Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “BTK Killer” Pt. 2 - Dennis Rader

Episode Date: October 1, 2018

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It's calling your name. Save on the stay. Oh, and free waffles are yours to claim. Well, I hope you like my little song. Book direct at sourcehilltails.com. Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of murder and assault

that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. One night in early January, 1991, 62-year-old Dolores Davis noticed one of her beloved cats pawing at the window, as though there was something on the other side of the glass it wanted to catch. She peered out the window but saw nothing.

Then another one of her cats, caught her eye. He was jumpy, on edge, like he knew something she didn't. A shiver skittered down her spine. Something was not right. Dolores called her son Jeff. She told him there might be someone lurking outside her home. Jeff assured her nothing was amiss. Her imagination was getting the better of her. He calmed her fears and said good night. Of course, Jeff had been mistaken. Someone was outside Dolores's window, hiding in the darkness, just out of sight. And a few days later, on January 18, 1991, Dolores Davis became the final victim of the serial killer known as BTK. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson, and this is serial killers.

Today we're going to continue our deep dive into the life of Dennis Rader, who nicknamed himself BTK, bind, torture, kill. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. everyone. Many of you have been asking us how you can support the podcast. If you enjoy the show, one of the best ways to help us is to leave a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. While you're there, you can listen to previous episodes of serial killers, as well as Parcast's other podcasts. A new episode comes out every Monday. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast and on Twitter at Parcast Network or in our website, parkast.com. Dennis Rader began his serial killer career in 1974, when he slaughtered four members of the Otero family, including two young children. He proceeded to kill six additional victims in Wichita, Kansas, over the next 20 years, murdering his final victim in January 1991.

Rader tortured and strangled helpless women and children to achieve the sexual satisfaction that he fantasized about. But murder wasn't all he crazed. Raider wanted to be as notorious as the famous serial killers he spent his childhood and adult life reading about. And Raider's desire for fame was ultimately his undoing. Raider spent most of his youth fantasizing about tying up and torturing pretty girls. By 1974, the 28-year-old was ready to act. He targeted the Otero family after spotting the mother, Julie, in a car on Murdoch Avenue.

Throughout his killing career, the randomness of his murders was one of the reasons police had so much difficulty connecting Rader to his various crime scenes. In the early morning of January 15, 1974, Rader crept to the Otero's suburban home in Wichita, Kansas. He tied up, tortured, suffocated, and strangled Joe and Julie Otero, as well as their two children, nine-year-old Joey and 11-year-old Josie. For Rader, murder felt like pure hair. He became obsessed, frenzied even. He needed to kill again. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. Psychologist Joni-E. Johnston explains that serial killers are somewhat similar to addicts

in the way that they give in to a compulsion in order to improve how they feel. Johnston notes that criminals can become as addicted to their particular form of criminal activity as is a heroin addict to smack or an alcoholic to alcohol, having the same difficulty resisting a crime as a substance abuser does resisting his or her cravings. From the moment Raider first tasted blood, nothing else could truly satisfy him. Just a few weeks after killing the Oteros in January of 1974, Rader began hunting women for his next kill, or as he called it, his next project. But even as he silently stalked the women of Wichita,

he kept up appearances as a doting husband and diligent student at the University of Wichita. Rader was very good at compartmentalizing his different personas, and like many of the psychopaths we've discussed on this show, felt no guilt about lying to his family. In fact, Rader spotted his next victim, Catherine Bright, while he was taking his wife Paula out for lunch in early spring of 1974. Catherine Bright was a 21-year-old student at the University of Kansas. She was very close to her four siblings and extended family,

and though she lived alone at her suburban house on 3127 East 13th Street, her 19-year-old brother Kevin often came to visit. Rader had a couple reasons for targeting Catherine. She was slim with long blonde hair, his preferred type. But Raider also targeted Catherine Bright in part because of his obsession with the number three, which he believed was supernaturally lucky. Her house was on East 13th Street, and her address, 327, started with a 3 as well. As we mentioned last week, an obsession with rituals involving numbers

can be a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder or OCD. For someone with the disorder, this can mean that some numbers, say 3, are good or magical, and some numbers are bad and need to be avoided at all costs. Rader was later evaluated by psychologist Robert Mendoza. Mendoza noted Rader's OCD tendencies, but didn't believe they reached a clinical level where they significantly impacted his day-to-day activities. Rader spent weeks stalking Catherine, making sure she lived alone.

Eber the perfectionist, Rader also began obsessively squeezing a stress ball, trying to work up hand strength. He had failed to successfully strangle the Oterras on the first try, and wasn't about to make that mistake twice. He came up with a story so Catherine would let him in. He decided to pose as a fellow college student looking for help with homework. Since he really was a college student, it would be an easy role to pull off. Rader assembled weapons for the murder, his buckknife, a 22 cult, and a 357 cult magnum.

For some reason, he didn't bring the hit kit that he usually brought along to each victim's house. He hid weapons in his large Air Force jacket and brought gloves so he wouldn't leave fingerprints behind. And he chose a nickname for this murder. Project Lights Out. Rader came up with a variety of code words or nicknames for his murder-related paraphernalia. While this would have thrown his wife off his scent should she stumble upon his work, it also allowed him to entertain a fantasy of being a secret agent. He liked to write notes and stories about his victims that only he could understand. On April 4, 1974, Rader drove his car to Wichita State University's campus and parked it there. Catherine lived within walking distance at the college, so he was able to

easily make his way to her home on foot. He saw Catherine's car sitting in her driveway and assumed she was home. He put on his gloves, but ultimately decided against the ski mask, he knocked on Catherine's door. But she didn't answer. After a few moments, he realized, she must have gone somewhere on foot. So he broke a kitchen window in the back of the house and clambered inside. Indeed, Catherine wasn't home. He swept up the broken glass

and tidied up the kitchen so as not to arouse suspicion before she walked into her bedroom. He walked down the hallway towards her bedroom, nervous. He pulled out his gun and fiddled with it. By accident, he fired around into Catherine's bathroom door. Nothing seemed to be going right for Rader. and the situation became even dicier as the front door opened.

Catherine was home, but she wasn't alone. Her 19-year-old brother, Kevin, was with her. Panicked, Rader quickly drew his gun and confronted the siblings. He fell back on a familiar story. He was a fugitive on the run who just wanted to tie them up and rob them. But Rader hadn't bothered to bring his hit kit. He didn't have anything to tie up the siblings. He kept Catherine and Kevin at gunpoint

and ordered them into Catherine's bedroom. With his gun trained on them, he rifled through her dressers until he found bandanas and other clothing items he could use to bind them. Rader forced Kevin to tie his sister's hands so she wouldn't fight back. Then he bound Kevin to the bedpost. Rader dragged Catherine into a separate bedroom and tied her to a chair. He decided to kill Kevin first, since he considered the brother to be a bigger threat. He turned on the radio and blasted music, so Catherine wouldn't hear him throttling her brother in the next. next room. But as Raider wrapped a cord around Kevin's throat, the young man ripped free of his

bindings. Kevin fought for his life, but Raider whipped out his gun and fired at the teenager's head. Kevin collapsed to the ground, seemingly dead. Catherine heard the gunshot from the next room and began screaming for her brother. Raider rushed in and tried to reassure her that Kevin was fine. He'd let both siblings go soon. Catherine was having none of it. She struggled desperately against her bindings. Raider tried to strangle Catherine, but she continued to fight him. Raider got nervous. Catherine was proving harder to kill than he anticipated. He decided to take a moment to regroup. He'd go double check that Kevin was indeed dead. It might seem like an odd thing to do, but again, BTK didn't have a great track record with first-try kills. He returned to the other

bedroom where Kevin lay on the floor and kicked the boy's corpse. But Kevin was just playing dead. He sprung at Rader, and the two fought for control of Rader's gun. Kevin was slight, 5'6 and only 115 pounds. Rader, at 5 foot 11, was easily able to overpower the teen. He shot Kevin in the face, and Kevin dropped to the floor. Rader returned to the other bedroom where Catherine was still struggling to loosen her bindings. He tried to strangle her, but Catherine managed to free herself from the chair. Before Catherine could get away, Rader pulled out his hunting knife.

and stabbed the young woman. She tried to run, but Rader stabbed her ten more times until she collapsed to the ground. The room's walls and floor were coated with her blood, but Catherine was still clinging to life. Then Rader heard something strange. He hurried back to the other bedroom. Kevin was gone.

The teen, who had sustained two bullet wounds to the head, had run right out the front door. Rader didn't have time to finish, Catherine. The police might have been coming any minute. He grabbed Catherine's driver's license and a few other odds and ends as trophies. Then fled for his life. As we've seen in past episodes, many serial killers take trophies so they can later relive and fantasize about the murder.

This was certainly the case with Raider. He had a vivid imagination and enjoyed recreating his murders, often playing the role of the bound victim. Police later recovered photographs of Raider clothed in only his victims, bras and undergarments. With his trophy in hand, Rader raced back to his car, his lungs aching. He drove back to his childhood home and hid his trophies in a tackle box. He hid his weapons and bloody clothes in his parents' garage, attic, and their old chicken coop.

Meanwhile, after escaping from Rader, Kevin stumbled to the front door of Catherine's neighbor. He explained there was an attacker in his sister's home, and the neighbors quickly phoned the police. Catherine was still alive when the cops arrived. They rushed both Catherine and Kevin to the hospital, but Catherine died later that day. Kevin tried to give the police a description of his attacker, though he had trouble talking. Rader had shot him in the jaw,

and he choked on his own blood when he tried to speak. He managed to tell police that Rader was around 5'11 and wearing a distinctive silver watch. Kevin was describing the watch that Rader had stolen from Joe Otero, his previous murder victim. But despite Kevin's eyewitness account, police weren't able to locate Rader. They couldn't even agree on the identity of the murderer. Some investigators believed that Catherine and the Oteros were slaughtered by the same killer,

while others thought the Oteros were most likely killed by drug dealers, though it's unclear why they assumed the Oteros were involved in drugs. Rader was thrilled when he realized that the police had no idea who he was. But this wasn't good enough for him. He wanted to be a famous serial killer, like the ones he had read about as a teen. And if he was going to be a famous killer, then he needed a signature name. In October 1974, Rader left a taunting letter to police in a library book, then called the local newspaper so they could locate his note.

It contained shocking details about the Otero murders that only the killer could know. Rader's letter was signed BTK, which stood for his modus operandi, bind them, torture them, kill them. We'll continue investigating BTK in just a moment. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage

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In October, he left a mocking letter to police and revealed the nickname he had chosen for himself, B.T.K. Bind, torture, kill. He also kept up his persona as an ordinary citizen of Wichita. He continued to attend college classes in the fall of 1974 and started working for age. security services. Raider was amused to find himself installing security systems in the homes of people afraid of the BTK killer. Raider also made sure to keep playing the role of loving husband. He later claimed author and professor of criminal psychology, Catherine Ramsland, that he genuinely cared about his wife and enjoyed their sex life. But his fantasies of strangling women were

still more important to him than anything else. Ram'sland notes that fantasy was a crucial coping mechanism for Raider. It afforded him an escape from life's everyday stresses. While some of us may play video games or go for a hike to stave off boredom, Raider liked to tie up dolls or draw frightened women bound up with rope. As part of his fantasies, he eventually started taking pictures of himself tied up, as though he was his own victim. At least once, he encased himself in plastic and pretended to bury himself alive in a freshly dug grave. This link, between fantasy and serial murder isn't unique to Raider either. Criminology professor Scott Bunn notes that many serial killers have intense fantasy lives.

They imagine killing their victims as a way of ramping up to committing murder in real life. Raider hid these fantasies from Paula, pretending he was satisfied with their marriage, and in an odd way he was. They were an otherwise normal couple. In late 1974, she became pregnant with their first son, Brian, who was born in a young in July of 1975. Paula stayed at home with the new baby, while Raider supported the family through his work at ADT.

But even though he acted like a contented family man in public, Rader was always looking for his next victim. He spent the next two years stalking women in Wichita, and in March of 1977, he zeroed in on his next project. Rader was still obsessed with the number three, and he believed March was a good month for his next kill, because it was the third month of the year. His intended target that day was a woman who lived at 12.07 South Greenwood.

He nicknamed her Project Green. On March 17, 1977, Raider knocked on the woman's front door. His hit kit was hidden in a briefcase. But she didn't answer. Down but not out. Rader wandered the neighborhood, looking for a different victim. On South Hydraulic Street, he ran into a five-year-old boy named Stephen Viann, who was bringing his mother, Shirley Vian, a can of soup from the grocery store

for lunch. The whole family had come down with the flu, and Shirley wasn't well enough to run to the store herself. Rader pondered whether the boy's mother could be a substitute target. He showed Stephen a photo of Paula and his young son, Brian. He claimed they were missing and asked if Stephen had seen them. It's not clear why Rader bothered with such an elaborate lie, since he could have just followed the child home. Perhaps he simply enjoyed role-playing as a detective. Nonplussed, Stephen, told him that he hadn't seen the people in the photo. Rader pressed the child and said,

Are you sure? Look again. But the little boy repeated, no, sir, and he continued down the street to his home. Rader kept an eye in the boys. He knocked on the door of another possible victim he'd been stalking, Cheryl Gilmore. He later told police that he had nicknamed Cheryl, Project Blackout because she frequented a bar with that name. But Cheryl didn't answer. As he waited on her stoop,

Rader watched six-year-old Stephen enter the house two doors down at 1311 South Hydraulic. The boy's address had a three in it, Rader's favorite number, he decided to go for it. At the Vian house, five-year-old Stephen didn't feel up to playing with his eight-year-old brother Bud or his four-year-old sister, Stephanie. He lay in his mother Shirley's bed to keep a company until he heard Raider knocking. Stephen and Bud raced each other to the front door.

The five-year-old won the race. In a moment that he would regret forever, Stephen opened the door to find Raider staring down at him. Raider told the kids that he was a private detective. When their mother Shirley dragged herself out of bed to see who was out the door, Rader grew excited. He repeated the lie to Shirley and stepped inside the house, As soon as he was inside and the door was shut, Rader quickly drew all the blinds in the living room

and pulled out his gun. Shirley begged Rader not to hurt her or the kids, and Rader quickly came up with a story to calm her down. He claimed that he just wanted to tie Shirley up and take bondage pictures. If she cooperated, everyone would be fine. The phone rang, but Rader ordered the family not to answer the phone. Shirley once again begged Rader not to hurt her kids, but he ignored her.

He took rope out of his briefcase and tried to tie up Bud. When the eight-year-old cried, Rader decided it was too much trouble to tie up each of Shirley's three children individually. And the phone call began to worry him. Someone might be on their way to the Vian house. He hurriedly stuck Bud, Stephen, and Stephanie, in the bathroom.

He chucked blankets and toys into the bathroom to keep the kids busy, then quickly tied the bathroom door shut with rope. Rader hoped to be. She didn't have to rush everything too much. If he had time to spare, he wanted to suffocate the young boys with plastic bags and strangle four-year-old Stephanie. Rader dragged Shirley into the bedroom away from her sobbing children.

She didn't fight back, desperately hoping if she cooperated that Rader would rape her and leave. It wasn't until Rader placed a bag over her head and tied the rope around her neck that Shirley realized she was about to die. The Vian children were frantic. They knew their mother was in danger, but they didn't know how to help her. Five-year-old Stephen screamed that he was going to untie the rope keeping the bathroom door closed and stop Rader from hurting his mother.

But Rader warned the child that he'd shoot him in the head. Stephen, Bud, and Stephanie were too terrified to leave the bathroom. They wept and pounded their fists uselessly against the door as Rader strangled their mother. As a psychopath, Rader felt no guilt over his actions. It didn't bother him at all to hear the children's cries echoing from the neighboring room. In fact, it only confirmed his total control over the situation. After Shirley was dead, Rader thought about killing the three young children still trapped in the bathroom. But his thoughts kept returning to the phone call that Shirley had received earlier.

He decided not to chance it. Rader grabbed two pairs of Shirley's underwear as trophies and fled the home. Eventually, eight-year-old Bud smashed open the bathroom. window, so the three siblings could escape to the yard. The children ran through the unlocked front door to their mother's bedroom, only to discover her dead in her bed. Hysterical, the children raced to their neighbor's house, and the neighbor called the police. Rader was worried that the children would be able to identify him, but the descriptions

the children gave weren't enough for the cops to track Rader down. However, several officers did notice similarities between Shirley's death and the murders of the Otero family. both had been bound up with intricate knots, and in both crime scenes, the victims were suffocated with bags over their heads. But they still didn't have enough information to find Rader. He was so satisfied after getting away with Shirley's death

that he rewrote a children's rhyme, Curly Locks, Curlylocks, and transformed it into a typo-ridden celebration of his successful murder. Quote, Shirley-Locks, Shirley-Locks, Will thou be mine? Thou shalt not scream, not yet feel the line, but lay in a cushion and think of me and death and how it is going to be." End quote. Rader had now killed six people, and he was starting to feel invincible.

Author Catherine Ramsland describes Rader as suffering from a condition she calls narcissistic immunity. Essentially, like many other serial killers we've seen on this show, Rader became convinced that he was smarter than the detectives trying to catch him. He believed he could get away with anything. The high from killing Shirley Vian didn't last long, and Rader spent the rest of 1977 looking for his next victim. He often scoped out women during the day while installing security systems for ADT. In the winter of 1977, Rader spotted his next target,

25-year-old Nancy Fox. He was pleased to learn that Nancy lived alone at 843 South Pershing. That meant there would hopefully be needed, no kids, dogs, siblings, or husbands to contend with. He nicknamed this project, Fox Tale, or Fox Hunt, after Nancy's surname. On December 8th, he warned his wife he would be studying late at the library. He spent a couple hours there working on a paper for one of his college classes, but around 9 p.m., he left the library and drove to Nancy's duplex with his hit kit.

He knocked on Nancy's door to make sure she wasn't home, then went out back. and cut the phone line. He smashed open a window and scrambled into the apartment where he waited for her to return from her evening shift at Heelsberg Jewelers. He'd memorized her entire schedule and knew precisely

what time she would arrive home. Rader drank a glass of water, a tradition he had started when he murdered the Otero family. He put Nancy's phone to his ear to double check that it was dead. Right then, Nancy walked into her apartment. We don't know for sure

how Nancy reacted when she spotted Rader in her living room. In one version of Rader's story, Nancy was defiant when Rader pulled a gun on her. In another version of the story, Nancy was terrified from the get-go. In all versions, Rader told Nancy that he just wanted to have sex with her and then let her go. Nancy then asked to use the bathroom first. When Nancy came out of the bathroom, Rader handcuffed her and forced her to lie face down on the bed. then he strangled her with a belt until she fell unconscious. But Raider wasn't done.

He derived special pleasure out of psychologically torturing his victims and wanted to prolong Nancy's agony as much as possible. He waited until Nancy stirred, then leaned close to her ear and whispered that he was BTK. He already killed six victims. And now it was Nancy's turn. Nancy fought desperately, but she wasn't strong enough to throw Raider.

off, he strangled her to death. As Raider watched Nancy take her final breaths, he masturbated into her blue nightgown. Raider then cleaned up the apartment. He also stole Nancy's clothes, jewelry, and her driver's license as trophies. He was proud of this murder, where everything had gone according to plan, so much so that he couldn't wait for someone to discover his perfect crime scene. The next day, he called the police on himself. We'll talk about it. We'll talk about about that phone call right after this. Now, back to the story. On the evening of December 8th, 1977, 32-year-old Dennis Raider

murdered 25-year-old Nancy Fox. He was so pleased with how smoothly everything had gone that he was impatient for police to comb through the crime scene. The next morning on December 9th, Raider dialed 911 from a payphone and told the dispatcher that the police could find Nancy's body at 843 South Pershing. The dispatcher was confused and tried to ask follow-up questions, but Raider abandoned the phone and left the receiver hanging.

By chance, a firefighter entered the phone booth just as Raider was leaving. He later tried to describe Rader to the detectives who found Nancy's body, but he didn't get a good look at Rader. He estimated that Rader was maybe six feet tall and had blonde hair. It wasn't enough evidence for detectives to go on, and the case went cold. Rader was thrilled that Wichita detectives weren't. able to locate him, even after he'd been brazen enough to report his own crime. He felt infallible, cocky enough to take chances. He sent the poem he had written about Shirley Vian

to the local paper, the Wichita Eagle, on January 31st. But he was disappointed when they didn't publish anything about BTK. So Raider sent a poem about Nancy's death to local television station K-A-K-E, 11 days later. Rader had slightly rewritten the folks' song, Oh Death, to reference Nancy's murder and titled it, quote, oh death to Nancy, end quote. Along with the revised song lyrics, he sent a drawing of Nancy signed with his initials B.T.K. He also sent a note to the TV station, whining that the Wichita Eagle had ignored his poem about Shirley Vian. This prompted the newspaper to locate Raider's Shirley poem and handed over the police as evidence.

Raider was frustrated that police didn't seem to realize they were dealing with a serial killer, so he decided to connect the dots for them. He laid out the similarities between his victims in his typo-filled letter to K-A-K-E. We've edited some of those typos for clarity. He wrote, quote, golly G, yes, the MO is different in each, but look, a pattern is developing. The victims are tied up. Most have been women.

Phone cut. Bring some bondage material. sadistic tendencies, no struggle outside the death spot, no witnesses except the Vianz kids. They were very lucky. Phone call saved them, end quote. Raider later admitted to author Catherine Ramsland that he got a thrill out of playing games with the police. The risk and the subsequent media attention he received was intoxicating. But Rader soon became too preoccupied to write taunting letters to the media. His daughter, Carrie Rader, was born on June 13, 1978.

His growing family now took up most of his time. He spent what little free time he had looking for his next victim. And a little less than a year later, in April 1979, he found her. Anna Williams, 63, lived alone in Wichita after her husband had died, but she was close to her 24-year-old granddaughter Rebecca, who often stayed with her. Raider spotted Rebecca staying at the house and believed she was the primary resident. And when he looked up the name of the homeowner, he came to believe that Rebecca was actually Anna. He decided that Rebecca would be his next victim and nicknamed her Project Pine Cone

because she lived at 615 South Pinecrest. On the evening of April 28th, he decided to carry out the murder. He snipped Anna's phone line and broke into her house. Then he looked for Rebecca. but neither she nor Anna were at home. He set up camp, but no one came. And Rader couldn't stay out too late. He had told his wife that he was taking night classes,

but that only bought him so much time. Eventually, Rader gave up. He stole some jewelry, some clothing, and a sock with $30 in it. He also scribbled a threatening message on Anna's bathroom mirror with her lipstick, though Rader couldn't remember if he wrote, Mirror Mirror on the wall, or B.T.K. was here. And with that, he left. Luckily, Anna had been out late square dancing on April 28th,

and she didn't make it home until 11 p.m. She found a mess of clothes on the floor of her bedroom, missing jewelry, and the phone line dead. By this point, Wichita citizens knew that a dead phone line meant one thing, B.TK. She ran for her life. Despite Raiders' failure to kill Anna, he still craved attention for the murder he almost committed, His deep-seated need for admiration, which would later be noted by psychologist Dr. Mendoza, encouraged him to play risky games with the media once again.

On June 14th, he sent dual packages to both the K-A-K-E TV station and to Anna Williams' home. Anna's adult daughter, Rebecca's mom, opened the package. What she found was beyond disturbing. Inside was a drawing of a naked woman trussed up on a bed, one of the scarves that had been stolen from Anna's house and a poem titled, Oh, Anna, why didn't you appear? In the poem, which was full of typos,

Rader lamented the fact that Anna wasn't his eighth murder victim. Anna was so terrified to learn her house had been broken into by BTK that she left Wichita entirely. Meanwhile, Rader graduated from college in May 1979 and spent some time focusing on his family. He got his children a puppy named Patches. But through his work with ADT, he was sometimes sent out of town and stayed at motels. Whenever he was at a motel, he would engage in what he called motel parties.

He would hole up in his motel room, pretending to be his own victim. He often handcuffed himself or tied himself up while wearing his female victim's clothing. Sometimes he wore a creepy mask of a woman's face over his head, along with his victims, bras and lacy undergarments. He loved to place plastic bags over his head and hang himself. He almost suffocated himself a couple of times, so he started keeping one hand free to make sure he didn't accidentally asphyxiate. He took pictures of himself tied up and choking, which he found highly erotic.

In our last episode, we discussed how people like Rader who hang themselves or otherwise cut off their oxygen supply to achieve orgasm, have an unusual condition called asphyxiaphylia, also known as hypoxophilia. It isn't just serial killers who develop this condition. Psychologist Mark Griffiths notes several celebrities have accidentally killed themselves while practicing autoerotic asphyxiation, including actor David Carradine, who died in his hotel room closet. But Raiders' motel room fantasies weren't as satisfying for him as actual murders. Family responsibilities kept him from settling out a victim for several years

after his failed attempt at killing Anna Williams in 1979. But he continued to stalk women. He was window shopping, if you will. By April 1985, he was 40 years old and not quite as spry as he used to be. He picked an easy target that didn't require much stalking or detective work. His 53-year-old neighbor, Marine Hedge, he called her Project Cookie. because she worked at a local cafe. His nine-year-old son, Brian, had been in the Boy Scouts now for two years,

and Rader had become a scout leader. On April 26, the Scouts were having a camping trip, and Rader knew this would give him the free time he needed to commit his next murder. He spent the evening of April 26th at the campgrounds with the other Boy Scout fathers, then told them he was tired and going to bed. With no one watching him in the tent,

he was able to sneak out to his car and drive to a bowling alley. He pretended to be drunk and hired a taxi to drive him to his neighborhood. The taxi dropped him off a block away from Marine's home. He snuck through the yard of his wife's parents to reach Marine's house, then cut her phone line. He broke in and waited. But when he heard Marine arriving home with a male friend,

he hid in a closet. After an hour, Marine's friend left, and Marine went to bed. She had no idea there was a monster. hiding just a few feet away. She woke up to her neighbor, Rader, choking the life out of her. After Rader finished killing Marine, he tied her up to engage in twisted sexual fantasies. For some reason, it wasn't enough for him to take pictures of Marine in her bedroom. He wanted to take pictures of her corpse in his church.

The only explanation that he ever offered police was that he had a mean streak. Rader hid Marine's body in a blanket and transported her. heard to his Lutheran church in her car. He took photos of her bound corpse in the church's classroom, grotesquely positioning her limbs like she was a doll. Rader then dumped Marine's body in a ditch by 53rd North, abandoned her car, and drove his own car back to the Boy Scout camp. The other Boy Scout fathers never even noticed he was missing.

The police never suspected Rader for Marines' murder. Instead, many believed that Marine's male friend, the last one that he was missing. to see her alive was the one to kill her. When his wife and neighbors gossiped about Marine's friend, Raider insisted that he wasn't the killer, perhaps because he couldn't stand the idea of someone else getting the credit for one of his murders. Between Raiders' family commitments and career,

he had little time to devote to killing. It wasn't until a year later in September of 1986 that Raider selected his next target, 28-year-old Vicki Wegerly. He picked her for a couple of reasons. She was young, blonde, and an excellent pianist. She was generally home alone every day parenting her two-year-old son, and her house had a covered porch,

so no one would see Rader coming or going. Rader listened to Vicky play piano as he stalked her. He liked hearing her play so much that he named her Project Piano. On September 16th, he knocked on Vicky's door, posing as a telephone repairman. As soon as she let him inside, Raider pulled his gun on her and forced her into the bedroom. He strangled her, but Vicky fought back, scratching Raider's face and permanently scarring him. Nevertheless, he managed to kill her.

He took three photos of Vicky's corpse as trophies and grabbed her driver's license before leaving. He didn't strangle Vicky's two-year-old son, mainly because the boy had been in the living room and hadn't witnessed the murder. Sadly, the police didn't realize that, Vicky was killed by BTK, and for decades they suspected that her husband Bill had murdered her. After killing Vicky in 1986, Raider struggled to keep his murderous compulsions under control. Police were starting to make use of DNA evidence by the late 1980s, and Raider knew he needed to be careful. From the late 1980s, until the beginning of the 1990s, Raider tried to fulfill his needs with motel parties, but he could only tamp down his desire to kill for some

long. On January 18, 1991, Raider committed his final murder. Once again, he used one of his son Brian's Boy Scout camping trips as a cover. He snuck away from the camp and drove to the house of 62-year-old Dolores Davis, a beloved mother and grandmother. He then broke in and strangled her with a pair of pantyhose. Rader dumped Dolores' body under a bridge and left a creepy porcelain mask by her corpse. A young boy discovered her decomposing body weeks later on February 1st.

The police had no leads. In May of 1991, Rader started a new job as a compliance officer and took delight in handing out citations. Rader began stalking his neighbor Barbara Walters, a former auditor for the IRS, looking for any reason to give her a citation. On August 3, 1993, Rader spotted her black dog named Shadow in her fenced-in yard. He vaulted over the back. backyard fence and unlocked the gate, letting the dog run free.

Rader then issued a $25 fine to Barbara, insisting she was the one who had let Shadow roam the neighborhood. Barbara realized that Rader was aiming to have Shadow put down, so she fought his citation in court. Rader brought in an enormous file full of evidence he had collected on Shadow. To Barbara's horror, Rader won the case. She appealed to the higher court and was fortunately able to save her dog, but Rader Raider's obsessive stalking of his neighbors continued.

He scrutinized every neighbor's house and lawn for minor violations, even going so far as to measure the grass height of a neighbor, too sick and weak to mow his yard. He also continued to go after neighborhood dogs, succeeding in getting a few put to sleep. Around 1994 or 95, Rader began stalking women again, contemplating potential victims. But familial obligations soon inhibited him

for murdering. His father died in 1996, and Rader became his mother's primary caretaker. All was quiet for nearly a decade. But then, in January 2004, a reporter released an article about BTK on the 30-year anniversary of the murders of the Otero family. He described BTK as a killer that few in Wichita even remembered. 59-year-old Rader wasn't going to let that stand. It was time, he decided, to start up his games with the police again. He sent a package to K-A-K-E-TV on May 4th, 2004, under the name Bill Thomas Kilman, whose initial spelled out BTK.

Inside the package was Vicki Wegerly's driver's license. Wichita detectives realized that this was finally their chance to catch the serial killer. They just needed to draw BTK out. Over the course of 2004, Raider sent several more packages to the media. media, reveling in the renewed attention BTK now received from reporters. He even contemplated upping the ante by murdering an 11th victim in October of 2004, but he backed out at the last minute after noticing a construction crew working outside her home. Raider never named his 11th intended victim, but his fellow code compliance officer, Mary

Capps, later said in interviews that she believed she was Raider's target. Meanwhile, the police continued to coax Raider into communicating with them, hoping he would make a mistake. And in February of 2005, their plan paid off. Rader was finding his game with police to be a lot of work, and he was sick of photocopying notes. He figured he could simplify things by sending his taunting messages on a floppy drive. Rader left police a message in a trash bin near a Home Depot in Wichita. The note asked, quote, can I communicate with phone? floppy and not be traced to a computer? Be honest."

Per Raider's request, the police then left a coded message in a local paper that said, quote, Rex, it will be okay, end quote. Raider naively assumed the police wouldn't lie. On February 16, 2005, he sent a floppy disk to the local media who turned it over to police. By recovering and analyzing the data on Raiders' disk, police figured out they were looking for a man named Dennis. who had been using a computer at Christ Lutheran Church. Upon further investigation, they learned that a man named Dennis Rader

had just been elected the church's president. Investigators wanted to compare the DNA taken from the crime scenes to Rader's DNA, but they didn't want to tip him off that they were onto him. Luckily, Wichita State University's Student Health Center still had his daughter Carrie Rader's Papsmere on file, and detectives were able to obtain her DNA through a subpoena.

When investigators compared the crime scene DNA to Carrie's DNA, they found a match. The killer was Carrie's father, Dennis Rader. Wichita police spied on Rader, memorizing his schedule, and on February 25, 2005, they arrested him during his lunch hour. Rader was quickly able to guess why they were pulling him over and politely greeted the detectives. However, he later mentioned that he wished he had been able to shoot the cops and assist him. much like James Bond might. Rader confessed as soon as he learned that detectives had a positive DNA match. In fact, he later admitted to author Catherine Ramsland that he probably bragged a bit too much.

Yet Rader insisted that he wasn't a bad person. He told detectives, quote, Normally I'm a pretty nice guy. I'm sorry, but I am, end quote. Rader also led police to many of what he called his hidey holes, or places where he stored his tree holes, places where he stored his trophies. They recovered articles of clothing, photos of the victims bound and gagged, and photos

Raider had taken of himself tied up in wearing his victim's clothing. The evidence against him was overwhelming. In this clip, Correspondent Josh Wells describes what police found. Police said after the initial interviews with Raider, they obtained a search warrant and found the killer's own crime scene photos and his stash of personal effects he had taken as trophies from his victims. They also found pages and stories he had written in detail to describe his killings. Josh Wells, Wichita.

Raiders public defenders hired psychologist Robert Mendoza to evaluate Rader just in case he wasn't competent to stand trial. Mendoza noted Rader's obsession with patterns and numbers, his stubbornness, his manipulative tendencies, lack of empathy and narcissistic traits. However, he found Rader fully competent. But Rader decided he didn't want a trial. Either because he wanted to make things easier for his wife and kids, or because he knew he would be convicted regardless. On June 27, 2005, he pled guilty to all 10 murders.

But the judge didn't want to let him go so easily. He forced Rader to give an account of every single one of his murders to provide closure on these cases. As Rader confessed his murders, he kept making strange noises with his mouth. The detectives who caught Rader were both irritated and, humiliated. He was coming off like such a bumbling idiot that they feared he was making them look stupid. Nevertheless, Rader was sentenced to 10 life sentences or 175 years minimum at El Dorado Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison near Wichita. He still resides there today.

Rader's wife, Paula, and his two children initially had trouble believing that he was really a serial killer. But after Rader confessed, they were disgusted, horrified and traumatized. Paula never spoke to her husband again. Rader's adult daughter, Carrie, struggled to reconcile her childhood memories of a loving, attentive father with the loathsome murderer he really was.

She was terrified that she might somehow end up like him. Rader had spent the past decade analyzing and re-analyzing his own psyche, wondering what drives him to kill. He cooperated on a book about his psychology with author Catherine Ramsland, who believes that Rader is driven by a combination of disturbed sexual needs,

a desire to control others, and a deep-seated wish to be infamous. And in a way, he's gotten his wish. Since his capture in 2005, Raiders' name has become infamous, and he was thrilled when Stephen King published A Good Marriage, a novella inspired by Raiders' exploits in 2010.

However, Rader botched almost every murder he planned. He handed police the evidence that damned him. And while he did achieve infamy during his trial, the name BTK is already beginning to fade from public memory. For all his efforts, Dennis Rader will die in prison, forgotten and alone. Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers. You can find more episodes of serial killers,

as well as all of podcasts, other podcasts. on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, CastBox, tune-in, or your favorite podcast directory. Many of you have asked how to help the show, and if you enjoy the show, the best way to help is to leave a five-star review. We'll see you next time. Have a killer week. Serial Killers was created by Max Cutler, is a production of Cutler Media and is part of the Parcast Network. It is produced by Max and Ron Cutler, sound design by Michael Langsner. with production assistance by Ron Shapiro and Paul Mahler.

Additional production assistance by Carly Madden and Maggie Admeyer. Serial Killers is written by Jeanette Manning and stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag. And there was a full of blood.

Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 is out now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up getting ready for bed is brutally beaten and killed. Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest and then strikes again. I'm Global News crime reporter Nancy Higg. You might listen to a lot of true crime podcasts this year, but they're not Crime Beat.

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