BTK Strangler Dennis Rader's daughter unwittingly played role in catching America's most elusive serial killer
"Dad had taught me to be wary of strangers," Kerri Rawson, BTK serial killer Dennis Rader's daughter said of her father. To Kerri, born in 1978, her life growing up in Park City, Kansas, was the American dream. She described her family of four, including her older brother, as a traditional, cookie-cutter one — there was nothing unusual or amiss about it.
However, little did Kerri know at the time that nearly four years before she was born, her father had unleashed the monster inside of him on the town. Kerri recounted her mother's worry after her older brother was born in 1975, a year after the brutal Otero family murder in Wichita, Kansas. The horrific murders took the lives of 38-year-old Joseph Otero, 33-year-old Julie Otero and their two little children 11-year-old Josephine Otero and nine-year-old Joseph Otero Jr.
It was evident from the nature of the killings that the BTK strangler (an acronym for bind, torture, kill) derived pleasure from it. The entire town was stunned and scared, including Rader's family. His wife, Paula Dietz, expressed concern about the safety of their son, Brian. Rader, however, assured her that the family was safe from the infamous killer.
"I wouldn't have thought my dad had secrets because he was a normal, boring person you would ever know," Kerri said. "And it's the most surreal, awful thing to know that he's a sexual, sadistic psychopath. The BTK stranger would generally prey on vulnerable women, typically tying their limbs with expert rope knots, unclothing, torturing and strangling them while ejaculating.
Rader, a former security services personnel turned compliance officer in Park City, did not fit the description of a ruthless serial killer. He went camping and fishing with his children and they were required to go to church every Sunday. To Kerri, her father was almost her best friend while growing up. A Cub Scout leader, Rader was also a member of the Christ Lutheran Church and had been elected president of the church council.
There were no signs of anything unusual about her father for Kerri. She recalled he did not like his things being touched and valued his personal space, but that was not really untoward in a father of two. However, there were little signs that others noticed but disregarded. Rader's neighbors recalled him as being extremely strict as a compliance officer who took particular pleasure in harassing single women.
One of his neighbors reportedly also complained that he had killed her dog without much reason. Rader's spree of murders began with the Otero family on January 15, 1974, and ended with his final victim Dolores E Davis on January 19, 1991. He intermittently maintained contact with local news channels and detectives on his case through letters and puzzles. The BTK strangler liked to be in the limelight.
However, over a decade later when news media marked the 30-year anniversary of the Otero family murders in 2004, it was reported by many outlets that most people hardly remembered the infamous killer and police had largely moved away from the case finding no concrete clues. It was then when Rader realized he was forgotten and hence began communicating with local news channels again. The BTK strangler was back, after all this while.
To remain relevant in the 2000s, Rader began sending clues to detectives in cereal boxes, where he would put bound and taped Barbie dolls in a similar fashion to how he had bound and strangled his victims. However, the BTK strangler made a grave mistake this time: he sent a floppy disk to the detectives with some information on it.
The detectives, with the help of the cyber unit, found where the computer had been used and the information revealed the name of Christ Lutheran Church, and its congregational president: Dennis Rader. Decades after the killings began, authorities had finally found a suspect but they needed a key piece of evidence to solve the serial killings: a DNA match.
This is where Rader's daughter Kerri came into play. Instead of taking a chance of extracting DNA from Rader himself, the detectives attempted to confirm the sample on the victims with a sample from his daughter. Kerri, who studied in Kansas State University, had submitted her medical records there, which also included pap smear.
The crucial piece of DNA was extracted from Kerri's pap smear and it was a match. By then, Rader was confirmed to have killed at least eight victims. Rader was arrested on February 25, 2005, while driving near his home in Park City shortly after noon.
When authorities knocked on Kerri's house to reveal her father's real identity to her, she was left stunned. However, as officers spoke, she began adding the pieces of the puzzle and helped the detectives add a ninth victim to her father's list of killings: her neighbor Marine Hedge. She recalled her being strangled to death near her house and her father was familiar with the woman.
She told authorities that she particularly recalled the night Hedge died because it was raining and there were thunderstorms. She was scared of the thunder and went to sleep with her mother late at night, it was then when she realized that her father was not there.
ID is set to premiere a three-hour special called 'BTK: Chasing a serial killer' on Friday, September 4, at 9 pm.