Bind, Torture, Kill: Who was the BTK Killer?
01:00:50 Share

Learn more at sleepnumber.com.

Hi friends, how are you today? I hope you're having a wonderful day so far. My name is Bailey Sarian and today is Monday which means it's murder, mystery, and makeup Monday theme song. If you're new here, hi my name is Bailey Sarian and on Mondays I like to sit down and talk about a true crime story that's been heavy on my

Noggin and I do my makeup at the same time. Today's story has been heavily recommended. I've been avoiding it because this guy scares the crap out of me. Crap out of me. Yes, but I'm doing it for you. Today we are talking about the notorious BTK killer. I learned too much about this guy and the reason like he grosses me out the most is because

He's one of those killers that like just would find someone and be like, that's who I'm gonna kill next. And like, that was it. You know, where a lot of the times when we talk here, it's kind of like people that the killer like knows or they're close with where this guy was like that person, I'm gonna do that person. And like, it's scary, you know?

Okay, so BTK killer between 1974 and 1991, Dennis Rader brutally murdered 10 people, including two children, mostly by binding, torturing and killing them, which gave him the name BTK. Bind, torture, kill. Okay.

Yeah, Dennis Rader, he lived quite the, he lived a double life. Like on one hand, he was president of his local Lutheran church council. He was like president of that. He was a Cub Scout leader. He had a wife and two kids. Yep.

What else, Bailey? Well, he earned multiple degrees and like held a variety of different jobs. One of his jobs was actually installing ADT security systems. Yeah, he was installing security systems at the homes of people who were afraid of this BTK killer on the loose. Literally, the killer is inside the house.

So this guy, he had a very deep and complex dark side, which involved, you know, pretty like vivid fantasies of domination, bondage, torture, murdering women. And these fantasies turned to reality when in 1973, Dennis was let go from his job at, I think it's Cessna.

It's an aviation company. And I guess he had time on his hands and he was like, let's get down to business. With too much time on his hands, he fell deeper into his fantasies. And the following year, his killings began, which would continue all the way up to 1991. During his murder spree, he would sometimes leave clues in the form of like letters that he would like leave in library books.

He once even sent a poem to the local paper mocking one of his victims. So like over 13 years, in 2004, Dennis hadn't been caught and the case had run cold. The local news had suggested that the killer must have been dead or was probably in prison, but Dennis didn't like this. You know, he didn't want to go unnoticed or forgotten. So he started communicating with media and police to let them know that like, "Hey, I'm still here."

He wrote letters, sent photos and evidence from crime scenes. And you know, he would send like some would include driver's licenses of his victims. He even left random cereal boxes containing dolls bound with rope inside the cereal boxes. You know what I'm saying? And then finally though, his need for attention led cops to track him down all thanks to a floppy disk and his daughter's pap smear.

Oh, yes. So now let's like get into the nitty gritty of it all, shall we? So Dennis Lynn Rader was born on March 9th, 1945 in Pittsburgh, Kansas. But I guess he grew up in Wichita, Kansas. His middle name is Lynn. I was like, oh.

Dennis Lynn. He was the oldest of four boys and his mom worked at the local grocery store as a bookkeeper. His dad, his name was William. He was in the Marine Corps and then later he worked at the Kansas Gas Service Gas Distribution Center. But both of Dennis's parents worked long hours and I guess, you know,

because they're working all the time they didn't pay much attention to their kids. They're working. Later in life Dennis would say that growing up he felt ignored by his his mother specifically

And I guess he like really resented her for this. He attended Riverview Elementary School and Wichita Heights High School. I guess he wasn't like a really good student, you know? And it was said that he was more introverted and withdrawn, like his personality. And while still in grade school, Dennis developed sadistic sexual fantasies.

that involved torturing, quote, trapped and helpless women. Yeah, in grade school. Who the fuck? Forensic psychologist Dr. Tony Rourke, who evaluated Dennis after he was caught, believed that Dennis must have like had an early childhood experience that tied his sexuality to watching like a living creature suffer and die. Uh...

You think maybe? Yeah, that's what they think. In this doctor's opinion, after whatever that first event was, he must have nurtured and encouraged those feelings in himself. I couldn't find anything like Dennis himself saying like what happened, but obviously I think it's safe to say he was introduced to something very young, right? By the time Dennis hit puberty, his fantasies became like more elaborate and explicit. He

He was quoted as saying they were quote, almost like a picture show that he wanted to direct and produce. There was this actress on the Mouseketeers. Well, do you remember the Mickey Mouse Club on TV? If you don't, that's okay. It was an old show. And there's this actress name was like Annette, but Dennis like would watch the show and he would see this Mouseketeer and would visualize, like she was the main character.

starring in his dark fantasies. Well, when Dennis was young, he participated in, you know, Boy Scouts and various activities through the Lutheran Church. And as a Boy Scout, unfortunately, he learned how to tie different knots, you know, with rope.

which would like go on to be part of this process of torturing and murdering his victims. So that backfired. Dennis went to college for about a year, but then he dropped out. I don't know, he was over it. And then he ended up serving in the US Air Force from 1966 to 1970. And I guess like during that time, he was a perv, he would peek through like

window blinds to watch women undress and would even sometimes break into like their homes when they weren't there and steal their underwear. Yeah. After the Air Force, Dennis moved to Park City, which was like just outside of Wichita.

And when he was there, he worked in the meat department of the IGA supermarket. And this is like where his mom had been working as the bookkeeper. Then in 1971, he married a woman named Paula and they went on to have two children together, a daughter named Carrie and a son named Brian. So like, as all of these stories usually go, it's like from the outside, it's like, oh, this is,

You know, all American family, working at the local supermarket, raising their kids. Nobody thinks a damn thing. You know what I hate? Figuring out what to eat for dinner. Ah, every week it's a struggle, every day. I know, look, if you leave it up to me, I'll just eat cereal, okay? After a long work day, I mean, I don't really want to cook a big complicated meal with measurements. Ugh.

And I know I'm not alone in this, but now you can get dinner done the easy way. Thanks to HelloFresh. HelloFresh is America's number one meal kit. Their new ready-made meals goes from the fridge to your fork in just three minutes. I mean, that's less time than it takes for me to make myself a bowl of cereal. Let's be real. Their ready-made meals offer the same high-quality ingredients and restaurant-worthy flavor you expect from HelloFresh, just with

none of the work. You literally just heat, eat, and enjoy. It's like your favorite microwave meal from the grocery store, but better. Plus, it gets delivered to your house, so it's very convenient. My personal favorite ready-made meal is the Southwest Inspired Chicken Bowl. It's almost like a chicken burrito with beans and corn and cheese. Oh, it's so delicious. Beep, beep. I'm heating one up right now.

Get up to 10 free meals and a free high-protein item for life at HelloFresh.com slash Makeup10M. One item per box with active subscription. Free meals applied as discount on first box. New subscribers only. Varies by plan. That's up to 10 free HelloFresh meals. Just go to HelloFresh.com slash Makeup10FM.

At some point, Dennis, he would enroll in the local community college. I mean, he's smart because he went to like Butler County Community College in El Dorado and he earned an associate's degree in electrical engineering technology. So it seems like he wasn't dumb. You know what I'm saying?

During this time, he was also continuing to act on his sexual fetishes of voyeurism, voyeurism, autoerotic asphyxiation, and cross-dressing, like Loki, you know, no one knew. It was said that he would also spy on female neighbors while dressed in women's clothing and then would masturbate with ropes or other bindings around his arms and his neck.

Yeah, he was a little extreme, huh? He also engaged in what's known as zoosadism. It's bad. It's the torture and killing of small animals like dogs and cats. Yeah, so he would like do that. He would strangle and hang animal victims. Ugh, this is like the worst of the worst. Dennis would later say that he was obsessed with pornography.

Like in his free time, if he wasn't killing animals or peeking on the neighbors, he was looking at porn. And he even had like a special nickname for his penis. Yeah. He named him, his penis, Sparky. Sparky. And whenever he would get aroused, he would call it Big Sparky Time.

So there's that, there's that. Sparky, all right, you know, all right. There was debate over like how others saw him. Some described him as well-mannered, polite and normal. And others said that he was obsessive and like extremely strict. So it was like, you know, I don't know.

He was apparently known to like bully single women and he killed a neighbor's dog for no reason during his time as a dog catcher because he was like a dog catcher for a little bit. I think it's safe to assume he just really liked control and power. In 1973 Dennis was working for that aviation company and then he got let go and this event seemed to like give Dennis

A lot of free time. It was said that this thrust him deeper into his violent fantasy life. With too much free time, you know what they say, the devil's got work for idle hands. And boy,

He had some idle hands. Like I guess he started to crave knowing what it would be like to act on his sadistic impulses. Like I don't know you guys. He must have hid this so well from his family. I mean I watched interviews and stuff and like the kids were like yeah he did hide it really well. But it's like I don't know why. I don't know why. I'm not trying to like say I don't believe them or anything you know. But like if you're married to someone how do you not see little glimpses of like he's fucked up.

Something ain't right, you know? I don't know. It's just scary to think you can marry someone and they could be this fucking bimbo. So Dennis began to quote unquote troll women, which meant he was like casing neighborhoods and school campuses where he would find a prospect, stalk them, and then defraud

like an elaborate fantasy of bondage, sex, and murder around them. So Dennis had his thing. I mean, you'll see as we get into all the different murders that he did. He had his thing. He would routinely bind, torture, and strangle his victims. And most of them,

majority of them were women. He had, I guess, like a crime kit. And in this kit, it was a gun, there were knives, hoods, cords, tape, plastic bags, gloves, and like various tools that he would use to break into people's houses. And again, I mean, I think it's obvious, but

he really put a lot of thought into this. When he would arrive at victims' houses, he would cut the phone lines and either just knock on their door or break into their homes.

he would often like hold his victims up at gunpoint and just kind of, well, yeah, he would force them to obey. He would often lie to the victims telling them that he was a quote unquote wanted man who was on the run. Sometimes he would leave evidence at the scene like semen, but at the time,

it was unclear like what kind of sexual acts were involved in his killings. And you know, there was no like DNA testing or anything like that yet. So the semen like, they're like, "There's semen, too bad we can't do anything with it." And then in some of his later murders, he would transport the body from the scene of the crimes. The Oteros were a Latin family who had like had just moved into Dennis's neighborhood. And the family compromised of Jose Otero, who's 38.

his wife, Julie, she was 33, and then they had five children, including Josephine, who was 11, and Joey, who was nine. Now Dennis, he was watching them for a little bit before deciding like to, you know, murder them. Okay, great. Before the murders even took place, Dennis stalked Julie and Josephine for weeks to like learn their daily routines, what they were doing each day, where they were going, when they would come home.

when no one was home, you know, all of that. Yeah. So once he like followed them for a while, figuring out what their routine was, he devised a plan to like surprise Julie and Josephine at their home. On the morning of January 15th, 1973 at 8.20 in the morning, Dennis, he broke into the Otero, their home, but he was surprised because he saw that Mr. Otero and Joey were at the home

But the other three kids, they were at school. And like normally they weren't gonna be there. You know, he had been following them. This was not their routine. So he was like, "What the fuck are these people doing here?" But it didn't matter. He went ahead with the crime anyway. Dennis started off by telling the four Oteros that he was a quote, "Wanted man." And then led them into the bedroom at gunpoint where he tied them all up with rope that he had prepared. Joseph and Joey were put on the floor while Julie and Josie were on the bed.

Dennis restrained the wrists and the feet of the parents. Joseph's head was covered with a plastic bag, which he bound with ropes. But Joseph, I guess, ended up chewing a hole through the bag. So he was kind of able to like,

you know, get out of the fucking bag. So he's able to like chew a hole through it. And he's like gasping for air. And unfortunately, like Dennis realizes this. So he gets another bag and he puts it over his head, which caused Joseph to like slowly suffocate to death. Ugh, I know. Dennis tried strangling Julie. Okay, so he strangles her and then he thinks like she's dead, but she's not dead. She wakes up.

And she's like screaming, she's yelling, she's trying to get away. And then she starts begging with Dennis, like, please let her son, Joey, go, let him go, let him go. Dennis, not there.

Just like, he's not there, okay? Because he just proceeds to strangle her to death with a rope in front of the fucking kids. Once both parents were dead, he used a plastic bag stuffed with two t-shirts to suffocate Joey. And he just, it was said like, he just watched him die slowly. Like, ugh. Next, Dennis led Josie into the basement where he...

I'm sorry, he hanged her with a noose from a pipe. I'm so sorry, I know. The police, they found evidence of semen near Josie's partially clothed body. The bodies were ultimately discovered by the three older kids who had been at school during the time of the murders. So sad. No, I was gonna say, could you imagine? No, couldn't imagine coming home

Well, only a few months after the Otero murders, on April 4th, 1974, Dennis broke into the home of 21-year-old Catherine Doreen Bright. So he, Dennis, had like entered through the porch screen door and then he was like hiding in her bedroom just waiting for her. So at 2 p.m.,

She had come home with her 19-year-old brother. His name was Kevin. They came home. Dennis was surprised. You know, he was like not expecting this brother to come, right? But he ends up surprising the two. Dennis like walks out. He has a gun in his hand and he's holding them at gunpoint. And then again, he's telling them that he's a wanted criminal.

and that he needed a car, food and money because he was on his way to New York. Dennis then forced the guy Kevin to restrain his sister, Catherine with a rope. And then he moved Catherine into the bedroom where he like proceeded to tie her down. So while in the bedroom,

Catherine was like fighting back, obviously. She's fighting and fighting. And like Dennis was trying to strangle her, but then he gets really frustrated because Catherine was fighting back too much. She was pretty good. She was like really fighting him. And I guess it made Dennis really upset because he could not seem to get her to stop. Dennis ended up, you know, stabbing her three times, like in her back and her lower stomach because she was putting up too much of a fight. I guess then Dennis and Kevin got into a fight

because Kevin was trying to fight back, trying to fight this guy off. And then unfortunately Dennis shot him in the head twice and then strangled him. And then miraculously,

Kevin got away by pretending to be dead. So he wasn't dead, he was just laying there pretending to be dead. And then when the coast was clear, Kevin got up and like fled the scene. I guess a few months later between the Catherine Bright murder and his next murder, Dennis had wrote a letter

detailing the Otero killing that he ended up stashing in an engineering book that he left at the Wichita Public Library. So Dennis wouldn't murder again, I mean, as far as we know, until three years later on March 17th, 1977. This is when he would kill 25 year old Shirley Ralford. So Dennis was actually pursuing a different potential victim at this time.

And I guess that victim, luckily she wasn't home that day. So then Dennis was like, "Eh, I'll pivot." Could you imagine? Holy shit. Well, Dennis saw Shirley's five-year-old son, Steve. He's walking home and Dennis was like, "I'll just follow this kid home." So follows the kid home. Dennis knocks on the front door and little Steve answered. Dennis pretended to be a detective and little Steve let him in.

And when Dennis got inside, that's when he discovered that there were two other children who were also inside. Well, once Dennis was inside, he turns off the TV and then he turns down the blinds. Surely she was in her bedroom. She comes out and she sees Dennis, you know, freaks her out. Dennis then pulls out his gun, holds her up at gunpoint,

and then orders the children into the bathroom. He ties up all the kids in the bathroom and then locks them inside. He then gets Shirley, takes her into the back bedroom. It's unclear what Dennis did next and like whether he sexually assaulted Shirley or not. Detectives later, they would find

next to Shirley's body. So, you know, it's safe to assume he probably did. But what we do know is that he tied her up or something and then they smoked a cigarette together or he smoked a cigarette together.

and must've like gave it to her at some point, but there was like a cigarette put out at the scene and he had restrained her to the bed with rope, you know? And then at some point she had thrown up because there was vomit at the scene, which understandable. Then he ended up strangling her with a rope and then putting a plastic bag over her head. Meanwhile, all of like the kids were like screaming in the bathroom. I guess Dennis,

he had planned to kill the kids but they had managed to escape before he could get to them. So like police come to the scene and stuff but like there isn't much they can do. This is a time when there wasn't DNA and like you know all that jazz. Like how they solved crimes I don't freaking know. So wild. So months later on December 18th 1977

Dennis murdered 25 year old Nancy Jo Fox. He entered her home when she wasn't home. Well, first, you know, like with all of his victims, he would like usually follow them and like learn their routines and stuff. So like he would know when they weren't home. And then when they weren't home, he would go inside and like cut the phone lines, which he did with Nancy. Like, I guess he had been stalking Nancy for quite some time. And when she returned home from her job, she was working at the jewelry store.

Dennis jumped out and surprised her at gunpoint in her kitchen. He told her that he had a sexual issue and he needed to tie her up and rape her. Hey, I have a sexual issue. I'm sure those weren't the exact words, but it was something along those lines. So Dennis had allowed Nancy to like take off some of her clothes in the bathroom and then ordered her to get into the bedroom. And like, it was just different. He didn't really let anyone else do that. So...

you know, something happened inside. Once they were in the bedroom, that's where he tied her up and then he got undressed. Now while they're like in the bedroom together, he like starts to strangle her with his belt, but then he starts confessing to her. He's like, I killed the Otero family. He's confessing things to her. He just, obviously he's sick,

But I guess he was so excited he just needed to tell somebody. I don't know. Well, Nancy would end up dying and you know, when police came out to the scene and whatnot, Dennis's semen was found on Nancy Jo's nightgown, which was taken off at this point and was like found next to her. The next day on his way to work for ADT, the home security company, he was working for them. He ended up calling the police from a pay phone and told them that they would find Nancy Fox's body at her home.

I have this uncle who's obsessed with giving everyone advice about money. And every time he does one of his, like, long speeches, he ends it with that famous Benjamin Franklin saying, A penny saved is a penny earned. You know, just...

That classic line. Honestly, I never really got what it meant until I started using Acorns, the sponsor of today's episode. You guys have heard me talk about Acorns before. It's a financial wellness app that makes it easy to start saving and investing for your future. Saving money is a good thing to do, but if you want to give that money a chance to grow, you have to start doing more with it.

And that's where Acorns comes in. Acorns lets you get started with the spare money you've got right now, even if all you've got is spare change. You don't need to be rich and you don't need to be an expert. Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that matches you and your money goals. I personally like Acorns because they take the guesswork out of investing for me. Honestly, it's confusing, right? But I like that with the app,

I was able to start investing within five minutes and I don't have to like drain my savings account to do it. Sign up now and join the over 13 million all-time customers who have already saved and invested over $22 billion with Acorns. Head to acorns.com slash makeup or download the Acorns app to get started.

A few months later in 1978,

Dennis. I guess he wrote a sarcastic poem called Shirley Locks and he sent it to the Wichita Eagle newspaper and it was like describing Shirley's murder. Yeah I guess he was a poet. So he sends that and then he sends another letter and it's titled O Death to Nancy.

I think it's mimicking the song "Oh Death" by Ralph Stanley, I think. But he was mocking, once again, Nancy's murder. So killer's on the loose and he's mocking everybody. So it's just like, not great. It's not great. It's not ideal. This is not great. And then also like during this time he's murdering, but he's also really busy. Like, and I, he's just like really busy.

Cause he's like working different jobs, Dennis is. And he also was receiving different degrees. For instance, in like 1979, he graduated from Wichita State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Administration of Justice. I mean...

He's doing a lot. Dennis worked at Coleman Company as an assembler and he worked at ADT installing security systems for many of the people who feared getting murdered by a serial killer who was on the loose. The media had called this serial killer the BTK killer. A lot of people were scared so they're calling up ADT to get the security systems installed.

Gosh, and it's Dennis. It's literally Dennis. Dennis also served as a census field operations supervisor. Yeah, the census people. Oh, God. Also, he was a dog catcher, a compliance officer, a Cub Scout leader, and the eventual president of the local chapter of the Christ Lutheran Church in Wichita.

Yeah. So he was just like very involved with the community, which gave him like all the leverage too. So then seven years go by, most likely because like Dennis was like raising his family, it's believed, but seven years go by. And on April 27th, 1985, Dennis murdered his 53 year old neighbor, Marin Hedge.

Yeah, his neighbor. I guess the two of them, they had lived on the same block for over 30 years in Park City. And he's like, I'm a killer.

So Dennis was at a Boy Scout meeting the night that like this took place. And he told the Scout people, the Boy Scouts like, I got to leave early. I got a headache, you know, and I got to go home and I got to get some medicine. He goes out, right? And he goes to a local bowling alley and he gets a beer. And while he's there, he's drinking beer and he like spills some of the beer on himself because he wants to appear drunk. Then he calls a cab pretending to be drunk.

and he takes it back to Park City. So Dennis sees like Marin's car in her driveway. So he's assuming that she's home. Look, this is, hold on. I gotta go back to the drunk thing because I kind of got hung up on that for a minute. I was like, why is he trying to pretend that he's drunk? My assumption is like, it's an alibi, right? Like, oh, he was at the bowling alley and he was drunk. That's why he took a cab. I don't know. I'm kind of like, I kind of don't get it. I'm missing something, obviously. Anyways, he sees Marin's car's in the driveway. So he's like, she's home.

So he goes and he cuts the phone lines and like, you know, outside of her house. And then he walks through the back door and realizes that she wasn't there. So he decides to just wait for her. And he waits for her in her bedroom until early in the morning. Like she ends up returning back to her home close to like 1 a.m. But she returns with a man. So Dennis is hiding in the bedroom closet.

all the way until 1:00 AM. And he's waiting until this man leaves. And then she like goes to sleep. Once he thinks she's asleep, Dennis jumps on Marin and like chokes her to death. Once Marin is dead, Dennis then drags her body outside and then puts it in the trunk of her own car. He then drove her to the Christ Lutheran Church where he was the council president.

He then covered the windows in black plastic so no one could see like what he was doing. And then he takes her body and puts it in the church basement. So when he's in there, in the basement all alone,

He's now like taking photographs. Now he's a photographer. He's taking photographs of her body and like putting her body in different poses, taking pictures. And then when he was done, he puts her back into the trunk of the car and then dumps her body in a ditch along a dirt road near her home. This guy is beyond sick. Maren's body was found like a week later on May 5th.

So Dennis's next victim was 28 year old Vicki Lynn Wiglerly. She was 28, right? She was a mother of two and Dennis had been stalking her. He would walk by her house.

And like, I guess she would be playing the piano and he would just like listen to her playing the piano. He was just following her everywhere she went. Again, I was like, how did he have the time? He has his own family. He had a job. He was getting degrees. He was like doing all this shit and he freaking found the time. Okay, he did. Because he put a lot of thought into this murder.

He referred to this murder as the PJ project. I don't know, I don't know. But this one was like a passion project of his, I guess. Dennis would show up at Vicky's door at 10:00 AM on September 16th, 1986. And when he shows up, he tells her that he's the telephone repair man. I hate it. I hate it because it's like,

I would let them in. I mean, I'm not gonna now. I'm not gonna now. Nope, don't try it because I'm not gonna. But like, oh, you're the telephone repairman? Oh, great, you know? Anyways, so he tells her he's a telephone repairman. She lets him in. Once he's inside, I guess that's when he like cuts her phone line. So once he cuts her phone line, he then holds her up at gunpoint. And then, you know, he's able to get her, tie her up,

She was able to like fight him off, but he's a big boy big gross guy So he takes a rope and he chokes her with it and he ends up choking her to death So once she was dead he took photographs and then he like rearranged her clothes Rearranged her body took photos then took photos of like her nude body just all in different positions and

And then he ends up leaving in Vicky's car. So he leaves in Vicky's car and while he's driving, Vicky's husband is like driving back to the house. So he spots Vicky's car and he's like, oh my God, is that my wife's car? And he couldn't make out who the driver was, but he's like, that's my wife's car. So Vicky's husband gets home and that's where he finds his two-year-old son was alone in the living room. And he's like, what the fuck? And he's like searching the house and

And he ends up finding Vicky on the floor behind the bed in their bedroom. So he rushes his wife to the hospital, but sadly, a few hours later, she was pronounced dead. So while this was happening,

Dennis was like getting rid of, you know, any evidence. And he parked the car a few blocks away from Vicky's home. Then he went to his house and he like changed his clothes, you know, got rid of any evidence on himself. So by 1991, Dennis decided that older woman,

would be like better victims because to him, they were more vulnerable than the younger women. So he's like, I'm gonna pivot now to more mature women. So on January 19th, Dennis kills 62 year old Dee Davies. So this time Dennis like devised an intricate plan. He was on a weekend boy scout camping trip and came up with like an excuse to slip away. He then drove his car to his parents' house

to change into his hit clothes. Then...

He left his car at the Baptist Church in Park City and would then like carry out like the rest of his plan on foot. So he went to Dolores's house and waited outside until he could tell that she had fallen asleep. Then he used a cement block that he found, you know, he's like, oh, there's a cement block. And he ends up breaking the glass on her back door. Because of this loud commotion,

Dolores wakes up. She comes out of her bedroom and that's where she sees Dennis. He said that same old lie that he had been like saying for a while that he, you know, he was like a wanted man. I don't know why he liked that so much. Well, I think because like then when police are searching for him, they'd be like, oh, he's a wanted man on the run. So he must not be from around here. You know, I think that's what it was all about. But anyways, he said he was a wanted man. He needed money. He needed food and he needed a car. That's what he tells Dolores.

And then he ties her up in her bedroom where he just like fucking fucked with her until like he strangled her to death. Dennis then took Dolores's body and put her into the trunk of her own car. And he hid her body along with some evidence at a lake near some trees. But he drove like Dolores's car back to her house and then wiped it down completely.

trying to get rid of any fingerprints, you know? And then he went back to the church and got his own car. Then he returned to the body to put in his own car and then dispose of it again under a bridge in Sedgwick,

County. Well, then it's not over because Dennis then like changes back into his, his scout uniform and then joins back up with the boy scouts group. Like nothing happened. He's like, Hey guys. Yeah. I just popped out for like two seconds. Isn't that wild? I'm back now. Hi. And then the next night he once again went back to the body and like

photographed it, just took pictures of it in different situations. Police then found Dolores's body like a few weeks later on February 1st. So there were like other potential victims that many believe Dennis were responsible for killing. The first was 16 year old Cynthia Kinney. Cynthia was last seen on June 23rd, 1976. She's at the Osage, Osage, Osage?

and she was at the laundromat in this town. Three things that connected Dennis to Cynthia's disappearance were one, Dennis was in the area for a boy scout trip at the time of her disappearance. Two, ADT alarms were also being installed across the street from the laundromat where Cynthia went missing.

And again, Dennis was like a regional installer for the security company. And then three, Dennis had, I guess, a particular fantasy about kidnapping a girl from a laundromat. Oh, yeah. Dennis would deny any involvement, but many people suspect it's because a murder in Oklahoma could result in the death penalty. Whereas like there was no death penalty in Kansas.

and like where his other murders had taken place. So many think like he didn't want to confess because he didn't want the death penalty because he's a little chicken shit and didn't want to get the death penalty. Meanwhile, all of his other victims got the death penalty like because of his dumb fuck

I hate this guy. He's a little chicken. He acts like he's so big and bad, but he's a little baby. He's a big old fucking baby. The second potential victim of Dennis was 22-year-old Shauna Beth Garber. Shauna was found murdered in McDonald County, Missouri on December 2nd, 1990.

Her remains are actually not identified until 2021. She had been raped, strangled, and hogtied using six different types of cords. And Shauna had gone missing on November 3rd of 1990. And like, it was unsolved for a really long time. It wasn't until 2023 that authorities actually named Dennis as the prime suspect because there was photographic evidence of the crime

found in one of his journals. So I think it's pretty safe to assume that he did it. Yeah, yeah. So what now? Well, we jump 13 years later, it's 2004. So by 2004, like the investigation into this BTK killer had run cold.

the local news was saying that the killer was most likely either dead or in prison because like nothing has happened in a long time. So when Dennis hears this, he wants attention. He initiates a series of 11 communications with the media and the police. So the first of these communications came in March of 2004 when the Wichita Eagle received a letter from a quote, Bill Thomas Killman,

This Bill Thomas Kilman was claiming to have murdered Vicky on September 16th, 1986. So at the time authorities weren't necessarily sure Vicky had been a victim of this BTK guy but the letter included photographs of the crime scene and even a photocopy of Vicky's driver's license.

So from there, there was actually DNA taken from Vicky's fingernails, like underneath her fingernails. And that gave police new evidence, which led them to DNA testing hundreds of men. But unfortunately, like there was no match at the time. There was no one in their system with like,

any connection to this DNA they found. So then in May of 2004, Dennis sent another letter, this time to the television station KAKE, or K-A-K-E, but it's in Wichita. And the letter included chapter headings of the BTK story with also fake IDs and a word puzzle.

I know what in the fuck is going on? How did he have the time? Well then on June 9th there was a package that was found taped to like a stop sign at the corner of First and Kansas Road in Wichita and the package it had graphic descriptions of the Otero murders as well as a sketch labeled

The sexual thrill is my bill. Dennis included a chapter list for a proposed book named The BTK Story, which mimicked a story written in 1999 by Court TV crime writer David Lohr. The first chapter was titled A Serial Killer is Born. He was just trying to make fun of everyone, pretty much.

There you go. And then in July of that same year, there was a package that was dropped into a return slot at like the local public library. It contained like all kinds of bizarre material, including a claim that BTK had killed 19 year old Jake Allen in Argonia, Kansas. When in fact this 19 year old named Jake Allen, he had died by suicide, but he,

In this thing, they were claiming that BTK did it, maybe as a distraction or something, I don't know. And then October of 2004, Dennis left a manila envelope in a UPS box in Wichita. And the envelope contained images of children being like tortured and bound.

And then there was a poem that was threatening the lead investigator at the time. His name was Lieutenant Ken. And there was an autobiography of Dennis with like multiple fake and made up details. It was an autobiography of the BTK killer, but like none of it applied to Dennis. He was a storyteller, I guess. Then in December of 2004, Wichita police got another package from BTK. This one was found in Murdoch Park.

And it contained the driver's license...

of Nancy Fox as well as a doll that was bound at the hands and feet with a plastic bag that was like tied over its head. In January of 2005 Dennis tried leaving a cereal box in the bed of like a pickup truck that was parked at Home Depot in Wichita but I guess like when the the owner of the truck came out of Home Depot he sees like the cereal box and he like grabs it and just like

What the fuck is that doing in here? And like tosses it. So that didn't work out. But it was later retrieved from the trash after like Dennis had asked, he'd asked about the cereal box in a followup message to police. He was like, did you get my cereal box? Question mark, question mark. They're like, no, we didn't get your cereal box. What cereal box? But there were surveillance footage that showed a figure

They couldn't make out who, but it was a person driving a black Jeep Cherokee who was leaving the cereal box in the pickup truck.

So this was great because now they had like a car, a mega model, black Jeep Cherokee. Okay, they're like, fuck yeah. Like that's something, okay? And then in February of that year, there were more postcards that were sent to that television station, Cake, and another cereal box with a bound doll inside was found in like a rural location. So at one point during Dennis's communications with police, he asked if he could put his writings online.

on a floppy disk and if they could trace the floppy disk back to him. Now, mind you, when he's communicating with police, they don't know it's actually Dennis, you know? It's just like anonymous. But this anonymous writer was like, hey, if I put stuff on a floppy disk, will you be able to track it back to me? Like genuinely asking this. And the police replied in a newspaper ad. It was like in the Wichita Eagle. And they're like, no, we can't. We can't trace it back to you. So...

Dennis got the bright idea to send a purple 1.44 megabyte Memorex, how do you say it? Memorex, whatever. He sends a floppy disk to KSAS TV in Wichita. And along with it, he sends a letter, a necklace that had like a large medallion and a photocopy of the cover of Rules of Prey, which is a novel by John Sanford. And it's about a serial killer. So police, they get their hands on this floppy disk

And they're able to get the metadata on the floppy disk. And it's from, they realized it's from like a deleted Microsoft Word document. And on this document, it included the words Christ Lutheran Church. Also, the document was marked as last modified by Dennis. Ooh.

So he must've been using the church computer, huh? You stupid fuck. So great for investigators 'cause now they got something to work with, right? So they do some digging and they discover that the president of the church council was a man named Dennis Rader. This must've been such a win.

They're like, finally. They get like Dennis's address and they send out a guy to go do like a drive-by. And they see that like parked right outside of Dennis's house was a black Jeep Cherokee.

Just like the one they saw in their surveillance footage. Oh yeah, they got their guy. You know, these clues, you would think they would just pull up and be like, we got our guy. Case closed. They provided like strong circumstantial evidence, but they needed concrete or they wanted more concrete evidence to arrest Dennis. What'd they do, Bailey? Well, hold on. Let me tell you. So police obtained a warrant to DNA test a pap smear

that Dennis's daughter, her name's Carrie, she had done a pap smear at like Kansas State Medical Clinic. So they get her DNA and they test it and it reveals that there's a familial match to the DNA that was found under Vicky's fingernails, one of the victims. And this DNA match was enough to arrest Dennis Rader. Thank God she'd got a pap smear. I think I said this in one of my old videos, but it's so true. Like if you ever get attacked and like,

which I hope never happens to any of us, but if it does happen, scratch the shit out of these people. Get as much DNA under your freaking fingernails as you possibly can.

Okay, I'm paranoid as hell, but I'm always thinking about that. Like just scratch, just fucking scratch. I hope it never happens, but you know. So on February 25th, 2005, Dennis Rader was arrested while driving near his home in Park City. A police officer asked Dennis, like if he knew why he was being arrested. And Dennis responded with like, oh, I have a suspicion why. Oh yeah.

Oh yeah, I hate him, he's gross. Various law enforcement agents including Wichita police, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, the FBI and ATF agents, they all searched his home, his vehicle, his church, his office at City Hall and the main branch of the Park City Library and

There was a lot of evidence seized, but there were like, some of it was like black pantyhose, computer equipment, the trophies they found. And like the next morning, police chief Norman Williams declared like to the public that the bottom line was that BTK was arrested. Little did they all know it was a guy that like everyone knew. Could you imagine? No, no, couldn't imagine. It's like that guy?

On February 28th, 2005, Dennis Rader was charged with 10 counts of first degree murder. And then a week later, news sources reported that Dennis had confessed to all 10 murders. His bail was set to $10 million.

And there was like a public defender who was appointed to represent him. On May 3rd, Dennis was pleading not guilty. But then on June 27th, like the scheduled trial date, Dennis would end up changing his plea to guilty. And he would go on to like detail the murders, but...

He didn't apologize. Why would he, huh? Dennis's public defender had him evaluated by forensic psychologist Robert Mendoza to see if like an insanity defense was an option. Mendoza diagnosed Dennis with narcissistic, obsessive compulsive, and antisocial personality disorders. He said that Dennis had a grandiose sense of self-love.

believing that he was special and entitled to special treatment. Dennis had a pathological need for attention and admiration, a complete lack of empathy, and a preoccupation with maintaining rigid order. Dennis's evaluation by this Dr. Mendoza was filmed and that footage was like used actually in an episode of Dateline about Dennis.

You can watch it on YouTube. During his trial, he made various comments and revelations about his victims. He said that the Otero family and Shirley Relford would serve him as sex slaves in the afterlife. Yeah. Like really dude? Yeah, really. He also said that he would have killed Shirley's daughter, but the phone rang and scared him off. He was quoted as saying,

I probably would have hung the little girl. Okay, cool. Thanks, you know. Oh, he also went on to say, I'm pretty mean or could be. But on the other hand, I'm very, you know, I'm a nice guy. What? Yeah, that's what he said. I'm a nice guy. Okay, sure. Dennis went on to describe Nancy Jo Fox's murder as quote, perfect because she mostly cooperated and he had

control over her. He also then revealed that he threw Dee Davies, was it Dee Davies? He threw her body under a bridge, but returned to it later. And when he did, the body was like badly decomposed. So because of this, he placed a feminine mask over her face and then like photographed her body to use in like

his scrapbook essentially he was like the face was ugly so i put a mask over it it's like oh my god yeah yeah yeah dennis raider was sentenced on august 18th and at the sentencing you know the victim's families come up and they made statements pretty much saying like f you dude f you how could you and like dennis just like wasn't even bothered

And then it was his turn, Dennis's time to like say something to address the court.

And Dennis apologized kind of in like a rambling 30 minute speech, which like it's actually been described as an example of a phenomenon seen in psychopaths where they have an inability to understand the emotional content of language. Dennis Rader was sentenced to 10 life sentences with a minimum of 175 years.

Now at this time, there was no death penalty in Kansas, but since they've actually reinstated it, put him down, I say put him off.

They reinstated it after like they caught the worst guy ever. So that's cool. Dennis is still alive, you know? Yeah. To this day, he's like in solitary confinement for his own protection. He gets one hour of exercise a day and he gets to shower at least three times a week. His cell is pretty small and he refers to his cell as his cave. And he has like no contact with other inmates because like they most likely would kill him if they had access to him.

Would we be mad? Is that fucked up? No, come on. No, he's fucked up. We wouldn't be mad. We wouldn't be mad. We wouldn't mind. I'm sorry, that's mean. But is it? Not really. So forensic psychologist, Dr. Catherine Ramsland, she actually was talking with Dennis for over six years while he was in prison.

And together they created what she called a quote, "guided autobiography." It's titled "Confession of a Serial Killer: The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer." And in their communication, they developed like a code, a codex is what he liked to call it, which allowed him to like write freely about his victims. And sure, okay, you know, and like,

It was said like when this doctor was like corresponding with Dennis, she said it was like really challenging because like at one point Dr. Ramsland had asked Dennis to describe one of his torture fantasies and in return like he didn't and said he sent her a 14 page letter along with like newspaper clippings, photographs and recipes as well as like a key to help decipher clues. So he was like playing games with her.

It was like, girl, what did you expect? That he was just gonna be like open and like tell you everything, you know? Like, of course he's gonna play games. He's bored as fuck. He's locked up all day and someone's interested in him. Someone's stroking his ego a little bit. Of course he's gonna be a dick. But anyways, Dr. Ramsland, she concluded that this was his way of like retaining control. She said she managed to like learn a great deal about his inner life. Like he apparently fixated on anything bound or knotted.

And he loved abandoned silos, referring to them as castles. And he loved the number three. And his favorite color is purple. I'm kidding, I don't know that. But like his favorite number is three. Wow, you've learned so much. She also said that he created an image of himself as a hunter or like a predator. He even referred to the killer inside of himself as the murderer.

So he said at times the minotaur would go, quote, dark. He would say that all of his violent crimes and his sexual tendencies were all because of this minotaur. And he claimed that he started out as like, like he referred to himself as like white hat, but then periodically would be dragged to the dark side.

Such a fucking eye roll. Okay, sure. Apparently like as a child, the sight of chickens about to be slaughtered aroused him, he went on to say. He told the doctor that like he fantasized about tying women down onto train tracks

and like would masturbate to his father's book about the lonely hearts killer. And Dr. Ramsland explained like a lot of readers writing was often boring and like run of the mill, but then all of a sudden it would like slip into some really dark shit, which is like, sure, I could see that, right? Sure. As Dr. Ramsland put it, quote, and all of a sudden you feel like you're suddenly in minotaur territory. It's almost like you're paddling at the surface of the water and suddenly something pulls you down.

Yeah, I could see that. Sure. Okay. She also learned that he kept keepsakes from all of his victims and he would hide them all around like Wichita in what he called hidey holes.

Apparently at every victim's home, he would like go through all their stuff. He would take jewelry, lingerie, IDs, and other items that he would keep for memories or like, you know, people refer to them as trophies. It was said that Dennis was motivated to work with Dr. Ramsland because he wanted to uncover what made him go dark. But

Dr. Ramsland concluded it really wasn't anything that unique. Like he came off very desperate. Like he desperately wanted to be seen as someone who was very complex, special and mysterious. But, you know, like he wasn't.

He wasn't. She attributes his psychology to what she calls the trajectory toward violence, which is a combination of sexual impulses, desire for fame, delusions of a double life intersecting with the opportunity to commit murders. Damn. And that my friends is today's case about Dennis Rader.

the btk killer there's so much to this guy and honestly he terrifies me which i hate giving him or any murderer any any type of credit or power over my psyche but this type of guy like freaks the shit out of me because like no rhyme or reason he would just spot you and be like you you're next and that is scary

I don't like that. I don't like this guy. He was sick and he was living this full-on double life. Like he had a family and everything and they swear they didn't know anything. And if you watch interviews and stuff, I believe it. I believe it. Like he seemed like this great loving dad who like liked his kids and shit. And he was doing some horrible stuff. I just like could not fucking imagine. I just...

Could you imagine? No, no. Just one day you wake up and like everyone's telling you that your husband is like this absolute psychopath. What? Oh, I feel so bad for the family. What a mindfuck that would be, right? And then this dentist guy is just a loser. He's just a loser who wanted attention and was sick and is just a fucking loser. Scum on the bottom of our shoes. Sucks. Wish they killed him, which is like, oops, sorry. I shouldn't say that, but like, you know.

They should have. So how do we end it, friends? I don't know. This is one of those stories that reminds me to be like aware. Aware of your surroundings. Lock your doors. Be careful. Snoop in your husband's shit if you have to. He's alone in the basement or something. What are you doing? What are you doing? Go down there.

go through all this shit just make sure okay she's like damn you can't trust anyone huh that's lame so yeah that's that huh

Sheesh. Yeah, yeah. I know I kind of left out. I'm sorry. I did leave out a lot about like the family, the personal life and stuff. Sometimes I just don't know if I include it or not. I don't know. It's about the guy. I don't know. Well, I hope you have a good day today. You make good choices. Please be safe out there. Yeah, I appreciate you guys so much. And I hope to see you next time. Okay? Okay. Bye. Bye.