Dennis Rader (BTK Killer)

Dennis Rader married Paula Dietz on May 22, 1971. The couple had two children, a son and a daughter. Rader maintained the image of being a good husband and father, and his family had no inkling about his murderous streak.

Shortly after Rader was arrested in 2005, his shocked wife was granted an immediate divorce. His children too have cut off contacts from him since then.

Dennis Lynn Rader was born on March 9, 1945, in Pittsburg, Kansas, U.S. to Dorothea Mae Rader (née Cook) and William Elvin Rader as one of their four sons. He was raised in Wichita. His father was a member of the US Marine Corps, who later worked for the electric utility KG&E.

He attended Riverview Elementary School. As a young boy, he was reserved and quiet. Even though he started developing some disturbing habits during his childhood, he managed to keep them hidden from the world.

As an adolescent, he fantasized of tying up and raping girls. Around this time, he also started killing animals like dogs and cats by torturing and hanging them. However, he was good at hiding his dark side and came across to the outside world as a polite and shy young man.

He graduated from Wichita Heights High School in 1963. He then worked for a few months before entering the Kansas Wesleyan College in 1965. He studied for only two semesters there and joined the US Air Force in 1966.

Dennis Rader spent four years on active duty in the Air Force. Over the course of his tenure he received the Air Force Good Conduct Medal, the Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon and the National Defense Service Medal. He was discharged from active duty in 1970. He would serve two more years in the reserves.

Upon his return to Wichita, Dennis Rader took up a job at the meat department of an IGA supermarket. He changed his job in 1972 and joined Coleman Co., a manufacturer of camping supplies.

Around this time, he also attended the Butler County Community College in El Dorado, and earned an Associate's degree in Electronics in 1973. The same year, he began his studies at Wichita State University.

In the early 1970s he worked in a string of jobs, never staying at one place for long. It is believed that he worked briefly for Cessna, the aircraft manufacturer, in late 1973 or early 1974. This job too did not last long and he was soon fired.

Finding himself unemployed and in a disturbed state of mind, he delved deeper into the dark fantasies that had haunted his mind from childhood. Around this time he became obsessed with a Hispanic woman, Julie Otero, and her daughter, Josephine, who lived in a nearby locality. He started trolling them, hanging out around their house, and fantasizing about binding and torturing them.

On January 15, 1974, Dennis Rader broke into the woman’s house with some tools and weapons. There were four people present inside: Julie Otero, her husband Joseph Otero, and two of their children, Joseph Jr. and Josephine. He killed all four of them and made good his escape.

By the 2000s, the public interest in the BTK killer had faded off to a great extent. It was believed that the killer was dead, or maybe institutionalized. This greatly agitated Dennis Rader, and being the narcissist that he was, he started sending a series of letters to the police once again to revive interest in the BTK murders.

After sending many letters to the police, Rader sent them a floppy disc. This proved to be his major mistake as the police was able to trace the source of the floppy disc to the church Rader frequented. Soon the detectives were able to pinpoint Rader as the suspected BTK killer and he was arrested on February 25, 2005.

Under interrogation, Dennis Rader confessed to being the BTK killer. He was convicted of ten murders and received ten consecutive life sentences. Currently, he is incarcerated at the El Dorado Correctional Facility in Kansas.