Case File: Dennis Rader

Dennis Rader, born in Wichita in 1945, had what seemed to be a normal Midwestern boyhood filled with fishing, comic books and Scout trips. But even from an early age, Rader displayed some disturbing behavior, such as torturing and killing small animals. He later admitted to developing violent sexual fantasies involving bondage during his youth as well.

A decorated Air Force sergeant upon his discharge in 1970, Rader started working for the Coleman Company in 1972; two years later he found work installing alarm systems for ADT Security Services. After marrying his wife Paula in 1971, they welcomed children Brian and Kerri in 1975 and 1978, respectively.

Outwardly, all seemed well with the Rader family, but in December 1973, Rader began secretly stalking Julie Otero, a former coworker from the Coleman Company.

On the morning of January 15, 1974, Rader killed Julie Otero, her husband Joseph and two of their children, Joey and Josephine. All four were bound with ropes; Rader suffocated Joseph and his son with plastic bags and strangled Julie while their children watched. 

Rader then took 11-year-old Josephine down into the basement and told her she would be in “heaven tonight with the rest of [her] family.” He pulled off her clothes, hanged her from a sewer pipe and masturbated while she struggled and died. 

A few months later, Rader entered the home of Kathryn and Kevin Bright while the siblings were out—Kathryn was another former coworker from the Coleman Company. Rader later told investigators that he named this murder “Project Lights Out,” riffing on their last name. When the Brights came home, Rader had Kevin tie up Kathryn and then bound Kevin in a separate room. 

Kevin freed himself and struggled against Rader, who shot Kevin, but Kevin pretended to be dead and soon ran out of the house. Kathryn fought back as well, but Rader stabbed her several times—she died later at the hospital, while Kevin survived.

In October 1974, Rader displayed a hunger for publicity when he sent a letter to The Wichita Eagle with instructions on finding more information in the pages of a textbook in the public library. Inside that book, he had hidden another letter confessing to the Otero murders and threatening to kill again: “The code words for me will be bind them, torture them, kill them, B.T.K.,” which gave rise to his nickname, the BTK Killer.

Rader stayed quiet for a few years after Paula gave birth to the couple’s son, Brian, but struck again in 1977. This time, he forced his way into the home of Shirley Vian and her three children. After barricading the children in a bathroom, he strangled Vian to death.

Rader’s next victim was 25-year-old Nancy Fox. He broke into her house and strangled her with a belt. Rader then used a payphone to call police and report it as a homicide.

None of the survivors of Rader’s attacks were able to provide police with helpful identifying descriptions. Kevin Bright told investigators that his attacker was an “average-sized guy, bushy mustache, ‘psychotic’ eyes.” 

In 1978, Rader—again starved for attention—sent a letter to Wichita television station KAKE confessing to the seven Fox, Otero and Vian and Bright murders. In the letter, he pleaded, “How many do I have to kill, before I get a name in the paper or some national attention?" 

The next year, investigators released the 1977 recording of Rader’s phone call about Fox to the police, but their effort failed to turn up any credible leads. By the 1980s, the investigation into the serial killings had largely stalled. 

Rader deemed the 1985 murder of his neighbor Marine Hedge “Project Cookie.” Rader broke into her house, strangled her to death and brought her body to the church where he served as president to take photos of her in bondage positions.

The following year, Rader initiated “Project Piano,” in which he stalked 28-year-old Vicki Wegerle, a local pianist. She allowed Rader into her house because he imitated a Southwestern Bell telephone lineman; she was then strangled with pantyhose while her 2-year-old child was home. In January 1991, Rader also strangled 62-year-old Dolores Davis—his 10th known victim—with her own pantyhose before dumping her body beneath a bridge. 

Despite this series of 10 murders, police were unable to make any progress in identifying a suspect, and by the early 2000s, the murders were considered cold cases. Then, in January 2004—as the 30th anniversary of the Otero murders approached—The Wichita Eagle ran a story headlined, “BTK case unsolved, 30 years later.” 

Rader read the story and because he was “kind of bored,” as he later told investigators, he decided to resume sending letters to local media. In March 2004, The Wichita Eagle received a letter from a “Bill Thomas Killman” taking credit for the 1986 murder of Vicki Wegerle. Inside the envelope was a copy of her driver’s license, which had been stolen at the time of the murder, and three photos of her body.

Over the next several months, a series of taunting letters, postcards and packages were sent to various recipients around Wichita. One letter included a cryptic word puzzle that included clues such as “serviceman,” “follow,” “prowl” and “telephoneco.”

Finally, a major break in the case occurred when, in a letter to police, Rader asked if it was OK to send files on a floppy disk. Police were told to run an ad stating, “Rex, it will be ok,” if it were true—and they did so in The Wichita Eagle. In February 2005, local television station KSAS received a letter with an enclosed floppy disk. 

The floppy disk contained messages and some metadata indicating that a deleted document from “Christ Lutheran Church" was last modified by “Dennis.” To confirm Rader as a suspect, police obtained a warrant to use DNA testing on a pap smear from Rader’s daughter. When that DNA test confirmed a familial relationship with a sample found under Wegerle’s fingernails, police finally had enough evidence to arrest Rader.

Rader was arrested in February 2005 and was charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder. On the first day of his trial in June 2005, Rader pleaded guilty to 10 murders, which he callously labeled as “projects.”

Because his murders were committed at a time when Kansas banned capital punishment, Rader was sentenced to 10 consecutive life sentences. He is currently serving his prison term in solitary confinement at El Dorado Correctional Facility in Kansas. 

Under questioning, Rader repeatedly declined any involvement in other crimes, but a significant body of evidence links him to the disappearance of 16-year-old Cindy Kinney from a laundromat in Pawhuska, Okla., in 1976. 

Among the clues hidden in Rader’s letters, journals and word puzzles are the words “Cindy”, “Kinney,” “laundry mat” and “Kihekah,” the name of the street on which the laundromat was located. Across the street from the laundromat is a bank that had an ADT security system installed shortly before Kinney’s disappearance, and some evidence suggests that Rader had installed the system. 

Additionally, Rader stated under police questioning that “I always wanted to kidnap a girl from a laundromat.” But Rader has never admitted to being involved in Kinney’s disappearance—some investigators believe he may be concerned that Oklahoma is a state that allows capital punishment. 

In January 2023, the Osage County Sheriff’s Office in Oklahoma stated it was opening a new investigation into Rader’s drawings and writings—as well as an anonymous phone call received months after Kinney went missing—which allegedly indicate that Kinney’s body may be buried in or near an old barn along the Kansas-Oklahoma border.

Rader’s daughter Kerri Rawson wrote a book titled A Serial Killer's Daughter: My Story of Faith, Love, and Overcoming in 2019 and spoke out in the 2025 documentary My Father, the BTK Killer. She has stated publicly that she believes her father probably committed more than 10 murders.

The BTK Killer’s murders highlighted the way that some serial killers—like Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgway and John Wayne Gacy—hide in plain sight by appearing as average, upstanding citizens. It also showed how many murderers have narcissistic, attention-grabbing tendencies and delight in taunting police by writing numerous letters (like the still-unidentified Zodiac Killer) with clues and puzzles, prompting extensive media coverage and public attention.