Posted on 02/26/2005 5:16:30 PM PST by AntiGuv
WICHITA, Kan. - A 31-year manhunt for a serial killer who taunted police with letters about his crimes ended Saturday when authorities said they finally caught up with the man who called himself BTK and linked him to at least 10 murders.
The suspect was identified as Dennis L. Rader, a 59-year-old city worker in nearby Park City, who was arrested Friday. Police did not say how they identified Rader as a suspect or whether he has said anything since his arrest.
"The bottom line: BTK is arrested," Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams said Saturday, setting off applause from a crowd that included family members of some of the victims.
BTK — a self-coined nickname that stands for "Bind, Torture, Kill" — stoked fears throughout the 1970s in Wichita, a manufacturing center with 350,000 residents, about 180 miles southwest of Kansas City, Mo.
Then the killer resurfaced about a year ago after 25 years of silence. He had been linked to eight slayings between 1974 and 1986, but police said Saturday they had identified two more, from 1985 and 1991.
Rader, a Cub Scout leader who was active at his Lutheran church, lived with his wife, neighbors said. Public records indicate they have two grown children. Messages left for family members were not returned on Saturday, and no one answered the door at the home of his in-laws.
A few neighbors recalled receiving small favors from Rader, but most interviewed Saturday said the municipal codes enforcement supervisor was an unpleasant man who often went looking for reasons to cite his neighbors for violations of city codes.
"A part of me was scared when I heard, because I talked to him. It's a little creepy," said Chris Yoder, 23, who once lived nearby.
Rader has yet to be charged, but a jubilant collection of law enforcers and community leaders told the crowd in City Council chambers they were confident the long-running case could now be closed.
"Victims whose voices were brutally silenced by the evil of one man will now have their voices heard again," Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline said.
Rader was being held at an undisclosed location, and it was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer. In Kansas, suspects generally appear before a judge for a status hearing within 48 hours of their arrest.
Prosecutor Nola Foulston said the death penalty would not apply to any crime committed before 1994, when the death penalty was introduced in Kansas.
The BTK slayings began in 1974 with the strangulations of Joseph Otero, 38, his wife, Julie, 34, and their two children. The six victims that followed were all women, and most were strangled.
Along with his grisly crimes, the killer terrorized Wichita by sending rambling letters to the media, including one in which he named himself BTK for "Bind them, Torture them, Kill them." In another he complained, "How many do I have to kill before I get my name in the paper or some national attention?"
But he stopped communicating in 1979 and remained silent for more than two decades before re-establishing contact last March with a letter to The Wichita Eagle about an unsolved 1986 killing.
The letter included a copy of the victim's driver's license and photos of her slain body. The return address on the letter said it was from Bill Thomas Killman — initials BTK.
Since then, the killer had sent at least eight letters to the media or police, including three packages containing jewelry that police believed may have been taken from BTK's victims. One letter contained the driver's license of victim Nancy Fox.
The new letters sent chills through Wichita but also rekindled hope that modern forensic science could find some clue that would finally lead police to the killer.
Thousands of tips poured in, and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation gathered thousands of DNA swabs in connection with the BTK investigation. In the end, DNA evidence was the key to cracking the case, said Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.
"The way they made the link was some DNA evidence, that they had some DNA connection to the guy who they arrested," Sebelius said in an interview with The Associated Press. She did not elaborate.
The two newly identified cases were similar to the early ones with one exception, Sedgwick County Sheriff Gary Stead said: The bodies had been removed from the crime scenes. One of the victims lived on the same street as Rader.
"We as investigators keep an open mind. But only now are we able to bring them together as BTK cases," he said.
On Friday, investigators searched Rader's house and seized computer equipment.
Authorities, who generally declined to answer questions in detail after announcing the arrest, had little to say about why BTK resurfaced after years without contact.
"It is possible something in his life has changed. I think he felt the need to get his story out," said Richard LaMunyon, Wichita's police chief from 1963 to 1989.
The only difference between Berkowitz and BTK is that the latter was stuck in flyover country.
That guy has serial killer written all over his face.
I disagree about "most children" being cruel. I have never in my life pulled the leg off of a spider.
What nonsensical subjectivism..
I didn't say that serial killers outside the Anglo nations are nonexistent, I said that they are far rarer. Pretoria, I might add, is an essentially Anglo culture (I am also including Australia, which has plenty of serial killers you neglected to note).
I was well-aware of Pedro Lopez and was actually going to mention earlier that there seems to be a (widely noted) upswing of the serial killer phenomenon in Latin America in recent years. In fact, there is some debate there whether that is 'home-grown' or an import of U.S. sensibilities (or whatever one might call it).
I counted 58 killers on the Wikipedia list provided earlier. By all means provide the names of 350 Chinese & Indian serial killers, 350 non-Anglo European killers, 200 Latin American killers, 200 African killers, and 150 non-Sino/Indic Asian killers that would demonstrate the comparable rates.
And of course I'm talking about serial killers in the sense that the term is used in America, not in the sense of someone who mass murders in war or cases of terrorism or through some official capacity.
Nah we're not arguing.
That's a relief---because I suck at arguing.
Hmm.. It should probably be more like 100 Latin American and 150 African serial killers (to get comparable rates).
For starters, what's with the "anglo-nation" crap? After explaining that, you can provide data to support your bullshit allegations. This would be helpful.
The guy was not a Christian......obviously.
Im surprised that even some of the sweetest people I know were kinda cruel to living creatures when they were kids.
And hey didn't George W. himself blow up frogs for fun when he was a kid ?
The whole debate started off with a question of why the US and UK appear to have a disproportionate share of serial killers. Here's a newsflash: the US and the UK are Anglo nations and my personal theory was explicitly based on Anglo culture and society.
I already said it is personal conjecture and if you don't like it then that's your problem.
The murder rates in those regions is more than sufficient to offset the lack of 'serials'.
Not to mention that serial killers in Africa, Russia, and Latin America tend to rack up *ten times* the body count of their UK/USA counterparts.
Confirmen? What was confirmen?
You still miss the point. Alas.
More reason to hate clowns!
No kidding? I had no idea that you were so perceptive.
I didn't say anything to imply that the homicide rate in those regions is insufficient to offset the lack of 'serials'..
But we're talking about serials.
And, I'm not talking about body counts either. I am talking about number of killers. They rack up higher body counts because of the deficient law enforcement (and in Russia also because it's so easy to hide bodies in the winter).
Here's a challenge for you. Japan, S. Korea, and Taiwan combined have three times the population of the United Kingdom. They should have 75 serial killers to match Britain's most notorious 25 listed previously. Please go bring me the list to prove a comparable rate.
If you can't, then it's probably because it doesn't exist.
Probably no great loss.
For me, not.
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