EP. 227- SERIAL KILLER: BTK (Bind Torture Kill) | Pt. 3: In Plain Sight

After killing Marine Hedge in 1985 and Vicki Wegerle in 1986, Dennis Rader vanished into suburban normalcy for almost twenty years—leading Cub Scouts, serving as church president, and installing home alarms for terrified neighbors. While the task force chased ghosts, he privately curated scrapbooks and fantasized about new victims. In 2004, stung by a newspaper article implying BTK had died or lost his nerve, Rader resurfaced with letters, crime-scene photos, and a floppy disk he believed was untraceable. Digital metadata and his own daughter’s DNA ended the longest cat-and-mouse game in Kansas history, exposing the monster who had hidden in plain sight all along. - 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.

• 0:00Colin 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.

• 0:12Courtney Brown?

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

• 0:18Colin Brown?

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

• 0:23Courtney Brown?

  In our last two episodes, we talked about the life of Dennis Rader in a 17-year reign of terror on the people of Wichita, Kansas. Throughout that time, he took the lives of 10 people. And by the 1990s, authorities were no closer to finding his identity. Dennis Rader was able to keep up with his BTK persona because he lived two very different lives. One was a father, husband, and community member. The other, a vicious killer obsessed with hunting for victims to bind, torture, and kill. In a span of nearly two decades, Dennis refined his methods for killing, all while raising

• 1:04Courtney Brown?

  his children and fooling everyone around him into believing he was an upstanding citizen. But in this episode, we get to watch as the police become the hunters. And finally, BTK becomes the prey. This episode is part three of our four-part series, and it's the downfall of a merciless, narcissistic killer who is finally taken down by the thing he loved the most. I'm Courtney Brown.

• 1:34Colin Brown?

  And I'm Colin Brown.

• 1:36Courtney Brown?

  And you're listening to Murder in America.

• 2:42Colin Brown?

  In 1991, Dennis Rader was going through a change. By that point, he had been unemployed for years. After losing his security job at ADT, he stayed at home with his kids for a while, playing the role of “Mr. Mom,” as he called it. Throughout that time, although his disturbing homicidal thoughts still plagued his mind, he managed to not kill anyone. But in 1991, he gave in to those desires, taking the life of his final victim, Dolores Davis. Following her murder, Dennis knew that it was time for him to step up and finally find a career for himself. Ideally, he wanted something that would give him access to houses around town. He wanted a career that gave him the freedom to stalk potential victims and the power

• 3:25Colin Brown?

  to satiate his desire for control. And eventually, he decided to apply for a career he had always wanted: a police officer. Throughout his life, Dennis always wondered what it would be like to be a cop. Even more thrilling for him was the thought that he would be working for a police department that had been looking for him for decades. He could shake the hands of detectives that had worked his very crime scenes. He may even get a chance to look at BTK’s evidence file. And the thought of that was exciting. But to his dismay, after sending in his application to become a cop, he never heard back from them. In Confession of a Serial Killer, he suggested that he wasn't hired because he was too old to be a cop.

• 4:07Colin Brown?

  At the time, he was in his mid-forties, and according to his daughter Carrie, who was in her teens, he was constantly worried about getting older. He'd often tell his family to just "put him out to pasture when the time came." And Carrie had a hard time understanding why he said this almost obsessively. Dennis was still in really good shape. Her dad could out-hike her, so he seemed to have boundless energy and rarely if ever sat down to relax. From her perspective, her dad could do everything that he wanted to do, but thankfully, he couldn't. Over the years, Dennis felt his body slowing down a bit. Each murder he committed was more tiring than the last. He felt he no longer had the time, nor the strength and virility, to get away with murder anymore.

• 4:52Colin Brown?

  Which is exactly why he was so desperate for a job that would give him the time to fantasize, stalk, and fulfill his urges another way. So, in May of 1991, he landed a job that did just that: serving as Park City's compliance officer. Essentially, it's a low-level law enforcement job. A compliance officer is in charge of things like enforcing zoning, code, and municipal laws, determining things which may be a threat to public safety, like catching stray animals, and inspecting properties for anything that may be a public nuisance or be hazardous to those living near it. For Dennis, it was perfect, and for the city, it seemed like he was a perfect fit.

• 5:33Colin Brown?

  During his first interview, he was told that they rarely got people as qualified as him. They were very impressed at his background in the Air Force, an impeccable record working in security, where he routinely was promoted, and all of his accomplishments outside of work. It only took a short interview before they hired Dennis, and finally, his long stretch of unemployment was over.

• 5:54Courtney Brown?

  It didn't take long for Dennis to take his job as a compliance officer and run with it. In Confession of a Serial Killer, he talks at length about how unprofessional and unorganized the department was before he got there. He took pride in developing a new stricter way of doing things, and he urged all of his coworkers to be as by the book as he was. It was said that Dennis always arrived to work with a freshly ironed uniform, polished boots, and close-clipped military hair. He was never a minute late, and he never left a minute early, and he exuded confidence in his role. According to the people at his job, if he needed something, he didn't ask, "Hey, can you grab this for me?"

• 6:38Courtney Brown?

  He told them, "I need you to grab this for me." And while some people Dennis worked with found him to be efficient and a hard worker, others had more constructive things to say. His longtime coworker Mary Capps told the Wichita Eagle, quote, "Dennis was a very difficult person to get along with. It was always his way every time," end quote. Others said that when the office would go out for the occasional drink after work, they would all breathe a sigh of relief when Dennis left. He was a very rigid man, so with him gone, they could finally drink, relax, and tell jokes, without his watchful, serious eyes on them. There were moments of warmth with Dennis.

• 7:22Courtney Brown?

  Many of his coworkers said that most of the things he would talk about outside of work was Kansas State football and his children. It was very clear to them that Dennis absolutely adored his kids. And despite his propensity to keep to himself and his stubbornness, most thought he was a decent person. After all, everyone has their flaws. But there were some people in his community that absolutely hated him. Now, because Dennis was very strict when it came to his job, he got a lot of complaints about how rigid he was when handing out citations. He wasn't one of those people that would listen to your excuse and let you off the hook, so his employers got a lot of complaints about him.

• 8:06Courtney Brown?

  But anytime they received a complaint, they just thought he was really good at his job. They knew that Dennis spotted everything and kept a close eye on his community. In fact, he watched everyone in Park City so closely that on March 12th, 1992, the police came knocking on Dennis's door. Upon hearing the knock, Dennis peered outside to find two uniformed officers standing on his porch, silhouetted by the dem spring sun. It was an image he had thought about, had nightmares about, for years. And now, here they were, knocking, waiting for him to answer. Was this the end, he thought?

• 8:50Courtney Brown?

  Had they found out that he was BTK? For a moment, Dennis wondered if they had found his fingerprints. After all, when he first started his job as a compliance officer, he was fingerprinted for the position. But that couldn't be, he thought to himself. He was always so careful during his murders, always wearing gloves, always making sure he didn't take them off until he was safely in his car. Yet, here they were. The police were knocking on his door. And Dennis answered. And that's when he was met with a question that he had dreaded for over two decades.

• 9:29Colin Brown?

  Dennis Rader, we have some questions to ask you about a homicide that occurred down the street.

• 9:34Courtney Brown?

  That was it. Dennis had murdered his neighbor, Maureen Hedge, years earlier. He knew even then that he had broken his code. He attacked someone he knew, someone close in proximity. And now, six years later, he was finally going to pay for it. Nervous, heart racing, Dennis invited the police in to talk with him. As they sat down, Dennis waited for the detectives to say her name. He held on to every word as they checked their notes. Then finally, they looked in the eye of a killer and said, Ronald Eldridge. Instantly, Dennis felt a rush of relief. That wasn't one of his victims.

• 10:18Courtney Brown?

  His secret was still safe. Because it turns out, Dennis wasn't the only killer in his neighborhood. Not even on his street. A man a few doors down named Larry Bryan was the suspect in the murder of his boss, Ron Eldridge. In that case, after Larry found out he was going to be fired, he targeted Ron and shot him. Now, the police had pretty good evidence, but there was still an investigation to conduct. During that investigation, Dennis's boss suggested that detectives speak with Dennis. After all, he had an amazing recall and attention to detail as a compliance officer. And since he lived on the same street as the suspect, he'd probably have some insight

• 11:02Courtney Brown?

  into who he was. Dennis happily gave detectives all of the information they needed. And truthfully, he was just relieved that they weren't there for him. In their investigative report, the police wrote this.

• 11:16Colin Brown?

  Myself and Detective Coral informed Dennis Rader that we were investigating a homicide in which Larry A. Bryan was the suspect, and we were trying to find out any background information on Larry. Dennis Rader states that Larry moved in approx. 10 to 12 years ago. He described Larry as a quiet person. Dennis states that one thing he remembers about Larry is that Larry never came out during the daytime, and he kind of got the nickname of Vampire around the neighborhood. Dennis also states that he remembers Larry Bryan driving what he described as a hot Chevelle. We asked Dennis Rader to describe Larry Bryan, and he stated that he was polite and quiet. We asked him if anyone lived with him, and he stated that he did not believe so.

• 11:57Colin Brown?

  However, he thought that a girl hung around his residence when he first moved in, but he had not seen anyone else around the residence. Dennis Rader also states that Bryan has a fascination with young kids in the neighborhood. He recalls an incident approx. a month ago where he saw Larry Bryan chasing the kids in the neighborhood around with what he described as a Jason mask. I asked Dennis Rader about the residence of Larry Bryan, and he stated that Larry always keeps his shades down, and again stating that he has never seen any females over at Larry's house.

• 12:28Courtney Brown?

  With that, investigators packed up, thanked Dennis for his insight, and went on their way. As they walked out of the house, they were completely unaware that they had just spoken to the serial killer they had been hunting for nearly 20 years. They had also been mere feet away from mountains of evidence hidden throughout Dennis's home. And sadly, it would be many, many more years before they realized who he was.

• 12:56Colin Brown?

  For the next few years, Dennis slinked through society, playing the part of a loving son, father, and husband. On April 7, 1993, Dennis's parents, William and Dorothy, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. It was a day of pride, of celebration for a life well-lived. At an intimate dinner party, William and Dorothy got to look out over the family they had created. They had worked hard to raise their children well, and looking out over them raising their children of their own, it was clear to them that they had done just that. Dennis, in particular, was a golden example of what they had dreamt of. He had a respectable job, served his community, went to church, raised his children to be good-giving people, and still somehow made time to visit his parents any chance he could.

• 13:40Colin Brown?

  He took them to appointments whenever they needed, brought them dinner, and went to church with them every single Sunday. They were proud of him and the family he created. But even though from the outside, the Raider family's life was perfect, there were cracks in it. Cracks that not even his family noticed until they were looking at the man they had lived with in retrospect. Around this time, his daughter Carrie was in high school, and she really excelled, always landing a spot on honor roll and taking an interest in politics and social justice. She often submitted opinion pieces to the Wichita Eagle, promoting her feminist and anti-war beliefs. But throughout this time, she was secretly struggling. Carrie would later say that when she was a teenager, she struggled with intense night terrors.

• 14:26Colin Brown?

  She would wake up screaming, thrashing, and sobbing, unable to separate fact from fiction. When her mother would try to console her, she would insist,

• 14:34Courtney Brown?

  "Mom, there's a bad man in our house."

• 14:36Colin Brown?

  It was the truth, and in some way, no matter how minor, it seems like Carrie knew it. But her mother would soothe her, remind her that she was having a night terror, and urge her back to bed. Looking back, it's a glaring sign that something wasn't right. But to Carrie, Paula, and Brian, their family was just like any other. However, Carrie did say that her father did have a bit of a temper. According to Carrie in her book, A Serial Killer's Daughter.

• 15:03Courtney Brown?

  Dad said he was like a pot, slowly heating and occasionally blowing his lid. The key to surviving with dad? Watch the pot cautiously, turn down the heat, and know when to get out of its way before it blows.

• 15:20Colin Brown?

  Throughout her autobiography, Carrie frequently refers to her father's quick temper and her mother's incredible ability to manage it. The way Dennis was feeling was the way the whole house was going to feel, whether they wanted to or not. His presence was domineering, and his mood swings dramatically affected everyone around him. Interestingly, there were certain things that really set him off, but they weren't things that you would expect. Carrie would later say that for whatever reason, her dad would get really angry if she or her mother got hurt. If Carrie twisted her ankle, bumped into something, or dropped something on herself, Dennis would bark, "Well, it's your fault you hurt yourself." Or, "If you're not careful, you'll all be scarred up and no one will want you."

• 16:03Colin Brown?

  He had a severe aversion and even outrage if his wife or daughter was harmed in front of him, but he didn't have the same reaction with his son. We can't help but wonder if that has to do with his fetishization of women's pain. But there are other disgustingly blurred lines when it comes to Dennis's relationship with his teenage daughter and his wife. According to Dennis himself, when Carrie was in high school, he would collect her underwear, night gowns, and bras, stashing them in a trash can in the backyard so he could pleasure himself into them. He would also do this with his wife's undergarments, but the fact that he would do this with Carrie's stuff is especially disturbing.

• 16:42Courtney Brown?

  Now in her book, Carrie also spoke about two incidents that Dennis has never disclosed to the public. In one instance, after getting in a fight at the dinner table, Dennis reached across the table in a fury and choked his 18-year-old son, Brian. Seeing this, Carrie and Paula were in a panic. Dennis wasn't letting go. In fact, they had to work together to pry him off Brian. Finally, Dennis let go and sat back down while Brian gasped for air. There was a brief moment of silence around the dinner table. The entire family was in shock over what just happened. Recounting the event, Carrie remembers it was like her dad flipped a switch.

• 17:27Courtney Brown?

  Her father turned into someone she didn't recognize. None of them realized it at the time. But that side of him, that horrific look in his eye, is the same look that his 10 victims saw right before they lost their lives. And Dennis seemed to realize this. As soon as he let go of Brian's neck, he profusely apologized with a look of shock and shame on his face. It seemed as though for a moment, the veil between BTK and Dennis Rader had blurred. And that wouldn't be the only instance. Around that same time, when Carrie was 15 or 16 years old, her father turned his rage on her.

• 18:10Courtney Brown?

  After getting into a typical teenage parent argument in the living room, Carrie blurted out, "I hate you," to her dad. In response, Dennis chased her down the hallway. Carrie was able to slam her bedroom door behind her. But on the outside, her father banged on the wood, demanding that she come out. Then, he started kicking, harder and harder. Before she knew it, the door shuddered as the wood split and Dennis's foot left a gaping hole in her bedroom door. Once again, it was like that switch had flipped. And instantly, her father apologized. In her book, Carrie stated, "Dad always fought hard to be in control,

• 18:55Courtney Brown?

  not just his emotions or demeanor, but his whole body. He was careful to pick who saw that side of him. He was always careful to be on his best behavior in front of anyone who wasn't Mom, Brian, or me." So clearly...

• 19:11Courtney Brown?

  Things were not as stable in their home life as Dennis often portrayed. But for the most part, Carrie recalls life at home being a safe haven, which might sound a bit ridiculous, given what we've just disclosed. But these outbursts were usually few and far between. For the most part, Dennis was a good father. He encouraged his children. He took Carrie camping and fishing and on trips to the Grand Canyon. On these trips, he would always pack all of their belongings, buy her supplies, and he did his best to make sure they had a great time. Carrie remembered that at night, when darkness fell, and they were far away from the city lights, her dad would bring her outside, and they would look at the stars together.

• 19:56Courtney Brown?

  These were beautiful memories from her childhood. To her, at that time, he wasn't the monster BTK. He was simply Dad.

• 20:07Colin Brown?

  Now, as you've seen, Carrie Rader would later be very vocal about her upbringing. But Dennis's son Brian has stayed out of the public eye. However, it's safe to say that the two were pretty close. Dennis was very involved in his son's life, especially when it came to Cub Scouts. Dennis taught Brian everything he knew. As Brian grew older, he started working towards becoming an Eagle Scout, the highest honor in the Boy Scouts. Brian was constantly doing community service to reach the sought-after rank. One year, Brian even created Park City's own phone book directory. Previously, they had been lumped in together with Wichita's directory, which made it challenging to search through the sea of names.

• 20:50Colin Brown?

  But Brian saw a problem, and he jumped on it, much to the delight of his community and his father. After creating the phone book, the Wichita Eagle wrote a piece about Brian Rader's hard work, and as Dennis read it, he was so proud of his son. However, a few months later, Dennis was reading another article in the Wichita Eagle, one that filled him with pride about his own work.

• 21:14Courtney Brown?

  It had been two long decades since BTK's crimes first hit the media. Two decades of families grieving without answers, and of the city waiting in uncertainty, not knowing if the killer was going to strike again. Bill Hirschman was one of those people. He began writing for the Wichita Eagle in 1978, and quickly became their resident expert on the BTK murders. In 1994, he still couldn't get the crimes out of his head, and he wanted to make sure the victims weren't forgotten. So on January 15th, 1994, shortly before the 20th anniversary of the Otero murders, he published an article. It was titled "Twenty Years After First Inspiring Fear:

• 21:59Courtney Brown?

  BTK Strangler Inspires Frustration." In it, he summarized the seven crimes BTK had committed, at least, the seven that they knew about. Bill also spoke to investigators about their feelings and beliefs surrounding BTK. Some thought he was incarcerated, or in a mental institution. Others believed he was dead, or had moved away. Some even felt that he had found a partner who indulged in his fantasies, so he no longer needed innocent victims. But according to Hirschman, one feeling was the same amongst all officers. The article read, quote, "Failure to convict BTK is always mentioned as the one lasting regret

• 22:44Courtney Brown?

  of every retiring police officer who worked the case," end quote. Now, one of these retired officers was Captain Al Stewart. He worked the BTK murders for over 10 years. He ended up retiring in 1985, but even in his retirement, he spent his days scouring through old evidence files, desperately hoping to find that missing piece that could solve the mystery. Even as his health declined in the 90s, Al Stewart never stopped looking. And sadly, when he took his own life in 1998, his family members discovered BTK's files lying right beside his body on the nightstand.

• 23:27Courtney Brown?

  It was a case that stuck with him all the way up until his death. It was a case that haunted many officers, not just in Wichita, but around America as a whole.

• 23:39Colin Brown?

  Now, when Dennis read Hirschman's article about the 20-year anniversary of his first murders, he was beaming with pride. He had successfully gotten away with being one of America's most prolific killers, and law enforcement was no closer to solving it. And luckily for the people of Wichita, BTK was not actively killing people around this time. After Dolores Davis's murder in 1991, he took another long break. In Confession of a Serial Killer, he disclosed, "After Davis, the desire seemed to go away. I was finally busy with the job, and the kids, and home life." And like we mentioned, Dennis's job as a compliance officer fulfilled that sense of power and control that he always wanted.

• 24:24Colin Brown?

  For the next several years, he went on a power trip around Park City, issuing as many citations as he possibly could. Now, normally, a compliance officer's power is pretty minor, but not for Dennis. And in 1998, Dennis Rader became obsessed with a woman named Barbara Walters. She told the Wichita Eagle in 2005, "He looked for absolutely everything, and he must have enforced every rule there ever was, just because he could." Apparently, Barbara had a dog, Shadow, that sometimes escaped from her backyard, and Dennis had issued her several citations for it. Her family would later say that Dennis would go out of his way to drive by Barbara's home, sometimes several times a day.

• 25:08Colin Brown?

  And he would drive by slowly, almost like he was sending a warning that he was watching her. But on August 3rd, 1998, Dennis took his behavior to an extreme. On that day, he actually entered Barbara's backyard and attempted to shoot her dog, Shadow, with a tranquilizer rifle. Barbara, who was present, ran out from her home, and a massive fight ensued. The fight was so intense, in fact, that Park City's police chief actually had to come to the scene to de-escalate everything. Barbara claimed that Dennis had come into her yard to let her dog out, but Dennis claimed that she was violating code by letting her dog loose. And he issued Barbara yet another citation, one that she fought in court.

• 25:52Colin Brown?

  And while you may think this is just an outlier, the reality is that she wasn't the only one who filed a complaint in regards to how Dennis treated pets. Another woman, Jan Elliott, told the Wichita Eagle that Dennis killed her dog while it was in her backyard. Not only that, but he had "gone out of his way to kill my dog." According to Time Magazine, kids in the neighborhood had even begun to play a game called "hide from Dennis", where they would duck into bushes when they saw his white van approaching. Apparently, it started because they were so used to seeing him creeping through yards, chasing animals like he was in a hunt 'em down video game. Though, it wasn't just dogs that Dennis was chasing down.

• 26:35Courtney Brown?

  Misty King was a proud resident of Park City. Or at least, she used to be. Before 1998, she loved the friendly atmosphere, the closeness to her family, and the sense of community there. And at first, Dennis Rader was actually a part of that. When Misty's husband was injured in a boxing match in 1998, Dennis asked if there was anything he could do to help. As a compliance officer, he offered to keep an eye on Misty's home. While she spent most of her time at the hospital, he even offered to help clean up her yard. And at first, Misty was incredibly grateful. This was a very hard time in her life,

• 27:18Courtney Brown?

  and here was this stranger who swept in and offered to lend a helping hand when she needed it most. Even when Misty's husband came home from the hospital, Dennis would come by to check on them and do little things around the house that her husband wasn't able to do because of his injury. But according to Misty, Dennis's behavior started to shift when she eventually divorced her husband. Misty said that following the divorce, Dennis would frequently come by her house unannounced, offering to help her with things and having long overstayed conversations. Now, she didn't seem to mind his company in the beginning, but after a while, Misty got a boyfriend.

• 27:59Courtney Brown?

  And that's when Dennis's kindness was replaced with vindictiveness. Instead of helping Misty out, Dennis started giving her citations for different things. And one, Dennis claimed that the grass along her fence was higher than the grass in her yard. He gave her another citation because her boyfriend was working on a car in her driveway. Yet, months earlier, Dennis had helped Misty's father-in-law do the exact same thing in her driveway. He hadn't issued a ticket then, so why now? It was clear that he had it out for Misty, and slowly, this behavior went from irritating to outright frightening. Misty said that she would look out of her window,

• 28:45Courtney Brown?

  and Dennis would be parked outside of her house, watching her, just like he would do with his murder victims. She said that within six months, she saw Dennis parked outside of her home more than 20 times, but things would only get worse from there. Sometimes, she would be standing in her kitchen making dinner, when she would look up to see Dennis just standing there in her kitchen window, peering through the curtains. Other times she'd be in the living room, and Dennis would watch her through the window as she watched TV. Often, Misty would confront him. She'd march outside and ask Dennis why he was doing this to her. And eerily enough, on at least one occasion,

• 29:29Courtney Brown?

  he told her that if she just got rid of her new boyfriend, he would leave her alone. Now, obviously, Misty wasn't going to do that. So instead, she tried submitting a report to Dennis's employers. Hopefully, they would be able to stop the harassment. But every time she complained about him, Dennis would tell his boss that Misty was violating different codes, and that he was simply there doing his job. So, his behavior went unchecked. Now, between 1999 and 2001, Misty went to court to fight six different citations Dennis had issued her. And in fall of 2001, the tension finally erupted into the worst incident yet.

• 30:14Courtney Brown?

  One day, Misty came home to a note on her front door. It was from Dennis. The note said that her dog had gotten out of the backyard, and he had no other choice but to take it to the pound. Now, Misty wasn't allowed to get her dog back until she met up with Dennis and he signed off on it. But Dennis kept pushing their meeting back. Finally, days later, he agreed to meet with Misty, but by the time she arrived at the pound to get her dog back, they had already euthanized him. Misty felt like Dennis had done this on purpose, like he was punishing her for rejecting his advances. She felt so harassed by him, and was so devastated by the loss of her dog,

• 30:58Courtney Brown?

  that she ended up moving out of Park City just to get away from him.

• 31:02Colin Brown?

  For Dennis, these reactions were amusing. Whenever he got into arguments with people at his job, he would think to himself, "If only they knew who I was, what I am capable of. They wouldn't be fighting with me like this. They'd be cowering in fear." But Dennis was no longer the scary killer he was 20 years back. By the early 2000s, he was in his late 50s, and even though he still had that same sick and twisted mind, he was older, slower, and less agile than the BTK of the 70s and 80s. So, he took that frustration out on the women of Park City. Now, harassing women and issuing citations could never satisfy him the way bondage and killing did.

• 31:43Colin Brown?

  But anytime he felt that overwhelming urge, he would pull out his collection. Dennis would flip through the pages of his scrapbook, where he kept all the details of the crimes. He would read over the newspaper clippings, run his fingers over the trophies he took throughout the years. Occasionally, he would try on his victims' underwear, snapping photos of himself. But after decades of reliving the same murders, playing with the same trophies, Dennis found himself wanting something more. He would often buy magazines and newspapers and cut out pictures of young women and girls. He really liked it when they were modeling bras and underwear, or revealing outfits. When he found a photo he liked, he would cut it out and tape it on an index card.

• 32:27Colin Brown?

  Then, on the back of that card, he would write out his fantasy of what he wanted to do to that girl. In his years as a compliance officer, he would pick a "girl of the day" to be his ride-along, masturbating to the card at the beginning and the end of the day in the work bathroom, and bringing the card along with him as he drove around town. In "Confession of a Serial Killer," he refers to them as "his girls that he took on dates."

• 32:53Courtney Brown?

  Now, it's around this time when Dennis went through a big life change. By 2001, his kids were grown up and moved out of the house. Brian went into the Navy, working on submarines on the East Coast. And his daughter Carrie was off to college, planning to become a vet. Now, becoming an empty nester is a big adjustment for most parents. And it was especially hard for Dennis. His children were once a distraction that kept him from giving in to his factor X. They gave him a purpose outside of being a killer. But for Carrie, her dad was still a huge part of her life, even after she moved out.

• 33:34Courtney Brown?

  At the time, she was studying veterinary science at Kansas State University. Her dad frequently drove up on weekends to visit her, attending football games with her, and even bringing her back home to Wichita to spend time with the family whenever she wanted. On the drives back and forth, he would pick up popcorn, Carrie's favorite. And they would eat it together as they drove through the countryside. Dennis often told Carrie how proud he was of her, but unbeknownst to him, Carrie was struggling. At the time, she felt like there was something deeply, deeply wrong. A threat that she couldn't see. When she settled into her first apartment, her night terrors returned with a vengeance.

• 34:19Courtney Brown?

  They got so severe, when she would wake up in the middle of the night, she would run around her home, checking every inch for an evil man she thought had broken in. The fear was so all-consuming that she would look behind the couch, inside the dishwasher, and in every nook and cranny, even if no one could squeeze in them. She just couldn't fight the overwhelming feeling that something horrible was after her, and that one day, it was going to snatch her up. It became so unbearable that she began to flunk her classes her sophomore year, eventually losing her scholarship and her ability to continue in the veterinary program.

• 35:01Courtney Brown?

  When she finally sat down and told her dad, she expected him to be upset, but instead, he put a hand on her shoulder and reassured her, telling Carrie that she had tried her best and that he was proud of her, no matter what she grew up to become. In the end, she would forever be his little girl, but that little girl was growing up, and although she didn't understand it at the time, she seemed to know that something terrible was coming.

• 35:30Colin Brown?

  In 1999, Carrie met her future husband, Darian. At first, Dennis was put off by his daughter dating anyone and urged her not to date a wannabe artist who wouldn't be able to provide. Darian, however, had his own concerns about her father. After going on a camping trip with the family, he asked Carrie if her dad was always so controlling. It was something that Carrie had never considered before. After all, it wasn't often that people got to see the reality of their family dynamic. Carrie insisted that her dad just thought he knew best and that it was easiest to just let him do his thing. In time, Darian too adopted this philosophy, and by the time Darian proposed to Carrie

• 36:15Colin Brown?

  in fall of 2002, Dennis finally approved.

• 36:19Courtney Brown?

  At their wedding in July of 2003, Dennis catered to his daughter's every whim, wanting to make her wedding as special as he could. When Carrie broke her glasses the night before, Dennis got up at the crack of dawn to go get her a new pair. He helped set up the event, and he calmed Carrie's nerves before the ceremony. As they waited outside of Darian's family church to walk down the aisle, Carrie recalls that it was the most emotional she had ever seen her dad. He had tears in his eyes as the music began, signaling that it was their time to go. He put out his arm and asked, "You ready, kid?" All these years later, it's impossible for Carrie to reconcile that that was the same

• 37:04Courtney Brown?

  man who had killed at least ten people. As she walked down the aisle with her father, she had no way of knowing that he was a murderer, a sadist, a monster. To her, he was the man who cried when he walked her down the aisle, the man who always burned eggs when he cooked them breakfast, and the man who always made sure to walk her to her car so she felt safe, which is one of the most terrifying parts of this story. In reality, people who do horrific things and commit unforgivable crimes, they don't always have devil horns. They often have families, jobs, friends, and hobbies, people that have known them for

• 37:46Courtney Brown?

  years without ever having a clue what they're capable of. That was clearly the case for Dennis's family. And as Carrie walked down the aisle with her dad, she was grateful to have him as a father. She had absolutely no clue, not even the tiniest inkling, that police were already working on hunting him down, and that in just a little over a year, the entire world was going to know her father's name. Because with the early 2000s came vast improvements in DNA testing. It was still in its early stages, but around the world, DNA was being used to solve high-profile crimes.

• 38:27Courtney Brown?

  Interestingly, BTK was actually one of the first DNA profiles created in the United States. But even then, there wasn't much they could do with it. Nowadays, we have a big database where you can compare DNA, but back then, they didn't have that. Now, if they did find someone, they could test that person's DNA against the killer, but with no one to compare it to, they essentially had a lock with no key. But investigators did know that science was expanding more and more every day. Which meant that there was only one thing they could do: be patient. And before they knew it, it was January 15th, 2004.

• 39:11Courtney Brown?

  The 30th anniversary of the Otero family murders. A lot had changed in those 30 years. Some people in Wichita didn't even know about the murders. Some didn't even know about BTK. After all, the last known murder of BTK was back in 1977, 27 years earlier. So for a lot of people, the story of BTK almost seemed like an old boogeyman tale. A distant memory of a horrible time long, long ago. Throughout the years, the media started covering different news stories. Ones that were newer, more relevant to the times.

• 39:53Courtney Brown?

  And decade after decade, the story of BTK faded from the headlines. And his victims, well, it seemed as if their memories were lost to time. But their families, and the investigators who worked their cases, as well as the hundreds of people directly affected by these murders, they would never be able to forget. To them, this wasn't an old scary story about the boogeyman of Wichita. This was something that changed the very makeup of their lives. And they never got the justice they deserved. So on January 15th, 2004, on the 30th anniversary of the Otero murders, a journalist named Hearst Laviana

• 40:37Courtney Brown?

  decided to write a story about the murders in the Eagle newspaper. He worked with a lawyer named Robert Beatty, who was writing a book about the BTK murders. And together, Hearst and Robert were hoping to bring awareness to the crimes that plagued their city all those years ago. In part, the article read this: "It was a routine followed by thousands of Wichita women in the late 1970s. Upon arriving home, check the phone immediately. If the line is dead, get out." Lawyer Robert Beatty, who was a West High School student at the time, said this.

• 41:14Colin Brown?

  I don't think people today realize the kind of tension there was in Wichita at that time. There was a lot of anxiety and fear. Of course, a serial killer will do that.

• 41:25Courtney Brown?

  It was thirty years ago this month that a killer calling himself the BTK Strangler murdered the first four of his seven victims. The four, all members of the Joseph Otero family, were strangled in a small one-story house at 803 North Edgemore. After three decades, the case remains active and unsolved. And Beatty, who teaches a criminal justice course at Friends University, has cut back his law practice and is researching a book about the man considered by many police officers as the city's most notorious killer. What made the case frighteningly different for city residents was the fact that the killer sent several taunting letters about the crimes to local media. He cut the phone lines of his victims before killing them.

• 42:11Courtney Brown?

  He took souvenirs from the crime scenes. A pocket watch from one, a driver's license from another. Beatty has interviewed dozens of retired police officers and witnesses, and he hopes to have a draft of the book done by the end of the year. Beatty, who likes to base his coursework on real criminal cases, plans to structure his entire next class on the BTK killings. In coming weeks, he will try to track down people who held elected office at the time of the killings. Although the killings remain firmly implanted in the minds of those who lived through them, many Wichitaans probably have never heard of BTK. He said he used the BTK case during a segment of his class last year and was surprised at the reaction.

• 42:55Colin Brown?

  I had zero recognition from the students. Not one of them had heard of it.

• 42:59Courtney Brown?

  He said he decided to write a book to document a significant chapter in the city's history. He also said the book might prompt someone to offer information that could help solve the case.

• 43:09Colin Brown?

  I'm hoping someone will read the book and come forward with some information. A driver's license, a watch, some car keys. If BTK has died, maybe some family members who have those items will realize their significance.

• 43:23Courtney Brown?

  Fimish, who was a detective on the day of the Otero killings, was promoted in time to supervise the investigation of the final BTK homicides. He said investigators don't know why the killings stopped.

• 43:37Colin Brown?

  There are three things that could have happened. He could have moved to a different area. He could be incarcerated for something totally unrelated to BTK. Or he could be dead. It's highly unlikely with the motivation he had that he was able to correct himself. Witness reports have him as being a fairly young individual, so he probably didn't die of old age.

• 43:58Courtney Brown?

  Beatty said he expects his book to draw the attention of a lot of people who remember the killings.

• 44:04Colin Brown?

  I'm sure we will both be contacted by both crackpots and well-meaning people who have little to contribute. But I do not think we'll be contacted by BTK.

• 44:13Courtney Brown?

  Now, when this article was published in the Wichita Eagle, the main goal was to bring attention to the unsolved murders. To them, best-case scenario was that BTK's family members would maybe remember seeing something unsettling lying around in an attic and call it in. But in the end, they would get something much, much better. Something they never imagined would land on their desk. Because as we know, BTK wasn't dead. He wasn't in prison. He hadn't moved. He was still right there in the city. And that morning, he picked up a copy of the Wichita Eagle. As Dennis sat at home reading the paper,

• 44:56Courtney Brown?

  he felt a rush of excitement and adrenaline when he saw the headline, "BTK Case Unsolved 30 Years Later." Although his days of killing were behind him, he was still very proud of the mark he left on his community. As he read through the article, he felt the corners of his lips turning upward, reading all about his crimes.

• 45:18Colin Brown?

  Are you ready to have your mind blown? I want you now to imagine that in front of you was a locked door, symbolizing all that you know. Everything you've been taught in your time on Earth. The lies your government has fed you. With my podcast, The Conspiracy Files, I now give you the door's key. And, once you've listened to the show, you finally unlock this door and step inside. Beyond the door is another dimension. A dimension of false narratives. A dimension of hidden evidence. A dimension of truth, lies, and murders. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of deadly secrets and explosive ideas. You've just crossed over into...

• 45:55Courtney Brown?

  The Conspiracy Zone.

• 45:57Colin Brown?

  I'm your host, Colin Brown. Join me now on this journey into the world of secret pedophile rings, government cover-ups, and suspicious suicides on my new show, The Conspiracy Files, available now on all streaming platforms.

• 46:11Courtney Brown?

  But that smile quickly faded, especially when he read the part about how Robert Beatty's college students had never even heard of him before. The article made him feel small. For decades, BTK was all anyone could talk about. He was the man who incited fear within his community, and that secret made Dennis feel powerful. But now, people don't even know the name BTK. It was at that very moment where Dennis decided that he was going to change that. And if anyone was going to tell his story, it was going to be him. Soon enough, everyone would remember who he was.

• 46:53Colin Brown?

  In confession of a serial killer, Dennis claims, "Many people feel it was Beatty's book that started me down the trail. It was a combination of events. His book was just one of them. He had planned on bringing it out, I believe, in April 2004. I had for many years wanted to take my secret murders, clippings, drawings, and stories, and put them into a book or story format. They were well hidden in the house in my motherlode. With 30 years of material and growing older every year, I knew I had to get it out of the house. My BTK years as a young serial killer were done. I thought it was fun, like a chess game, cat and mouse with the police. At the same time, I would reduce my motherlode."

• 47:38Courtney Brown?

  It was March 19, 2004. A woman named Glenda Elliott had been tasked with going through the hundreds and hundreds of letters sent to the Eagle newsroom. And eventually, she picked up an ordinary white envelope. Now, most of the letters she opened were people in the community wanting a certain story to be covered, but this one was much different. When Glenda opened the letter, she wasn't even sure what she was looking at. It was a plain piece of paper with an unusual code at the top. It read GB SOAP 7-TNLTRDEITBSFAV14.

• 48:21Courtney Brown?

  According to Dennis, it translated to "Let Beatty Know For His Book." But everything else that was inside the letter, well, that was carefully crafted too. As Glenda opened it up, her heart sank. There was a driver's license and three grainy photos of a woman lying on the ground. It was a disturbing sight. The woman looked like a discarded doll on the ground. And as she took a closer look, it looked like the woman was dead, like there were crime scene photos. Regardless, Glenda knew that there was something wrong. She wanted to throw the letter away just so she wouldn't have to look at it.

• 49:03Courtney Brown?

  But that's when she caught the sight of something on the lower right-hand corner. It was the letters BTK. Glenda felt a chill run through her body. She had reported on the Otero murders in the past, so she knew of BTK all too well. Shocked, she ran to her boss's office with the letter in hand, telling him that she had something urgent. Seconds later, Hearst Laviana walked into the room. He was the journalist who had just written the article about the Otero murders 30th anniversary. Hearst quickly grabbed the letter from Glenda, and he couldn't believe what he was looking at. The letters BTK were staring right at him.

• 49:47Courtney Brown?

  But something that didn't quite make sense were the pictures and driver's license included in the envelope. The license belonged to a woman named Vicky L. Wagerly, date of birth March 25, 1958. Now, Hearst remembered hearing about Vicky's murder back in 1986. For years, people around town and investigators alike had always assumed that Vicky was killed by her husband Bill. No one ever thought it was BTK's victim. But now... They were stunned by the possibility.

• 50:22Colin Brown?

  Now, even seeing all of this, they weren't sure it was real. They suspected when they wrote the anniversary piece that they would have people in town trying to toy with them. In addition, as far as they knew, BTK hadn't killed anyone since 1977. Surely, he wouldn't still be sending letters to the newspaper 26 years later. But that's when Hearst decided to take a closer look at the pictures photocopied on the page. Originally, he thought they were crime scene photos taken by the police department. But when he looked again, he saw that the girl's arms were positioned differently in each photo. And that's when he knew that these weren't crime scene photos. When investigators get to a scene, they are never supposed to move a victim's body around like that.

• 51:07Colin Brown?

  They're supposed to photograph the scene exactly as they find it. But, just to be sure, Hearst quickly scanned through some records. And that's when he came to another horrific realization. There were no crime scene photos of Vicky inside of her bedroom. In 1986, when first responders arrived at her house, they immediately pulled her from the bedroom to administer CPR. So, there weren't any photos taken of her where she had been found. Which meant one thing. The only person who could have taken the photos was her killer. Around the newsroom, they all looked at the name on the letter. It read, "Bill Thomas Kilman, initials BTK."

• 51:49Courtney Brown?

  Everyone was completely shocked to know that this letter was from BTK himself. And not only was he claiming Vicky as one of his victims, but he was telling the world that he's still here, alive and well. When the letter was brought to the police department, the investigators were even more shocked. They hadn't received a letter from BTK since 1979. And after looking at the contents of the letter, they couldn't deny that it was him. Which led them to another realization. Their department had been pointing the finger at Vicky Wagerly's husband Bill for nearly 20 years. They were so sure that Bill was the killer, they had even been reaching out to his family members,

• 52:32Courtney Brown?

  trying to get a DNA sample from them. But this letter proved that Bill was innocent. It also proved that BTK had been killing in their city, right under their noses, all along. And if he murdered Vicky Wagerly without their knowledge, how many other victims did he have?

• 52:52Colin Brown?

  On the morning of March 24th, 2004, the citizens of Wichita would get out of bed, start their pot of coffee, and walk outside to grab the morning paper. And right there, on the front page was the headline, "BTK Resurfaces After 25 Years." That sentence alone made people stop in their tracks. Underneath the title, it read, "A serial killer who terrorized Wichita during the 1970s by committing a series of seven murders has claimed responsibility for an eighth slaying and is probably now living in Wichita," police said Wednesday.

• 53:28Courtney Brown?

  Within minutes, the city was buzzing with fear. People began calling into the police department with tips. Others were wanting answers. Police Commander Ken Landwehr knew that it was finally time to address the public again. So that morning, he sat down in a room packed with reporters at City Hall. And there, he confirmed that BTK had contacted them through a letter. And in that letter, he claimed another victim he killed back in 1986. Landwehr did his best to calm the public's fears while also urging them to take precaution.

• 54:07Colin Brown?

  We're encouraging citizens to practice normal safety steps. Keep their doors locked, keep their lights on.

• 54:13Courtney Brown?

  Now as for why BTK just now resurfaced after all these years, Landwehr said this.

• 54:20Colin Brown?

  One theory is that he was incarcerated or institutionalized. Very honestly, I don't think you can eliminate any possibilities. I think you also have to look at the possibility that he's been here all the time. Maybe something's changed in his life. Maybe he got married. Maybe we got close to him. Maybe he's on medications. I don't think you can arbitrarily throw out any possibility.

• 54:42Courtney Brown?

  He also told the public that they didn't think he was a huge threat anymore, as BTK was likely in his 60s. But this did little to calm people's fears. Many of the adults tuning in were children when BTK first started killing. They remembered how scared their own parents were back then, all the rules they had to follow to stay safe. And now, decades later, here he was again, inflicting that same fear from an entirely new generation.

• 55:13Colin Brown?

  That week, gun sales in Wichita skyrocketed. People came home and immediately checked to make sure their phone lines weren't cut. They walked through their house with weapons to make sure BTK wasn't hiding, waiting to kill them. It was as if the city had traveled back to the 70s and 80s, when BTK was in his prime. Reporters from all over the country came to Wichita, Kansas, to cover the story of the resurfaced serial killer. Meanwhile, investigators were hard at work, desperately trying to figure out who BTK was. After alerting the public that he was still in Wichita, they received thousands of tips. People were calling in about their ex-husbands, neighbors, brothers, and even sons. Doing their due diligence,

• 55:58Colin Brown?

  a group of investigators began going around town requesting DNA swabs from these men to rule them out as suspects. Meanwhile, another group of officers pulled out the 37 boxes of evidence they had gathered from the case over the past 30 years. Inside, there were tens of thousands of pages of documents that had collected dust. But now, they were getting a fresh set of eyes.

• 56:22Courtney Brown?

  Across town, Dennis Rader watched as a city crumbled in fear once again, which made him feel more alive than he had in decades. In confession of a serial killer, he gloated, quote, "This was my fantasy. I'm back to tell the world the games began. As I started this process, I thought of what would really throw the police in county into a disastrous state of worry. A murder not associated with me, Wagerly, should stir the pot up. And at the same time, show that maybe Beatty didn't have his story right. This would show Sedgwick County the real story." Scaring the community with his story gave Dennis the power and control that he had been

• 57:07Courtney Brown?

  chasing his whole life. It was something he hadn't felt in a while, and he was thirsty for more. But he also knew that he had to be smart. He had worked hard to stay in the shadows and not get caught, and he wasn't just going to throw that all away. So for the next few months, Dennis patiently sat back, taking in every new story he could find about his work. Then finally, in early May of 2004, he decided it was time to send another letter. This time, he sent it to K A K E T V, under the name Thomas B. King, another nod to the initials BTK. When the news director opened up the letter, he found a crossword puzzle, a copy of a

• 57:51Courtney Brown?

  badge with the words "special officer," and a thirteen-chapter document labeled "The BTK Story." In it, BTK wrote all about his fetishes, and at the end, he asked, "Will there be more?" Now like before, the letter was taken to the police department, and over the next few hours, they worked to decipher the puzzle. Eventually, they found the word "M.O." Underneath it, they found additional words that read "go for it," "prowl," and "cruise," a hint on how he would find his victims. Next, the police found the word "I.D."

• 58:31Courtney Brown?

  Underneath it, they found the words "officer," "school," and "telephone company," each pointing at things that Dennis was involved in throughout his life. And then lastly, they found the word "ruse." Underneath were the words "serviceman," "realtor," "insurance," and "handyman," all professions that Dennis would pretend to be before barging into his victims' homes. Now with this letter, he was telling the police who he was, how he found his victims, and how he tricked them. But even then, they still had no idea who he was. The envelope itself had no fingerprints or DNA on it.

• 59:14Courtney Brown?

  However, it wouldn't be long until BTK sent another letter.

• 59:19Courtney Brown?

  About a month later, in June of 2004, a young man named Michael Hellman was walking through town on his way to work when he suddenly noticed a clear plastic bag taped to the back of a stop sign. Curious, he stopped to see what it was. Inside, he found a brown envelope titled "BTK Fieldgram", with three pieces of paper that went into graphic detail about the 1974 Otero murders. The note read this:

• 59:50Colin Brown?

  "Death on a cold January morning. If a person happened to be out one of these cold mornings in a certain part of Wichita, that is, the northeast part on a particular morning in January, he might have noticed a man park his car in a store parking lot, pause briefly, then walk across the street and disappear among the house and commercial building. If they had followed him, they would have noticed his head bent low to the ground and wearing a heavy parker. If they would have looked closer, they would notice his eye dart back and forth across the street, checking the house windows and door. As he neared a house on the corner, he quickly glanced around and jumped the wooden fence surrounding the house. He knew the family left the house at approximately 8:45, and they would walk out of the car and leave for school.

• 1:00:35Colin Brown?

  In approximately seven minutes, the lady, Judy, would return home. He had earlier in the week saw them leave for school one day. He thought to himself, say, "This may be it. A perfect setup. A house on the corner, a garage set off from the house, a fenced yard, a large space from a nearby neighbor's house, especially the back door." It was a few days later that he stepped across the street and followed the family car to see where they went that morning. She took the kids to school each day and returned a perfect setup. It was close to his fantasy of a victim all to himself, a person he could tie up, torture, and maybe kill. Finally, about 20 minutes before nine, the door unlocked, and the boy stepped outside.

• 1:01:20Colin Brown?

  In just a flash, he ordered him back inside. Confronting the family armed with pistol and knife, he told them this was a stick-up and not to be alarmed. The family was preparing to leave. The kids were packing their lunches, and they had gathered their coats by the table. The mother Judy asked what was going on and said they had no money or anything of value. The boy was by his folk's side looking scared and the girl Josephine was beginning to cry. All of them gathered in the hallway and he told them his orders. He was wanted and needed the car, money and food. Joe noticed his gun in hand and told the family to settle down and all would be okay. The dog Rex wanted the pest out and he told them he would shoot it or them if they tried

• 1:02:05Colin Brown?

  any funny tricks. Expressing that the gun he held was an automatic and held hollow points bullet that would kill, Joe reassured him that if the dog was out of the way, things would be better. So agreeing, the man put the dog out. He bound the parents' hands and feet. Joe and Judy complained that their hands were going numb, so he retied them. Then he tied up the girl. Her hair was too long and kept getting in the way when he tried to gag her in the first place, tears rolled down her face. He gagged them then slipped a plastic bag over Joe's head. The others immediately began to scream. He could see tears on their faces. He tried to cover their mouths with his gloved hand but they pleaded for him to release the boy and Joe.

• 1:02:49Colin Brown?

  Joe had moved to the other bedpost and run a hole in his bag, but he was not feeling good and had thrown up and was breathing heavily. The boy's eyes were open now. Josephine was crying and Judy still pleading for him to leave the house. They would not tell. He produced a coil of rope and walked over to Judy and in her crying, pleading voice said, "What are you doing?" He slipped the rope around her neck and strangled her slowly. Josephine cried out, "Mommy, I love you." Josephine kept asking him to be careful, but he told her mother her dad would be asleep after he quit tightening the rope. He then slipped the rope around the girl's neck. She gasped, her eyes bulged, then she passed out.

• 1:03:30Colin Brown?

  Judy was by now awake, her eyes open slowly moving her head. This time he made a clove hitch and placed it over Judy's neck. She cried, "God have mercy on you," before he tightened the noose. Her eyes really bulged out because of the extreme pressure the tight clove hitch makes. She gasped and struggled but soon passed out as blood appeared in her eyes and mouth and nose. Next was the little boy. He cried out before the noose tightened. He picked up the boy and took him into his bedroom where he placed him on the bed, but he rolled off struggling and then passed out and died on the floor. Then he returned to the father. Returning to the southwest bedroom, he placed a plastic bag over Joe's head, although Joe was not moving. He wasn't taking any chances.

• 1:04:14Colin Brown?

  He looped it down with a belt. Then he turned his attention to the basement for his grand folly. He soon located a sewer pipe that was strong enough to support a hanging body. He found Josephine awake and looking at the ceiling. He then tied her feet together and then around her knees and lower abdominal. Secured tightly, he pulled up her sweater and cut her bra in two. Her small areola is exposed, so probably the first man to lay eyes on them except her father. With that done again, checked the area for mistakes, nothing out of place. He returned to the girl. She asked him if he was going to do the same things as he had done to the rest. "No," he told her, "the rest were asleep." He picked her up and took her tied body to the sewer pipe.

• 1:04:58Colin Brown?

  There, laying on her back, he asked if her dad had a camera. She said no. Then he gagged her. "Please," she said. "Don't worry, baby," he said. "You'll be in heaven tonight with the rest." She stared at him and blinked hard as he reached down and slipped the noose around her neck and quickly pulled her upright. She turned in the rope, gasped and blinked hard as the rope tightened and she died. He pulled her sweatshirt up and with sexual relaxation masturbated on her and in his handkerchief. The dream had at last come true.

• 1:05:30Courtney Brown?

  The man who found this disturbing letter immediately brought it to the police. And although BTK had already sent a detailed account of the Otero murders decades earlier, this was yet another sign that BTK was who he said he was. And that he had done the horrific things he was so proud of. It was yet another piece of the puzzle with no real clues. No DNA, no fingerprints, no new information. So police had no choice but to wait for the next letter, and they knew it wouldn't be long. After all, their killer had an ego to feed. And that day would finally come around in July of 2004. This time, BTK dropped a letter into the Wichita Library Book Drop.

• 1:06:16Courtney Brown?

  Library employee, James Stenholm, found it, with the letters "BTK" written on top. Inside this one, BTK wrote about a young man named Jake Allen, who had died just 12 days earlier. Tragically, Jake had recently been found dead after being hit by a freight train. His body had been wrapped up in wire before he was killed. But in this letter sent by BTK, he wrote that he and Jake had crossed paths and communicated with each other online. And on the day of his death, he said he lured Jake out to the tracks by posing as a private detective, and that he was responsible for Jake's death.

• 1:06:58Courtney Brown?

  Now investigators had done a thorough investigation, and through it, they determined that Jake had actually died by suicide. The wire that was wrapped around his body came from his family's farm. Now after receiving this letter, they also looked through Jake's computer, and there was no indication that he had been communicating with anyone online. So it seemed as if BTK was lying. And to this day, Jake Allen has never been considered a victim of his. Detectives believe it was yet another sick power grab Dennis had made. After all, he had a sexual obsession with the thought of someone being run over by a train. By claiming he had murdered Jake,

• 1:07:40Courtney Brown?

  he was able to pleasure himself with the fantasy he had, while also tricking the police. But there was another fantasy on his mind, one he included at the end of his latest letter. It read this:

• 1:07:54Colin Brown?

  "I've spotted a female that I think lives alone, or is a spotted latchkey kid. I'm much older, not feeble now, and have to condition myself more carefully. Also, my thinking process is just not as sharp as it used to be. I think fall or winter could be just right for the hit."

• 1:08:12Courtney Brown?

  Now, a latchkey kid was a staple of this era. A child who lets themselves into their home after school, unsupervised, while their parents are at work. And here was BTK threatening to kill one of these children. Upon reading this, investigators were incredibly concerned. They knew that BTK was capable of killing children, and they worried that he would do it again. Now, they weren't sure whether or not to go public with this information. After all, there were thousands of latchkey kids around Wichita. So releasing this would likely send parents across the city into a panic. After some back and forth, they finally decided to alert the public about the threat,

• 1:08:56Courtney Brown?

  without going into detail. Later that evening, Police Commander Linware held a news conference where he said, "Based on the information provided to us by the FBI, and the fake IDs and fake badge that were sent to K A K E by BTK, we think it is important for citizens to continue to practice personal and home crime prevention techniques. We want parents to teach these skills to their children, also." Now, after this news hit the media, many people around town were able to piece together that BTK must have threatened to kill again. And this was far from the last time they would hear from him. Months later, on October 22, 2004,

• 1:09:40Courtney Brown?

  a UPS driver named Eric McRae found a plastic bag in a UPS drop box. Inside, there was an envelope titled "BTK Fieldgrams", with several pages that talked about BTK's childhood. But in the letters, he lied, saying he was born in Oklahoma in 1939. Dennis Rader was actually born in Kansas in 1945. But as for his childhood, he said this:

• 1:10:08Colin Brown?

  "Mother slept beside me at times, the smells, the feel of underclothes, and she let me rub her hair. Railroad sounds and smell of coal. Mother worked somewhere near the RR's. Mother was gone all day and days at a time. Grandparents took care of me. I missed mother a lot. Warm baths in a wash tub. They bathe us. Kissing cousin and I on the porch in the summer and by a stove in the winter."

• 1:10:33Courtney Brown?

  In another portion, he said that as a boy, he liked to read girly books that talked about sadomasochism and bondage. He also talked about his mother's reaction to finding out he masturbated. It read this:

• 1:10:47Colin Brown?

  "Masturbation reflections, 10, 11 years old. If you masturbate, God will come and kill you. Mom words after she found a seminal yellow stain in her underwear one day. She tried to beat me. I fought back. She held my hands behind my back and used the man's belt to whip me." Funny it hurt, but Sparky liked it. Mother finally quit and said, "Oh my god, what have I done?"

• 1:11:12Courtney Brown?

  He went on to say that at eighteen years old, he started peeping in girls' windows to watch them undress. And eventually, he moved on to stealing their panties. He said he joined the air force in the sixties, and while overseas, he would break into people's homes. But by the time he reached his thirties, he started hiring sex workers, who always seemed to be scared of him. By age thirty-two to thirty-four, he started getting this overwhelming urge to commit violence. The letter said, quote, "I was getting the feeling again, and it was bad this time," end quote. According to BTK's letter, this is when he started killing. Now, as you've probably picked up on,

• 1:11:56Courtney Brown?

  many of the things he mentioned were true. He would lie about dates here and there, but for the most part, that described Dennis Rader's life. Now, in the letter, he also went on to say that he was obsessed with the Eternal Triangle, and really, anything that involved groups of three, like his name, Bind, Torture, Kill. He also said that over the years, he had become fascinated with known serial killers, like Ted Bundy, Jack the Ripper, and the Boston Strangler. He added, quote, "They all got caught, except the Ripper. Could I become a killer and not get caught?" end quote. But, as disturbing as this whole letter was, the last page was the most revolting.

• 1:12:41Courtney Brown?

  It was a collage of children's pictures that he had taped onto the page. He had cut them out of various magazines. But over top, he had drawn bondage and gags over the children's bodies. Once again, the police decided to keep this information hidden from the public. Over the last few months, their greatest fear was that if they made one wrong move, BTK would go out and kill again. They didn't even want to give him a lot of media attention, because they felt like it might egg him on. And they had every right to be worried, because behind the scenes, Dennis Rader had been stalking another woman in town.

• 1:13:21Colin Brown?

  According to Dennis, this new potential victim was in her 50s and as far as he could tell, she lived alone. He would later say that he decided to start stalking her because certain people around town had been undermining his abilities. While half the city was terrified of him, other people spoke to reporters and said that they weren't scared of BTK because he was an old man now. Seeing this, Dennis grew angry. Wanting to prove those doubting him wrong, he decided it may be time to strike. In his journal, he wrote, "I love to hunt, prowling the streets looking for fair game, tasty meat." For him, that fair game was a woman he had spotted out in the country.

• 1:14:04Colin Brown?

  To this day, we don't know who she is, but according to Dennis, she lived in a barn-style home with a large support beam at the top. Dennis fantasized about stringing her up there with wire and pulling her arms out, making it look like a crucifixion of sorts. But this time, he wanted to do it big. Dennis planned to wrap her body up in plastic and then burn her house down in a grand finale. He even bought all of the tools he would need to make it work. But in late October, when he made his way over, he noticed that there were construction workers on the road near her home, so it was too risky. For now, Dennis decided to hold off on the kill. But in the meantime, why not send another letter to the police?

• 1:14:49Courtney Brown?

  On December 8th, 2004, Dennis stepped into a payphone in town and called KAKETV. When someone answered, he immediately identified himself as BTK, but the employee hung up the phone, thinking it was a prank. From there, frustrated, Dennis called another location, but the same thing happened. Everyone kept hanging up on him, and he was furious. In one last attempt, he called the QuickTrip store in town, and the store manager, Brandon Sanner, picked up the phone.

• 1:15:27Colin Brown?

  Hello, QuickTrip, do not hang up. There is a bomb in your store. This is BTK.

• 1:15:33Courtney Brown?

  And this time around, they believed him, staying on the phone.

• 1:15:36Colin Brown?

  I'm calling to tell you of a BTK package at 9th and Minnesota on the northeast corner.

• 1:15:42Courtney Brown?

  Then he hung up. From there, the manager immediately alerted the police and they went to the location. They searched for hours, but after a thorough investigation, the package was never found, at least not by them. On December 13th, 2004, a man named William Ronald Irvin was walking through Murdoch Park when he saw a package near a tree. Curious, he grabbed it and brought it home. Once there, he opened it up to find a naked Barbie doll with her hands tied behind her back. Around the doll's neck was a piece of ripped pantyhose, a sharpie had been used to draw pubic hair on her genitals.

• 1:16:26Courtney Brown?

  But most disturbing of all, at the doll's ankles, there was a driver's license belonging to a woman named Nancy Fox, one of BTK's murder victims who had been dead for 27 years. After seeing this, the Irvin family quickly called the news station, and soon after, there was a camera crew at their house. When the police department got word, they immediately made their way over to see a cameraman filming the package. Frustrated, they took it and brought it back to the station. Now, along with the doll was a two-page letter titled "Chapter 9: Hits: Project Foxtail", December 8th, 1977.

• 1:17:11Courtney Brown?

  It was the day Nancy had been murdered. And in the letter, BTK wrote out a detailed description of how he killed her. The disturbing letter read this:

• 1:17:22Colin Brown?

  I spotted Nancy one day while cruising the area. Found out her name by checking her mailbox and tracked her to work. Up close, I visited the store where she worked, asking for some jewelry on display, and bought some cheap jewelry. By the way, the jewelry I stole from Nancy, I gave to another girlfriend. Naturally, I didn't tell my girlfriend where it came from. On that date, I parked a few blocks away and walked to her apartment, cut the phone line and broke in, waiting. She came home, entered, and was confronted in the kitchen. She was startled and started to get the phone. I told her I had a knife and displayed the magnum in my shoulder holster. We talked about sex and the harm if she didn't cooperate.

• 1:18:05Colin Brown?

  She lit a smoke while we chatted and finally said, "Let's get this over with so I can call the police." I let her go to the bathroom. Then I made her undress where I handcuffed her on the bed. I asked if her boyfriend had ever fucked her in the butt. She made no comment. I pulled down her panties, quickly slipped my belt over her head and onto the neck, and pulled it tight, but not the final stranglehold. Her hands found my scrotum and she tried to dig into my balls, but I pulled tighter. This increased my sexual thrill. I released the stranglehold and let her come back after she passed out. I spoke softly into her left ear. "I was wanted for the Otero's and others' murders, and she was next."

• 1:18:48Colin Brown?

  She began to really struggle then, and I did the final hold. This my torture mental and restrangle.

• 1:18:55Courtney Brown?

  Dennis would later admit that SBT meant "sparky big time", "sparky" being the name he gave to his penis, and "big time" meaning, well, an orgasm. But after describing the final moments of Nancy Fox's life, he admitted to taking off with a few of her items, including her driver's license, lingerie, and a necklace. Now Nancy's family actually knew the exact necklace that went missing on the night she was killed. And according to BTK's letter, he said he gave the necklace to a girlfriend. So, not knowing what else to do, the police decided to hold another news conference. This time, they showed a picture of Nancy Fox wearing her missing necklace,

• 1:19:39Courtney Brown?

  and they asked the public to take a good look.

• 1:19:42Colin Brown?

  The investigation has revealed that a necklace belonging to Nancy Fox could not be accounted for after her murder. The necklace in question is described as a gold chain with two pearls that were set vertically. Police believe that BTK may have given the necklace to a woman he was dating at the time. Anyone who believes they have seen this necklace, or received a similar necklace as a gift in December of 1977, or the early months of 1978, please call the BTK tip line.

• 1:20:11Courtney Brown?

  Of course, following this news conference, they received a number of tips, but none of them were fruitful. Because, in actuality, Dennis had never gifted the necklace to anyone. It was hidden away in one of his "many hidey holes," as he called them. But as you can imagine, investigators were growing frustrated. This was now the sixth time that BTK had communicated with them since he resurfaced. And they were still no closer to finding him. Whoever this was, was careful. When he dropped these letters off, he always made sure there were no witnesses around. So detectives ended up creating a map of all the locations where he dropped the letters off.

• 1:20:53Courtney Brown?

  And they noticed that most were located along Highway I-35. Desperate, they even considered putting cameras along the highways. But with the amount of traffic, they knew it would be an impossible task. Once again, like all the decades before, BTK seemed to be one step ahead.

• 1:21:14Colin Brown?

  While the police worried about what to do next, and had endless meetings to try and develop a plan, Dennis was thrilled to be living his double life. His son Brian was able to come home for the holidays that winter. Meanwhile, Carrie had to stay in Detroit, where she had moved to just days after her wedding for her husband's new job. Carrie was really upset about not spending the holidays with her family. She called home, crying, saying she wanted nothing more than to be with them for Thanksgiving and Christmas. She wanted to be going to the movies with them, spending snowy nights, eating dinner around the family table, and wrapping presents in her old childhood bedroom. Paula and Dennis were just as sad that Carrie couldn't make it home, but they were thankful to have Brian.

• 1:21:57Colin Brown?

  Dennis would later talk about this holiday with his family and how happy he was. But even so, he couldn't seem to be present and enjoy the quality time. Throughout that holiday and the weeks after, his thoughts were with BTK. He couldn't wait to mail another letter in, continuing with the cat and mouse game. So, one evening, during a family movie night at the local theater, Dennis snuck out to drop off another letter from BTK.

• 1:22:25Courtney Brown?

  It was January 25th, 2005, when KAKETV received the letter. It was a postcard with the return address listed as the Otero family home. The postcard was titled "Communication Number Eight", and it listed an address in town where they could find another package from BTK. Now, upon reading this, the news director Glenn Horn called the police to let them know, and within minutes, Commander Landwehr arrived to retrieve it. But Glenn wasn't willing to hand it over without a negotiation. If they wanted this postcard, then he wanted to join investigators to the second location to film them opening up the package.

• 1:23:09Courtney Brown?

  As you can imagine, the detectives were pissed. Landwehr even told them, "If you don't give me that postcard, I'm going to start arresting every single one of you until this building is empty." And with that, Glenn handed him the postcard. But he was already one step ahead. In fact, he had already sent a news crew to the location that BTK put in the letter. When detectives finally arrived, they found multiple reporters standing all around a cereal box. Annoyed and not wanting to give them the satisfaction of seeing the contents, police grabbed the box and took it to the headquarters to open it. And of course, inside, there were several disturbing items that awaited them,

• 1:23:54Courtney Brown?

  including another Barbie doll. Sadly, this one seemed to depict the murder of 11-year-old Josie Otero. The doll was naked, bound at the wrists and ankles. There was a robe tied tightly around his neck, and on the other end of that robe was a PVC pipe, which represented the pipe Josie had been hanged from. Now also in the cereal box was a letter titled "BTK's Acronym List." He told detectives that SBT stood for "Sparky Big Time", DBS meant "Death by Strangulation", and DTPG was "Death to Pretty Girls." Now, interestingly, at the end of the letter,

• 1:24:36Courtney Brown?

  BTK mentioned that he had dropped off another package at a Home Depot a few weeks earlier, on January 8th, 2005, but apparently no one had found it. So from here, detectives ended up going to the Home Depot and started looking through their security footage. And what do you know? On the afternoon in question, they saw a grainy video of a black Jeep Cherokee pulling into the parking lot. The Jeep circled around several times before parking next to a pickup truck. The investigators then watched as a man stepped out and glanced around. Finally, after several seconds, the man threw something in the bed of the truck beside him.

• 1:25:19Courtney Brown?

  He then got back in his Jeep and drove away. Now, the video was far too blurry to identify the man or even read his license plate. But luckily, an employee at the Home Depot would later come forward and say that he had found a cereal box in the bed of his truck that day. The employee's name was Edgar Bishop, and he admitted that someone had written "BTK" on the cereal box, but he thought it was a joke, so he never called it in. Now luckily, Edgar still had the items and was able to hand them over to police. And when they finally opened it, they found another note from BTK, where he rambled on and on about how much he enjoyed killing Nancy Fox.

• 1:26:01Courtney Brown?

  He also wrote about his dream house that he called "BTK's Lair." In it, he said he wanted a three-story home with an elevator and different bondage rooms where he could murder pretty girls. But the thing about this letter that stuck out the most was a paragraph written at the bottom. It read this:

• 1:26:22Colin Brown?

  Can I communicate with floppy and it not be traced to a computer? Be honest.

• 1:26:27Courtney Brown?

  BTK told the detectives to answer his question in the local newspaper by running an ad in the miscellaneous section 494. He told them that if a floppy disk could not be traced, to title the ad, quote, "Rex, It'll Be Okay." BTK continued with this.

• 1:26:46Colin Brown?

  Run it for a few days in case I'm out of town, etc. I will try a floppy for a test run sometime in the near future, February or March.

• 1:26:54Courtney Brown?

  The investigators couldn't believe what they were reading. BTK was asking if he could communicate with them through a floppy disk, which was the best-case scenario. Because floppy disks are traceable. But of course, they weren't going to tell him that. So that week, in the Wichita Eagle newspaper, they ran the ad exactly like BTK had instructed. And they let him know that he could communicate with a floppy disk. Just to be safe, they ran the ad for a whole week, costing them $76.35. But it was worth every single penny. Because on January 3rd, 2005,

• 1:27:35Courtney Brown?

  BTK sent another postcard to KAKETV. In it, he thanked the police for their quick response and told them that he was doing a test run on the floppy disk.

• 1:27:48Colin Brown?

  Dennis Rader would later say that he came up with the floppy disk idea because he was tired. Every time he communicated with the police, it was a lot of effort. He carefully picked over his words, wanting to reveal just enough. When he wrote the letters, he always wore gloves so he wouldn't leave his fingerprints behind. And even then, he always wiped everything down just to be safe. Then, when he was finished writing the letters, he would drive to several copy machines to print out his writings. From there, he would trim the edges of the paper so the cops couldn't trace which copy machines he was using. And then there was the process of dropping the letters off around town without getting caught. It was a lot of work. And he was busy these days.

• 1:28:32Colin Brown?

  When he wasn't at his job or spending time with his wife, he was either stalking women in town or working in his new position at the Christ Lutheran Church. He had actually just accepted the position as president of the congregation. Another member and friend of his, Monty Davis, had recommended Dennis, as he believed his hard-working nature made him the best man for the job. Interestingly, Monty Davis was also the assistant photo editor at The Eagle. But because of all the work Dennis had on his plate, communicating with the police had been tiring, and he figured that putting everything on a floppy disk would be much easier. Now, Dennis was not very tech-savvy. In fact, shortly before this,

• 1:29:16Colin Brown?

  he had also asked his son-in-law Darian if floppy disks were traceable. Darian would later say he thought the question was odd, and uncomfortable with why Dennis was asking, he actually lied to him, telling him that they weren't traceable. Dennis was two-for-two, and in his mind, there was no reason why the police or his son-in-law would lie to him. Dennis thought he and the police were having fun. "In confession of a serial killer," he wrote, "I wasn't really too nervous about it. I had sent a lot of stuff through the mail and hadn't had any kickback about it. I guess I got confidence that they were sort of buddies or something or friends. I kinda had a little bonding with Lawnware. I thought I had kinda bonded with him.

• 1:30:00Colin Brown?

  I thought they were wanting to play cat and mouse with me, which they were, but I thought they were going to be truthful. I just felt like they should have given me more respect, I guess, playing their cat and mouse game."

• 1:30:11Courtney Brown?

  Finally, on February 16, 2005, BTK would send his final package to the local news station. When they received it and called the police, the station was given strict instructions to not publish anything about the package, as they believed that its contents could finally lead to an arrest. As investigators opened it, they all crossed their fingers, praying that they would see a floppy disk inside. And they did. Behind a gold chain and three index cards, they found a purple floppy disk that they immediately inserted into a computer. After a few seconds, a file popped up on the screen titled "Test A."

• 1:30:55Courtney Brown?

  When they clicked on it, it read this.

• 1:30:58Colin Brown?

  This is a test. See 3x5 card for details and communication with me in the newspaper.

• 1:31:04Courtney Brown?

  From here, detectives clicked on the properties of the file. And there on the screen in front of them was the location where the disc was registered: Christ Lutheran Church. Then, right next to the location, was the name of the person who had sent the disc: The name of BTK: Dennis. After seeing this, the energy in the room was indescribable. Investigators knew that they were just moments away from learning BTK's identity. Everyone held their breaths as they Googled "Christ Lutheran Church" in Park City. A quick scroll through their website showed that the president of the congregation was a man named Dennis Rader.

• 1:31:49Courtney Brown?

  Finally, after over thirty long years, they had a name, and they had a face. For the very first time, they were staring at a picture of the killer who had terrorized their city for decades, and on a church website of all places. Now, just to be sure, they checked Dennis Rader's age. He was 59 years old, which checked out. However, they quickly learned that Dennis did not own a Jeep Cherokee. For a moment, they began to wonder if maybe they had the wrong guy. What if BTK had set Dennis Rader up? The thought made them sick to their stomachs. But nonetheless, they decided to drive by Dennis Rader's home

• 1:32:32Courtney Brown?

  at 6220 Independent Street in Park City. The investigators were filled with anxiety as they pulled into the neighborhood. They scanned all of the houses until they finally saw it. Dennis Rader's home was right there. And to their excitement, parked in the driveway was a black Jeep Cherokee. The detectives let out a cheer. They would later learn that the Jeep belonged to Dennis's son Brian, but it was confirmation that he was their guy. However, they couldn't arrest him just yet. They needed to make sure that Dennis Rader's DNA matched the DNA found at the crime scenes. But how were they going to get that without tipping him off?

• 1:33:16Courtney Brown?

  Investigators feared that if Dennis knew they were on to him, he might try and kill himself. So the following day, Commander Landwehr held a press conference, letting the public know that they were still communicating with the serial killer. Landwehr knew that BTK would be watching, so he was very careful with his words. He concluded the conference by saying this.

• 1:33:40Colin Brown?

  I have said it before, that the BTK investigation is the most challenging case I have ever worked on, and that BTK would be very interesting to talk with. I still contend that this is our most challenging case, but I am very pleased with the ongoing dialogue through these letters.

• 1:33:56Courtney Brown?

  In the meantime, there were heated debates within the DA's office about how they were going to get Dennis Rader's DNA. A group of investigators learned that Dennis's daughter Carrie had been a student at Kansas State University. Now by this point, Carrie had already graduated and moved away, but the school still had her medical records, specifically a sample from her gynecological exam. Now whether this was a pap smear or a biopsy, no one knows to this day, not even Carrie herself. But regardless, the DA was actually very against using the sample. She believed it was a violation of Carrie's rights. But in the end, they agreed to do it.

• 1:34:40Courtney Brown?

  On February 18th, 2005, Kansas State University was issued a subpoena to hand over Carrie Rader's sample. From there, the sample was taken to the KBI lab in Topeka, Kansas, where it was compared to the DNA at BTK's crime scenes. And then, they waited.

• 1:35:01Colin Brown?

  Over the course of the next few days, as they waited for the DNA results to come in, a number of undercover officers kept an eye on Dennis. And during that time, they got to know his routine. As it turned out, Dennis Rader was a creature of habit. He left his home at the exact same time every morning to go to work. He always took his lunch break at 12:15 sharp, and he would arrive at his house exactly three minutes later at 12:18. During their watch of him, he didn't do anything out of the ordinary. He didn't stalk any women, or drop any ominous notes or floppy disks around town. In fact, he even helped out a little girl in their neighborhood. Early one morning, Dennis and his wife Paula were making breakfast,

• 1:35:44Colin Brown?

  when suddenly, they heard a knock on their door. When they opened it, Dennis saw a frantic 11-year-old girl who said her mother was having a diabetic emergency. Dennis let the girl inside to call 911, and when she finally made her way back home, he yelled out to her, "I hope your mommy's okay." To investigators, Dennis Rader seemed as if he were your average 59-year-old man. But, as we know, he was far from it. And they were about to get that confirmation. It was February 24, 2005, when investigators learned that the DNA results were in. They all held their breaths as they opened the email. Within seconds, they saw that the DNA was a match.

• 1:36:27Colin Brown?

  Dennis Rader was indeed BTK.

• 1:36:31Courtney Brown?

  On the morning of February 25, 2005, the Wichita Police Department was nervous. They knew that everything had to go smoothly if they were going to successfully arrest him. They had managed to keep the news of the floppy disk out of the media. But that morning, they received a call from a Kansas City television reporter asking if BTK was about to be arrested. Commander Lin Ware lied and told them no. It's unclear how the information got leaked. But they were just hours away from arresting Dennis Rader on his way home from lunch. And nothing was going to get in the way of that. A little before noon, the BTK Task Force made their way to Dennis's office,

• 1:37:15Courtney Brown?

  where they waited for him outside. Everyone was wearing body armor. Several of the officers had their shotguns in hand, just in case Dennis wanted to go out with a bang. Now they knew that he left for lunch every day at 12:15 sharp. So their plan was to get him in his car and pull him over on his way home. As the minutes passed on, they all anxiously waited for him to exit the building. In like clockwork, right at 12:15, they saw him. Dennis unsuspectingly got into his white city truck and took off down the road. Undercover officers Dan Hardy and Scott Moon followed behind, radioing in his movements.

• 1:38:00Courtney Brown?

  And then finally, when the time was right, they flashed their lights. Immediately, being the pseudo-law-abiding citizen he is, Dennis Rader pulled over. He would later say that he thought he must have run a stop sign or something. But then he saw the officers draw their guns. Seconds later, several more squad cars surrounded him.

• 1:38:22Colin Brown?

  Hold your hands where I can see them and step out of the car.

• 1:38:24Courtney Brown?

  Dennis looked around. Before he knew it, there were unmarked cars that skidded to a stop in front of his vehicle. In an instant, the street had been surrounded. Dennis stepped out of the car. The officers quickly grabbed him by the neck and forced him onto the ground. Once they finally got him in cuffs, they padded him down. He was still wearing his tan compliance officer uniform, which came equipped with pepper spray and a baton. After removing the items, they stood him to his feet. But instead of asking what they were doing or why he was being arrested, Dennis looked at the officers, unashamed, unwavering, and said to them,

• 1:39:07Colin Brown?

  Hey, would you please call my wife? She was expecting me for lunch. I assume you know where I live.

• 1:39:13Courtney Brown?

  Dennis Rader knew exactly why he was being arrested. And finally, after thirty-one long years, his time terrorizing this city had come to an end. Landware, who had led the case for years, approached Dennis as the cops sat him down into a squad car. Dennis lifted his head, and once their eyes met, Dennis said,

• 1:39:37Colin Brown?

  "Hello, Mr. Landware."

• 1:39:39Courtney Brown?

  Dennis Rader knew him all too well. He was the investigator he had been communicating with. The one he watched on television every time there was a news conference on BTK. Landware flashed him a look and responded, "Hello, Mr. Rader." And it was this very interaction, where Landware knew that Dennis wasn't going to fight his way out of this. He wasn't going to deny his crimes. He was going to confess to them. Because the look that he saw in Dennis's eyes wasn't one of shame. It was one of pride. It was the look of someone who was finally ready to talk all about how they had gotten away with murder, and how long it took detectives to track him down.

• 1:40:25Colin Brown?

  Join us next week in Part Four as we tell you all about Dennis's confession, the evidence found at his home and office, and finally, his trial, where the victims' families finally got to confront him after all those years. It's going to be on our Patreon shortly after this episode goes live on all streaming platforms. So, if you're listening to BTK Part Three and you want to hear Part Four, I would highly recommend you join us on Patreon so you can get access to that episode over a week early. Also, Part Four is going to be our very last episode of the year. We're taking a month-long break to spend time with our families for the holidays, so we will see you all again on Friday, January 16th, for our regularly scheduled programming.

• 1:41:10Colin Brown?

  However, we are still going to be posting bonus content on our Patreon for select tiers, so we still will have bonus episodes of the show on Patreon. So if you're interested in that, make sure to go over there and check it out. But Patreon member or not, we are thankful for all the support this past year and for the past five years. We are coming up on our five-year anniversary and we are just so thankful that we still get to do this every week. So, thank you all so much. Courtney and I love each and every one of you all. And yeah, thanks for listening and I'll catch y'all next week.