EP. 226- SERIAL KILLER: BTK (Bind Torture Kill) | Pt. 2: The Murders

For 31 years, the city of Wichita lived in terror of a ghost. Between 1974 and 1991, Dennis Rader – the mild-mannered family man, church leader, and compliance officer – murdered ten people in a series of meticulously planned home invasions that still haunt the American true-crime landscape. He didn’t just kill. He staged elaborate, sadistic “projects”: cutting phone lines, waiting patiently in closets, binding entire families with cords pulled from venetian blinds, torturing them for hours, and strangling them one by one while the others watched in helpless horror. This is the story of how a monster hid in plain sight for three decades. - Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eTYeCoYyxm58DXXdoFbHQyWHlWbcH9iKGIefFcQToW4/edit?tab=t.0 Listen to our new show, "THE CONSPIRACY FILES"!: -Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5IY9nWD2MYDzlSYP48nRPl -Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-conspiracy-files/id1752719844 -Amazon/Audible - https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/ab1ade99-740c-46ae-8028-b2cf41eabf58/the-conspiracy-files -Pandora - https://www.pandora.com/podcast/the-conspiracy-files/PC:1001089101 -iHeart - https://iheart.com/podcast/186907423/ -PocketCast - https://pca.st/dpdyrcca -CastBox - https://castbox.fm/channel/id6193084?country=us - Stay Connected: Join the Murder in America fam in our free Facebook Community for a behind-the-scenes look, more insights and current events in the true crime world: https://www.facebook.com/groups/4365229996855701 If you want even more Murder in America bonus content, including ad-free episodes, come join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/murderinamerica Instagram: http://instagram.com/murderinamerica/ Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/people/Murder-in-America-Podcast/100086268848682/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/MurderInAmerica TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theparanormalfiles and https://www.tiktok.com/@courtneybrowen Feeling spooky? Follow Colin as he travels state to state (and even country to country!) investigating claims of extreme paranormal activity and visiting famous haunted locations on The Paranormal Files Official Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheParanormalFilesOfficialChannel - (c) BLOOD IN THE SINK PRODUCTIONS 2025 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by the Academy Museum. Horror fans, this one's for you. On September 26, the Academy Museum opens its newest exhibition, The Horror Show. An immersive journey through the characters, creatures, and terrifying worlds that have haunted movie theaters and our nightmares for generations. Enter through a darkened gallery and make your way down a hallway lined with classic horror posters before exploring six chambers devoted to Gothic, psychological, science, slasher, religion, and ghost horror. And these rooms are packed with incredible pieces of horror history. See Bela Lugosi's cape from Dracula, original storyboards from Psycho, come face-to-face with legendary killers like Freddy, Michael Myers, Ghostface, and Art the Clown,

• 0:44Speaker 00

  and discover haunted objects from The Conjuring, The Ring, and Talk to Me. But there's only one way out: through the Blood Room. Plus, there's the family-friendly Zombies exhibition, horror screenings, special programs, and retrospectives celebrating horror legend John Carpenter. The Horror Show, now open at the Academy Museum. Get your tickets now at academymuseum.org. If you dare.

• 1:10Speaker 01

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• 1:38Speaker 02

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• 1:57Colin Brown?

  Warning: The following podcast is not suitable for all audiences. We go into great detail with every case that we cover and do our best to bring viewers even deeper into the stories by utilizing disturbing audio and sound effects.

• 2:08Courtney Brown?

  Trigger warnings from the stories we cover may include violence, rape, murder, and offenses against children.

• 2:15Colin Brown?

  This podcast is not for everyone. You have been warned.

• 2:20Courtney Brown?

  In last week's episode, we talked about the life of Dennis Rader, a man from Wichita, Kansas, who appeared to be a good, upstanding citizen. He came from a decent home. He went to church. He was involved in Boy Scouts. He got an education and married a good woman. But beneath this facade, Dennis was plagued with a violent sexual obsession. For years, he fantasized about binding, torturing, and killing women. And finally, in 1974, after decades of ruminating on these thoughts, he acted on them. After stalking Julie Otero and her 11-year-old daughter, he broke into their home. And over the next two hours,

• 3:03Courtney Brown?

  he bound, tortured, and killed four members of the Otero family. But the high from his horrific actions didn't last long. And just a few months later, he was already on the hunt for his next victim. Her name was Kathy Bright, and she was just 21 years old. In the middle of the day in April of 1974, Dennis broke into her home and attacked Kathy and her teenage brother Kevin. Shockingly, Kevin managed to escape and run for help. But by the time first responders arrived, it was too late for Kathy. She had been stabbed 11 times, an act of such violence that Wichita Police couldn't believe what they were seeing.

• 3:48Courtney Brown?

  For months, investigators desperately hunted for the killer of these innocent people to no avail. Until finally, Dennis Rader sent them a note. Pushing for recognition for his crimes. In the letter, he called himself BTK, which stood for Bind, Torture, Kill. And he told investigators that his reign of terror was far from over. However, immediately after announcing himself and making this threat, he fell silent. Dennis would remain dormant for nearly three years. And during that time, he wore the mask of a normal person. He got a job, attended college classes, and he had his first child. But by 1977,

• 4:33Courtney Brown?

  that sickening desire within him reared its ugly head. And unbeknownst to its residents, Wichita was about to be the site of another horrific murder. For BTK, this was just the beginning. So this is part two of our series. I'm Courtney Brown.

• 4:53Colin Brown?

  And I'm Colin Brown.

• 4:55Courtney Brown?

  And you're listening to Murder in America.

• 5:59Colin Brown?

  It was March 17th, 1977, and the city of Wichita was ready to celebrate. Downtown, residents flocked to the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade. For locals, the parade marked the promise of spring: new beginnings, fun times with loved ones, and the accomplishment of making it through yet another snowy winter. For students of Wichita State University, it marked something else: spring break. The city was filled with young adults, celebrating, dancing, and drinking beer at the local pubs. In between the hordes of people hunting for their next stop along the parade route, there was Dennis Rader, and he was hunting for something else. He was on the prowl for his next victim. It had been three years since he last fulfilled his homicidal urges.

• 6:43Colin Brown?

  During that time, Dennis satiated his urges by stalking women in town, by breaking into their homes and stealing panties and clothing. He also practiced auto-asphyxiation, but that only helped for so long. With the stress of school and his growing family, Dennis was more than ready to kill again. And now, today was that day. As he walked through the streets of Wichita, filled with happy people, he carried everything he needed for an attack. Within the confines of his briefcase, there were plastic bags, tape, cords, and of course, his gun. Dennis had a good feeling about today. His wife was busy with work, he had the week off school, and he already picked out his potential victims.

• 7:24Courtney Brown?

  The victim he had his eyes set on was called Project Green, and he had been planning her attack for months. He ultimately decided to do it in March because Dennis loved anything related to threes, and March is the third month of the year. Now, Project Green was just one of many targets that Dennis had on his list. He knew firsthand that things don't always go as planned when you enter someone else's home. Sometimes, there's an unexpected visitor: a boyfriend, a dog, a brother you didn't expect to be there. Other times, the victim may have changed their schedule.

• 8:02Courtney Brown?

  So just to be safe, Dennis had other potential "projects," as he called them, lined up and ready to go. But Project Green, he wanted her first. Now, her home, where she lived with another woman, sat directly across the street from Dylan's convenience store. And for several weeks, he parked at the store and watched her, peering through the windows of her home to catch a glimpse of her. And every day, he would write down everything she did. Project Green didn't have a dog, and she didn't seem to have a boyfriend, which meant she was the perfect target. So early in the morning, around 11 a.m., he parked at Dylan's,

• 8:45Courtney Brown?

  walked inside, and bought a loaf of bread. He hoped it would make him look like another shopper. When he was finished, he walked across the street, briefcase and bread in hand, and he knocked on Project Green's door. He waited there, muscle stiff and heart racing. The minute she opened the door, he was going to barge in, overpower her, and turn her safe home into his demented playground. But the door didn't open. Dennis waited. He knocked. He peered into the window and knocked again. But she never answered. So from there, Dennis was forced to move on to Plan B.

• 9:28Courtney Brown?

  Her name was Cheryl, but Dennis called her Project Blackout. He had first spotted Cheryl weeks earlier when she was coming home from the bars with her friends, and he thought she was beautiful. During his time stalking her, he noticed that she partied a lot. He figured that would make her an easy target. The only problem was Cheryl lived with two other girls, Judy Clark and Judy's 16-year-old sister Karen. Now Dennis knew from experience that the more people in the home, the harder it is to gain control. But despite the challenge, he was ready. After leaving Project Green, he started the walk to Project Blackout's house with determination.

• 10:13Courtney Brown?

  And soon enough, he found himself standing at her front door. But again, there was no answer. As it turns out, Cheryl, Judy, and Karen had all been out celebrating the holiday. They had no idea what a horrific fate they had just escaped. In fact, none of them would find out that they were BTK's targets until nearly two decades later. But after both of these projects failed, Dennis was frustrated. He was also anxious. If he stood on the porch for too long, he'd draw attention, and that was the last thing that he needed. But even so, he wasn't willing to go home without a kill.

• 10:54Courtney Brown?

  In confessions of a serial killer, he stated he was "too keyed up to just quit." But with no other projects in the area, he decided to go rogue. His twisted need to satisfy his fantasy rose above his own self-preservation. He had spent the last few months stalking his victims for a reason, so he could get away with murder. But now, in this very moment, any victim would do. He wanted to find a woman, bind her, torture her, and kill her. And if anyone else was in the home, well, they'd be collateral damage. Now, just as these horrific thoughts were swirling through Dennis's mind,

• 11:39Courtney Brown?

  he saw a little boy walking up the street, holding a can of soup.

• 11:44Colin Brown?

  Just two houses down from Project Blackout's house was the home of Shirley Vian. She lived there with her three children, eight-year-old Bud, six-year-old Steven, and four-year-old Stephanie. Now, despite the celebratory feeling around Wichita that day, the Vians had no plans other than laying in bed and resting. In fact, the flu had run through her house, and Shirley was the last one to get it. So that morning, she called Dylan's grocery store and told him that her son Steven was coming by to pick up some soup. Now, this was the same grocery store where Dennis Rader had abandoned the Otero's family car. And six-year-old Steven was now on his way over to get his family's lunch. By the time he walked back home with the soup, his mom told him that he got the wrong kind.

• 12:27Colin Brown?

  So Steven had to walk all the way back to get the right soup. And this time, on his way back home, he noticed a man standing on the street. It was Dennis Rader.

• 12:37Courtney Brown?

  After two failed attempts of trying to break into his victim's home, Dennis saw the little boy as an opportunity. Surely, the little boy's mom was inside. And although Dennis had never seen her before, he was willing to take the risk. So a six-year-old Steven passed him. Dennis pulled out a photo of his wife and son. He then asked him,

• 12:58Colin Brown?

  Have you seen these people?

• 13:00Courtney Brown?

  Steven said, "No, sir." Dennis then asked,

• 13:04Colin Brown?

  Are you sure?

• 13:06Courtney Brown?

  Steven said yes, then quickly walked back into his house. Dennis kept his eyes locked on him. And slowly, he followed behind the little boy, like a predator stalking his prey. But not wanting to look too suspicious, Dennis decided to stop at their neighbor's home. When an older couple answered the door, Dennis told them that he worked for a local telephone company. He asked if he could just quickly check their landline for maintenance. And surprisingly, the couple let him in. Now, he would later say that he did this because if the little boy's mother saw the neighbors letting him inside, then she would likely let him inside her house as well. So Dennis walked into this couple's home,

• 13:51Courtney Brown?

  fiddled with their landline, told them everything looked good, and then he walked back out the door. Then he turned to the real target, the home of 24-year-old Shirley Vian.

• 14:04Colin Brown?

  Now, we like to get as much information as we can about the victims in the cases we cover. We scour old records, newspaper archives, and memorials to try and piece together enough of these people's lives to honor their memories. Sometimes, it's easy to find a mountain of information. Sometimes, it's hard. In Shirley Vian's case, it was the latter. She was born Shirley Lawson in Hatch, New Mexico, on November 22, 1951, Thanksgiving Day.

• 14:30Colin Brown?

  And judging by what information we've been able to gather about her, her family had a lot to be thankful for when they welcomed her into the world. Shirley was the type of person who would give you the shirt off her back. In all the photos we found of her, she's beaming. This big, warm smile that makes you want to know everything about her. It seems that growing up, she went to school in Arizona along with her two sisters. By the time she was sixteen, she was pregnant with her first child, a boy who she named after his father, Bud Ralphord. Two years later, she had her second son, a boy named Steven. And two years after that, she had her youngest, a little girl named Stephanie. At some point, she moved to Wichita, Kansas, with her parents living close by in Oklahoma.

• 15:13Colin Brown?

  By 1977, she and Bud had separated, and she was living in a home on hydraulic with her common-law husband, Richard Vien. Now, in Kansas, to this day, common-law marriages are recognized. Essentially, as long as you are living together and publicly state that you are married or commit to a legal obligation, like filing taxes together, you are considered married by the state. Separating at that point requires a divorce. Richard and Shirley were raising her kids together, and by all accounts, they were madly in love. Now, Shirley's son Steven remembers his mother as strict, trying to instill good qualities in her children. But to him, her strictness never felt mean or frustrating. He recalls it making him love his mother even more. Her children truly were her life.

• 15:58Colin Brown?

  Every single night, she would tuck them all in and sing them to sleep, usually to the sound of a country song. Often, it was to her own special rendition of "Satin Sheets" by Gene Pruitt. She was a phenomenal singer, often performing gospel solos at the church that the family attended every Sunday. Now, Shirley, more than anyone, wanted to be out enjoying St. Patrick's Day and singing along to live music. But like we mentioned, she was sick with the flu. After sending her son to pick up some soup from the store just one block away, she never expected that her son Steven would be in any danger. And yet, unwittingly, he had let a killer to the front door. It's something that he still blames himself for decades later, even though he did absolutely nothing wrong.

• 16:41Colin Brown?

  He was, sadly, in the wrong place at the wrong time, just trying to do something kind for his mom.

• 16:49Colin Brown?

  Steven returned home with the can of soup. Soon after he set it in the kitchen, a noise from the front of the house startled him. Slowly Steven and his older brother Bud Junior opened the door just enough so that they could see through the crack. Outside Dennis lowered his gaze to the boys and said, "Are your parents home?"

• 17:07Courtney Brown?

  In response Steven told the truth.

• 17:10Colin Brown?

  "My mother's sick in bed."

• 17:13Courtney Brown?

  With that Dennis knew he was in the clear. He barged inside the home throwing the door open and pushing the boys aside. But before he could find Shirley, she found him. "What's going on here?" she said. Shirley emerged from the bedroom, tying her robe across her waist. She was so sick she could hardly keep food down. She was spending the warm spring day at home trying to take care of her kids. But as she emerged, there was a man standing in her living room. Right after Shirley asked what was going on, Dennis brandished a gun. She begged him not to hurt her kids.

• 17:54Courtney Brown?

  And as usual Dennis tried to give her a false sense of security. He promised that he wasn't going to shoot her. And he gave her the excuse he gave everyone else. That he was a fugitive from California and that he wasn't there to hurt her. But this time around, he added in that he had this sex fantasy. He told Shirley that he was going to tie her up, have sex with her, maybe take some pictures, and then he'd be on his way. Shirley begged, telling Dennis that she was sick with the flu and that a neighbor was going to check on her soon. But Dennis didn't care. He turned up the volume on the television and walked from window to window pulling

• 18:39Courtney Brown?

  down the blinds. Coldly, he said that he was going to fulfill his fantasy whether she liked it or not. And Shirley began to panic. Her children also started to cry. The tension and fear was nearly unbearable when suddenly...

• 18:57Courtney Brown?

  Everyone looked at the ringing phone. Shirley hadn't been lying. Her whole family and all of her friends and neighbors knew that she was sick. And they had all promised to keep tabs on her. Innocently, six-year-old Steven stepped forward. Should I answer it? Dennis snapped at the boy, telling him no. Wanting to protect her son, Shirley told him to do anything the man said. So the phone rang on, to a family in the middle of complete destruction. But Dennis began to wonder, what if this caller decides to stop by the house? If that was the case, then he needed to get out of there, and fast. But not before he finished what he started.

• 19:42Courtney Brown?

  Dennis opened up his briefcase, pulling out some rope. He then approached eight-year-old boy, the biggest threat of the children. Bud started screaming as Dennis bound his wrists and ankles. Shirley begged him to stop, but he wouldn't listen. It's a sickening image, especially when you consider that Dennis had a four-year-old son of his own. But as the children screamed and cried, he paid them no mind. Instead, he shoved them into a nearby bathroom, and demanded that Shirley fill the room with blankets and toys. Shirley did as she was told. Now Dennis would later say that he did this to try and calm the children down.

• 20:26Courtney Brown?

  And he mentions it almost like he's this virtuous man who was looking out for the kids. But in reality, no amount of toys and blankets were going to calm them down, as they knew their mother was in danger. From here, Dennis had to lock the kids inside the bathroom. And the bathroom had two doors, one that led into the living room, and one that connected to the primary bedroom. And Dennis knew that he had to lock up both doors if his plan was going to work. So for the door that led into the living room, he tied a rope from the door handle to the sink. He then told the kids to stay put, and that everything was going to be all right.

• 21:08Courtney Brown?

  A promise he did not intend to keep. From there, he grabbed Shirley and they made their way to the primary bedroom. Dennis could still hear the children on the other side of the bathroom door. He could see their shadows from underneath it. And just to make sure they wouldn't try and barge in, he pushed Shirley's bed up against the bathroom door, completely locking the children inside. And finally, Dennis began what he had planned all along. First, he had to bind his victim. He grabbed some tape from his head kit and approached Shirley. He learned from experience that taping first seemed to work better. Then, once the tape was in place,

• 21:53Courtney Brown?

  he'd grab his rope and secure the bindings. While Dennis tied his intricate knots around Shirley's wrists and ankles, her children screamed on the other end of the bathroom door. Little Steven, hearing his mother cry and beg, yelled out, "Leave my mother alone! Get out of here! I'm gonna break out of this room!" Dennis yelled back.

• 22:18Colin Brown?

  "I don't think you wanna do that. I'll blow your motherfucking head off."

• 22:21Courtney Brown?

  From there, Dennis forced Shirley to lay with her head down at the foot of the bed. He then tied her feet to the metal headboard and wrapped a cord around her neck. At this point, he was incredibly aroused. He considered pausing to take a picture of her tied up. But just as he was about to, Shirley vomited all over the floor and herself. After all, she had the flu. And now, she was being tortured. When reflecting on this later in life, Dennis wrote, "I think me being there somehow made her feel worse." Which just goes to show how incredibly far removed Dennis was from reality.

• 23:03Courtney Brown?

  But what's really perplexing is what Dennis did next. After Shirley vomited, he went to the kitchen and got her a glass of water. Yet, just seconds after she drank, Dennis pulled out a plastic bag and pulled it over her head. He then grabbed another cord, wrapped it around her neck several times, and pulled. As Shirley struggled in front of him, the sound of her children's screams echoed throughout the house. As an adult, Steven recalled, I peeked through the crack in the door. I seen everything. Stripped down naked, feet taped, taped her hands behind her back, face down. End quote.

• 23:47Courtney Brown?

  He recalls seeing the plastic bag go over his mother's head. He remembers Dennis throwing the rope around her neck and pulling on it tight. He remembers Dennis masturbating as his mother struggled for oxygen beneath him. Eventually, after thrashing and fighting for her life, his mother stopped moving. At just 24 years old, Shirley Vian was dead. The children were obviously horrified. They screamed, but their screams only fueled their mother's killer more. Dennis wanted to hurt the children as well, especially the four-year-old little girl. He would later write this in his journal.

• 24:27Colin Brown?

  I was going to take the boys and put plastic bags over their heads like I did Joseph and Shirley, and then hang the girl. God, oh God, what a beautiful sexual relief that would be.

• 24:37Courtney Brown?

  Now luckily, he didn't have the opportunity to do any of those things. Because he kept thinking about that phone call, the one Shirley received shortly after breaking into her home. He worried that whoever it was would stop by to check on her. So instead of killing the children, Dennis stopped with Shirley. And from there, he grabbed his things and slipped out the door without anyone seeing him.

• 25:03Colin Brown?

  Back inside Shirley's home, her children were still frantic. Eventually, her oldest son Bud decided to grab a heavy object and break the bathroom window. He and his brother Steven then crawled their way out through the broken glass and raced through the front door to check on their mother. To their horror, they found her bound in the bedroom with a plastic bag still wrapped around her head. They called for her, but she didn't answer. Sobbing, Steven tried to untie the knots around her neck. In an interview with KAKE as an adult, he stated, "After I ran around trying to untie the rope, I knew there was no hope. If I'd gotten the rope untied, there may have been hope. But I was a five-year-old boy, you know? What could I do?" Steven had tried to save his mom so many times, he was just a baby.

• 25:48Colin Brown?

  And because of Dennis's actions, he's been forced to carry the weight of what happened to his mother for his entire life. And not just what happened to her, but what he was forced to do in the aftermath. Because when he realized she wasn't moving, he and Bud ran to a neighbor's house to call for help. The neighbors' names were James and Sharon Burnett. When Steven and Bud came to their door and told them what happened, they were shocked. It was almost unbelievable. Sharon even ran to their house to check on their mom. When she opened the front door, she found four-year-old Stephanie on the floor of the living room sobbing. She then found Shirley dead in the back bedroom. Within minutes, the police were in the neighborhood. One of the first responding officers was Raymond Fletcher, the same man who responded to the Kathy Bright murder years earlier.

• 26:33Colin Brown?

  Raymond would later say that this scene was much different than Kathy's, but he had studied the Otero case, and he could not ignore the similarities. Like with the Oteros, the killer barged into their home. He used intricate knots to bind his victim. He had placed a plastic bag around her head. Now, after walking through the home, they found no fingerprints, just like with the Otero crime scene. But they didn't need fingerprints to know that BTK had struck again.

• 27:01Courtney Brown?

  When investigators sat down with Shirley's children to take their statements, six-year-old Steven broke down crying as he told them everything. Steven said that he was the one who opened the door, something that he really beat himself up about. Even 20 years later, he told reporters at CNN, quote, "I let BTK into my house," end quote. This life-altering event forever changed the way he viewed himself and the world. Yet Dennis couldn't seem to care less. When he was later asked about the VN children, and whether or not he was concerned for them, Dennis said, quote, "No, no. They were old enough to take care of themselves," end quote.

• 27:45Courtney Brown?

  He also repeatedly mentioned that he was looking out for them by putting toys and blankets into the bathroom that day, as if that was supposed to calm them down, as their mother was being tortured and murdered in the next room. Now in the weeks after Shirley's murder, her children stayed in foster care. We aren't entirely sure why they didn't live with Richard, their mother's common-law husband. But it seemed that very quickly they were taken by their maternal grandparents, who lived about five hours away in Oklahoma. But life in another state with people who loved them still couldn't erase what they had been through. At 13 years old, Steven began smoking and experimenting with drugs.

• 28:30Courtney Brown?

  Before he was even out of his teens, he was an alcoholic. He told reporters, "Sometimes drinking helps with the memories, sometimes it doesn't." Over the years, and between drinking binges and drug use, Steven attempted suicide several times. In an interview with CNN, he said, "I just wanted to be with my mama." The pain he experienced, seeing the horrific and unnatural death of his mother, is something that haunts him to this day. He's now a father and a grandfather, a man still struggling with substance abuse. And at his core, he is still that scared little boy, desperate to save his mom.

• 29:15Courtney Brown?

  When we talk about Dennis Rader's crimes, that is the real story. Not his narcissistic ramblings, or the pride he takes in the killings. The real story is the pain that he left in his wake. Pain that is still rippling through generations of families, over 50 years later.

• 29:34Colin Brown?

  For Dennis, however, his family life was taking off. In the summer of 1977, he and Paula began trying to get pregnant. Around that time, it seemed as if Dennis's mood had improved. His marriage got better. Paula likely believed that he was simply excited about having another child, but the reality was much darker. After murdering Shirley Vian, Dennis had been fueled by the media coverage surrounding her death. It was his first kill in three years, and it had given him a taste of what he had been missing. And he didn't intend to go very long without striking again. In between working for ADT, raising his son, and attending night classes at WSU, Dennis made it a priority to troll, his term for hunting, for his next victim.

• 30:18Colin Brown?

  He would cruise down streets in Wichita, peering in windows and taking note of any attractive women or potential targets he saw. And soon, heading into fall of 1977, he spotted someone that became his newest obsession.

• 30:31Courtney Brown?

  Nancy Fox was just 25 years old, but to everyone who knew her, she was wise and hardworking beyond her years. She was born and raised in Wichita, the youngest daughter of Dale and Georgia Fox. Her older sister Beverly was one of her closest friends growing up, and her three younger brothers, Kevin, Fred, and David, looked up to her. Every Sunday, the family attended Parkview Baptist Church, where Nancy sang in the choir. She loved music, both inside and outside of church. She played the flute in her school's band, and practiced it religiously at home. Nancy was, in a lot of ways, a golden child.

• 31:15Courtney Brown?

  She was studious, hardworking, organized, and she always needed things to be very clean from a young age. Anytime she was stressed or overwhelmed, she decompressed by cleaning the things around her. She also loved anything related to self-care, like doing her makeup and hair, getting her nails done, and finding the perfect outfit. In her high school yearbooks, there's a glow about her, something that tells you she is just good. She had a lot of friends, and with those friends and all of her loved ones, she was fiercely loyal. She was described as kind, but at the same time, she didn't put up with any nonsense.

• 31:57Courtney Brown?

  She had goals in life, and intended on working hard to achieve them. Upon her graduation in 1970, she decided not to attend college. Instead, she took up several jobs, sticking close to home so she could be with her childhood friends and her family. In fact, every single Sunday, she went to her parents' house for dinner, where she and all her siblings would enjoy quality time with each other. And when she wasn't with her family or working, she was with friends. Like most young adults, Nancy liked to have fun. On weekends, she and her group would visit nightclubs, often ending the night back at her apartment, laughing and exchanging stories with them.

• 32:41Courtney Brown?

  In 1975, two years before she was on Dennis Rader's radar, she began renting a duplex at 843 South Pershing Street in Wichita. She was proud to be renting the home all by herself with her own income. And according to her father Dale, she had no fears whatsoever about living alone. Nancy was a confident woman, and she routinely made safe choices. Her father and brothers felt like they didn't have to worry about Nancy. She had it all figured out.

• 33:17Colin Brown?

  In fall of 1977, with the holidays coming up, Nancy decided to take a part-time position at Hellsberg Jewelers at the local mall, on top of her full-time job as a secretary at a construction firm. She thrived in the workplace, and her coworkers loved her, but her greatest dream had nothing to do with her career. Nancy wanted to be a mother. According to her siblings and friends, Nancy couldn't wait to have a family of her own, and she had been saving money wisely in order to do just that. Unfortunately, it wasn't easy finding a man who was as ambitious as she was. So, heading into winter of 1977, she was single. She didn't mind, opting to fill her time with family and friends instead. However, unbeknownst to her,

• 34:01Colin Brown?

  this made her a target in Dennis Rader's twisted mind, and a single-chance encounter made her his newest obsession.

• 34:09Courtney Brown?

  It was late fall when Dennis spotted Nancy Fox for the very first time. Naturally, when he spotted her, he was stalking the neighborhood, looking for his next victim. At that time, Nancy just so happened to be walking out of her duplex to grab the mail as he slowly drove by. And from there, Dennis became fixated on her. Nancy was stunning. With vibrant blonde hair, a glowing smile, and a petite frame. She became his favorite project, and he knew he was going to go after her, no matter what. Soon after spotting her in between classes, his job, and his life as a father and husband,

• 34:50Courtney Brown?

  he reached into her mailbox in the dead of night to see what her name was. And when he saw her name, he instantly began searching for connections. Connections that would confirm she was the perfect target. And once again, it's here where we see Dennis's obsession with the number three. In Confessions of a Serial Killer, Dennis wrote this.

• 35:13Colin Brown?

  I called this PJ Fox, or Foxtail, or Fox Hunt. The number three was in the address. There are three letters in Fox's name. It sounds similar to sex, and foxes are hard to catch. She looked very smart, so I had to outsmart her. The date was also close to the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and this was a sneak attack. December is also the year coming to the end, and winter is the end of the life cycle. A lot of things were right for this hit.

• 35:40Courtney Brown?

  It's almost as if Dennis was trying to convince himself that Nancy was who he was meant to kill by making these strange connections. And for him, it worked. For the next several weeks, he stalked Nancy any chance he could. He followed her to her job at the construction firm. He followed her to her second job at the jewelry store. At one point, he even stopped inside and bought some expensive jewelry, giving him a closer look at his next intended victim. Dennis invaded Nancy's space and life before he ever even broke into her home. Every move he made was a calculated decision to ensure he could get away with murder.

• 36:25Courtney Brown?

  During that time, he carefully noted her work schedule. He cruised the neighborhood to weed out potential threats. And he even peeked into her neighbors' homes to see if anyone there would disturb his attack on Nancy. He was very glad to see that the duplex connected to Nancy's was vacant. He knew that during the kill, they could make as much noise as they wanted without anyone calling for help. So finally, after weeks of stalking, planning, and daydreaming about the attack, he decided to make his sick fantasy a reality.

• 37:01Colin Brown?

  It was cold on December 8th, 1977. The wind whipping across the prairie had an awful bite, but that worked in Dennis's favor. He put on his biggest winter coat, a puffy coat that allowed him to conceal everything he intended to use on Nancy underneath. He stowed away bondage, his gun, and gloves in his coat, and then calmly strolled out into his living room. Paula and Dennis's four-year-old son were watching TV, enjoying their night as they talked about Christmas on the horizon. At this point, Paula was three months pregnant with the couple's second child. It should have been a joyous time, your wife and son who love you, sitting by a Christmas tree, enjoying the night together. But Dennis didn't want to join them.

• 37:42Colin Brown?

  It didn't matter to him what his family was doing, as long as they were out of his way. He told Paula that he had to go to the WSU library to finish up a research paper. It was the end of the semester, and he wanted to finish strong before winter break. "It's going to be a long night," he told her, "don't wait up on me." Paula was proud of her husband, proud of his work ethic and his dedication to his studies, so she did what any supportive wife would do. She gave him a kiss goodbye and sent him on his way, encouraging him. She had absolutely no idea that her husband wasn't heading off to secure their family's future. He was heading off to destroy someone else's.

• 38:20Courtney Brown?

  This time around, Dennis took his wife's car. It was a little after 9:00 PM when he pulled up into Nancy's neighborhood. Like all of the other attacks, he parked a few blocks down the road, and then walked on foot towards her home. It was a Thursday. Dennis knew that on Tuesdays and Thursdays Nancy worked late at the jewelry store, which gave him time to break in and lie in wait, ambushing her when she stepped inside the home. But first, he decided to double-check that she wasn't home. He wanted Nancy to be, in his own words, "his perfect kill." He stood on the front porch of her quaint little duplex, his head kit hidden beneath his winter coat.

• 39:05Courtney Brown?

  Dennis was delighted and relieved when no one answered. Quickly, he snuck around the back of the duplex, hunting for Nancy's phone line. When he found it, he pulled out his knife and severed the cord. Next, he broke a back window to get inside. But he didn't just shatter it or punch it out like he had done in previous break-ins. For Nancy's kill, he had practiced. For weeks in his back shed, he practiced cutting glass over and over again with a glass-cutting tool, until he got it perfect. That night, in the cool winter air, he took the tool out of his coat and scraped it along the glass in a straight, horizontal line.

• 39:51Courtney Brown?

  Once the glass gave way, he pushed it in, allowing him to grab it and sneak inside, almost soundlessly.

• 39:59Colin Brown?

  And just like that, Dennis was inside. Nancy's home was dark, lit only by the warm glow of a Christmas tree in the corner of the room. Nancy's personality, her hopes and her dreams were on full display in the home. Years later, Dennis could still recall how clean and organized the home was. The shelves were lined with photos of Nancy with her friends and family, all people who loved her, people who she was eager to spend the holidays with. But Dennis knew, in that moment, that she never would. To make sure the landline was dead, he picked it up and put it to his ear. But just as he did, he heard a noise behind him. Dennis turned around to see Nancy standing at the front door. Shocked, she yelled out, "What are you doing here? Get out of my house."

• 40:44Colin Brown?

  But Dennis didn't move. She then said, "I'm going to call the police." Dennis knew that Nancy couldn't call the police, and he told her, "Go ahead and try, but I don't think it would do you any good because I cut the line."

• 40:56Courtney Brown?

  Dennis quickly pulled out his gun. Showing Nancy that he was serious. But Nancy didn't back down. She didn't cry or plead with him. In fact, she didn't even look scared. Instead, she was angry. Dennis enjoyed that. "What are you doing here?" she asked. "Why are you in my house?"

• 41:19Colin Brown?

  "I'm here to sex with you. I have this sex fantasy I want to fulfill. So, I'm going to tie up and take some pictures."

• 41:26Courtney Brown?

  Nancy was shocked. There was no way in hell she was going to let that happen. "Get out of my house," she repeated. But Dennis didn't budge.

• 41:36Colin Brown?

  "This is going to happen."

• 41:38Courtney Brown?

  Nancy took off her coat and reached for a cigarette with her shaking fingertips. Dennis watched as she lit it and took a puff. He walked over and grabbed her purse, dumping it out on the kitchen table. He wanted a trophy from this kill. So, he grabbed her driver's license. All the while, he kept talking, explaining why he was there.

• 42:04Colin Brown?

  "I'm really not a bad guy. I just have a sexual problem. I'm here to fulfill that fantasy and then I'll be on my way. If you follow my instructions, I won't hurt you."

• 42:13Courtney Brown?

  It was an excuse he had given before. And it worked. Realizing there was nothing she could do, Nancy put out her cigarette. Then she met his eye, with a mix of rage and acceptance burning in her gaze. "Well, let's get this over with so I can call the police," she told him. Now in Confessions of a Serial Killer, Dennis said, "She sealed her doom for sure when she told me she was going to contact the police." In that statement, Dennis was putting the blame on Nancy, stating she did something wrong, as if she gave him no choice. But the facts are simple. Dennis had never done this to anyone without killing them.

• 42:57Courtney Brown?

  He wasn't wearing a mask. He didn't hide his identity at all. And he had brought with him everything he needed to kill her. Nancy's fate wasn't sealed by her threatening to call the police. Her fate was sealed from the moment Dennis laid eyes on her, weeks earlier. And now, it was all about to play out, in the most horrific way imaginable. First, Nancy asked to use the restroom.

• 43:26Courtney Brown?

  And he allowed her inside, putting an object in the doorjamb to prevent her from locking it. As she closed it behind her, Dennis yelled out.

• 43:36Colin Brown?

  I'll be waiting in the bedroom. Come out with your clothes off.

• 43:39Courtney Brown?

  As Nancy walked into the bathroom, she mentally prepared herself for what was ahead. She was in the midst of every woman's worst nightmare. It's hard to put into words the fear she must have been feeling as she stood in that bathroom with a monster waiting for her just outside the door. But she expected to make it out alive. She figured that once the man left, she would call the police and hopefully, they'd be able to find out who he was. So, just like Dennis demanded, she removed most of her clothing, but left on her cardigan. Then, she made her way into the bedroom, where Dennis was naked, waiting

• 44:23Courtney Brown?

  for her. He asked her to take off the cardigan, but she protested. Surprisingly, Dennis didn't fight her on this. But it's here, where he started to fiddle with a pair of handcuffs in his gloved hand. "Why do you have those?" she asked.

• 44:40Colin Brown?

  "It's a part of my fantasy."

• 44:42Courtney Brown?

  "Why are you wearing gloves?"

• 44:44Colin Brown?

  "I don't want to leave my prince behind."

• 44:46Courtney Brown?

  Nancy made it very clear that she was angry, that she didn't want this. But she kept reminding herself that it would all be over soon. And it's here, where Dennis ordered her onto the bed. After forcing her face down, he pulled her hands behind her back and cuffed her. He then bound her ankles. Then, just to scare her, he said,

• 45:11Colin Brown?

  "Have you ever had anal?"

• 45:13Courtney Brown?

  Nancy didn't answer his question. But Dennis didn't have any intention on having sex with Nancy. It was all a part of the mind game. To make sure she didn't scream for help, he gagged her. Then he removed the rest of her clothing. Dennis took off his belt, looped it around Nancy's neck, and pulled. It was at that moment when Nancy realized that this man wasn't here to rape her. He was here to kill her. And once that realization hit, she fought as hard as she could. Dennis recalled that with her hands behind her back, Nancy managed to aggressively grab his crotch in an effort to get him off.

• 45:57Courtney Brown?

  She squeezed and punched, trying to do anything she could to force him to let go. But for Dennis, that just made things more exciting. In return, he pulled tighter. And soon enough, the world around Nancy went black. She slipped into unconsciousness, just for an instant. Because as we know, Dennis sadly didn't let his victims die so easily. As soon as he felt her body go limp, he removed the belt, allowing her to breathe. After a while, she finally regained consciousness. But as she opened her eyes, she saw that the man was still on top of her.

• 46:40Courtney Brown?

  Horrifically, he then leaned down and whispered into her ear.

• 46:45Colin Brown?

  My name is BTK. I'm the one who killed the Otero family. I killed Shirley Vian earlier this year, and you're next. The Conspiracy Files is the most explosive show on the internet. I'm your host, Colin Brown, from The Paranormal Files on YouTube. And I'm inviting you to take this twisted journey down the rabbit hole with me. Together, we will dive deep into some of the world's most dangerous and disturbing conspiracy theories, from suspicious suicides to hidden pedophile rings and high-profile cover-ups. On my show, no story is off limits, and no detail will be spared. And trust me, after listening to just one episode, you will never look at the world the same. So, if you like conspiracies, mysteries, true crime, and chaos, then this is the show for you.

• 47:30Colin Brown?

  Listen to The Conspiracy Files now on all streaming platforms or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 47:41Courtney Brown?

  Nancy was born and raised in Wichita. So she likely knew exactly what he was talking about. BTK was the talk of the town a few years back. After he left that ominous confession and that library book. Everyone in Wichita knew about the brutal details of the Otero family murders. So I can't imagine the horror she felt, knowing that she was about to face a similar fate. Nancy knew that if she didn't fight back, she would not make it out of here alive. So with her hands still tied behind her back, she reached behind her again, digging her nails into Dennis's skin. She kicked and thrashed and screamed, but soon enough,

• 48:26Courtney Brown?

  he looped the belt around her neck a second time. And this time, he didn't let go. Within minutes, Nancy Fox was dead. But Dennis wasn't finished enjoying his night. From there, he grabbed Nancy's blue silk nightgown. In Confessions of a Serial Killer, he said it was his favorite color. And right there in her bedroom, he masturbated into the nightgown. After admiring the crime scene around him, he threw the nightgown aside and began looking for more trophies. He dumped out Nancy's drawers. In addition to taking her driver's license,

• 49:07Courtney Brown?

  he also took some of her lingerie and jewelry, including a pearl necklace. He later mentioned that he considered giving the jewelry to his wife, but eventually he said he figured it was too cruel, so he never did.

• 49:24Colin Brown?

  Dennis would later say that out of all the murders he committed, this one was his favorite. He frequently described it in Confessions of a Serial Killer as "his perfect murder." There was no running around the house, no dogs, no children, no men running in to save the day, no gunshots and no stabbings. He didn't even have to beat Nancy into submission. It all went perfectly as planned. He was able to do what he wanted, then slip into the night and make his way back to his family without anyone noticing him. That night, he slept beside his pregnant wife, elated. He couldn't tell her why, but in the morning, he had plans to tell the one person he could.

• 50:04Colin Brown?

  You just heard the actual call that Dennis made on a payphone at 8:18 a.m., the morning after he killed Nancy Fox. On his coffee break, he decided that he couldn't wait any longer to see Nancy's murder in the news. He had been fantasizing since he left the house about seeing her name in the paper and cutting it out as a keepsake. So, he stopped at a gas station payphone and told the police exactly where to find it. The dispatcher on the other end was stunned by what she had heard.

• 50:38Courtney Brown?

  Excuse me, sir? I didn't quite hear you. Did you say 8:43 South Pershing?

• 50:44Colin Brown?

  That is correct, he said. The dispatcher frantically started asking more questions, but Dennis quickly dropped the receiver and sped away in his work van. Officers were dispatched to the location of the call and to Nancy Fox's home. When they arrived at the payphone, they found it hanging off the hook, swaying from side to side in the booth, but their caller was long gone.

• 51:07Courtney Brown?

  Meanwhile, across town, Officer John D. Petra made his way toward South Pershing Street. He was there by 8:22, just four minutes after Dennis made the call to dispatch. But when Officer Petra knocked on the door, no one answered. He tried to turn the knob, but it was locked, so from there he made his way around back. There, swaying in the wind, Officer Petra saw the cut phone line, then the broken window. His heart sank. This was all too familiar, and he found himself dreading what awaited him inside. He peeked into the home and called out, but no one answered him.

• 51:51Courtney Brown?

  However, at the other end of the house, he saw a bedroom, and there, on the bed, was a girl, completely motionless. Officer Petra quickly made his way back to the front, where another officer had just pulled up. Together, they busted down the front door and ran inside. In the back bedroom, they found the body of Nancy Fox. She was face down, wearing only a cardigan. She was bound at the wrists and ankles. Near her body, the officers found the nightgown covered in semen. And soon enough, Nancy's street was flooded with first responders. This was a scene that they all knew far too well.

• 52:36Courtney Brown?

  There was forced entry, a cut phone line, a woman tied up on her bed, signs of strangulation, and semen near her body. It all pointed to one person. A man they only knew as BTK.

• 52:52Colin Brown?

  Later that morning, two detectives made their way to St. Joseph Hospital. Nancy's mother, Georgia, worked at their cafeteria. It was 10:30 a.m. when they called into the office to deliver the horrific news. When Georgia heard that Nancy had been murdered, she screamed and collapsed to the ground. Later that day, she had to identify her daughter's body. Georgia would later say that when they pulled down that sheet, it was very clear that Nancy had horribly suffered as she took her final breaths. Seeing her baby girl battered and bruised, this was the hardest day of her entire life. The second hardest was when they had to bury her. On the morning of Nancy's funeral, Parkview Baptist Church was filled with members of their community who had come to pay their respects.

• 53:35Colin Brown?

  Nancy's family was so grateful for the amount of support they received, but her death had a lasting effect. Her little brother, Kevin, who was a sophomore in high school when his sister died, eventually dropped out of school. The day that Nancy was discovered, Kevin had actually skipped school to indulge in the freedom of having just gotten his license. His parents didn't get a chance to tell him what happened to Nancy. Tragically, he found out when he turned on the car radio and heard a breaking news bulletin. The aftermath of losing his sister and finding out the way he did absolutely crushed him. The entire family was crushed. Nancy's mother, Georgia, couldn't go back to work for months. When she finally did, her coworkers said she would often just break down in tears.

• 54:18Colin Brown?

  Every single day was hard, but Sundays were the hardest. Those were the days that Nancy would come by and they would all eat a meal together as a family. They were the days where the world stopped and Georgia and Dale just got to enjoy having their children around the table. Now, it was a day forever marred. Georgia couldn't even bring herself to make fried chicken anymore because it was Nancy's favorite. But to make their grief even harsher, they didn't have any answers as to what happened.

• 54:46Courtney Brown?

  Now, the police hadn't publicly connected Nancy's murder to BTK. But there was definitely suspicion in their community. And like all of the other crime scenes, there wasn't any evidence left behind at Nancy's house that could point them to their killer. No fingerprints, no blood, no eyewitnesses. But they did have one lead. On the morning after the murder, when BTK called the police from that payphone, an off-duty firefighter actually stepped into the booth shortly after. Now, he didn't get a good look at the man, but he was able to tell police that he was around six feet tall. He wore a gray industrial-type suit and he drove a van with something painted on the side of it.

• 55:31Courtney Brown?

  But as investigators worked to try and find BTK's identity, Dennis Rader was enjoying the high of his kill. However, he was also very anxious. He knew that the payphone call to police wasn't his smartest move. And the weeks after, he was on edge. Every day, he expected the police to come knocking at his door. But day after day and week after week, no one did, which only bolstered his confidence. Following Nancy's murder, after not getting caught, Dennis felt on top of the world. He even felt comfortable enough to relive his crimes. On one day in particular,

• 56:13Courtney Brown?

  he sat at home and started writing a poem about murdering Shirley Vian. As he scribbled the poem down on an index card, he heard the sound of his wife coming home. He quickly shoved the card down into his chair, and stood up to greet Paula at the door. And somehow, he forgot about the poem. That is, until days later, when Paula walked into the room with a confused look on her face. "What is this?" she asked, holding up the card. Dennis began to panic. Thinking quickly, he told her it was for school. He said that in one of his classes, they were discussing the BTK murders,

• 56:55Courtney Brown?

  and his professor asked him to write a poem about one of the victims. Surprisingly, Paula believed him. But Dennis wasn't finished with his risky behavior. In fact, soon after this, he changed up the wording of the poem, printed it out on another index card, stamped the card with a bunch of childish rubber stamps, and then put it in the mail for the Wichita Eagle newspaper. Towards the end of January 1978, they received the poem. It read this:

• 57:30Colin Brown?

  "Shirley Lox, Shirley Lox, wilt thou be mine? Thou shalt not scream, nor yeet feel the line, but lay on cushion and think of me, and death, and how it's going to be."

• 57:41Courtney Brown?

  Now, over the next week, Dennis checked the papers religiously, expecting to see his note on the front page. But to his twisted disappointment, day after day passed with not even a single mention of his poem. As it turns out, the employees who read it thought it was a stupid Valentine's Day card, so they tossed it in the trash. Dennis was furious, so he decided to try again. On February 10, 1978, he sent another letter to KAKETV. And this time around, it definitely got their attention.

• 58:20Courtney Brown?

  The letter was titled "Oh Death to Nancy", but it wasn't just the title that disturbed the station. It was the drawing attached. A pencil sketch that perfectly replicated Nancy Fox's crime scene. It showed a woman bound and gagged, lying on her stomach and looking back at the artist, terrified. Looking at the photo is incredibly disturbing, and comparing it to the actual crime scene photos is even more so. Dennis sketched Nancy in an incredibly sexual way. Her back is arched, her legs are spread, and she's essentially presenting her crotch to him.

• 59:02Courtney Brown?

  But clearly, this isn't actually what happened. In reality, there was nothing sexual, nothing playful, nothing enticing about what happened to her. But to Dennis, it was a moment of pure erotica. But after receiving this letter, KAKETV knew that they were hearing from Nancy's killer. Something that also clued them in, were the letters BTK, written four times across the page. But in part, the letter read this.

• 59:34Colin Brown?

  I find the newspaper not writing about the poem unvain, unamusing. A little paragraph would have been enough. I know it's not the news media's fault. The police chief, he keeps things quiet and doesn't let the public know there is a psycho running loose, strangling mostly women. There are seven in the ground. Who will be next? How many do I have to kill before I get a name in the paper or some national attention? Do the cops think that all those deaths are not related? Golly gee, yes, the MO is different in each, but look, a pattern is developing. The victims are tied up. Most have been women, phone cut, brought some bondage, sadist tendencies, no struggle, outside the death spot, no witness except the van's kids. They were very lucky. A phone call saved them.

• 1:00:18Colin Brown?

  I was going to tape the boys and put plastic bags over their heads like I did Joseph and Shirley, and then hang the girl. Good old God, what a beautiful sexual relief that would have been. Then there's Josephine. When I hung her, it really turned me on. Her pleading for mercy, then the rope took hold. She helpless, staring at me with wide terror-filled eyes, the rope getting tighter and tighter. There was also victim number five. You don't understand these things because you're not under the influence of Factor X. The same thing that made Son of Sam, Jack the Ripper, Havory Glatman, Boston Strangler, Dr. H.H. Holmes, Pantyhose Strangler of Florida, Hillside Strangler, Ted of the West Coast, and many more infamous character kills, which seem senseless, but we cannot help it.

• 1:01:03Colin Brown?

  There is no help, no cure, except death or being caught and put away. How about some name for me? It's time. Seven down and many more to go. I like the following. How about you? The BTK Strangler, Wichita Strangler, Poetic Strangler, The Bondage Strangler. On my next victim, you'll know it's me. I'll leave behind the letters BTK. I'll stuff your jaws till you can't talk. I'll blind your legs till you can't walk. I'll tie your hands till you can't make a stand. And finally, I'll close your eyes so you can't see all...

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• 1:02:32Speaker 05

  It's getting chilly outside. But you know what that means?

• 1:02:38Speaker 05

  It's time to cozy up with Panera Bread. Let's get toasty, cheesy. Oh, hello broccoli cheddar soup in a bread bowl. How about melty? Okay, Chipotle chicken avo melt. It's dipping bread and soupy goodness season. Oh yeah, we are so back. It's Panera season. Order now.

• 1:03:00Colin Brown?

  ...sexual death unto you for me. BTK.

• 1:03:06Courtney Brown?

  Now, in this letter, Dennis confessed to seven murders. There were the four members of the Otero family, then Shirley Van and Nancy Fox. But he didn't name his fifth victim. That was Kathy Bright. As we mentioned before, because that murder was so bloody and so different from the others, the police weren't convinced that it was connected. Dennis liked giving police bits and pieces. He enjoyed the cat and mouse game, so he put the number of kills without revealing his fifth victim. But as the employees at the station were reading this, they were shocked. They had been covering BTK for years at this point.

• 1:03:49Courtney Brown?

  And the threat in the letter didn't ring hollow to them. Who will be next? Immediately, they called the Wichita Police.

• 1:04:00Colin Brown?

  Wichita Police Chief Richard Lemunyan had been dreading this day. For a while now, the department had suspected that there was a serial killer in their community, but they weren't sure if informing the public was the right decision. For one, they didn't want to send their city into a panic. And two, they knew this guy was dangerous. They knew that he liked the notoriety. From the very beginning, they feared that putting a spotlight on this man would only encourage him to terrorize the city even more. But after this letter, after he confessed to killing seven people and threatened to kill more, they knew it was finally time to make an announcement. They feared that if they didn't, the killer may go to even more extreme lengths to get their attention. So, at 6 o'clock that evening, KAKETV's news director Ron Lowen

• 1:04:44Colin Brown?

  sat down with Wichita's police chief, Richard Lemunyan, with the cameras rolling. Hundreds of thousands of people from around Wichita were watching. They turned up the volume, hushed their children, and listened in as the police addressed the public for the very first time about the serial killer in their community.

• 1:05:01Speaker 06

  Good afternoon. This morning, KAKE TV was contacted by the person who police say they believe murdered four members of the Joseph Otero family in January of 1974.

• 1:05:10Speaker 07

  The communication came in the form of a two-page, typewritten letter addressed to KAKE Channel 10. It was signed with the initials BTK. But with us right now is Chief of Police, Richard Lemunyan. I have a couple of questions, Chief. How can you be sure that the BTK letter is authentic?

• 1:05:27Speaker 08

  Well, Ron, after reviewing the contents of the letters, absolutely no question that the only person who would have the type of information that was included in the letter would have to be the killer himself.

• 1:05:39Speaker 07

  Do you know what the initials BTK stand for?

• 1:05:43Speaker 08

  Yes, it's our feeling that the initials that were placed there stand for bind, torture, and kill.

• 1:05:51Speaker 07

  BTK has killed seven people, Chief. What kind of leads do you have?

• 1:05:56Speaker 08

  Well, very honestly, we have no solid leads at all.

• 1:06:00Colin Brown?

  They went on to warn the public that they don't know who this killer is, and they don't know how to stop him. They said, "I know it is difficult to ask people to remain calm, but we are asking exactly this. When a person of this type is at large in our community, it requires special precautions and special awareness by everyone. So, lock your doors. Don't allow strangers into your home. This man has told us that he is hiding in plain sight. We suspect that he doesn't look like a monster. He looks like one of us, someone you'd trust. So, please be vigilant. And if you suspect something or know anything about this man, call the police so we can look into it."

• 1:06:39Courtney Brown?

  The police department knew that releasing this information would send people into a panic. And they were right. This was confirmation that there was a serial killer walking among them. Now in 1978, the term serial killer was pretty new. In fact, the FBI had just started studying serial killers. So the fact that Wichita had one of their own was utterly terrifying. Once again, people started buying guns, securing their homes, and questioning the people around them. And everyone was anxiously waiting for the killer to strike again. After all, he had threatened them, promising that he wasn't finished.

• 1:07:22Courtney Brown?

  But for the time being, Dennis was satiated. He loved watching the terror of an entire city and knowing that he had caused it. He relished in the uptick of people ordering security alarms from ADT, completely unaware that the very person they were trying to protect themselves from was the person they invited in their home to set up their security system. At the time, throughout the spring, summer, and fall of 1978, that was enough to keep Dennis entertained.

• 1:07:57Colin Brown?

  In June of 1978, Paula and Dennis welcomed their daughter into the world. Her name was Carrie Lynn Rader, sharing the same middle name with her father. From the moment she was born, Dennis was enamored with her. In confession of a serial killer, he wrote to Dr. Ramsland, "She was a delight to the world." Now, according to Dennis, something clicked in his mind after she came into his life. He told Dr. Ramsland that he considered, for the first time, that he should get help for his dark side. He didn't know what help existed, if any, but part of him wondered if he could be fixed. Now, of course, we have to take this with a grain of salt because this information is coming from Dennis Rader.

• 1:08:38Colin Brown?

  But for several months after Carrie's birth, just like after Brian's, Dennis focused on his family and his job. Whether this was out of necessity or out of real genuine love, we may never know. But one thing is for certain. Dennis was an attentive father, for the most part. He continued working and attending night classes at Wichita State University. When he was home, he dedicated himself to taking care of his newborn daughter and his son. Dennis loved the outdoors, camping, fishing, and hunting. Around this time, he began having campfires in the backyard with his son, making smores and teaching him about the outdoors. We aren't saying this to paint Dennis as a great father. We're saying this because it's true, and it gives insight into how killers like him can flip a switch

• 1:09:23Colin Brown?

  and fall into a role that is very different from the role of BTK.

• 1:09:28Courtney Brown?

  But of course, Dennis's urges and fantasies were still there. To satiate them, whenever he got the opportunity, he would do self bondage in his family home, often doing it in the shower so no one would walk in on him. But he wasn't always so careful. In Confessions of a Serial Killer, Dennis said that on one occasion, he was wearing one of his victim's slips and tying ropes around his waist in the hallway of their home. He hadn't expected Paula to come home, but she had forgotten something that she needed to grab. When he heard her walk through the door, he tried to hide all of the bondage, but according to him, there was "too much to hide."

• 1:10:14Courtney Brown?

  When Paula spotted her husband in the hall, wearing a woman's slip, surrounded by bondage, she was devastated. Dennis later said this.

• 1:10:24Colin Brown?

  She exploded in a fury. I was so embarrassed and ashamed. I slept a day or two in the living room. She was trying to think of what to do. We didn't talk, just small talk in front of the kids. She told me if she ever caught me again, she would file for divorce, and I'd have to leave her and the kids for good.

• 1:10:41Courtney Brown?

  And for Dennis, that wasn't an option. Now again, we don't know if it was because he truly loved his family, or if it was because they helped provide a cover for him, the image of a nice, kind, family man. Regardless of his reasoning, Dennis quickly moved all of his bondage into the storage shed out back. He opted to continue doing his bondage out there, and he vowed that he would never do it in the house ever again. But in the meantime, after Paula saw Dennis that day, she decided to buy a book titled "Everything You Want to Know About Sex." She began reading up on bondage in an attempt to understand her husband.

• 1:11:26Courtney Brown?

  On one occasion, Dennis found the book, quote, "in a hidey hole of her own," end quote. He paged through the book and found the bondage section dog-eared. Now, over the years, a lot of people have asked how Paula didn't know her husband was a serial killer. But you have to remember, she had two kids of her own, she had a career, and her husband's outings were always explained away as studying, work, or school. His strange sexual behaviors were mostly kept away from her. At worst, in Paula's mind, her husband had a bondage fetish, one that she tried to understand.

• 1:12:09Courtney Brown?

  But there is no understanding, Dennis Rader, something Paula would learn later on in life.

• 1:12:16Colin Brown?

  From Carrie's birth until spring of 1979, Dennis mostly refrained from stalking potential victims, instead finding satisfaction in self bondage and in masturbating to images of women in bondage. But in May, Dennis was set to graduate from WSU. He knew that the cover he frequently used for his stalking was going to disappear. So, he decided it was time to fulfill his desires. It was April 28th, 1979, when Dennis broke into the home of 63-year-old Anna Williams. Anna was a widow, having tragically lost her husband the year prior, but she wasn't going to give up on life or her love for it. On April 28th, she decided to go square dancing with friends, to lift her spirits and to try learn something new.

• 1:13:01Colin Brown?

  She had no idea that someone had been stalking her for several weeks, and that he had dubbed her "Project Pinecone", because of her address, 615 South Pinecrest. As she danced the night away with friends, Dennis Rader snuck in through a back window. Since sneaking in while a victim was gone had worked so well with Nancy, he was eager to try the same with Anna, who he figured he could easily overpower. After entering her home, he snuck into the closet of her bedroom and waited, and waited, and waited. As the clock ticked closer and closer to midnight, Dennis became frustrated. He had used the excuse of studying at the library again with his wife, and he knew that he was already pushing it being out past 10:00 PM. Angry that Anna was nowhere to be found,

• 1:13:46Colin Brown?

  he cut his losses and left, but not before he left a haunting surprise for his intended victim.

• 1:13:52Courtney Brown?

  Anna arrived home after midnight. By some miracle, she decided to stop by her daughter's home after she went dancing. This happened to be the only thing that prevented her from being BTK's next victim. But when she finally entered her home, she knew immediately that something was wrong. The door to the guest room that she usually kept shut was wide open. In her own room, her clothes were strewn about, and her jewelry was missing. It was very obvious that someone had broken in. But what scared her the most was the message the person was trying to send. On her bed, she found several ropes and bindings.

• 1:14:36Courtney Brown?

  Next to them was a long broom handle. Then, she saw that her phone line was cut. Upon seeing that, Anna sprinted out of the home. She didn't know for certain, but she, as well as the police who she contacted, suspected that this was the work of BTK. And a little over a month later, they got that confirmation. After the scary incident at her home, Anna received a package. On the outside, her address was written in block letters, but there was no return address. And when she opened the package, her heart sank.

• 1:15:17Courtney Brown?

  Inside was a scarf and piece of jewelry that had been stolen from her house back in April. There was also a note. When Anna opened it, she saw a sketch of a woman lying on a bed. She was naked aside from some nylon stockings. She was also bound and gagged. Underneath the drawing, there was a poem.

• 1:15:41Colin Brown?

  "Oh Anna, why didn't you appear? 'Twas a perfect plan of deviant pleasure so bold on that spring night. My inner feelings hot with propensity of the new awakening season. Worn, wet with interfere and rapture, my pleasure of entanglement, like new vines so tight. Oh, eh, why didn't you appear? Drop of fear fresh spring rain would roll down from your nakedness to scent the lofty fever that burns within. In that small world of longing, fear, rapture, and desperation, the games we play fall on devil ears. Fantasy springs forth, mounts to storm fury, then winter clam at the end. Oh, eh, why didn't you appear alone? Now in another time span, I lay with sweet and rapture garments across most private thoughts.

• 1:16:24Colin Brown?

  That of spring moist grass, clean before the sun, enslaved with control. Warm winds scenting the air, sunlight sparkles tears and eyes so deep and clear. Alone again I trod in the past memory of mirrors, and ponder why you, number eight, was not. Oh, eh, why didn't you appear?"

• 1:16:42Courtney Brown?

  At the very bottom of the poem were the letters BTK. Anna was absolutely terrified. She had feared all along that BTK had broken into her home, but now he was telling her directly that it was him, and that he planned on making her his eighth victim. Anna reread the poem trembling. His words, "Oh Anna, why didn't you appear?" Meant that he had been waiting for her that night. And he had been watching her. Anna couldn't take that reality. And really, who could? Soon after this, she actually moved out of Kansas altogether. The horror of what almost happened to her,

• 1:17:25Courtney Brown?

  and what had already happened to so many innocent people, was too much. But her fear, of course, delighted Dennis Rader. And he needed others to feel it too. So the same poem that he sent to Anna, he also mailed to KAKETV. Except, he didn't just drop it in the mailbox. He hand-delivered it. It was around 4:00 in the morning on June 14th, 1979, in downtown Wichita, a clerk showed up for her morning shift at the post office. But as she approached the building, she saw a man standing there. It was a white man in his 30s, around 5'9".

• 1:18:08Courtney Brown?

  He was clean-shaven with short, dark hair, wearing a jean jacket, jeans, and gloves. When she walked up to the front doors, the man held out a package.

• 1:18:19Colin Brown?

  Put this in the KAKE box.

• 1:18:22Courtney Brown?

  When he spoke, she noticed he had gaps in his teeth. The clerk had never seen this man before, but his request wasn't out of the ordinary. Now him waiting for her outside of the office before it even opened, was a bit unsettling. However, it wasn't unheard of. So not thinking much of it, she grabbed the package from him, and he walked away. From there, it didn't take long for the letter to land in the hands of the police.

• 1:18:53Colin Brown?

  Now, considering investigators still had no idea who BTK was, these letters were extremely important. They compared the letter that was sent to Anna Williams to the letter that was sent to KAKETV, and they were copies of the same poem. Xerox experts were even able to determine that BTK had made the copies at Wichita State University's Life Science Building. So, for a while, they started looking into whether or not BTK was a student there. But because they knew so little about him, it was hard to narrow it down. For investigators, it was dead end after dead end. And for the public, that was terrifying. In 1978, local newspapers like the Wichita Eagle and the Mercury were absolutely flooded

• 1:19:35Colin Brown?

  with articles pointing out how little investigators really knew about BTK. One Wichita Eagle headline in spring of 1978 read, "Police Say BTK Is Winning Cat and Mouse Game." The police department was flooded with hundreds of calls a day from concerned citizens, with some offering up improbable suspects, and others reporting every creek, bang, and rustling tree around their home. Workers at local hardware stores had to order more deadbolts because there was such a significant increase in people buying them. And for firearm stores, sales went through the roof. People were terrified. A psychiatrist, who refused to disclose their name, suggested to the Wichita Eagle in 1978 why that may be, saying, "What makes this person seem so terrifying, so frightening

• 1:20:20Colin Brown?

  to people, is that they fear they could be the next person chosen. They don't know whether they are next. It's this fear of the unknown that makes the terror so personal and so powerful."

• 1:20:30Courtney Brown?

  While the police scrambled to identify their killer, and the public changed their lives trying to protect themselves, Dennis Rader continued to live his ordinary life. According to his wife and kids, he was "a wonderful father," and his coworkers really respected him. Now Dennis had worked at the ADT Security Company for years, and he'd even been promoted to supervisor. One of his employees said that they were very close. He trusted Dennis. They both had young children at the time, and there were instances where Dennis would even babysit his children. The man said that when he walked through the door, Dennis was cradling his child, rocking them to sleep.

• 1:21:14Courtney Brown?

  Little did he know, Dennis was responsible for taking the lives of two children years earlier. But that was the scary thing about him. While he was playing the role of Dennis Rader, the hard-working family man, he was charming, kind, and trustworthy.

• 1:21:32Courtney Brown?

  There wasn't one single person in his life that ever suspected him of being BTK. When he was working, he didn't even allow his employees to make crude jokes about women. He seemed to be a very respectful guy, one who was really focused on his family. He was constantly talking about how much he loved his wife and how proud he was of his children. He and his family devoutly attended church, and he even began leading his son's Boy Scout troop. No one could have ever guessed that every single one of these decisions were a calculated move to make him seem like the last person who could possibly be BTK.

• 1:22:15Colin Brown?

  For several years after Anna Williams, Dennis slipped back into his usual life. In Confession of a Serial Killer, he noted that his children were growing like weeds and that his inability to use school or the library as an excuse for stalking limited the amount of time he could spend hunting for victims or breaking and entering. It seems that during this period from 1978 to 1985, Dennis was mostly focused on his family. His daughter Carrie wrote the book, A Serial Killer's Daughter, which gives phenomenal insight into what life was like at home. In her book, she writes that one of her earliest memories is dancing with her father in the living room, standing on his feet while he swung around to the music playing while she giggled. Her early years were filled with moments like that.

• 1:22:58Colin Brown?

  Dennis liked to have fun with his kids, to make them laugh, to take them on trips. He wasn't one to pressure them when it came to school or academics. Instead, he seemed more focused on teaching them everything he could. Carrie remembers long summer days out with her father in the garden where he would teach her everything there was to know about plants. They would toil together outside for days on end, and when winter came, they'd spend their time paging through seed catalogs, planning what they were going to plant that upcoming spring. It's an off-putting juxtaposition. This man, who callously took so many lives, bringing a garden to life with his adoring daughter. But that's Dennis Rader, a man capable of compartmentalizing his two lives, or, as he puts it, cubing them.

• 1:23:42Colin Brown?

  The only glimpses of a dark side that Carrie can ever recall getting of her father growing up was when he would get in moods. If he was in a bad mood, the whole house would feel his wrath. He would stomp around, sling harsh words, and give his family the cold shoulder. He would get nitpicky, particular. It was so bad that the whole family would deal with it the only way they knew how: by getting out of his way. But these moods didn't come very often. Most of the time, by all accounts, Dennis was good to his family. On the surface, at least. Meanwhile, while Dennis was spending time with his family, hiding in plain sight, investigators painstakingly combed through thousands of leads. They worked with the FBI, they spoke with criminal profilers, and they looked at the evidence over and over again.

• 1:24:27Colin Brown?

  Eventually, they decided to create a list of potential suspects. The list included men who lived around Wichita from the ages of 21 to 35. Then from there, they looked at the men who attended WSU, due to its proximity to so many crime scenes, and the fact that the Xerox machine there had been used to send some of the BTK correspondence letters. And Dennis Rader's name was on that list, amongst thousands of others. Investigators also flagged anyone who had a history of stalking, animal abuse, rape, peeping in windows, or sexual assault. But as we know, Dennis had a clean record, so his name was overlooked. Now, by the early 80s, after years of debates, they finally concluded that his fifth victim

• 1:25:12Colin Brown?

  that he mentioned in the letters was indeed Kathy Bright. And because a gun was used in that murder, they also started looking into everyone in town that owned a 22 caliber pistol. Eventually, they were able to narrow their list of suspects down to 215 men. But this time, Dennis Rader wasn't one of them.

• 1:25:32Courtney Brown?

  Now their next step, the hardest step yet, would be attempting to collect a blood sample from the men on their list. Now Dennis never left blood at the scene, but they were able to figure out his blood type by examining the semen he left behind. But with a blood type in hand, they needed samples to compare it against. And surprisingly, almost everyone on their list cooperated. No one wanted to be suspected of being the serial killer of Wichita. So one by one, investigators were able to clear their list. But as we know, none of them were BTK.

• 1:26:12Courtney Brown?

  Dennis Rader had been crossed off the list much earlier, so he never got that knock on his door. And with no matches, authorities went back to square one. For years, the Wichita Police Department worked around the clock to solve these murders. Sometimes they worked 14-hour days, seven days a week. They were exhausted, and it felt like they were going in circles. After years of silence from BTK, they started to wonder if he had moved cities. Maybe he left the state of Kansas and started over. Because for years, there were no ominous letters sent. There were no murders with similar MOs.

• 1:26:54Courtney Brown?

  That is, until April 26, 1985.

• 1:26:59Colin Brown?

  Fifty-three-year-old Maureen Hedge was loved by everyone. Originally from Arkansas, she eventually made her way to Wichita and created a beautiful life for herself there. She had a husband, one son, and three daughters. Now, they were all grown and moved out, so for a while it was just she and her husband enjoying their golden years together. They'd tend to their garden, go to church, and go for walks around the neighborhood, hand in hand. But sadly, the year prior, in 1984, he passed away. With her kids gone raising families of their own, Maureen was left to navigate life by herself. She kept herself busy by hanging out with friends and family. Anytime they came to visit, she loved to make them a home-cooked meal.

• 1:27:42Colin Brown?

  According to her loved ones, she was a wonderful cook and made almost everything from scratch, but her favorite was catfish and hush puppies. Maureen also never missed a bingo night or a Sunday morning church service at Park City Baptist. Her family said that anytime you saw her, she had a perfectly curated outfit with jewelry and matching shoes. And she would give you the warmest greeting with her little southern accent. Maureen had worked at a coffee shop at Wesley Medical Center for over 12 years, but that's not where she would cross paths with Dennis Rader. No, she crossed paths with him several years before he decided to make her a target. Because Maureen's home, 6254 Independence, was right down the street from the Rader home. She lived just six houses away.

• 1:28:27Courtney Brown?

  Dennis had known Maureen for years, and though they weren't incredibly close, everyone in the Rader family would smile, wave, and make conversation when they saw her. Maureen was a woman who was always on the go, and all summer, she'd be in her garden working on her plants. It was while she was working in that garden when Dennis viewed her as a potential victim for the very first time. As he stood outside of his home, he watched her for several minutes. Dennis noted how small she was. At five feet tall and barely 100 pounds, she was someone he could easily overpower. Now Dennis knew that targeting someone so close to home was risky, but he had grown

• 1:29:12Courtney Brown?

  pretty lazy over the years. When he first started killing, he was younger, with less responsibilities. He was more agile and quick. But these days, he had a full-time job and family. He couldn't spend hours a day stalking women around town like he used to. So Maureen's proximity made it easy, from the comfort of his own home.

• 1:29:37Courtney Brown?

  He saw that she lived alone, she didn't have a dog, and all of her kids had moved out. Now, he did follow her outside of the neighborhood on occasion. That's where he learned that she worked at a coffee shop. Dennis even made his way inside and ordered a cup for himself. After watching her for a while, he saw that she usually got to work every day at 2:00 PM and got off work at around midnight. In his notes, he labeled this murder "Project Cookie", and by April 26, 1985, he had it all planned out. And he was excited. In Confessions of a Serial Killer, he wrote,

• 1:30:19Courtney Brown?

  "It had been a long time from the last time Factor X exploded my world and shattered someone else's."

• 1:30:27Colin Brown?

  All of Dennis's crimes are heinous, but the cover story that Dennis used to kill Marine Hedge may be the most disturbing of all. That night was meant to be a night of bonding between father and son. The two were set to go to a Cub Scout camp out 20 miles north of Wichita at Camp Tawakani. Now, Dennis loved the Boy Scouts, so much so that he became one of the leaders of his son's troupe. But that night, he didn't plan on camping. Dennis took off to the camp early, his son alongside him. He was excited for what was to come. That night, the campers did what you would expect on a scout trip. They sat by a bonfire, played in the woods, ate s'mores, and told campfire stories.

• 1:31:09Colin Brown?

  But as night fell, Dennis had a scary story of his own on his mind. After tucking the campers in, including his own son, and putting out the fire, Dennis creeped out of the camp in the dead of night like the monster he was.

• 1:31:23Courtney Brown?

  Once everyone was asleep, he got in his car and took off down the road. You see, it was the perfect alibi. His son thought he was sleeping, his wife thought he was camping, and he had dozens of people who saw him there that night. Which meant, he could carry out this murder without having to explain his whereabouts. At some point along the drive, Dennis stopped at a bowling alley, where he slipped out of his scout uniform and put on some dark clothing. He then walked inside the bowling alley, and started stumbling around like he was drunk. He ordered a beer just so he could slosh it around in his mouth,

• 1:32:04Courtney Brown?

  and pour it on himself to make his intoxication look believable. And with his hit kit in his hands, he called the cab to come pick him up. Soon after, the driver arrived and Dennis got inside. Through fake slurred speech, he said he needed a ride home after a long night of drinking. In Dennis's mind, if the cops ever spoke to the cab driver, he wouldn't suspect Dennis of the murder, because he was too drunk to kill anyone. But from there, the cab drove to Dennis's neighborhood. He was dropped off about a block away from Maureen's house. He paid in cash and continued stumbling down the road until the cab was out of sight.

• 1:32:48Courtney Brown?

  Then, with a hunger to kill, he made his way through the neighborhood. When he finally saw Maureen's house in the distance, he was disappointed to see her car in the driveway. He didn't think she'd be home yet, but he continued forward anyway. Tiptoeing around the outside, he eventually found her phone line, and using a knife, he cut it. Now, he had to figure a way to get inside. With Maureen's home, he couldn't just break a window like he usually did. So instead, he pulled out a screwdriver and tried to unlock her door. After a few minutes, he got it open.

• 1:33:30Courtney Brown?

  From there, Dennis quietly made his way into the house, searching room by room. But to his surprise, Maureen wasn't even home. Now, something to note is that the house Maureen lived in was almost an exact copy of the home that Dennis lived in. They had been manufactured in the same year by the same company. So walking through Maureen's house was like walking through his own house. And he knew the perfect place to hide: the closet in the master bedroom. There, just like he did with Anna Williams, Dennis Rader hid, and waited, and waited, and waited.

• 1:34:09Courtney Brown?

  And soon enough, he heard the sound of a car door slamming, followed by multiple voices. Dennis was angry when he heard that one of the voices was a male. He didn't want to have to fight off an unexpected visitor again. Those murders never went well. So instead of barging out, he decided to wait.

• 1:34:31Colin Brown?

  Earlier that night, Maureen's boyfriend had picked her up for a date night. A year after her husband's passing, Maureen had finally put herself out there and found love again. The two enjoyed dinner, followed by bingo at the local hall. It was around 10:30 when the two finally made it back home. They sat in the living room chatting for about an hour before he decided it was time to return home. Over in the corner of the house, Dennis waited, listening in on their conversation. He was pleased to hear that the man wasn't staying the night. After telling her boyfriend goodbye, Maureen walked to her bedroom, changed out of her clothes, and hopped into bed, completely unaware that there was a serial killer hiding in her closet just feet away.

• 1:35:13Courtney Brown?

  After a few minutes, she drifted off to sleep, only to wake up to the feeling of someone climbing into bed with her. Maureen was terrified, but at some point, she was able to get a look at the intruder's face. And that's when she noticed it was her neighbor, Dennis Rader, the man she had lived by for years. And I wonder in that moment what she said to him, what Dennis said back to her. Whatever it was, Maureen quickly realized that the man standing in her bedroom was not the friendly neighbor she once knew. Sure, they looked the same, but this man was very different.

• 1:35:55Courtney Brown?

  There was a darkness in his eye that told her she had been living next to a wolf in sheep's clothing all along. And it's here where Maureen fought for her life. Dennis would later say that during the struggle, he overpowered her. He undressed her, and he bound Maureen at her wrists and ankles. He then grabbed a pair of her stockings and wrapped them around her neck. Then Dennis watched as she slowly was strangled to death. It was the first time he had killed in seven years, and it was exactly what he was looking for. Afterwards, he masturbated at the scene, leaving semen stains on Marine's blankets.

• 1:36:38Courtney Brown?

  He also took trophies for himself, like all the times before. But it's what he did after that was far different from anything he had ever done. After grabbing his trophies, Dennis took Marine's body and he wrapped her up in some blankets. He then carried her outside to her own car and put her body in the trunk.

• 1:37:04Colin Brown?

  In Confession of a Serial Killer, Dennis recalled, "This was the first time I had ever moved a body. I worried about my back as I lifted her into the trunk." Now Dennis is the king of narcissistic comments, but that comment is so unbelievable and so detached from normal human reactions that I had to read it a few times to actually come to grips with it. Dennis felt nothing for the woman, his neighbor, whom he had known for years, as he loaded her body into the trunk. His only concern was hurting his back. But it's what Dennis did next that really shows just how far removed from his humanity that Dennis Rader really was.

• 1:37:41Courtney Brown?

  After loading Marine Hedge into her own vehicle, he drove to his church, Christ Lutheran. Dennis spent every single Sunday here with his family. He served as the president of the church's council. But today, this building would serve a much different purpose. After getting out of the car, he looked around to make sure he was all alone. Once the coast was clear, he opened the trunk, pulled Marine's body out, and carried her through the church's doors. Dennis had planned out this night well. The last time he was in the church, he even left some black plastic inside for this very night. After placing Marine's body at the altar,

• 1:38:24Courtney Brown?

  he grabbed the plastic and started covering the windows. So on the rare chance someone walked by, they wouldn't see him. Once the building was secure, Dennis then pulled out a camera and a pair of women's heels from his bag. He placed the heels on Marine's feet. He then posed her body in lewd positions, snapping pictures as he went.

• 1:38:48Courtney Brown?

  The fact that he was doing something so sinful, so disturbing, in the very place where he served as a leader in faith, was exhilarating to Dennis. So he took his time. When he was finally finished, he packed up all of his belongings, wrapped Maureen up in the blankets, and then carried her back out to the car. It was now time to dispose of her body. By this point, it was getting pretty late. Dennis knew that he had to return back to the campsite before people noticed he was missing. So he drove down a secluded dirt road near a cemetery. There wasn't a lot of traffic in this area, so he figured it would be the perfect spot to dump her body. After pulling the car over,

• 1:39:32Courtney Brown?

  he dragged Maureen into some bushes. And he made sure to leave some knotted pantyhose nearby, so that when she was found, they'd know exactly who was responsible.

• 1:39:44Colin Brown?

  But it's here where Dennis ran into a problem. As he was dumping Maureen's body, he set the keys to her car up on the dashboard. But somehow, the keys slid down and were stuck right against the window. Dennis worked for several minutes trying to get the keys out, but he couldn't reach them. Which was a huge problem because he was out in the middle of nowhere with a dead body, and without those keys, he couldn't leave. Ultimately, Dennis had to break the glass windshield to get them. Then from there, he drove away, abandoned her vehicle in town, and then walked back to his own car that he left at the bowling alley. Then he drove back to the campsite as if nothing happened. As Dennis laid down that night curled up in a tent, he was proud of how everything played out. He was able to slip away from the campsite with no suspicion.

• 1:40:30Colin Brown?

  He executed the murder exactly like he had hoped to. Then he had taken pictures of Maureen at the church and dumped her body with no witnesses. Then after everything was said and done, he was able to drive back to the campsite where no one even noticed he was gone. But more than anything, he had finally killed again, after seven long years. And Dennis felt more alive than ever before. Hours later, when all of the campers woke up and started their mornings, Dennis got up with them, pretending to be well-rested. He even helped make breakfast for the campers. Meanwhile, Maureen Hedge's coworkers were beginning to panic. Maureen had never missed a day of work, so immediately, they contacted her family. Soon after, her family contacted the police to do a welfare check.

• 1:41:16Colin Brown?

  When investigators finally entered the home, it was clear that her disappearance was the result of foul play. There were drawers open, things were out of place. But the most concerning of all was that her phone line had been cut. Now, the last time anyone had heard from Maureen was when her boyfriend dropped her off at home after their date. So rumors started spreading like wildfire, especially within their neighborhood. Dennis would see people out on their porches, looking over at Maureen's house with worry. And he decided to get in on the conversation. "Did you hear what happened?" they asked him. "Maureen's missing." Dennis pretended to be concerned, but secretly, he marveled over the fact that they were all terrified. "I heard the boyfriend had something to do with it," they said.

• 1:41:59Colin Brown?

  But like always, Dennis didn't like other people taking credit for his crimes. So he told the neighbors, "No, it wasn't him, couldn't have been." Dennis even comforted his wife. With two young kids in the home, she was horrified at the thought of someone coming into their neighborhood and hurting the woman who lived just a few doors down from them. But Dennis reassured her that they were safe. "I won't let anyone hurt you and the kids," he told her. But little did she know, the killer was standing right in front of her. He was the father of her children, and the man she had spent the last fifteen years with.

• 1:42:33Courtney Brown?

  Now it wouldn't be until nine days after Maureen's murder, when her body was finally discovered. With the help of canines, investigators located her in that ditch, hidden away in the underbrush. She was decomposed, and there were signs that animals had scavenged on her body. But even then, they could tell that she had been strangled, and the knotted pantyhose lying nearby confirmed that. Soon after, investigators found her abandoned car in town, and while her purse was inside, her ID was missing. Some officers immediately suspected that this was the work of BTK. The cut phone lines and knotted pantyhose were all a part of his MO.

• 1:43:18Courtney Brown?

  However, other officers weren't convinced. It had been nearly a decade since BTK had last killed, and Maureen Hedge was a lot older than his usual victims. Plus, he had never dumped anyone before. He usually left his victims right at the crime scene for the police to find. So because of these discrepancies, many people believed Maureen was killed by her boyfriend, as he was the last person to see her alive. Sadly for him, not only did he lose his girlfriend, who was the light of his life, but he was dubbed a killer by the public and some members of the police department. Now, he was never officially charged, but suspicions like this can ruin a person's

• 1:44:03Courtney Brown?

  life, which is something we will see again in BTK's next murder. But following the discovery of Maureen Hedge's body, Dennis Rader wasn't running to the newspapers to claim it as the work of BTK. Perhaps with his proximity to Maureen's house, he knew it would be risky, so instead, he laid low. And it wouldn't be until the following year, in September of 1986, when he was ready to kill again.

• 1:44:31Colin Brown?

  Dennis first saw Vicky Wagerly that summer as she was pulling up to her house at 2404 West 13th Street. He watched her from afar as she got out of her car and walked inside. Dennis thought she was beautiful. He also noticed she drove the same car as his last victim, Maureen, a gold Monte Carlo. Excited about this new prospect, Dennis wrote down her address. And for about three weeks, he stalked Vicky. He would park at the Indian Hills apartment complex, which gave him a direct view of her home. For days on end, while he was supposed to be on the job at ADT, he would park his work van there to watch her. Like all of his other cases, he wrote down her daily schedule and took note of everything about her life.

• 1:45:15Colin Brown?

  During that time, he saw that she had two children, a daughter aged nine and a son who was two. And although this did complicate things a bit, he didn't write her off the list just yet. Dennis had dealt with his victims' children in the past, and he was prepared to do it again. Now, he also saw that she had a husband, but he was gone a lot, leaving Vicky home alone with the kids. During the day, Dennis would sneak around the outside of her house, looking in her windows. And that's when he saw her playing the piano. He was fascinated with how talented she was, so from then on, he called her Project Piano.

• 1:45:52Courtney Brown?

  Vicky Waverly had a beautiful life. Her husband Bill worked as a maintenance man at the nearby Indian Hills Apartments. The very same place that Dennis parked to stalk Vicky. But Bill worked hard so that his wife could stay home with their children. Nine-year-old Stephanie and two-year-old Brandon were Vicky's whole world. And Vicky absolutely loved children. Most days, she watched her friend Wendy's two-year-old daughter while she worked. Wendy would later say that Vicky had the most nurturing spirit. She was patient, warm, and she never raised her voice. Anytime her children got fussy, she had a way of calming them down just by her voice.

• 1:46:36Courtney Brown?

  And when that didn't work, she would serenade them with her piano. It was very clear to everyone that Vicky was meant to be a mother. By 1986, Vicky was proud of where she was at in life. But sadly, all of that was about to be taken away from her. On the morning of September 16th, Vicky's husband Bill told her that he'd be coming back home for lunch that day. He didn't normally do this, but he had just been hired to paint a house in the neighborhood. And while the first layer dried, he planned to come home and spend some time with his family. So that morning, Vicky kissed Bill goodbye. Expecting to see him a few hours later. Meanwhile, across town,

• 1:47:20Courtney Brown?

  Dennis Rader was gearing up to bind, torture, and kill her. Like many times before, Dennis decided that he was going to simply walk up to her door, knock, and barge his way inside. Except this time, he was going to pose as a telephone repairman. In the days before the murder, he had even created this fake business card. He had also cut out an ad from an actual telephone company and pasted it on to a yellow hard hat. The briefcase he would carry would look like a case that carried his supplies, which was the case, but it didn't hold supplies to repair phones. It was his hit kit,

• 1:48:02Courtney Brown?

  filled with ropes, bags, cords, a knife, and a gun. Dennis had also purchased leather shoelaces and tied several knots into them so he'd have a better grip when tying her up. But that day, he made his way towards Vicky's home in his work's security van. He ended up parking down the street and then started on foot. But interestingly, before going into her house, he actually stopped at her neighbor's home. An elderly couple answered the door. Dennis told them that he was there to check their phone line, and they happily let him in. Much like he had done with Shirley Vian's neighbors, he thought that if Vicky saw him doing repairs at the neighbor's,

• 1:48:45Courtney Brown?

  then she'd feel more comfortable letting him inside her house. So, Dennis pretended to check the couple's phone line, and after a few minutes, he told them that everything looked fine. And from there, he made his way to Vicky's house. As he walked up to her driveway, he could hear the beautiful piano ballad echoing from inside. And soon after he knocked, the door opened.

• 1:49:12Colin Brown?

  I'm repairing phone lines in the neighborhood. Do you mind if I come inside and check yours?

• 1:49:16Courtney Brown?

  Vicky was confused. The phone line was in the backyard, so she didn't understand why he needed to come in. "Is it necessary to come inside?" she asked. "My phone line's out back. My dog's out there right now, but I can bring him in."

• 1:49:32Colin Brown?

  "No, I actually have to check from inside the home."

• 1:49:36Courtney Brown?

  Dennis would later say that Vicky had a look of suspicion on her face. But even so, she let him in. "Our phone's in the dining room," she told him. Dennis walked over, laying his briefcase on the dining room table. He pulled out a device he created, which looked similar to a phone tester. And as he pretended to check the phone, he engaged in a bit of small talk with her. Off in the distance, Dennis could see Vicky's two-year-old son innocently playing in a playpen in the living room. After a few seconds, he put the tester back in his briefcase and grabbed his gun.

• 1:50:15Colin Brown?

  "Go to the bedroom."

• 1:50:17Courtney Brown?

  Vicky's eyes widened. She started to cry. "What do you mean?" she asked. Dennis pointed his gun at her and motioned her towards the room. "My husband's going to be home soon," she said through tears.

• 1:50:30Colin Brown?

  "Then we better hurry."

• 1:50:32Courtney Brown?

  With a gun pointed directly at her, Vicky did as she was told. When they reached the bedroom, he demanded that she lie down on her waterbed. Dennis then pulled out the leather shoelaces and began tying them around her wrists and ankles. Vicky continued to cry. She started praying, and then she decided to fight back. With every bit of strength she could muster, she pulled at her restraints. And to Dennis's surprise, she was able to break free. Vicky started screaming and fighting. Later, in Confessions of a Serial Killer, Dennis admitted that Vicky, quote, "Fought like a hellcat." He was shocked at how strong she was. But Vicky was a mother.

• 1:51:17Courtney Brown?

  She loved her life. The most important thing in the world to her was raising her children. And she wasn't going to silently walk into the night and let this stranger take that from her. So in her bedroom, she clawed at Dennis's face, cutting gouges in his neck and on his cheeks. Her dog, sensing the danger inside, started barking from the backyard. Dennis grew anxious. He punched Vicky in the face, over and over again. He then wrapped his hands around her throat and began to squeeze. Knowing that her life was about to come to an end, Vicky once more reached up and scratched his neck as hard as she could.

• 1:51:59Courtney Brown?

  She then punched and kicked and thrashed beneath him. She put up so much of a fight, they fell off the bed and ended up on the ground. This was not going the way he had planned. So wanting to just get it over with, Dennis grabbed a pair of pantyhose and wrapped them around Vicky's neck. And soon enough, she stopped struggling. But after she died, Dennis didn't feel very satisfied. He had wanted to take his time here, but Vicky made sure that didn't happen. He had also wanted to masturbate at the scene after her murder, like he usually did. But he feared that Vicky's threat was true, that her husband would be home soon.

• 1:52:42Courtney Brown?

  So instead, Dennis decided that he would remember this moment by taking a picture. He grabbed his Polaroid camera while still straddling over Vicky's body.

• 1:52:54Courtney Brown?

  He then pulled her shirt up and took some pictures. Once he was finished, he packed up his things, grabbed the keys to Vicky's Monte Carlo, and walked out the door, leaving her two-year-old son screaming and crying alone in the house. As Dennis stepped outside, he was pleased to see that there were no nosey neighbors around, no witnesses at all, other than the two-year-old boy. And with that, he quickly got into Vicky's car and sped off down the road. This was risky, as his work van was parked just down the street. But to Dennis, taking his victims' vehicles was a part of the thrill.

• 1:53:35Courtney Brown?

  However, unbeknownst to him, just up ahead, as he drove out of the neighborhood, he actually drove right past Vicky's husband. Bill would later say that he saw his wife's car driving in his direction as he made his way back home for lunch. But as he took a closer look, it wasn't his wife behind the wheel. It was a tall man. "Maybe that wasn't Vicky's car," he thought to himself. But when Bill finally got home, he saw that Vicky's car was missing from the driveway. Confused, he walked inside the house and was horrified to see that their two-year-old son was all alone. He picked him up and yelled out his wife's name.

• 1:54:18Courtney Brown?

  But going room to room, he was met with silence. Vicky was nowhere to be seen. There were a million questions running through Bill's mind. Where was she? Why did she leave their son at home all alone? And who was that man driving her car? Not knowing what else to do but wait, Bill made himself some lunch, hoping that Vicky would soon come back and explain herself. But as he ate, he had this growing feeling inside, a feeling like something horrible had happened. Soon enough, twenty minutes had passed, then thirty, then forty, and Vicky still wasn't home. So Bill decided to do one last walk-through of their home.

• 1:55:02Courtney Brown?

  And this time, he made a horrific discovery. Now during Vicky's murder, she and Dennis ended up on the floor in the far corner of the room. She was wedged between the small space between the bed and the wall, so Bill didn't see her the first time around. But this time, he did. In a panic, he quickly got a pocket knife and cut the restraints off her body. He then quickly ran to the phone and dialed 911. When dispatchers answered, they heard him screaming, crying out his wife's name. He told them, "I think someone has killed my wife."

• 1:55:41Colin Brown?

  As police made their way to the home on 13th Street, Dennis Rader was pulling Vicky's Monte Carlo into a Brahms Ice Cream Store parking lot. After stepping out, he found a trash can and quickly threw away his briefcase and the hard hat he had been wearing. But he still had those Polaroids in his pocket. From there, he got back into the car and took off yet again. Dennis decided to drive back towards Vicky's home. He ended up abandoning her car at a meat market right across the street from her house. But as he walked back to his work van, he heard sirens. Seconds later, first responders pulled into Vicky's neighborhood, where they found her very distraught husband. Bill Wagerly was punching the wall and screaming, "Why didn't I get here five minutes earlier? I could have saved her."

• 1:56:24Colin Brown?

  The first responders quickly made their way into the home, where they found Vicky unresponsive on the ground. Because of where she was wedged, they had to bring her out into the dining room where they performed CPR. About 10 minutes later, they loaded her up into an ambulance. Outside, there was already a news crew filming the scene. And sadly, by the time Vicky got to the hospital, she was officially pronounced dead. When they looked at her body, it was clear she went through a lot. The strangulation marks around her neck were so deep, it had caused internal bleeding. There were scrapes all over her face and her hands were swollen, evidence she had put up a fight. Later on, during Vicky's autopsy, they found a piece of skin under her fingernail, which was clearly from her attacker.

• 1:57:07Colin Brown?

  They took that skin and put it into evidence, but like we mentioned, DNA technology wasn't a thing yet. So it couldn't point them to their killer.

• 1:57:16Courtney Brown?

  Back at Vicky's home, the crime scene looked a lot like BTK's crime scenes. She was strangled with a pair of stockings. Her car was found across the street, just like with the Otero family. Inside her car, they found her purse. And everything was still there, her keys, money, and credit cards. However, the one thing missing was her ID. Something BTK was known to take from his victims. Now in addition, Vicky's two-year-old son told investigators, "Man hurt mommy." But even then, sadly, detectives believed Vicky's husband Bill was responsible.

• 1:57:59Courtney Brown?

  That day, Bill told them the story of seeing Vicky's car driving out of the neighborhood, and how he came home to find their son, all alone. He also admitted that he had been inside the home for about forty minutes before he found his wife's body. And to investigators, the story just didn't seem plausible. Ultimately, they asked Bill to take a polygraph, and knowing he was innocent, he agreed. But as we know, polygraphs are not very reliable. Bill was clearly emotional after his wife's murder, and high emotions can affect the results, which is exactly what happened here. Bill actually failed two polygraph exams.

• 1:58:41Courtney Brown?

  And to the investigators, this confirmed that he was their guy. Now, they never had enough evidence to officially charge Bill in Vicky's murder, but for decades, he was their main suspect. And this really went on to affect their life. Bill and Vicky's children, Stephanie and Brandon, had to grow up without their mother. And at school, kids would tease them, saying that their dad murdered their mom. No one had any idea that the real killer was Wichita's most infamous serial killer, BTK.

• 1:59:17Colin Brown?

  Sadly, within the last two years, BTK had claimed the lives of two more women, and no one even suspected him in these killings. In total, he had murdered nine people in thirteen years. Investigators had dozens of boxes of evidence and paperwork connected to the serial killer, but they had no idea who he was. And interestingly, a lot of people familiar with the case thought he might even be dead. By this point, the last confirmed victim of BTK was Nancy Fox in 1977. And not knowing that he was responsible for the last two, they thought it had been a whole decade since he last killed. And given what they knew about BTK, he didn't seem like the kind of person who would lay low for that long. So investigators started combing through all the white males

• 2:00:01Colin Brown?

  who had died in Wichita over the last seven years. They spent hundreds of thousands of tax dollars doing this, which obviously led them nowhere. Because BTK wasn't on that list. He was very much alive, still living in Wichita, and still terrorizing the city in the shadows. But, like many times before, he was about to slip into another cooling-off period. This one would last about four and a half years.

• 2:00:26Courtney Brown?

  Now, this cooling-off period was very different from all the others. And it wasn't because Dennis was overwhelmed balancing his work and family life. It's because his family life became his entire life. You see, sometime between 1986 and 1988, Dennis lost his job at ADT through no fault of his own. The systems had been upgraded, and the job he was doing was rendered obsolete. With that, Paula became the breadwinner. And Dennis became, in his own words, "Mr. Mom." Dennis would later say that this was an incredibly stressful period of his life. He couldn't fulfill his urge to kill,

• 2:01:10Courtney Brown?

  and he wasn't making any money, which made him feel emasculated. Throughout his life, he had a need to hold control, especially over women. So his wife making more money than him troubled him greatly. However, his daughter Carrie remembered these years as good. She would later say that during this time, he would often take her and her brother fishing and hunting. They would sit on the water for hours and hours, telling stories, laughing, and enjoying the sunshine. For his kids, Dennis was the fun parent. But at the same time, he was the parent they feared the most. When Dennis was angry, there was hell to pay.

• 2:01:55Courtney Brown?

  But when he was happy, it always outweighed those dark moments. It was the only type of parenting that they knew. So even though their dad struggled to cook, burnt countless meals, and complained about having to do chores, the kids considered these relatively good years.

• 2:02:14Colin Brown?

  But behind closed doors, Dennis still indulged in his obsessive thoughts. He would satisfy his urges to bind women by masturbating constantly, even in very inappropriate circumstances. In fact, on one occasion, while he was at a Cub Scout gathering with his son and the other fathers, Dennis slipped out the door and made his way to his car to relieve himself. Inside, he completely removed his clothing and even pulled out a pair of handcuffs. Doing this allowed him to relive his fantasies without having to kill. So Dennis put the handcuffs on his wrists and masturbated in the Cub Scouts parking lot. When he was finished, he went to remove the cuffs, but he realized he was stuck and couldn't get them off. Dennis pulled at the restraints for several minutes with no luck,

• 2:02:58Colin Brown?

  and after a while, he began to panic. Soon enough, everyone would be coming outside wondering where he was. When they found him naked and handcuffed inside of his car, there would be no reasonable explanation he could possibly give. He would be caught. The thought of that made Dennis sweat profusely, which ended up working in his favor. He actually sweat so much that he was able to free himself from the cuffs. And that was just the beginning of inappropriate places that Dennis fueled his desire for bondage at. If you recall, growing up, he had an obsession with masturbating in his parents' basement until he climaxed. But as an adult, he took things to an even further extreme. It was sometime in the late 1980s when Dennis slipped on a pair of heels in the bedroom

• 2:03:42Colin Brown?

  of a rundown motel in Topeka, Kansas. He was excited. He had plans that he had been looking forward to for quite some time, and he had everything he needed strewn across the bed. Before him, flickering under the dim yellow lights, sat dozens of ropes, U-bolts, gags, wigs, and lingerie that he had stolen from his victims. He slipped on a piece of lingerie, tearing it so he could fit it up over his naked body. On top of it, he wrapped his waist as tight as he could with ropes, making it hard to breathe, but that only turned him on more. Then he made his way into the bathroom, where a noose awaited him. With his hands bound and his waist tightly wrapped, he slid on the noose, freed one of his hands, and turned on the bathtub faucet.

• 2:04:26Colin Brown?

  As water dripped into a bucket, a pulley connected to the faucet tightened the noose around his neck. In "Confession of a Serial Killer," he wrote that this was exhilarating for him, stating in part, "The sense of helplessness that death may come with the helplessness in the groin." Then Big G happened. Dennis orgasmed as he hung in the bathroom of a motel, so close to death that he hardly gave himself enough time to loosen the noose and save himself. These motel parties, as he called them, were Dennis's lifeline throughout the years. But there was another way he found to pleasure himself, too.

• 2:05:01Courtney Brown?

  It's a warm summer night along a lake. You can hear the chirp of crickets and the sound of the wind on the water. And Brian Rader, along with all of the other Boy Scouts, are fast asleep in their tents. It's peaceful. Everything you'd want your child to be able to experience. But Dennis Rader didn't care about that. What Dennis cared about was what these trips offered him.

• 2:05:31Courtney Brown?

  An escape. A remote, safe place where he could do something to hold him over, until he got the chance to throw himself another motel party. On the other side of some trees, far across the lake, Dennis Rader creeps through the brush. He has a bag with him. A bag that he tosses on the ground, spilling its contents. Inside, is an assortment of lingerie from his victims. Ropes, plastic wrap, duct tape, and a mask. The mask is completely haunting. An image of a woman that sits deeply, deeply wrong. She's supposed to be pretty.

• 2:06:13Courtney Brown?

  Red lips, big eyes, sharp eyebrows. She's supposed to be the type of woman that Dennis is attracted to. And in a way, that mask was. Slowly, Dennis stripped off his clothes in the dark night, replacing them with his victims lingerie. Then, he started digging a hole in the sand along the water, deeper, and deeper, and deeper. When he was finished, he set up his Polaroid camera. He made sure he had a remote to the camera in his hand, allowing him to take photos without having to be behind the camera. Then, he slipped on the mask of the woman,

• 2:06:56Courtney Brown?

  and slowly wrapped himself in plastic wrap, going around, and around, and around, until his body was completely encased. Once it was finished, and the plastic was tight around his body, Dennis was fully aroused. With light waning, he lowered himself into the sand, and began to pose for the camera. He snapped the photos by keeping one hand free enough to click the remote button on the camera. The other was tightly wound. So bundled up, he could barely even feel it. But Dennis liked it like that. He lived to be trapped, over, and over.

• 2:07:39Courtney Brown?

  And over, Dennis posed and took pictures of himself, pretending to be one of the women he wanted to torture. This became an obsession of Dennis's. On Boy Scout trips with his son, he would sneak off into the woods to dress up as his victims and take photos of himself. Sometimes he'd do it on camping trips with his daughter. Other times, he'd even do it in the garage behind his house, or in his favorite place, his parents' basement, just like when he was a child. In some photos, Dennis would hang from the ceiling. In others, he would tie his hands behind his back and look at the camera with the dead eyes of the mask.

• 2:08:22Courtney Brown?

  Now, we will be posting these photos on our social media, but fair warning, they are incredibly disturbing. But they do offer a glimpse into how much Dennis allowed this obsession to dominate his life. No time, no space, no family member was sacred. Every day for him was about finding a way to be BTK, even if he had to do it to himself.

• 2:08:47Colin Brown?

  After years of hiding in the shadows, Dennis could no longer fight the urge brewing inside of him. It was January of 1991, and while his son was excited to go on the troops' annual winter campout, Dennis was excited about the victim he had scoped out just for the occasion, 63-year-old Dolores Davis. Dolores was, in a lot of ways, Dennis's perfect target. She lived all by herself on the outskirts of Park City. After growing up on a farm in Nebraska, she liked the quiet and open countryside, especially now that her life had slowed down a bit. Dolores worked as a secretary in the oil and gas industry for 25 years, but after retiring, she decided to pick up a job selling Mary Kay beauty products. She loved their company because they didn't test their products

• 2:09:32Colin Brown?

  on animals, and she was obviously a huge animal lover. Really, she was a woman that practically radiated love everywhere she went. Family was everything to her. On the days when her grandchildren were running around her home, she was the happiest, and she was fiercely protective of them. Her family said that she always kept matches on top of the fridge just so the children couldn't find them and hurt themselves. In the summertime, when the kids were riding in their car, she'd never roll the windows down more than an inch, just to keep safe. Dolores always kept these little wet wipes around to wipe off their faces after they ate, or wipe off their hands when they had been rolling around in the dirt outside. Now, getting her entire family together at once wasn't always easy.

• 2:10:14Colin Brown?

  Her son Jeff lived in Florida with his wife and kids, and her daughter Laurel and her family lived in Colorado. But on Christmas of 1990, they were finally all together under one roof at Dolores's home. She was so happy, she wanted everything to be absolutely perfect. She made four different trips to the grocery store to make sure they had everything she needed. On Christmas Day, she spent the entire day in the kitchen cooking everything to perfection. And when they all sat down to eat, she looked around the table with pride. These are the moments that life is all about. Tragically though, it would be the last of those moments that Dolores ever experienced with her family. Because when Dennis first saw her outside of her home at 6226 North

• 2:10:57Colin Brown?

  Hillside, he knew that she was who he wanted. He was well aware that it was risky killing someone so close to him, but it hadn't stopped him before. In fact, it was easier killing someone that lived nearby. Instead of driving across town every day for weeks on end to stalk her, Dennis would ride his bike to Dolores's home. In January of 1991, he did this for several days, riding his bike over and watching her through her windows. During that time, he saw that Dolores lived by herself and didn't have a lot of neighbors. He also saw that she had a dog kennel on her property, so he called her Project Dogside. Now, unlike many others, Dolores had actually suspected that someone had been watching her.

• 2:11:39Colin Brown?

  As she was sitting in her home one night, she heard some movement outside of her window. Her cats seemed to have heard it too, because their eyes darted outside. One of the cats even started pawing at the glass. Worried, Dolores told her family members that she had heard someone sneaking around outside. But no one ever suspected that she was about to become the last victim of BTK.

• 2:12:01Courtney Brown?

  On January 18, 1991.

• 2:12:05Courtney Brown?

  Dennis and his son arrived at the camp before anyone else. It was cold out, with the temperatures dipping below freezing. And immediately, Dennis began setting everything up. His plan was that, by the time the other scouts arrived with their fathers, he would tell them that they were missing some supplies and he had to run to the store. But instead, he would use that time to murder Project Dogside. So that's exactly what he did. Soon enough, the other scouts arrived, and Dennis was able to slip away without suspicion. The first place he drove was to his parents' house. They were on vacation at the time, so he was all alone.

• 2:12:48Courtney Brown?

  Once there, he put on some dark clothing and packed up his head kit. Next, he drove to Park City's Baptist Church, parked his car, and then started the walk to Dolores Davis's home. It was a pretty long walk, through wheat fields and a cemetery. His feet were numb from the freezing temperatures. But finally, he saw her house on the horizon. When he walked up, he could see Dolores through her window. She was all by herself, lying in bed, reading a book. It was the routine she followed every single night, a routine that Dennis had been carefully watching.

• 2:13:28Courtney Brown?

  Eventually, Dolores closed her book, turned off the lights, and curled up to go to sleep. Outside, Dennis cut her phone line. He then looked at his watch. It was 10:30 PM. It was too late to pose as a maintenance worker. Dolores's home was also pretty secure, so he couldn't pick the lock like he had done before. So instead, he decided to take the easiest route, by grabbing a nearby cinder block and throwing it through a sliding glass door. Dennis then stepped into her home. Seconds later, Dolores burst into the room, wearing just her robe. And there, in her living room, was a stranger.

• 2:14:13Courtney Brown?

  But she didn't think she was in danger just yet. "Did your car crash into my house?" she asked him. Dennis eerily shook his head, while pulling a pair of pantyhose over his face. Seeing this, Dolores backed away.

• 2:14:29Colin Brown?

  "I'm a fugitive. The police are looking for me right now. I'm here because I need money and a car."

• 2:14:33Courtney Brown?

  "Get out of here. I can't help you," she told him. But Dennis wouldn't listen.

• 2:14:39Colin Brown?

  "I'm not going to hurt you. I just need to stay here for a bit to warm up. I need to get a bite to eat, and then I'll take your car and I'll be out of your hair. But first, I gotta tie you up so you don't try and call the police on me."

• 2:14:50Courtney Brown?

  Dolores screamed at the man to get out. But Dennis quickly told her that if she didn't listen, he was going to have to use his weapon. Trying to think of anything that could save her life, Dolores warned him that a man was coming over soon. This annoyed Dennis. There was always someone getting in the way of his plan. Now, he didn't know if she was telling the truth or not. But just in case she was, he knew he needed to act quickly. Dennis forced Dolores into her bedroom, where he handcuffed her and bound her ankles with pantyhose. Dolores was screaming, so Dennis tried to calm her down. Playing into the whole fugitive narrative, he asked where her car keys were.

• 2:15:35Courtney Brown?

  He even went out into the kitchen and pretended to rummage through her pantry. But Dolores's intuition told her that he wasn't there for food, and he wasn't there to steal her car. He was there to kill her. When he came back into the room, she begged for her life. "Please don't kill me," she said. "I have children."

• 2:15:57Courtney Brown?

  Dennis walked towards her, removing the pantyhose from around his face. And it was in that moment where she knew that her life was about to end. Dennis approached her and wrapped the pantyhose around her neck. And for the next few minutes, he watched her struggle until she ultimately died at his hands.

• 2:16:18Colin Brown?

  After the murder, Dennis considered posing her body and taking photos like he had done before. But Dolores's threat kept replaying in his mind. If a man truly was coming to her house that night, he needed to get out of there. But he wanted to recreate one of his past murders. Instead of leaving her body in the house, he wanted to dump her, just like he did with Marine Hedge. So, he wrapped Dolores's body up in blankets, carried her out to her car, and placed her in the trunk. Dennis first dumped her body near a lake on I-135. It was a lake he knew well, one that he often took his children to, to fish. But now, it was serving a very different purpose. After dumping her body, Dennis planned to drive her car back to her house,

• 2:17:02Colin Brown?

  and then come back to the scene to photograph her. But by that point, it was snowing. It was also getting pretty late, so Dennis decided to retrieve her body and dump her somewhere more secluded. So, he drove several miles down the road. He pulled the car over in a quiet area, dragged Dolores's body out, and then dumped her in some brush under a bridge. After that, he drove back to Dolores's home and parked her car in the driveway. Before leaving, he wiped down her car of any fingerprints, and then tossed her car keys onto the roof of her house. Then he walked back to the Park City Baptist Church, got in his car, and hurried back to the Cub Scout campground to be with his son. And, just like before, no one suspected a thing.

• 2:17:45Courtney Brown?

  The following morning, Dennis got up early. He was actually one of the first ones to wake up. In confession of a serial killer, he stated, quote, "I was exhausted, but I was exhilarated," end quote. He started a fire and got to work making breakfast for the troupe, who all stumbled out of their tents to find Dennis smiling, offering them a delicious meal. It was as if nothing even happened. Once the sun began to set, Dennis couldn't stop thinking about Dolores. He wanted to go back to her body and take pictures like he had planned. So later that evening, he told everyone that he had a headache and that he needed to go to the store to buy some aspirin.

• 2:18:31Courtney Brown?

  But in reality, he drove back to the dump site. To Dennis's relief, Dolores's body was still undiscovered, sitting in the ditch under the bridge. So he parked his car and walked over, pulling out his briefcase. Inside was a camera and the white plastic mask with red lipstick and black eyelashes. It was the same mask that he would put on to masturbate and take lewd photos of himself. But today, that mask was for Dolores. On the side of the road, Dennis removed the rest of her clothing, and he put the mask around her face. Disturbingly, he would later say that because Dolores was older, he didn't like the way her body looked.

• 2:19:16Courtney Brown?

  But nonetheless, he spent the next half hour posing her body in different positions and snapping photos along the way. Before leaving, he decided to toy with the police by leaving that mask right next to her body. And then from there, he made his way back to the campground.

• 2:19:36Colin Brown?

  Earlier that day, Dolores's friend, Thomas Ray, had stopped by her house. The two had talked the day before, and he had agreed to come over to help work on her car. But upon arriving, he immediately saw some red flags. For one, Dolores's car was parked in the driveway when she usually parked it in the garage. When Thomas walked up to her front door and knocked, he waited there for several minutes with no answer. Concerned, he decided to walk around back, and that's when he noticed the shattered glass door. Directly beyond the threshold, he saw the cinder block eerily sitting on the floor. Then he saw that her phone line had been cut. Thomas quickly ran through the house screaming Dolores's name, but he was met with silence.

• 2:20:19Colin Brown?

  When he walked into her bedroom, he noticed that her bedding was missing. Thomas knew that something horrible had happened, so he quickly ran from the house and drove to the nearest phone to call 911. For the remainder of that day, the Park City Police Department ran all around town trying to find the missing 63-year-old woman, but they didn't find her. They eventually found her car keys on top of her roof. They also saw the cut phone line, the missing bedding, and that some of her lingerie was missing. And they couldn't help but think of how similar this scene looked to the scene of Maureen Hedge, who was killed just a few miles down the road, six years earlier. But they couldn't make any definitive connection until they found Dolores, which wouldn't come until two weeks later.

• 2:21:01Courtney Brown?

  It was February 1st, 1991. A teenager was walking his dog along a ditch, when the dog suddenly ran up ahead, underneath a bridge. The boy called for his dog several times, but he wouldn't come, completely engaged by something up ahead. As the boy neared closer, he saw the body of a woman lying in the ditch. Horrified, he grabbed his dog and ran as fast as he could to get help. And within minutes, the police finally arrived on scene. Now because of the freezing temperatures, Dolores's body had been frozen and preserved, so they could immediately tell that it was her.

• 2:21:43Courtney Brown?

  Eerily, they found that plastic mask lying near her body. They also saw pantyhose still wrapped around her neck, wrists, and ankles. It was exactly the way Maureen Hedge was found, six years earlier, minus the mask. And given all of the similarities, the investigators believed that it could be the work of the same person, but surprisingly, they still didn't think it was BTK. As we mentioned, BTK's earlier murders were mostly young women, killed in their homes. Maureen Hedge and Dolores Davis were older women, who had been taken from their homes and dumped outside of town.

• 2:22:23Courtney Brown?

  Plus, they figured if this was the work of BTK, he likely would have claimed them, since he was known to do that. But like all of the times before, police didn't have enough evidence to find the killer. So Dolores Davis's murder was added to the long list of unsolved homicides that plagued their community.

• 2:22:44Colin Brown?

  In the weeks after Dolores's murder, Dennis Rader was on a high. When his wife and kids went to bed, he pulled out his journal and wrote down every detail of the murder he could remember. He wrote all about the way Dolores begged for her life, how scared she was in her last moments, and how exciting the entire ordeal was. When he finished writing, he created a little scrapbook page of all the newspaper clippings he collected from her case. And right next to that, he hid the trophies he took, including Dolores's driver's license and social security card. But he wasn't finished riding this high just yet. After murdering Dolores, he had taken her clothing and hid it in a shed at his parents' house. They were still out of town, so anytime he wanted to relive that night, he would drive

• 2:23:29Colin Brown?

  to their house, put Dolores's clothing on, and take pictures of himself.

• 2:23:35Courtney Brown?

  The year 1991 marked 17 years since BTK started his crimes. Throughout that time, he had 10 victims. The city of Wichita had been completely changed by a monster who was still lurking among them, a monster who they couldn't name, but who they feared. They had no idea that the person responsible was a Boy Scout leader, a church leader, a father, a husband. And for the next decade, Dennis disappeared into his caricature of a perfect family man, only letting his dark side out for his secret self-bondage moments, alone in his shed, or

• 2:24:17Courtney Brown?

  late at night when he would read his own retellings of the murders he had committed. He had, in a lot of ways, gotten away with all of his murders. But the thing about narcissists, about killers like Dennis Rader, is that they can't handle anyone else getting the credit they feel they deserve. They can't just let themselves fall silent. They need the attention. They need to feel the fear of others. So while Dennis managed to hide in plain sight for the next 13 years, his hunger for notoriety will eventually be his downfall.

• 2:24:56Colin Brown?

  Join us next week for part three of our four-part series. However, if you're a Patreon member, part three and four will be available in the next couple days to week. Hey, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Murder in America. This is a very long, very thorough series about one of America's most notorious serial killing sprees, so please bear with us for all four of these parts. You know that we like to tell the whole story when we dive into these cases, and there's obviously so much detail in the story that there is just a lot to go over. If you want to listen to next week's episodes, part three and four, sooner than later, please consider supporting the show by joining us on Patreon.

• 2:25:38Colin Brown?

  On Patreon, you can get early ad-free access to all episodes of the show that are on our main feed, and you can also get access to bonus episodes of the show. So if you've listened to every episode of MIA and you've never signed up for Patreon, if you sign up for one of those tiers today, you can immediately get access to a massive library of 120, 130, I don't even know how many, episodes that are on there right now, full-length episodes with Courtney and I, full sound editing, music, everything. It's like you're listening to the show, but exclusively on Patreon. Also, do not forget to follow us on Instagram at Murder in America to see photos from every case that we cover here on the show, and please leave us a five-star review wherever you listen to the show, if it's Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever.

• 2:26:22Colin Brown?

  We appreciate hearing from you guys, and we love reading your feedback. Anyways, y'all, we will be back next week for part three. I hope everybody has a great weekend if you're listening on Friday. Thanks so much for joining us this week, and yeah, I'll catch y'all on the next one.

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