Evidently he kept trophies of the murders in a shed in the backyard. His wife should have looked in the shed once in a while, but probably she didn't breathe until and unless her husband told her to. Can you imagine growing up in that household? With a sadistic killer/monster as a father? For sure he abused them all emotionally. He abused that entire neighborhood.
"He abused that entire neighborhood."
That is not the whole situation. Many he did abuse, but many others thought well of him, including my sister and a friend of mine.
In the 70s when BTK was a household word here in Wichita, he was thought to probably be "the person that you would lease suspect". And yet, this was a brutal killer. I do not know him or his victims. I do remember that the evidence that was reported back then was like hot and cold. Almost like 2 completely different human beings. He really liked to taunt police and the media, but did a very good job of muddying the field of possible suspects by knowing what and when to clean up after himself. I think the only thing that will really get him will be DNA because he could not know what the future would bring in terms of technology. Maybe computer data bases also.