BTK killer gets maximum life sentence

A double life
Earlier testimony outlined Rader’s fascination with bondage, his desire to strengthen his hand muscles when he found it hard to choke victims, and a terrifying conversation he had with an 11-year-old girl before he killed her.

Detective Clint Snyder testified that Rader told investigators he used a squeeze ball to strengthen his grip after finding his hands numbed during strangulations.

In describing one killing, Rader told Snyder: “I’m sorry. I know this is a human being, but I’m a monster.”

According to testimony, Rader, a former church congregation president and Boy Scout leader, at times used his connections to scouting and local churches to facilitate his crimes and provide him an alibi.

For the killing of Davis on Jan. 13, 1991, Rader left a Scout camp under the guise of going home for something he forgot, Houston testified Wednesday. Instead, Rader went to his parents’ home to change out of his scouting uniform and into his dark “hit clothes.”

He took the body of another of his victims, Marine Hedge, to the church he attended in Wichita, where he put black plastic over the windows to give him privacy while he took bondage pictures for his sexual satisfaction.

Rader, referring to the last two murders near the Park City home where he lived, told police: “This is not really good serial killer business, this is right at my back door. I started getting lazy, the last few years.”

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