Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - BTK Killer Dennis Rader blames demon for his murder spree

Episode Date: July 16, 2019

“BTK Killer” Dennis Rader claims that a “demon” inside of him caused him to kill 10 people over a 17-year period in Wichita, Kansas. Nancy Grace explores that the 73-year-old serial killer says in the Oxygen documentary “Snapped: Notorious BTK Serial Killer.” Grace's experts include medical examiner Dr. William Morrone, Southern California prosecutor Wendy Patrick, Los Angeles psycho analyst Dr. Bethany Marshall, Los Angeles lawyer Troy Slaten, Cold Case Research Institute director Sheryl McCollum, and Crime Stories reporter John Lemley. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I would get these feelings of being woozy. It was really unusual. And I was going to the doctor to find out what was wrong. They sent me to all kinds of specialists. It was after Dennis was arrested and probably about two weeks later, it finally occurred to me, you know what?

I'm not having any symptoms anymore. And then it occurred to me that Dennis and I were the only two people at the city who had access to a locked file cabinet for tranquilizer for animals. And I truly believe that Dennis was putting very tiny drops into my diapopsy. I personally believe, and I have no way of being able to prove this, I was a guinea pig for his ability to use tranquilizer on other victims.

You are hearing Mary Capps, who worked with a serial killer for seven years, only knowing him as a bad-tempered boss. But she came to realize she was lucky to be alive. We are talking about BTK, Bind, Torture, and Kill, serial killer Dennis Rader, who has spoken from behind jailhouse walls. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.

BTK, Bind, Torture, and Kill. Dennis Rader. I knew something was up when I first found out he was a dog catcher. Okay, who wants to catch dogs to haul them off to be euthanized? I mean, is that some kind of a freaky calling? But other than that career choice, he seemed to be normal. To John Limley, investigative reporter,

who is BTK Dennis Rader, and the guy who terrorized Wichita, Kansas, for 17 years, we know of 10 brutal torture and murder victims. Dennis Rader, the oldest of four sons, though born in Pittsburgh, Kansas, he grew up in Wichita. He went into the Air Force. He worked as an assembler for the Coleman Company, that outdoor supply company. He began to show signs that things were just not quite right as he was growing up. His parents recalled seeing him spending a lot of time alone. He was really obsessed with death and, as so often is the case, the death of small animals.

Okay, right there. It's a red bell of alarm. Joining me, John Limley, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. You can find this and all other breaking crime and justice news at CrimeOnline.com. Dr. William Maroney, esteemed medical examiner joining us, author of a brand new book on Amazon, American Narcan, veteran trial lawyer out of L.A., Troy Slayton. He'll come up with the defense even for BTK. Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst joining us from L.A., Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute, and Wendy Patrick, California

prosecutor. When you say tortured small animals, Dr. Bethany Marshall, all sorts of alarms go off in my head. Explain. Absolutely. I mean, you hear budding sociopaths. What we know about sociopathy is that there is a wish to relate to everybody on the basis of power rather than affection. Sociopathy is a disorder of detachment. So sociopaths do not attach to other people in a loving way. They only want to dominate them. They have a parasitic relationship with them. They want to take things from them. They want to cheat on others. And so the behavioral pattern we see in children and youth who are going to become sociopaths is that they begin to assert their dominance over animals, often to the point of cruelty, of killing and maiming animals animals and so this is really the canary in the

coal mine basically clinically when you want to look back and see if somebody a sociopath you look at their relationships with animals in their youth and childhood okay those were a lot of words dr bethany marshall i'm trying to process cheryl mccollum break it down in regular people talk it's straight out of the serial killer handbook. If you want to be a serial killer, you're going to start some fires. You're going to wet the bed past what we consider a normal age, and you're going to torture small animals. We are talking about BTK, bind, torture, and kill. Take a listen to Dr. Catherine Ramsland. But Rader's father worked long hours. He didn't see him a lot.

He said his mother liked to read or watch TV, so she didn't pay a lot of attention to the kids. And she did let the grandparents take over some of the child rearing. I got along real well with Dad. But Mom always wasn't quite happy. I always loved her. I still love her greatly. But I did have a little bit of grudge against my mom. I'm Dr. Catherine Ramsland.

I'm a professor of forensic psychology. I've had extensive correspondence with Dennis Rader, the BTK serial killer, because I wrote a book with Dennis Rader called Confession of a Serial Killer. When he was young, his mother's ring got caught on a couch spring and she couldn't get her hand out. She apparently was terrified and told him to go get help. And he felt the first stirrings of arousal over this. It was exciting to him to see a woman helpless. And it was the beginning of his ideas about women that what he wanted from them was to keep them trapped and helpless and looking to him in terror, that became imprinted in his mind and became the image he was always after. That is a discussion. You're hearing the voice of Catherine Ramsland, Dr. Catherine Ramsland, who had dozens and dozens and dozens of conversations, correspondence with BTK, Rader insisting there is a, quote, dark side of him,

the demons inside me. You know what? Cheryl McCollum, Wendy Patrick, Bethany Marshall, Troy Slayton, William Maroney. How many times do we have to see it? So often when we see horrific evil acts like those of BTK, Dennis Rader, buying, torture, kill, they blame the devil. Oh, the devil made me do it. It's the demon in me. Cheryl McCollum, this guy is blaming the, quote, demon inside of him, the devil. You remember that old phrase, the devil made me do it? That's what the person chuckles about? Oh, yeah.

It's complete garbage. He doesn't want to admit that it's him. So obviously he's going to say, hey, it was the devil, because what I did was so horrific and so horrible that when people hear about it, I've got to have an excuse ready. And the only excuse there is, is the devil. Take a listen to what Jeffrey Davis, son of one of BTK's victims, has to say. Sitting here before us is a depraved predator, a rabid animal that has murdered people, poisoned countless lives, and terrorized this community for 30 years, all the while relishing every minute of it. As such, there can be no justice harsh enough or revenge bitter enough,

in this world at least, to cause the pain and suffering which a social malignancy like this has coming. Therefore, I have determined that for the sake of our innocent victims and their loving families and friends with us here today, for me this will be a day of celebration, not retribution. If my focus were hatred, I would stare you down and call you a demon from hell who defiles this court at the very sight of its cancerous presence. If I embraced bitterness, I would remind you that you are nothing but a despicable, child-murdering, cowardly, impotent eunuch and pervert masquerading as a human being.

If I were the animal that you are, I would say that I relish the thought of you being treated to the same despicable brutality, terror and agony at the hands of your soon-to-be fellow inmates that you relished inflicting on your defenseless victims. If I were spiteful, I would remind you that it is only fitting that a twisted narcissistic psychopath obsessed with public attention will soon have his world reduced to an isolated, solitary existence in an 80-square-foot cell. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. He lived a normal life, and he decides to reappear? His ego was everything to him, and he was the master manipulator. Dennis Rader wanted to taunt the media and the police. He was mocking them. He started writing the most chilling letters to us. He thanked the news team for getting the word out. Many of us thought that he was contemplating another kill, and it could be someone in our station. I didn't know whether I was the next

victim. You are hearing right there local news reporters recalling strange events surrounding the BTK investigation. And I find it very, very odd to Wendy Patchett, California prosecutor, that he, the BTK killer, buying, torture, kill Dennis Rader, wanted to, quote, get the word out. Most killers want to keep it a secret. Well, you know, we live in a day and age where, unfortunately, the notoriety associated with some of these despicable actions is arousing to some suspects and some defendants. We've seen that with shootings. We've seen that with other types of killings. This man apparently was at it for three decades. And so at some point, it's almost like he wanted credit for his work. It's unthinkable. It's inhumane. But it's in this mindset. And that's part of why Dr. Ramsland wrote

this book with him. It's this mindset that we want to know in case we see red flags, which believably nobody saw in this particular case. That's part of the reason he wanted the story out. To Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute, what exactly happened? Nancy, let me go on one thing real quick. When you have a killer like Son of Sam or Zodiac or BTK that gives themselves a nickname, that's a window into that person's ego. Of course he wanted credit. There was no other person like this. When he first decided he was going to kill, he didn't choose one victim. He chose a family that he was going to strangle with his bare hands and then proceeded to tell us, you know what? I just didn't know it was going to take that much strength. Serious priests. That's what his issue was. They needed to get in better shape

so he could keep killing. He gave himself a nickname. He reached out to the media. He wanted the credit. That's how you become famous. You know, to Troy Slayton, a veteran defense lawyer, how are you going to defend this? Raider, known as BTK, buy, torture, kill, actually once dressed up as one of his victims. I'm looking at the photo now. It's

him wearing what looks like to be kind of a dress. And he's tied himself all up and he's wearing a blonde freaky wig and he looks like he's got on a doll mask with it's solid white with blackened out eyes and and red blobs on the cheeks for rouge. And interestingly, he has tied a blue binding across his own mouth. I'm looking at the picture right now, Troy Slayton. Defense? This is clearly not somebody who is in control of all of their mental faculties, Nancy.

But aside from that, in a case like this. Really? Because he held down a job as a dog catcher and was a leader in his local church, a former church leader who hid his killings from his wife and two children. What about that? What do you mean he's insane? The Constitution of the United States of America protects everybody. And so what I do when I know you're in trouble is Wendy, they're in trouble when they start quoting the Constitution because there's nothing in the law that's going to protect this guy.

Wendy, when they start, the defense starts quoting the Constitution. I know they're in deep doo doo. That's true. You only start, you only go there when you have nothing else. And, you know, it's a tough question for Troy because it's indefensible. It is indefensible. Here he comes with the Constitution again. Come at me, man. I'm ready.

What the defense attorneys need to do here is try and save his life. And so what we are looking to do is to save his life. We're looking to take the death penalty off the table. is to not try and have him be found not guilty, but it's to try and spare him from the death penalty. You know, it's amazing how some people would interpret this as God getting up in the middle of it again, because he was actually tracked. He was ultimately brought down by a floppy disk that led police to trace it back to his church.

Okay. So he, by Sunday mornings, is this church goer, worshiping family man. time he's out as a dog catcher tracking scoping out victims in various neighborhoods all over town to john limley crime online.com investigative reporter tell me about his crimes nancy the really interesting thing is to go back to the very first of those crimes and to, for a moment, take this from the point of view of the survivors and the victims. Charlie Otero was a 15-year-old boy. He had had a great day on this January afternoon. He had aced a bunch. Okay, when you say something like that, John, I know something bad is about to happen. When you say something like, he had a great day.

Or like, it was a sunny afternoon. That's how you always do it, John Limley. And it was sunny. Then you stab me. Go ahead. It was sunny. Okay, go ahead. So as Charlie Otero is crossing the street to his family's white bungalow, he sees that the garage door is open

and his mother's car is missing. Right there, he knows something is not right because his mother is always there to greet him when he gets home from school. So he walks around back trying to figure out what's going on. The family dog then runs toward him across the snow. No one ever let this dog, a German Shepherd mix, lucky out of the house, outside alone at least. Charlie walks into the kitchen, notices a half-made peanut butter sandwich sitting on the table besides an empty lunch box. It seems that his 14-year-old brother and 13-year-old sister had returned home just minutes before him, and Carmen, the girl, comes running and says, come quick, mom and dad are playing a bad joke on us. It's anything but a joke. From the doorway of his parents' bedroom,

Charlie sees his dad on the carpet by the bed. He has been strangled with a belt. He's a handsome guy, but his features were grotesquely swollen. His mother lay on the mattress, some clothesline clenched and cinched around her neck. Both of them had been bound with thin cord at the wrists and ankles. And at this point, they think that another brother and sister are still at school, but they'll find out differently, unfortunately. When you say that, it just breaks my heart because it makes me think of my own children coming in to find such a horrible thing. I want you to hear from his own mouth, Dennis Rader, describing very unemotionally the Otero family, his first victims.

They talked to me about giving the car and whatever money. I guess they didn't have very much money. And there I realized that I didn't have a mask on or anything. They already could ID me and made a decision to go ahead and put them down, I guess, or strangle him. I had never strangled anyone before, so I really didn't know how much pressure you had to put on a person or how long it would take. I strangled Mrs. Otero, and she went out or passed out. I thought she was dead. She passed out.

Then I strangled Josephine. She passed out, or I thought she was dead. She passed out. Then I strangled Josephine. She passed out, or I thought she was dead. And then I went over and put a bag on Junior's head. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. They talked to me about giving the car and whatever money. I guess they didn't have very much money. And there I realized that I didn't have a mask on or anything. They already could ID me and made a decision to go ahead and shut them down, I guess, or strangle them. I had never strangled anyone before, so I really didn't know how much pressure you had to put on a person or how long it would take. I strangled Mrs. Otero, and she went out, or passed out. I thought she was dead. She passed out. Then I

strangled Josephine. She passed out. I thought she was dead. And then I went over and put a bag on Junior's head. You are hearing BTK by torture kill serial killer dennis raider the dog catcher describing with very little emotion how he quote put him down how he killed the otero family but that's just the tip of the iceberg listen to what he says next josephine had woke back up. I took her to the basement and eventually hung her. I had some sexual fantasies, but that was after she was hung. Went through the house, kind of cleaned it up. It's called the right-hand rule. You go from room to room. Picked everything up. I think I took Mr. Otero's watch. I guess I took a radio. I forgot about that, but apparently I took a radio. Did you hear what he just said? He's talking about killing Mr. and Mrs. Otero, but then he goes on

to talk about killing, very dispassionately, Josephine Otero. Josephine. He hung Josephine. She was just 11 years old. He hung her in the basement. Josephine Otero. To John Limley, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. I'm looking at photos right now as they haul out on a gurney a little body covered with a blanket. And just like the brother says, there's snow outside. It's just, you know, a suburban home.

They're walking up the path. A body is being removed from the scene of BTK's first known murders. Joseph, Julie, Josephine, and Joseph II. All four of them found dead in their home. I'm looking at them, and I'm looking at the little boy, Joseph Otero II, and little Josephine. How was Josephine found, John Limley? Joey had been asphyxiated with a plastic bag in his bedroom. Josie's partially clad body was hanging from a pipe in the basement. Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst, joining me from L.A., he said he had a sexual fantasy. He's lying.

He lived out that sexual fantasy on that little girl. He lived it out. That little girl hanging in the basement, Nancy. You know, we know that certain animals are born with a predatory instinct. Like, say, a lion on the savannah might eat a springbok and not think twice about it. It's lunch. It's bad for the springbok, but the lion doesn't think much about it. That's what we call cold-blooded.

And this is very rare amongst humans, but some human beings are born with a very strong predatory instinct. And killing is just like an animal that's trying to get its lunch. It's that inconsequential to them. And when I hear the BTK killer in court and in these interviews say, yeah, I had to apply a little more pressure. Oh, you know what? He tore the bag that was over his head. So I put another bag over his head just to make sure he was dead. I hear something called alexithymia. And alexithymia is when a person uses the same words you and I might use, but the meanings are very thin,

like put a bag over his head, hang her in the basement, apply more pressure. These will be horrifying things for us to say, but they have absolutely no meaning to the BTK killer. And then you put that sexual overlay on it that for a human being who cannot feel, there are no emotions about anything, this kind of a sociopath is going to have a very difficult time with sexual arousal because he's not going to be able to feel sexual arousal in normal ways with a same-age sex partner. So what he's going to do is inflict cruelty on his victims in order to enhance his sexual arousal. And this is the distinction in the literature between sociopaths and psychopaths. Sociopaths are just mean, heartless. They commit crimes. With the psychopath, you have the addition of cruelty and the commission of the crimes.

To Dr. William Maroney, medical examiner, joining us and author of a new book on Amazon, American Narcan. Dr. Maroney, he speaks, Dennis Rader, BTK, speaks so dispassionately, so unemotionally in court. It's like he's reading a medical document about how he murdered his victims, including hanging the nine-year-old little girl before having a sex fantasy on her. Dr. Maroney, what does the victim live through when they are strangled dead? Strangulation is part of a much larger comorbid condition called asphyxia. Asphyxia is the lack of oxygen to the brain. Blood brings oxygen to the brain. Asphyxia is caused by obviously strangulation, carbon monoxide, drowning, drug overdose, any other kind of gas that replaces the environment, respiratory disease, sleep apnea.

But here, strangulation is the cause of asphyxia. So you slowly kind of wander off into the fog and then you never wake up. But in a strangulation, there is the violent struggle. You are physically being assaulted to shut down the blood to your brain by the assailant. And while he's dispassionately talking about this in court, it's a very active, full contact, negative experience but suffocating people asphyxiating people they they fall away unless it's strangling it's violent and it's a very full contact experience isn't it true dr maroney that when you recover a strangulation victim's body sometimes their neck is like three or four inches wide their whole neck has been contorted and constricted so much it stays that way well there's a big

part of the neck that compresses the blood vessels are full of blood ordinarily they're pumping and you shut them down you close them so all the blood that's in the head that has no oxygen is stuck there and all the fresh blood below the belt or the rope or the grasp the hand so it is basically plumbing and you're shutting off the oxygen that that's carried by the blood and if you strangle somebody hard enough, you squeeze them down to the bones of their throat and their spine. Listen to Beverly Platt, whose sister Nancy was murdered by Dennis Rader. I lost a friend, a confidant.

My children will never have an aunt, and I'll never have another sister. Nancy's death is like a deep wound that will never, ever heal. As far as I'm concerned, Dennis Rader does not deserve to live. I want him to suffer as much as he made his victims suffer. But then, when I think about that in his sick, perverted way, he'd probably find that as some kind of pleasure or reward. This man needs to be thrown in a deep, dark hole and left to rot. He should never, ever see the light of day.

And I have some afterlife scenarios for him on the day he dies. Nancy and all of his victims will be waiting with God and watching him as he burns in hell. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Her execution by that monster was, you know, he's got to go on and live his life. 31 years now with raising a family and children and career and everything. And, you know, he sn out 10 people's lives right now. He's not any remorse, no remorse, no compassion, no, no mercy. And I think that's what he ought to receive. And I just, you know, pray that he'll get the toughest sentence possible. I just

like Charlie was saying, he's being judged here now, but eternity, when he stands before the Lord for eternity, for his judgment, if he's still in his sins that he's committed here, he will spend it by himself in darkness. And, you know, that's what I love to tell him. You were hearing Kevin Bright, who survived the attack that killed his sister, Catherine. You know what? I wish what he said were true, that he would live out the rest of his days before his death in remorse.

But I don't think he feels remorseful about it if you listen to him in court. I mean, take a listen to Dennis Rader, who dubbed himself buying, torture, kill, as he describes how he selected his victims. I had many, what I call them, projects. There were different people in the town that I followed, watched. Kathleen Bright was one of the next targets, I guess, as I would indicate. Just driving by one day, and I saw her go in the house with somebody else, and I thought that's a possibility. There was many, many places in the area, um College Hill they're all over Wichita but anyway that's it just was basically a selection process

work toward it if it didn't work I just move on to something else but in the in the my kind of person is stalking and scrolling you go through the trolling stage and the stalking stage she was in the stalking stage when this happened that's a? To Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst out of L.A., he saw the woman just walking in. And he's talking about Catherine Bright. You just heard her brother Kevin speaking. And he looked at her and he goes,

well, that's a possibility. I mean, it's just like they have a total different mind than we have. That, yes, that is a possibility. Nancy, I used to have a cat who would bring me all kinds of little trophies and treasures. I'd come home, there'd be a mouse on the front doorstep or there'd be a lizard and invariably the cat would want to toss it around proudly. That cat looked so proud whenever it caught, killed something and brought it to me. And I think about this Dennis Rader as an animal, one of these rare people whose predatory instinct is on overdrive. And he's sitting in the court like a cat with tossing a little mouse around saying, oh, I did this and then I did that. And he is happy about it. And you have the overlay of the fact that he's a human.

He's not a cat. He's not a tiger. This is a human being. And what do you get in a human being? You get something that we call grandiosity, which is a core feature of sociopathy. He's grandiose. He's having his day in court. Now he thinks he's actually like the venerated professor who's teaching everybody what it means to be a serial killer. Well, step one, ladies and gentlemen, you drive down the street. Step two, you identify your victim. Step three, and maybe not this one. I think I'll go look for another one. Can you hear how he feels he's teaching the people in the court? This is like a very thick, twisted version of grandiosity. And we've seen this in every sociopath we've covered on your show. Wendy Pashuk with me, veteran California prosecutor that has handled many, many homicide prosecutions. Wendy, how did BTK, Dennis Rader,

actually implement, execute his crimes? You know, the short answer is easily because he was somebody that wasn't a suspect. I mean, he had some status in his community. He had a job. He was a church goer. He had a family, Nancy. Think about that. So when you have somebody like this that seems relatively unassuming and unsuspicious, it is easy for him to go out and find victims, as in his own words, troll them, then stalk them, attack them, then kill them in a number of different ways, as we've seen over the years. So he was apparently able to move about freely without drawing suspicion. And that makes him one of the scariest and one of the most dangerous serial killers. But I hate to say it, Nancy, it follows the pattern of other killers just like him that lead apparently normal lives on the outside.

I don't really understand the phenomena of him writing letters to taunt the public through the local news media. And Troy Slayton, his methodical way of picking his victims and executing these crimes, sneaking into their house under different pretenses, like being a repairman or somebody to check the gas meter or whatever his pretext was, showed a lot of forethought. And he has so many victims. How do you even fashion a defense for that? Well, it's certainly not easy. And I think that the defense team here had certainly a tough job. the pain of going through protracted litigation would just cause more damage to the victims, that it would be better for the victims to be able to give their impact statements to the court,

which they did, and for the state of Kansas to not seek to execute. And that's not going to bring any of the tragic victims back to execute. And that's not going to bring any of the tragic victims back to life. Is that how you justify it, Troy, that a death penalty won't bring the victims back? I mean, I've only known so far of one person brought back from the dead. I mean, unless you count

Lazarus, but I'm not expecting a miracle. Of course, you can't bring the victims back. That's the whole point, Troy Slayton. Nancy, the defense attorney's job here was to prevent another killing. Blah, blah, blah. And that's the defendant himself.

And they succeeded. And instead, he will spend his life in prison. You know what? You speak of it like you're analyzing a problem in an algebra book. Listen to Rader. Actually, on that one, she was completely random. There was actually someone across from Dillon's was a potential target. It was called Project Green, I think. I had project numbers assigned to it. And that particular day, I drove to Dillon's Park in the parking lot, watched this particular residence, and then got out of the car and walked over to it. It's probably the police report address. I don't remember the address now.

Knocked. Nobody answered it. So I was all teed up, so I just started going through the neighborhood. I'd been through the neighborhood before. I kind of knew a little of the layout of the neighborhood. I've been through the back alleys. I'd been through the neighborhood before. I kind of knew a little of the layout of the neighborhood. I've been through the back alleys, knew where some certain people lived. You know, to you, Cheryl McCollum,

director of the Cold Case Research Institute, he kept writing the TV station KAKE in Wichita, claiming responsibility for all the murders and suggesting names for himself, including BTK, demanding media attention until they finally announced publicly that Wichita had a serial killer. He even made a poem which was stealing the lyrics to an old folk song, and he called it O Death to Nancy.

Again, his ego played such a role in these crimes. It, again, reminds me of Son of Sam. You know, he wrote poetry. Zodiac. He contacts when the letters don't do it, he calls. And you remember how sinister he tried to be? This is Zodiac. You know what I mean?

They've given themselves nicknames. They're not just playing out these fantasies. Nancy, they're living it. Let me just say these names out loud. Joseph Otero, 38. Julie Otero, 33. Joseph Otero, Jr., age 9. Josephine Otero, 11. Catherine Bright, 21. Shirley Vann, 24. Nancy Fox, 25. Maureen Hedge, 53. Vicki Wigieri, 28.ores Davis, 62 that we know of

and I think somewhere out there in the universe all of them agree with me Dennis Rader rot in hell Nancy Grace, Crime Stories signing off goodbye friend