On January 25, 2005, a Wichita, Kansas, television station receives a postcard from the BTK killer that leads police to discover a Post Toasties cereal box that had been altered to contain the letters BTK. This communication was one in a long line sent by the serial killer who terrorized Wichita for over 30 years, brutally murdering 10 people and taunting law enforcement and the local media. A month later, on February 25, Dennis Lynn Rader, a husband, father of two and compliance officer for Park City, Kansas, was taken into police custody and soon confessed to being the BTK killer.
Rader committed his first murders in 1974, when he strangled four members of one family—a husband, wife and two of their children. Six more victims, all female, followed, the last one in 1991. Throughout the 1970s, the BTK killer, or BTK strangler, as he was also known, sent letters to the media in which he claimed knowledge of the crimes. Rader nicknamed himself BTK for his method of binding, torturing and killing his victims.
Outwardly, Rader, a Cub Scout troop leader and church council president, appeared to be an ordinary, upstanding citizen. As a compliance officer, he was responsible for enforcing town ordinances. However, there were occasional complaints that he was overzealous in his work and harassed people for minor offenses.
In 2004, the attention-seeking BTK killer began contacting the media again, sending notes and poems and packages that included some of his victims’ jewelry and driver’s licenses. In February 2005, Rader sent a floppy disk containing a BTK letter to a local TV station. The disk was eventually traced back to Rader’s church computer and he was identified. DNA evidence helped conclusively link Rader to the crimes.
Rader was charged with 10 counts of murder. He initially pled not guilty and then switched his plea to guilty before his court trial began. Rader, who stalked many of his victims and referred to them as “projects,” said he strangled them as part of a sexual fantasy. In August 2005, he was sentenced to 10 consecutive life terms in prison. At his sentencing, Rader made a bizarre statement in which he listed things he had in common with his various victims, including an interest in drawing, gardening and writing poetry. Rader was ineligible for the death penalty because it didn’t exist in Kansas during the years he carried out his crimes.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
The floppy disc was traced to a church computer
People believe that?
I once captured a criminal by tying a 45 rpm record to a record player at the suspect’s…..cough…I mean patsy’s residence.
Dennis Rader sent in a floppy disk that had deleted files on it. The deleted files were from his church.
Anyone with even a modest amount of computer knowledge understands that deleted files can be recovered unless they are written over.
He dropped that box off a mile away from my house, my wife was a stay at home mother of two young boys and she was freaked out. He was the compliance officer in park city ks. and my boss at the time cussed him out,after they caught him I told my boss he looked death in the eyes and told him to go fuck himself.
I took an ispection from the man. I met him after dark on the empty jobsite in 2000. My first Journeyman job in Wichita.Just me and him,alone. I was wearing a tool pouch full of tools, and a drywall hatchet hanging from my belt. He freaked me out. I will never for get the feeling of EVIL. I told my wife when I got home about it. Only later of course did I know why
I retired from the Kansas Prison System some years ago, I worked a Max Seg Unit and saw Rader in his cell five days a week for seven years…along with other POS murderers. The man never said a word to me for the first four years and then one day thanked me at meal pass. At that time he was in his 70’s just a little bald guy, with swollen ankles, living in a cluttered cell. He loved publicity and felt he had a little celebrity status.
He was locked up in Seg because his life span in General Population would have been short. Rader was a marked man because of what he did to the little girls and the simple fact some other inmate wanted the street cred for shanking him. The next terrorists will come from the state prison systems, the old cons teach the new and many have been indoctrinated into the Black Muslims. Be well armed if you live near any prison…I think they will open the doors if things go south.