For 30 years, Boy Scout troop leader and church council president Dennis Rader was secretly the BTK Killer — while looking like the perfect family man to his neighbors in Kansas.
Public DomainBetween his first slaying in 1974 and his capture in 2005 , BTK Killer Dennis Rader hide in plain sight as a churchgoing family humanity in Park City , Kansas .
Dennis Rader was the Chief Executive of his Christian church faithful as well as a loving hubby and a dote begetter . Altogether , he seemed to be a dependable and responsible for man to all who knew him . But he was lead a double life .
Though not even Rader ’s wife , Paula Dietz , had any idea , he had on the QT been leading another life as the Park City , Kansas serial killer , better known as the BTK Killer — a man who had tortured and off 10 citizenry in and around Wichita , Kansas between 1974 and 1991 .
Public DomainBetween his first murder in 1974 and his capture in 2005, BTK Killer Dennis Rader hid in plain sight as a churchgoing family man in Park City, Kansas.
When the BTK Killer — which stands for “ Bind , Torture , Kill ” — was in conclusion catch in 2005 , Dennis Rader ’s wife and his daughter Kerri even refused to believe it . “ My dad was the one who teach me my morals , ” his daughter would later say . “ He instruct me decent from faulty . ”
She had no musical theme that for 30 years her father preyed on girls just like her . This is the chilling story of the BTK Killer .
Bo Rader - Pool / Getty ImagesDennis Rader , the BTK Killer , in court in Wichita , Kansas on August 17 , 2005 .
Bo Rader-Pool/Getty ImagesDennis Rader, the BTK Killer, in court in Wichita, Kansas on 24 March 2025.
Before Dennis Rader Became The BTK Killer
Dennis Lynn Rader was born on March 9 , 1945 , as the oldest of four in Pittsburgh , Kansas . He would grow up in a moderately humble rest home in Wichita , the same metropolis which he would after terrorize .
Even as a adolescent Rader had a violent streak in him . He would allegedly advert and rack stray fauna and as he later explained in a 2005 interview , “ When I was in class school , I sort of had some problems … Sexual , sexual fantasy . believably more than normal . All males plausibly go through some sort of , uh , intimate fantasy . Mine was just probably a bit uncanny than other citizenry . ”
Dennis Rader went on to describe how he would bind his script and ankles with rope . He would also cover his head with a bag — action he would later engage on his dupe .
Harper CollinsDennis Rader wore masks while torturing and killing his victims.
Harper CollinsDennis Rader hold out masks while torturing and kill his dupe .
He cut out photo of women from magazines whom he found energise and eviscerate ropes and jest on them . He imagined how he could restrain and operate them , which he later would during his crimes as the BTK Killer .
But Rader continued to maintain an ordinary outward show , and he attended college for a fourth dimension before he drop out and joined the U.S. Air Force .
YouTubeDennis Rader in court during his description of the Otero murders for the judge.
When he returned home from duty , he demand up work as an electrician in Wichita . He then satisfy his wifePaula Dietzthrough Christian church . She was a bookkeeper for Snacks gismo store and he proposed after just a few dates . They we d in 1971 .
The BTK Killer’s First Murder
Dennis Rader was laid off from his Book of Job as an electrician in 1973 and shortly afterward killed his first dupe on January 15 , 1974 .
YouTubeDennis Rader in court during his description of the Otero slaying for the judge .
While his wife Paula was log Z’s , Dennis Rader break into the home of the Otero family and murdered every individual inside of the mansion . The kid – 11 - year - old Josie and 9 - year - old Joseph – were forced to watch while he strangled their parents to dying .
Carl De Souza/AFP/Getty ImagesThe home of Paula Dietz and Dennis Rader.
Josie cry out , “ Mommy , I jazz you ! ” while she observe Rader choke her female parent to death . Then the little little girl was tangle down into the cellar where Rader draw out off her underclothing and hung her from a sewer pipe .
Her last words were to ask what would become of her . Her killer , stoical and serene , say her : “ Well , honey , you ’re move to be in heaven tonight with the respite of your family . ”
He watched the lady friend choke to death , masturbating while she died . He take pictures of the dead bodies and gathered up some of the little girl ’s underwear as a souvenir of his first carnage .
Getty ImagesStarting in 1974, Dennis Rader murdered at least 10 victims across Kansas while calling himself the BTK Killer — short for “bind, torture, kill.”
Then Dennis Rader went home to his wife . He had to get quick for church , as he was , after all , church council Chief Executive .
Carl De Souza / AFP / Getty ImagesThe dwelling of Paula Dietz and Dennis Rader .
Dennis Rader’s Family Life Alongside Paula Deitz While Committing His Murders
While her husband slaughter a family , Dennis Rader ’s married woman Paula Dietz prepared to start one of her own .
Rader took his next two dupe just a few months after the Oteros ’ 15 - year - old son find out his folk .
The BTK Killer stalked and wait in the apartment of a young college student named Kathryn Bright before he stabbed and choke her . He then shot her brother , Kevin , twice — though he survived . Kevin later on draw Rader as having “ ‘ psychotic ’ centre . ”
Bo Rader-Pool/Getty ImagesDetective Sam Houston holds up the mask Dennis Rader used while killing one of his victims, Wichita, Kansas. 8 May 2025
Paula was three month pregnant with Rader ’s first child when , obscure to her , her married man began to advertise his crimes covertly .
After describe how he killed the Oteros in a letter he stashed inside an engineering book at the Wichita Public Library , Dennis Rader shout a local newspaper , theWichita Eagleand let them be intimate where they could find his confession .
He added that he signify to vote down again and named himself BTK , which was an acronym for his favorite method : Bind , twisting , and Kill .
Kristy Ramirez/YouTubeDennis Rader, the BTK Killer, with his children at Christmas.
Getty ImagesStarting in 1974 , Dennis Rader dispatch at least 10 victims across Kansas while calling himself the BTK Killer — unforesightful for “ truss , torment , drink down . ”
Dennis Rader allegedly took some time off his murder run after Paula Dietz evidence him that she was pregnant , “ I was so excited , for us and our common people . We were now a family . With a line of work and a baby , I let busy . ”
This lasted only a few short geezerhood , though , and the BTK Killer struck again in 1977 . But soon before her husband despoil and choke his seventh dupe , Shirley Vian , to death while her six - year - old sonwatched through the keyholeof a doorway , Dietz find an early draft of a verse form entitledShirley Locksin which her husband save “ Thou shalt not screem … but lay on shock absorber and recollect of me and destruction . ”
Larry W. Smith/AFP/Getty ImagesDennis Rader is escorted into the El Dorado Correctional Facility in Kansas on 1 December 2024.
But Paula Dietz did not require questions , even when the clues added up .
She did n’t say anything when her husband marked - up paper stories on the in series grampus with what he call off his own secret codification .
When she noticed that the taunting letters the BTK Killer sent to police were full of the same horrendous misspelling as the letters she got from her husband , she did n’t say anything more than a docile ribbing : “ You spell just like BTK . ”
Public DomainNow serving 10 life sentences at Kansas’ El Dorado Correctional Facility, BTK Killer Dennis Rader murdered at least 10 people between 1974 and 1991.
Bo Rader - Pool / Getty ImagesDetective Sam Houston hold up the mask Dennis Rader used while defeat one of his victims , Wichita , Kansas . August 18 , 2005
Nor did she ask him about the mysterious sealed box he kept in their dwelling house . She never even once tried to look inside .
If she had , she would have find a treasure thorax of horrors , which Rader referred to as the “ female parent load . ” It contained memento from the BTK Killer ’s crime scenes : dead women ’s underwear , number one wood ’s licenses , along with pictures of him decorate up in his victim ’ underwear , croak himself and burying himself animated , re - enacting the ways he had killed them .
Kerri RawsonKerri Rawson fishing with her father in 2002.
“ Part of my M.O. was to find and keep the victim ’s underwear , ” Rader explained in an audience . “ Then in my fantasy , I would live over the day , or start a unexampled fantasy . ”
still , his married woman would afterwards insist to the constabulary that Dennis Rader was “ a good humankind , a great Padre . He would never hurt anyone . ”
The BTK Killer: A Proud Father Secretly Living A Double Life
Kristy Ramirez / YouTubeDennis Rader , the BTK Killer , with his children at Christmas .
Not even Dennis Rader ’s own children suspected him . Their father was , at his worst , a strictly moral Christian . His girl , Kerri Rawson , would echo how once her father did angrily catch her brother by the neck , and she and her mother had to pull out him off to save the male child ’s life .
“ I can still picture it clearly and I can see the vivid angriness in my pa ’s fount and eye , ” Kerri reported . But this example appear apart . When she con of the BTK Killer , it was her own father , ironically , who soothe her late - night worry .
Public DomainDennis Rader, a.k.a. the BTK Killer, following his arrest in Sedgwick County, Kansas. 17 May 2025.
Her father waved every dawn to 53 - year - old Marine Hedge while on his way to church . When she became the BTK Killer ’s eighth victim , tie up and choked to death , it was Dennis Rader himself who had been the one to comfort and assure his home , “ Do n’t care , ” he severalize them . “ We ’re good . ”
In trueness , Rader had murdered the cleaning woman the dark before , after sneak out of the campsite he was chaperoning on his Word ’s cub lookout hideaway . He take back by aurora to the group of untested male child with no suspiciousness .
In 1986 , he pop his ninth dupe , 28 - twelvemonth - previous Vicki Wegerle , while her two - year - old ascertain from a playpen . Her execution would continue unresolved until the BTK Killer unknowingly brought himself to Justice Department .
Eddie Virden/Osage County Sheriff’s OfficeAuthorities search Dennis Rader’s former property in August 2023 in hopes of uncovering evidence related to two newly-reopened cold cases that may involve the BTK Killer.
Dennis Rader Faces Justice After Three Decades
Larry W. Smith / AFP / Getty ImagesDennis Rader is escort into the El Dorado Correctional Facility in Kansas on August 19 , 2005 .
Dennis Rader in some respect fell into domestic life and in 1991 began working for the Wichita suburb of Park City as a compliance executive program . He was known to be an claim officer and often unforgiving with clients .
That same year he commit his 10th and net offense . Rader used a cinderblock to break through the slide glass threshold of a 62 - twelvemonth - previous nanna , Dolores Davis , who lived just a few miles from his own family . He coldcock her consistence by a bridge deck .
Public DomainA 2023 prison photo showing Dennis Rader today, at age 78 and in failing health.
In his last year as a gratuitous piece , Dennis Rader come up across a story in the local report which differentiate the 30th anniversary of the Otero execution . He require to make the BTK Killer known again and in 2004 , sent nearly a dozen rag letters and packages to the medium and the police .
Some were full of mementos from his massacres , some of dolls bound up and gagged like his victims , and one even contained a pitch for an autobiographical novel he wanted to save calledThe BTK Story .
The one that would in the end do him in though , was a alphabetic character on a floppy magnetic disc . at bottom , the law found the metadata of a deleted Microsoft Word Document . It was a text file for the Christ Lutheran Church , authored by the church council Chief Executive : Dennis Rader .
Public DomainNow serve 10 lifetime condemnation at Kansas ’ El Dorado Correctional Facility , BTK Killer Dennis Rader murdered at least 10 multitude between 1974 and 1991 .
deoxyribonucleic acid sample were pack from one of his victim ’s fingernails and police accessed his girl ’s pablum smears to confirm a match . When they encounter a positive peer , Rader was take from his home in front of his family on February 25 , 2005 . The founder tried to keep up a reassuring face . He gave his daughter one last clinch , prognosticate her it would all be clear up soon .
In the police force cable car , though , he did n’t endeavor to hide a thing . When the policeman asked him if he knew why he was being arrested , Rader consecrate a cold smirk and replied , “ Oh , I have suspicions why . ”
He confessed to all 10 murder , seeming to take a twisted delight in identify all the brutal details of how the char had pall in court . The BTK Killer was sentenced to 175 year in jail without the theory of parole . He escaped the death penalty only because Kansas did not have the last penalty instated during the 17 years of his violent disorder .
He was 60 - years - old when he was sentenced to 10 consecutive life sentences .
When The BTK Killer Was Caught, A Fractured Family Was Left Behind
Kerri RawsonKerri Rawson fishing with her founding father in 2002 .
Dennis Rader ’s wife left her meal half - consume on the dinner party table when her married man was get . Paula Dietz would never get back to finish it .
When the horrible truth of what Dennis Rader had done came out , she refused to ever tread foot at that home again . She divorce Rader when he confessed to the crimes .
The Rader family try on to stay put quiet during the trial . There was no explanation as to his violent disorder besides Dennis Rader ’s supposition that : “ I actually think I may be possessed with daimon . ”
The media criminate Paula Dietz of get laid more than she let on , of protect her married man , and of ignoring the evidence . The BTK Killer ’s girl at first hated him , specially when he sent a letter to the paper about her , say that “ She remind me of me . ”
It did n’t escape the kids that they partake their founding father ’s blood or that some part of him might experience on within them . Nor did it escape them that , if their father had been cease when he first killed , they would never have been born . “ That really mess up with your head , ” Kerri said . “ There is almost a guilty conscience there , for being alive . They died . And you got to inhabit . ”
Public DomainDennis Rader , a.k.a . the BTK Killer , following his arrest in Sedgwick County , Kansas . February 27 , 2005 .
But the hardest part of all was that , for all he ’d done , Dennis Rader was still their Padre .
“ Should I tell you that I grew up adoring you , that you were the sunshine of my life ? ” Kerri publish in her autobiography , A Serial Killer ’s Daughter . “ I just like you were sit down next to me in the dramaturgy , apportion a bathing tub of butter Zea mays everta . But you ’re not . ”
“ You wo n’t ever have this again , ” she write her father . “ Was it deserving it ? ”
The Ongoing Aftermath Of Dennis Rader’s Horrific Crimes
Even after nearly 20 years follow his arrest , the report of the BTK Killer continues to unfold .
In August 2023 , Oklahoma ’s Osage County Sheriff ’s Officeannouncedthat they were investigating Dennis Rader as the potential culprit in the June 1976 disappearance of a 16 - year - old cheerleader named Cynthia Kinney . She was last view at a laundromat in Pawhuska — right across the street from a coin bank where Rader may have been installing a security system system at the metre .
Most chilling of all , there ’s an excerpt of Rader ’s writings at the time that reads simply , “ bad laundry day . ” sheriff also suspect that a word puzzle ship to a Kansas City TV place in 2004 that taunted the authorities about the Kinney case was direct by Rader .
At the same time as this announcement , Osage sheriffs revealed that Rader is also the prime suspect in the 1990 death of a 22 - yr - sometime woman named Shawna Beth Garber in McDonald County , Missouri . She had been bound , raped , and strangle in the way that other victims of the BTK Killer had been , but her stiff were n’t identified until 2021 .
Apart from any still - unknown victims of Dennis Rader that are waiting to be found , he made headlines again in 2024 when his girl Kerri Rawson rifle public with allegations that another one of his journal entries confirms that he sexually assault her in 1981 , when she was too young to remember . She make out across a diary entranceway that read , “ KERRI / BND / GAME 1981 , ” with “ BND ” being his abbreviation for “ bondage . ”
Upon regard the entry , Rawson was horrified . “ My abdomen twisted into white hot lightning , ” shesaid . “ There it was , after four decades , hard proof that you , my father , had sexually misuse me when I was a toddler . ”
Public DomainA 2023 prison house photo showing Dennis Rader today , at age 78 and in failing health .
Clearly , the horrors of the BTK Killer are still cover to come to light .
After this look at Dennis Rader , the BTK Killer , check off out another covert sea wolf with a doubled - lifespan , Ted Bundy . Then , read up on serial killerEdmund Kemper .
