The murders of Joseph Otero, Julie Otero, Josephine Otero, Joseph Otero II, Kathryn Bright, Shirley Vian, Nancy Fox, Marine Hedge, Vicki Wegerle and Dolores Davis
Wichita, Sedgwick County, Kansas · 1974
Overview
Between January 1974 and January 1991 a killer who called himself BTK, for bind, torture, kill, murdered ten people in and around Wichita, Kansas: Joseph and Julie Otero and their children Josephine, 11, and Joseph II, 9, in January 1974; Kathryn Bright, 21, that April; Shirley Vian, 24, in March 1977; Nancy Fox, 25, that December; Marine Hedge, 53, in 1985; Vicki Wegerle, 28, in 1986; and Dolores Davis, 62, in 1991. He wrote to police and the press from 1977 to 1979, then fell silent for 25 years, until a letter to The Wichita Eagle in March 2004 enclosed a photocopy of Wegerle’s driver’s license and photographs. A task force led by Wichita Police Lt. Ken Landwehr kept him writing. In early 2005, after police answered his question about floppy disks with a newspaper ad, a diskette he mailed to a television station was traced, through the file’s properties, to Christ Lutheran Church and a user named Dennis. A web search found Dennis Rader, the church council president and a Park City compliance officer. A DNA sample from his daughter then matched the crime scenes. Rader, 59, was arrested on February 25, 2005, confessed, pleaded guilty on June 27 to ten counts of first-degree murder, and on August 18, 2005 was sentenced to ten consecutive life terms, a minimum of 175 years.
How it was solved
For 31 years the case turned on a killer who wanted to be heard. He took credit in a 1974 library note, wrote in 1977 to 1979, then returned in March 2004 with a letter to The Wichita Eagle. A task force of Wichita police, the FBI and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, with Lt. Ken Landwehr as the one voice speaking to him, kept him writing; he sent 19 messages in all, ten in the 11 months before his arrest, the ABA Journal reported. In January 2005 a package he left at a Home Depot was thrown away by a store employee, then recovered from the trash by police. It included a note asking whether he could send a floppy disk without being traced, and police answered with the classified ad he had requested, “Rex, it will be OK.” Security video showed a man in a dark Jeep Cherokee, and police planned to trace 2,500 of them. Then a computer diskette arrived at a television station. He had deleted identifying information from it, but the deleted data was still on the disk. The properties of the one file showed it had last been saved by “Dennis” and that the disk had been used at Christ Lutheran Church and the Park City library. A web search named Dennis Rader, church council president and Park City compliance officer, and a dark Jeep Cherokee in his driveway belonged to his son. “Him sending that disk is what cracked the case,” Landwehr told the ABA Journal. Only then did prosecutors obtain a medical sample from Rader’s daughter; the DNA matched the Otero, Fox and Wegerle crime scenes and, the Journal-World reported, clinched the case. Rader was arrested on February 25, 2005, told Landwehr “I’m BTK” in the interview, and pleaded guilty to all ten counts on June 27.
Sources
- Wichita police: ‘BTK is arrested’ (February 27, 2005)
“The case dates back to Jan. 15, 1974, when Joseph Otero, 38, and Julie Otero, 34, along with their two children, Josephine, 11, and Joseph II, 9, were strangled in their east Wichita home.”
- Report: Daughter of BTK suspect alerted police (February 26, 2005, updated April 19, 2005)
“From 1977 to 1979, police and news media received letters from a writer claiming to be the killer. That was followed by 25 years of silence, leading some to believe BTK had died.”
- Victim’s brother describes killing linked to BTK (March 2, 2005)
“Dennis Rader, 59, has been charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder in connection with the BTK killings -- including the death of Kathryn Bright.”
- Police detail capture of BTK (July 10, 2005)
“What clinched the case for investigators was a medical sample obtained from Rader’s daughter that matched DNA from the Otero, Fox and Wegerle crime scenes.”
- Police tell details of BTK hunt (July 16, 2005; Internet Archive copy)
“Before that task was completed, however, investigators received a computer diskette from BTK and traced it to Dennis Rader, a 60-year-old Park City compliance officer.”
- How the Cops Caught BTK: Playing to a serial killer’s ego helped crack the case (May 2006)
““Him sending that disk is what cracked the case,” Landwehr says.”
- BTK: ‘I took her to the basement and...hung her’ (partial transcript of the June 27, 2005 plea hearing)
“(CNN) -- BTK killings suspect Dennis Rader pleaded guilty on Monday to 10 counts of first-degree murder, and matter-of-factly described how he committed the crimes that terrorized the Wichita, Kansas, area for decades.”
- Families Confront BTK In Court (August 18, 2005)
“Kansas had no death penalty at the time the killings were committed.”
- Rader Gets 175 Years For BTK Slayings (August 19, 2005; Internet Archive copy)
“Judge Gregory Waller, who said there was "no evidence of mitigating factors" in the case, ordered the former Lutheran Church president and Boy Scout leader to a minimum of 175 years in prison.”
- BTK: Out Of The Shadows (September 29, 2005)
“In a note left at the Wichita Public Library in October 1974, the killer took credit for the Otero murders, and gave himself a name: BTK for bind them, torture them, kill them.”