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Meet Dennis Rader, the Wichita, Kansas serial killer who went by the chilling moniker BTK, an acronym for “bind, torture, kill”. Despite his gruesome crimes, Rader had a penchant for writing. In fact, it was his own misspelled and grammatically flawed notes and letters to the media and police that eventually led to his capture. Now, nearly two decades after Rader was sentenced to 10 consecutive life terms for killing 10 people between 1974 and 1991, investigators are uncovering potential leads in cold cases from the collection of journals, notebooks, manuscripts, and other documents seized after his arrest. Some of these cases are heating up as authorities have recently named Rader as the prime suspect in unsolved murders in Oklahoma and Missouri.
As part of their inquiry into the 1976 disappearance of 16-year-old cheerleader Cynthia Dawn Kinney in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, officials from the Osage County Sheriff’s Office conducted a thorough search of the property where Rader’s former family home once stood in Park City, Kansas on August 23. The authorities discovered incriminating evidence including possible restraints and a “pantyhose ligature”. Moreover, they uncovered what could be considered “trophies” that might help identify another victim. Osage County Undersheriff Gary Upton expressed hope that revealing these items to the public could potentially lead to identifying the owner, saying, “And I think somebody seeing it would perhaps know who it belonged to.”
Rader’s reign of terror struck fear into the hearts of the Wichita community, as he appeared to be an ordinary family man. He was a seemingly devoted husband and a father of two children. He even held positions of authority within the community, such as a Cub Scout leader and church council president. However, beneath this facade lurked a sadistic murderer who prowled the city for victims, stalking and eventually killing women, all while stealing “tokens” such as jewelry, identification cards, and lingerie.
Rader’s various occupations required him to travel outside of Kansas, and now detectives from Osage County suspect that during his time as an area supervisor for the U.S. Census Bureau in Missouri, he may have killed 22-year-old Shawna Beth Garber in McDonald County. Garber’s assault exhibited the trademark BTK signature, as she was raped and restrained with different types of bindings before being strangled in 1990. Garber’s remains were found severely decomposed near an abandoned house in southwest Missouri. Even after her decades-long disappearance, her remains were positively identified through genetic genealogy in 2021. Investigators discovered Polaroid photos in one of Rader’s journals that likely belonged to Garber, including a red blanket that went missing when she vanished.
Detectives believe that Rader’s former job and a journal entry link him to the disappearance of Cynthia Dawn Kinney, who was last seen leaving her family-owned laundromat. During that time, a bank across the street was installing a security system, and authorities suspect that Rader, who worked for ADT from 1974 to 1988, had some involvement. In a press release issued on August 24, the Osage County Sheriff’s Office shared an excerpt from Rader’s 1976 journal entry which they claim provides details about his whereabouts. This entry alludes to a significant event marked as “PJ-Bad Wash Day”, occurring when Rader acknowledged being outside of Wichita. The release states that “PJ” is Rader’s abbreviation for “project,” a term he used to refer to his potential victims. It also mentions that “C-9” is a reference to Chapter 9 in his unpublished book manuscript, which supposedly contains details about all the murders he committed.
Rader’s daughter, Kerri Rawson, has played a crucial role in helping authorities piece together the puzzle. Undersheriff Upton praised her assistance, saying, “She’s been a great help to law enforcement. She has helped us make sense of these journals and these timelines because she lived with him and knew a lot of his comings and goings.” Rawson, who is a writer and a vocal advocate for crime victims, took a long time to come to terms with her father’s heinous crimes. In a recent interview with the Daily Mail, she revealed that she made a surprise visit to her father in prison over the summer, marking their first face-to-face meeting since his conviction. She wanted to confront him about his potential involvement in the unsolved cases. Despite having a no-contact order against him due to his cyberstalking, Rawson volunteered to assist authorities by speaking with him in person. She described her father’s deteriorating health and physical condition, noting that he now relies on a wheelchair due to severe scoliosis. Rawson addressed the latest developments in a series of posts on social media, stating that her father has been offered “tri-state immunity” in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri if he confesses to crimes committed in those states. However, she made it clear that he must sign the agreement and tell the truth; otherwise, he may still face charges. Rawson also expressed her father’s manipulative nature, stating that he is mentally sharp and still enjoys playing mind games.
While Rader targeted women due to his “sexual compulsion,” they were not his only victims. In his initial known murders on January 15, 1974, he killed a married couple, Joseph Ortero (38) and Julie Ortero (33), as well as their two children, Joey (9) and Josie (11). Rader claimed that he originally intended to attack Julie alone and didn’t anticipate her husband and children being present. After disconnecting the home’s phone line, he suffocated Joe Sr. with a plastic bag, strangled Julie with a rope, suffocated Joey with the boy’s own T-shirt, and hanged Josie from a pipe in the basement. His semen was found on and around Josie’s body, providing DNA evidence that later linked him to the crime. Rader made an anonymous call to a reporter in October 1974, directing them to a letter he had hidden in an engineering textbook at a library. In the letter, he included a chart containing intimate details about the murders, which only the killer could know, such as the victims’ positions, cause of death, and their attire. Additionally, he introduced the BTK moniker, explaining that it stood for “bind them, torture them, kill them”. He signed the letter with the phrase “Yours truly guiltily”. Three months later, on April 4, 1974, Rader attacked 21-year-old Kathryn Bright, stabbing her to death and shooting her brother Kevin, who miraculously survived the ordeal. The killings paused for three years until March 17, 1977, when Rader strangled 24-year-old Shirley Vian after locking her three young children in a bathroom. Later that year, on December 8, he broke into the home of 25-year-old Nancy Fox and strangled her. The next day, he made a call to the police from a phone booth…
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