Dennis Rader

Dennis Rader is an American serial killer.

History
Dennis Lynn Rader was born the eldest of four sons to William Elvin Rader and Dorothea Mae Cook. Though he was born in Pittsburg, Kansas, he was raised in Wichita, Kansas, where he attended Riverview School and graduated from the Wichita Heights High School. In 1957, he was confirmed into the Zion Lutheran Church. By his own account and several reports, he engaged in animal torture during his early years and harbored a sexual fetish for women's underwear. After attending the Kansas Wesleyan University between 1965 and 1966, he was in the U.S. Air Force until 1970, stationed in Texas, Alabama, Okinawa, South Korea, Greece and Turkey. Sometime during the 1970s, he married and he and his wife, Paula, had two children, a boy and a girl. When he returned to the U.S., he moved to Park City, a Wichita suburb, and attended the Butler County Community College of El Dorado, earning an associate's degree in Electronics in 1973, and the enrolled with the Wichita State University the same fall, graduating in 1979 with a bachelor's degree in Administration of Justice. Throughout his life, he held down a number of different jobs, including working in the of a supermarket, an assembler for a camping gear firm, briefly for Cessna and, between November 1974 to July 1988, held various positions at ADT Security, which at the time sold and installed commercial-grade alarms. Also, in 1989, he worked as a census field operations supervisor of Wichita and was, in 1991, hired by the Compliance Department in Park City.

Letters, Arrest and Conviction
Throughout his serial killing period, Rader sent several taunting letters to the police and media in which he graphically described his murders. The first, written in October 1974, was stashed inside an engineering book in the Wichita Public Library. In 1978, he sent another to Wichita-based TV station KAKE in which he also suggested a number of names for himself, such as "The Wichita Strangler", "The Wichita Hangman", "The Asphyxiater" and, the name the public came to know him by, "The BTK Killer", signifying his M.O.: "Bind, Torture, Kill". The next letters did not come until later. In 2004, the newspaper The Wichita Eagle received a letter from someone using the return address "Bill Thomas Killman". The writer of the letter claimed responsibility for the September 16, 1986 murder of Vicki Wegerle through a series of crime scene photos, details about the murder and a photocopy of her driver's license. Prior to this, the murder had not definitely been tied to BTK. KAKE also received a word puzzle in May 2004. On February 16, 2005, Fox TV station KSAS in Wichita were sent a floppy disk. A forensic analysis revealed that it had been used by the Christ Lutheran Church in Wichita and contained a reference to the name "Dennis". An internet search revealed that Dennis Rader was the president of the church council. On February 25, 2005, he was arrested and formally charged on February 28. As Kansas did not have capital punishment at the time of Rader's murders, he was sentenced to 10 consecutive life sentences. He is currently serving this time in the El Dorado Correctional Facility and is not eligible for release before February 26, 2180. He is held in solitary confinement 23 hours a day, only being released one hour a day for yard exercise and is allowed three showers a week. Through good behavior, he has been allowed a few privileges such as access to television, radio and magazines.

Modus Operandi
Rader would enter his victims homes through home invasions. The kills were highly premeditated, as he would stalk them before-hand, bring various items with him to use for the kill, cut off the phone lines to prevent the victims calling for help, etc. The victims were typically tied up, sometimes using items from their houses, and strangled. He also took souveniers, such as underwear from his female victims, driver's licenses and personal possesions.

Victims

 * January 15, 1974: The Otero family:
 * Joseph Otero (strangled with a plastic bag over his head)
 * Julie Otero (strangled)
 * Joseph Otero II (suffocated with a plastic bag)
 * Josephine Otero (was hung and her body masturbated on)
 * April 4, 1974: Kathryn and Kevin Bright
 * Kathryn Bright (intended to strangle, but was stabbed to death as she struggled too much)
 * Kevin Bright (Kathryn's brother, was shot twice in the head, but survived)
 * March 17, 1977: Shirley Vian Relford (strangled with a plastic bag over her head)
 * December 8, 1977: Nancy Fox (was tied up and strangled)
 * 1979: Anna Williams (intended, Rader gave up as she came home much later than he expected)
 * April 27, 1985: Marine Hedge (was manually strangled)
 * September 16, 1986: Vicki Wegerle (was tied up, strangled to the point of fatal injury and left for dead)
 * January 19, 1991: Dolores Davis (strangled)

Criminal Minds Comparison
Dennis Rader is often referenced to on Criminal Minds and appears to have been the primary inspiration for Walter Kern, the Keystone Killer, as they both typically targeted women, killed by strangling them, though Kern later used suffocation, which Rader also used on two members of the Otero family, and both worked for alarm companies for some time until 1988. Copycat serial killer Eric Olson also copied Rader's M.O. during one of his murders, though he raped that victim while Rader did not do that to any of his.