By LAURA BAUER and DAVID KLEPPER The Kansas City Star
WICHITA — At times, Dennis Rader could be a nice guy.
As a compliance officer for Park City, Kan., residents say, he would sometimes let homeowners slide if their bushes were out of control or if they had vehicles up on blocks — two violations of municipal code.
Yet residents say the Park City employee and leader at Christ Lutheran Church had another side — a confusing and often frustrating side.
“To some people he could be really mean,” said Ashley Hudlin, 18, who lived less than a block away from Rader while growing up. “He would measure your grass with a ruler, and if it was longer than an inch he would give you a ticket. … I just always thought he was a pain in the butt.”
On Saturday, Hudlin learned something else about her former neighbor — that authorities allege he is BTK, the serial killer that taunted and tormented Wichita for more than three decades.
“I can't believe he lived so close,” said Hudlin, who moved from the area a year ago but returned Saturday with a camera to take photos of Rader's house.
As carloads of the curious swarmed Rader's neighborhood Saturday — even posing for pictures in front of yellow crime tape — neighbors found ways to deal with the reality that they lived for years near the man who police allege is the worst serial killer in Kansas history.
He is a man many knew.
Along with being a compliance officer, Rader had been a member of Christ Lutheran Church, with a congregation of about 200, for about 30 years. He had been elected president of the church board and had led several Cub Scout groups.
“He was one of our leaders,” the Rev. Mike Clark said.
Jason Day, 28, said that his brother, Roy, had been in Rader's Cub Scout pack but that their mother pulled him out because of Rader.
“It was his demeanor,” he said. “He was so strange.”
“He was definitely two-sided,” said Jim Reno, who has lived across the street from the Raders for 16 years and had several confrontations with him over what he considered Rader's “harassment.”
Rader moved into the neighborhood almost 30 years ago. He graduated from Wichita State University with a degree in administration of justice in 1979. Instead of becoming an officer, he went into code enforcement.
Rader was appointed by the Sedgwick County Commission to the Sedgwick County Animal Control Advisory Board in 1996.
Cindy Plant, a compliance officer in the Wichita suburb of Valley Center, helped train Rader for Sedgwick County Animal Control and had asked for him to be placed on the board.
Plant said Rader was “very meticulous and neat. … With him, everything was just perfect: his office, his truck, everything. …
“He carried a nice leather day planner with the pens lined up perfectly in it.”
He lived with his wife, whose parents lived around the corner. Public records indicate he has two adult children.
From 1974 to 1989, Rader worked at ADT Security Services, holding several positions that allowed him into customers' homes, including installation manager.
“He would've been in a prime position to get very intimate knowledge about them,” said Mike Tavares, a former co-worker at ADT.
ADT officials could not be reached for comment.
Many residents praised his wife and her family, saying the problem was Rader. And many extended their sympathy.
Carol VanBloem, a teacher who has lived next to the Raders for years, walked up to the home of Rader's in-laws with what appeared to be a note or letter. She knocked. Rader's mother-in-law answered the door.
VanBloem hugged her a long while.
As she walked away from the home, she was quiet and sad.
“I'm just in denial,” she said. “They have been delightful neighbors.”
Bill Lindsay, 38, lived behind Rader and said that something about the man unnerved him. Lindsay said his wife, Tina, caught Rader in their adjoining backyards filming the back of their house.
“He really acted really funny,” said Lindsay, a truck driver. “I'd be on the road and my wife would tell me, ‘Dennis has been out again, taking his pictures.' ”
And yet Lindsay, as well as other neighbors interviewed, said they never thought that Rader could be something much darker.
“I didn't start thinking about (BTK) until I started seeing increased law enforcement in the neighborhood” in the past few weeks, Lindsay said.
On Saturday, authorities alleged for the first time that BTK had killed a woman who lived in Rader's neighborhood, just three doors down.
Marine Hedge, 53, was killed in 1985, and though neighbors always suspected that she was a victim of BTK, authorities had stopped short of saying she was.
Patty Loveday, whose mother, Bonnie Kirk, was a friend of Hedge's, suspected all along that BTK had killed Hedge.
“My mother took to her grave that BTK killed Marine,” said Loveday, as she stood in the carport of her father's home, across the street from where Hedge lived. “My mother just knew it.”
Among neighbors who spoke Saturday about the arrest of Dennis Rader was Patty Loveday. Her mother's friend Marine Hedge was killed in 1985 — a slaying that was not officially linked to BTK until Saturday.
On Saturday, Loveday found herself looking many times at the house where Hedge had lived. She never turned her head to the right to look toward Rader's house.
“I don't want to look that way,” she said. Neighbor Kathy Hutchinson described Rader as “a real cock-of-the-walk type of person.” Rader had given Hutchinson's husband, Larry, a $50 ticket 10 years ago for working on his roof without a permit. About six years ago, Hutchinson said, Rader came to their home again after her husband had killed an opossum with an air rifle and told him he would arrest him if he ever shot another one.
“He always walked around like he owned the streets of Park City.”
But others said Rader was doing what his job required.
Ray Reiss, a friend of Rader's since high school and a landlord in Park City, said he received letters from Rader because of weed violations and other matters.
“It was not a hostile thing. He was doing his job. He was telling me to tell the renters to clean their act up,” he said. “He's just a very low-key, nice person just a regular person.”
Reiss' wife, Jane, has been close friends with Rader's wife, Paula, since they were in grade school.
“After I was married, I went into his office in Park City to introduce him to Jane,” Reiss said. “He touched her. He shook hands. And I have to think, ‘What if?' It makes you shake. … He deserves his day in court, but wow, this is just shocking. It's trite to say that he's such a nice guy. Well … he is nice.”
Dee Stuart, a candidate for mayor in Park City, said Rader had come to her home Monday to tell her that two of her campaign signs that had been placed improperly.“I walked to the end of the block with them, and he drove along beside me and we chit-chatted, and I put up my signs again,” she said.
Stuart, a former Park City Council member, said she has known Rader for several years.
“He always treated me with respect, was never abrasive with me, which I think he was sometimes with other people,” Stuart said. “I know he was a compliance officer … and as far as I know we didn't have a lot of dogs running loose in Park City.”
The Wichita Eagle and The Associated Press contributed to this report.