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Dennis Lynn Rader (born March 9, 1945), also known as BTK (an abbreviation he gave himself, for "bind, torture, kill"), is an American serial killer who murdered at least ten people in Wichita and Park City, Kansas, between 1974 and 1991. Although Rader occasionally killed or attempted to kill men and children, he typically targeted women. His victims were often bound, sometimes with objects from their homes, and either suffocated with a plastic bag or manually strangled with a ligature. In addition, Rader stole keepsakes from his female victims, including underwear, licenses, and personal items. He often sent taunting letters to police and media outlets describing the details of his crimes. After a 13-year hiatus, Rader resumed sending letters in 2004, leading to his 2005 arrest and subsequent guilty plea. He is currently serving ten consecutive life sentences at the El Dorado Correctional Facility. Life and background Dennis Lynn Rader was born in Pittsburg, Kansas, on March 9, 1945, to bookkeeper Dorothea Mae Rader (née Cook; September 17, 1925 – October 14, 2007) and Kansas Gas Service worker William Elvin Rader (November 21, 1922 – December 27, 1996), the eldest of four sons. Rader grew up in Wichita. Both parents worked long hours and paid little attention to their children at home; Rader later described feeling ignored by his mother in particular and resenting her for it. From a young age, Rader harbored sadistic sexual fantasies about torturing "trapped and helpless" women. He also exhibited zoosadism by torturing, killing and hanging small animals. Rader acted out sexual fetishes for voyeurism, autoerotic asphyxiation, and cross-dressing; he often spied on female neighbors while dressed in women's clothing, including women's underwear that he had stolen, and masturbated with ropes or other bindings around his arms and neck. Years later, during his "cooling off" periods between murders, Rader would take pictures of himself wearing women's clothes and a female mask while bound. He later admitted that he was pretending to be his victims as part of a sexual fantasy. However, Rader kept his sexual proclivities well-hidden, and he was widely regarded in his community as "normal, polite, and well mannered". After graduating from Wichita Heights High School, Rader attended Kansas Wesleyan University; he received only mediocre grades and dropped out after one year. Rader served in the United States Air Force from 1966 to 1970. On discharge, he moved to Park City (a suburb of Wichita), where he worked in the meat department of an IGA supermarket where his mother was a bookkeeper. Rader married Paula Dietz on May 22, 1971; they had two children, Kerri and Brian. He attended Butler County Community College in El Dorado, earning an associate degree in Electronics Engineering Technology in 1973. He then enrolled at Wichita State University and graduated in 1979 with a Bachelor of Science degree, majoring in Administration of Justice. Rader initially worked as an assembler for the Coleman Company, an outdoor supply company. He then worked at the Wichita-based office of ADT Security Services from 1974 to 1988, where he installed security alarms as part of his job, in many cases for homeowners concerned about the BTK killings. Rader was a census field operations supervisor for the Wichita area in 1989, before the 1990 federal census. In May 1991, Rader became a dogcatcher and compliance officer in Park City. In this position, neighbors recalled him as being sometimes overzealous and extremely strict, as well as taking special pleasure in bullying and harassing single women. One neighbor complained that Rader killed her dog for no reason. Rader was a member of Christ Lutheran Church in Wichita and had been elected president of the church council. He was also a Cub Scout leader. By the 2000s, the public's memories of the murders had begun to fade. Local author Robert Beattie began writing a book about the killings after being shocked that so many young people he spoke to had never heard of them. Hungry for attention, Rader re-emerged as BTK in 2004 after learning that a book was being written. On July 26, 2005, after Rader's arrest, his wife was granted an "emergency divorce" (waiving the normal 60-day waiting period). In an interview with ABC News in 2019, Rader's daughter Kerri said she still writes to her father and has now forgiven him, but still struggles to reconcile him with the BTK killer, stating her childhood seemed normal and they were a "normal American family". Case history Confirmed murders On January 15, 1974, four members of the Otero family were murdered in Wichita, Kansas. The victims were Joseph Otero Sr., 38; Julia Maria "Julie" Otero, 33; Joseph "Joey" Otero II, 9; and Josephine "Josie" Otero, 11. Their bodies were discovered by the family's three older children who had been at school at the time of the killings. After his 2005 arrest, Rader confessed to killing the Otero family. Rader claimed that he first targeted the family two months prior to their murders when he spotted Julie leaving to take her children to school and followed them. On the morning of January 15, Rader cut the phone lines and entered the Otero residence when Joey opened the back door for the family dog. Rader told the Otero family that he was a "wanted" man in California before he ordered them to lie on the living room floor at gunpoint. Then he led the family into a bedroom and tied them with rope he had prepared. Joseph and Joey were on the floor, while Julie and Josie were on the bed. The wrists and feet of Joseph and Julie were restrained. Joseph's head was covered by a plastic bag, which Rader then secured with ropes, but after he chewed a hole in the bag, another bag was tightened over his head, causing Joseph to slowly suffocate to death. Rader attempted to strangle Julie and according to Rader: "Mrs. Otero woke back up... she was pretty upset with what's going on... she asked me to save her son so I actually had taken the bag off. She screamed, 'You killed my boy! You killed my boy!' ... and she actually said, 'God have mercy on your soul,' is what she said. And I put her down permanently." Rader strangled her to death with rope. With both parents dead, Rader then also placed another plastic bag, with two T-shirts, and an additional bag over it on Joey's head and watched as he thrashed about while being suffocated. Afterward, Rader led Josie down into the basement where he hanged her with a noose from a pipe. Police later found Rader's semen near her partially-clothed body. Rader then eventually wrote a letter that he stashed inside an engineering book in the Wichita Public Library in October 1974, describing in detail the killing of the Otero family. On April 4, 1974, Rader broke into the Wichita home of 21-year-old Kathryn Doreen Bright through her screen door but was taken aback to discover her 19-year-old brother Kevin Bright was also present in the property. He tra.... Discover the Anna Wenzl popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Anna Wenzl books.