyed are gone.  You know, you just have to be in that position to realize that.  I don’t think normal people who are outside in the world can visualize that.  Just like right now, you just — you touch people and call them and, you know, your kids.  It’s tough.  Sorry. It’s gone.

This was one of the few moments in the interview where Rader revealed any emotion.  When he was talking about himself and his family.

Mendoza:  Actually in our regular sort of ritual...

Rader: Well anyway, people don’t realize that once you’re gone and you can’t go out and out in the fresh air, walk your dog, hug your wife, kiss your wife.  You know, go to movie, have a pizza, hamburger.  It’s all gone.

"It's all about him," comments Lamunyon.

Magnus: When you watch him, do you feel anything?

Lamunyon: You feel pain.  Cause every time I see him, I see all of his victims and the tortured looks on their faces from all the crime scenes, and what he actually did. He left that part out. He never mentioned them.

Instead, all Rader could do was complain to the psychologist about how he missed all the attention he’d been receiving from his police interrogators.

Rader: They did not come Saturday.  They did not come Sunday. Sunday was probably the lowest day in all my life.

Mendoza: What happened?

Rader: I was really depressed.

"Can you imagine? This is a man who’s already been arrested, he’s ripped from his family probably forever. They despise him.  Oh, by the way, he’s killed ten people. And the lowest day of his life is when the interrogation doesn’t continue?" points out Loewen. " Doesn’t this tell us a lot about Dennis Rader?"

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