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Dennis Lynn RaderAmerican serial killer
Date of Birth: 09.03.1945
Country:  USA |
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Biography of Dennis Lynn Rader
Dennis Lynn Rader, an American serial killer, was responsible for the deaths of 10 people in Sedgwick County, Wichita, Kansas, between 1974 and 1991. He was known as the 'BTK Strangler', with 'BTK' standing for 'Bind, Torture, Kill', which was his method of attacking his victims. For a period of time, Rader sent letters to police officers and local news agencies, detailing the specifics of his murders. After a long hiatus from the 1990s to the early 2000s, Rader resumed sending messages in 2004, leading to his arrest and subsequent conviction. He is currently serving 10 consecutive life sentences with the possibility of parole after 175 years.
Early Life and Education
Dennis Lynn Rader was born on March 9, 1945, in Pittsburg, Kansas. He was the eldest of four sons born to William Elvin Rader and Dorothea Mae Cook. He grew up in Wichita and attended Riverview School before graduating from Wichita Heights High School. In his childhood, Rader admitted to torturing animals, a characteristic often associated with the MacDonald Triad. Additionally, he developed a sexual fetish for women's lingerie, eventually stealing the underwear of his victims and wearing it himself.
Rader attended Kansas Wesleyan University from 1965 to 1966, studying electronics. He then served in the United States Air Force from 1966 to 1970, spending time in Texas, Alabama, Okinawa, South Korea, Greece, and Turkey. After returning to the United States, Dennis moved to Park City, a suburb of Wichita, where he worked in the meat department of Leekers IGA supermarket alongside his mother, who was an accountant.
He obtained an associate degree in electronics in 1973 and enrolled at Wichita State University in the fall of the same year. Rader graduated from the university in 1979 with a bachelor's degree in administration of justice. On May 22, 1971, he married Paula Dietz, with whom he had a son and a daughter.
Employment and Crimes
From 1972 to 1973, Rader worked as an assembler at Coleman, and from 1974 to July 1988, he was employed by a company that sold and installed commercial alarm systems. It is believed that this second job provided him with knowledge of home security systems. In 1991, Rader was responsible for animal control and various housing issues in Park City. His neighbors later acknowledged that he was excessively strict with animals and needlessly euthanized one dog.
Rader committed his first murder on January 15, 1974, when he killed the Otero family. He cut the phone lines, strangled Joseph and Julie Otero with a curtain cord, and then hanged their 11-year-old daughter Josephine on a sewer pipe. He suffocated their 9-year-old son, Joseph Otero Jr., by placing a plastic bag over his head. Nine months later, a young man falsely confessed to the Otero family murders with two accomplices. In response, the real killer, Dennis Rader, sent a poem to a newspaper denying the false confession and providing detailed descriptions of the crimes, ensuring no doubt about his guilt.
In subsequent communications, Rader inquired about how many more people he needed to kill to gain nationwide attention. On April 4, 1974, he fatally stabbed 21-year-old Kathryn Bright, and on March 17, 1977, he strangled 24-year-old Shirley Vian. After strangling 25-year-old Nancy Fox with a belt on December 8, 1977, Rader stopped killing until 1985. On April 27, 1985, he manually strangled 53-year-old Marine Hedge. Then, on September 16, 1986, he used a nylon stocking to strangle 28-year-old Vicki Wegerle, followed by his final victim, 62-year-old Dolores E. Davis, whom he strangled with pantyhose on January 19, 1991.
All of Dennis Rader's known crimes occurred in Kansas. One of his suspected victims might have been 63-year-old Anna Williams in 1979, who survived because she returned home later than usual. Rader explained that he was obsessed with Williams and became "extremely angry" when she managed to escape. He waited outside her house for several hours, unaware that Williams had decided to stay with friends that night. He also stalked two women in the 1980s and one in the mid-1990s. They obtained restraining orders against Rader, and one woman chose to move away from him.
When Dennis Rader was arrested in 2005, he confessed to killing to satisfy his twisted sexual desires. He gave a 30-minute monologue in court, displaying no remorse or emotions. Rader calmly described how he planned and executed his "projects," as he referred to his murders, using a "kill kit" consisting of a gun, rope, handcuffs, and duct tape. According to him, his victims were merely "targets." During the trial, Rader, who was familiar with legal proceedings, corrected the judge on various matters and provided detailed insights into the behavior and motivations of serial killers.
On July 26, 2005, after Rader's arrest, a district judge granted his wife an immediate divorce, waiving the usual 60-day waiting period, citing her mental health being at risk. Rader did not contest the decision, and his 34-year marriage came to an end.
On April 23, 2006, Dennis Rader was allowed certain privileges, such as shopping, watching television, listening to the radio, receiving and reading magazines, due to his good behavior as a prisoner. The families of his victims agreed to this decision.
Inspired by Rader's story and his wife's claimed ignorance of his crimes during their 30-year marriage, Stephen King wrote the short story "A Good Marriage," included in his collection "Full Dark, No Stars."
