playing card E2: Patrick Kearney (* 1939 – today)
April 9, 2020
playing card D3: Randy Steven Kraft (* 1945 – today)
April 9, 2020
Dennis Rader (* 1945 – today)
age at first kill
years undiscovered
number of victims
born
Dennis Rader: A perfect double life
He was President of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and also led the Club Scout Scout Group. Most of the victims of the serial killer were women. He killed his own wife and children from their first marriage.
Rader was perceived as domineering and dominant in his social environment. Choking his victims gave him total control, which satisfied him. During his series of murders, he sent letters to the police and media detailing his murders. The series of murders ended in 1991 and the murderer was never found.
Police photo of the serial killer Dennis Rader. He was also called the BTK killer. BTK stands for Bind, Torture and Kill, with whose technique he killed at least 10 people. Photo: El Dorado, Police Department, Kansas
The internet search for “Lutheran Church Wichita Dennis” yielded one result
In 2004, after more than a decade of the last murder, the serial killer contacted the police again. In a letter he informed her that he had murdered a victim who had finally been found. The police then took over 100 DNA samples from men in the Wichita region to compare with the DNA under a fingernail of the last victim. Meanwhile, the police kept in touch with Rader through the media to gain trust and time. Rader then asked in another anonymous letter whether it would be possible to retrospectively determine the owner of a floppy disk. The police said no. Her Rader then sent a floppy disk with a Microsoft Word document. Based on the metadata of the Word document, the police now knew that the serial killer was named Dennis. A link to the Lutheran Church was also included in the text. After an Internet search, the police then found his family name with the words “Lutheran Church Wichita Dennis”: Rader.
A black Jeep Cherokee parked in the driveway
The police knew from previous investigations that the BTK killer drove a black Jeep Cherokee. When a special police unit drove to Dennis Rader's address, they saw the same car in the driveway: a black Jeep Cherokee. However, this was not enough evidence. The police then compared a saliva sample from Rader's daughter, a student from Kansas State University, from a previous hospital stay. The saliva sample resembled the DNA trace under the fingernails of the last victim.
On February 25, 2005, Rader was arrested. He confessed to 10 murders. For every murder he received a life sentence. Since then he has been in the El Dorado Correctional Facility in Kansas. Dennis Rader can be released from prison at the earliest in 2180.