February 10, 2025 • 46 mins
The true identity of BTK is finally revealed to the public. His name: Dennis Rader. Who is this man?
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
New episodes of Monster BTK are released every Monday and
brought to you absolutely free. But if you want to
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on iHeart True Crime Plus. For more information, check out
the show notes. Enjoy the episode.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You're listening to Monster BTK, a production of iHeart Podcasts
and Tenderfoot TV. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
It could be a breakthrough in the BTK investigation in
just a couple of hours, which you tall. Police are
expected to release new information about the BTK case. Police
took a person of interest.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
In for questioning.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Cake News has learned police are expected to say that
person is indeed a suspect in the BTK case.
Speaker 5 (00:57):
The day he was arrested, I was at the mall
because it was in the morning before we went to
work at two o'clock, and the boss called and said,
you got to get into work right away. I said,
why where Almost positive BTK was caught. I was standing
(01:18):
in the middle of the mall. The mall started going
round and round and round, and I thought, oh my god,
I'm going to faint. I'm going to faint, and I
started crying, and I sat down and put my head
between my legs. That was over a news story. We've
never done that before, but it involved us so much
(01:44):
that we became part of the fear, part of the story,
part of the extreme relief. When he was finally caught,
I remember I started to cry, thinking to myself, the
nightmare is over for Wichita.
Speaker 6 (02:11):
Someone killed four members of a family.
Speaker 7 (02:14):
Hedge vanished from her home suddenly last weekend. Her phone
lines had been cut, her door left open.
Speaker 8 (02:20):
You see the victim playing there with plastic bags over
their heads, strangled.
Speaker 9 (02:25):
You could tell there was a plan scenario.
Speaker 10 (02:28):
Well, police have said no more about the contents of
the letter. It does contain some sort of threat and
implies the killer may strike again.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
He's going to play with these victims.
Speaker 11 (02:38):
He'd get him to the point of death and then
bring them back and then brings them back to the
point of death.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
From My Heart Podcasts and Tenderfoot TV. I'm Susan Peters
and this is Monster BTK. On February twenty fourth, two
thousand and five, the Wichita Police Department, alongside the KBI
(03:06):
and FBI, received the news they had been waiting for
the DNA preserved from the nineteen seventy four Otero killings
matched Dennis Rader. It was time to execute and arrest,
and they were ready. Over the past week, the police
(03:27):
had stalked Raider, marking every aspect of his daily routine.
They tailored their arrest to his patterns, planning every single
element down to the minute the arrest would occur. Raider
would not get away this time. The police officers, investigators,
(03:48):
and lawyers who had put in countless hours tracking down
BTK over the last year, were brimming with tension. They
went home to tell their families that tomorrow they may
finally get their guy. Here's former Sedgwick County Deputy District
Attorney Kevin O'Connor.
Speaker 9 (04:08):
When we did finally find and knew we were going
to arrest Ennis Raider, it was the night before. All
plans were made, all search warrants were prepared, the arrest
team was identified, the plan of action was done. It
was really very impressive, almost like an army maneuver type
of planning. I mean they even have it down to
who was going to put the cuffs on them, who
(04:30):
was going to walk them back to the car that
Kenny Landware was going to be in, and they said
go home, you can tell your loved ones what you're doing,
and that there's going to be arrest the next day.
And I remember going home and telling my wife. I said,
I have something to tell you, and she sat down
and she started crying, and I go, what, why are
you crying? And she goes, you're going to tell me
(04:52):
you're having an affair, and I go, no, I go,
We're going to arrest Betk tomorrow.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
On the morning of February twenty fifth, the arrest team
slipped quietly into Park City.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
On that day.
Speaker 9 (05:11):
I remember it was radio silence, and it was time coordinated,
so everybody moved at the same time so as not
to tip him off, because we didn't know what access
he had to police radio, police scanners. There was a
concern about somebody who was able to commit crimes over
a thirty year period, how savvy he might be and
(05:34):
how aware he might be, and then knowing that he's
on the other side of a wall from a police department,
so we raided essentially Park City City Hall.
Speaker 5 (05:47):
The arrest was scheduled for twelve to fifteen PM, when
Raider would make his way home from his Park City office,
as he did every Friday. They spent all morning staging
cops into their positions. Backing the arrest team were more
than two hundred people, many of them assigned to simultaneous searches.
Speaker 9 (06:11):
We planned it that the search warrants would be executed
at the same time, so as Dennis Raider was being arrested,
these search warrants were then being executed. We didn't want
to serve a search warrant at the Park City Library
and Dennis Raider would be sitting at the Park City
Police Department and become aware that the FBI and the
(06:32):
Wichtap Police Department were serving a warrant at the Park
City Library.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
In addition to the arrest team, they had prepped the
bomb unit, a computer seizure team, relief teams, and interview teams.
While police prepared, they worried the news would leak to
the media, jeopardizing the success of their arrest. Land where
wanted Raider in police custody. The media frenzy began, but
(07:02):
by nine am, the buzzing had already started.
Speaker 10 (07:07):
Now we've been hearing from sources that police are waiting
for d and a results. If this is the man
and they do get a match, it is going to
be very tough for them to keep this quiet.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
They stealed their nerves and told themselves they would not
fumble the most historic day of their careers. The arrest
team lined up on a side street in Park City,
two blocks from Raider's house. Officers Dan Hardy and Scott
Moon were first in line and would be the ones
(07:38):
to initially pull Raider over. Their fleet included four other
vehicles and nine other men, including Dana Gouge, Kelly Otis,
and Kenny Landware. Everyone wore body armor. They didn't know
how Raider would react to his arrest and prepared for
(07:58):
the worst. The minutes till go time ticked by. Finally,
their radio switched on. He's on the move, a voice said.
Over the next few moments, an officer in an unmarked
car tailed Raider, reporting on his every turn. Raider was
(08:22):
making his way home for lunch with his wife, Paula. Unsuspecting,
he pulled past the line of cops lying in wait
to arrest him. Officers Hardy and Moon let him pass
before gunning the engine, pulling up behind Raider and flipping
the flashing lights on the front of the car. Raider, ever,
(08:45):
the obedient citizen pulled over. Immediately, the arrest team surrounded Raider,
guns drawn and ordered him to the ground. Raider, for
his part, remained calm and collected. He turned to the
police and asked, with a straight face.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
Would you please call my wife? She was expecting me
for lunch. I assume you know where I live.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
He slipped into the cold serial killer role he had
crafted for himself over the last thirty years. Kevin O'Connor
says as police handcuffed him, he played up the dramatics.
Speaker 9 (09:29):
When Rader got into the car after being arrested, they
walked him back to a car that Kenny Landweer was
in and they opened the door and he says, well, hello, mister.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
Landwere Later, in confession of a serial killer, Rader would say.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
I did what Son of Sam did.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
Rader often looked to the other serial killers of the
time for inspiration. David Burkerwood's aka Son of Sam killed
six people between nineteen seventy six and seventy seven in
New York City. This is a clip from the Today
Show on the Dave Berkowitz was arrested when he.
Speaker 12 (10:08):
Was arrested late last night in his apartment at Yunkers.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
New York.
Speaker 12 (10:12):
He told the officers, Okay, you've got me.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
Police carried Raider off and would in short order hold
him for thirty six hours of questioning while WPD officers
and FBI made the arrest. The prosecutors prepped the interview room.
Speaker 9 (10:34):
When they arrested him and brought him up to the
Epic Center, there was a interview room that was prepared.
It was an old copy room from this office, and
I remember my boss, Nola Folston going in there and
turning the table around till you could initially see the
detective land wherein the guy from the FBI, Bob Morton,
(10:56):
who started the initial interview, and then Raider on the
other side. Well, Nola came in and switched it around
where the camera would be on Dennis Rader, with the
law enforcement officers with their backs to the camera.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
Folston was thinking ahead to the trial. Looking into Rayder's
eyes as he was interrogated about his heinous crimes would
have a greater impact on the jury and put a
face to the previously faceless monster of Wichita's history. Just
twenty minutes after Raider had been ordered to the ground
(11:32):
Land where and Morton brought him into the interview room
and handcuffed him to the table. They had planned to
play up the good cop interview tactic the arresting officers
had played the bad cops in the interrogation room. Land
Where introduced Raider to Detective Dana Guage, who held a
(11:52):
search warrant to collect Raider's DNA. They swabbed him and
sent the test off to confirm what Carrie Rawson's DNA
had proved just a day earlier. Two went to the
County forensics lab and two to the KBI lab in Topeka.
Rader agreed to talk, but he wouldn't make it easy
(12:12):
for them. He never even questioned why he was being interviewed.
To him, this was his fifteen minutes in the spotlight.
Here's Catherine Ramsland.
Speaker 13 (12:24):
When they brought him in for interrogation, he did kind
of play a game for a little ways. He didn't
break down right away. He said, I'm just don't want
to be I've been watching this all in the news.
You know, I know the cases really well, but I
really didn't do anything.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
Land Where asked why the oteros had been murdered.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Well, if you take that murder and some of the others,
I would say, you've got a serial killer loose.
Speaker 5 (12:51):
He asked Rader what he thought about BTK.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
The killer is like a lone wolf, kind of like
a spy or something.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
Fed up Land Where and Morton backed Raider into a corner.
Speaker 13 (13:07):
They came back and said, well, we do have DNA
from some of these scenes.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
Morton asked Rader what he thought would happen if his
DNA matched btk's.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
I guess that might be it.
Speaker 13 (13:20):
Then he was shocked that they still had some preserved
DNA from even back as far as the Otaro's when
nobody even knew anything about DNA.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
Back then, the walls were closing in on Raider. Land
where played his biggest hand. Here is an excerpt from
the Wichita Eagle book bind Torture Kill, read by a
voice actor.
Speaker 14 (13:46):
He pulled out a purple computer disc, land Where told
Rader that this disc sent by BTK, appointed the cops
to Raider's church and to him, could he explain that?
Speaker 5 (13:59):
Then Raider asked a few questions of his own.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Would BTK get the death penalty? BTK has killed some
kids and stuff? What would happen to btk's house, you guys,
have got me? How can I get out of it?
And finally, isn't any way you can get out of
DNA right?
Speaker 5 (14:23):
Morton had had enough. He yelled at Raider, just tell
us who you are.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
I'm BTK.
Speaker 13 (14:35):
Once he realized there was no getting out of this,
he then admitted to all the murders and so, well,
since you know about seven, i'll tell you that some others.
Speaker 10 (14:45):
For decades, it's been speculated BTK was responsible for more murders,
two murders in particular, the nineteen ninety one murder of
Dolores Davis and the nineteen eighty five murder of Marine Hedge.
Both women were found strangled and bound in Sedgwick County.
Speaker 5 (15:03):
Land, where and Morton took a break. After three hours,
they had secured a confession. While the two men were
out of the room, Raider told KBI Special Agent in
charge Larry Thomas.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Well, you guys got the evidence. There's no way I
can get out of it. I can't beat around the bush.
Whether it's a day or two or a week, you're
going to find it. So I might as well just
fess up. They'll probably find things that I've even forgotten about.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
Raider would lead police to the evidence he had accumulated
over the last thirty years. Drawing a map of his home,
Rader pointed investigators to a stash of scrap books in
the cupboard, his collection of slick ads in the closet,
and his hit kit in another corner of the home.
(15:59):
The attic contained his old detective magazines. The car held
a shotgun and dolls like those mailed to the Wichitau Eagle.
The important evidence, however, he kept in his office. Here
again is an excerpt from bind Torture.
Speaker 14 (16:19):
Kill at Raiders City Hall office, they found what he
called his mother load trophies in all his original writings.
In the bottom drawer of a cream colored filing cabinet,
they found seven three ring binders in more than twenty
five hanging file folders, newspaper clippings about many of the killings,
(16:40):
drawings depicting women bound at torture, machines of Raiders design,
a copy of the police wanted poster for the OTO homicides,
and computer discs that were labeled according to the chapters
of btk's book.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
Descriptions of the mother Load fill five pages of the
State of Kansas's Summary of Evidence. A document prepared by
Kevin O'Connor that provides full accounts of Raider's crimes. It
took investigators a month to digitally record all of the
(17:15):
mother load. As evidence was collected from raiders, Park City
Office police interviewed him in pairs for over thirty hours.
The footage from these interviews filled seventeen DVDs, and in them,
Raider describes in chilling, matter of fact detail, the cold
(17:38):
blooded murder of ten people.
Speaker 9 (17:43):
In looking at the drawings he made of Nancy Fox,
he will tell Detective Ralph that he's getting excited sexually
just remembering. He will even mimic Josephine Josie o'tero because
he killed her parents in front of her. He killed
her little brother in front of her, and he will
mimick her saying, don't hurt my mommy, don't hurt my mommy.
(18:05):
It's amazing to me the restraint that the law enforcement
officers had.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
He attempted to joke around with the interviewers.
Speaker 9 (18:15):
Once he started talking, they couldn't shut him up. He
became so comfortable that during a break in the interviewing,
he had a cup of some kind of drink and
the officer that came in to see if he wanted
to go to the bathroom or something. Said well, we
can put that drink for you in the refrigerator. He goes,
you just put your name on it. So he wrote
(18:36):
bt K on the cup.
Speaker 11 (18:40):
So that's who he really was.
Speaker 13 (18:43):
He wanted the notoriety. He does still kick himself over
the mistakes he made with that floppy disk, but once
caught okay, I'm just going to put it all out
there because i want to be famous.
Speaker 5 (18:58):
The Wichita Police Department had kept the rumors at bay
for as long as possible, but the commotion in Park
City was heating up. Once Raider was in custody, they
knew it wouldn't be long before the news reports began.
Speaker 12 (19:13):
As we've been telling you all day, they executed a
search warrant in Park City at a home. There's a
possible BTK suspect who is now in police custody. Police
have now called a Saturday morning news conference for ten am.
Speaker 5 (19:28):
We were buzzing at Cake News. We followed each story
that day with any updates we had. By the six
pm newslaught, we were airing coverage from every critical location.
The announcement would be broadcast worldwide. We waited with baited breath.
In just fourteen hours, we would finally have our answer
(19:53):
to a thirty year old question. The next day, Saturday,
February twenty sixth, at ten am, Wichita Police gathered local,
state and federal law enforcement, regular citizens, and family members
(20:17):
of btk's victims into the City Council Auditorium. Local national
and international reporters set up cameras. CNN and MSNBC carried
the news conference live. The press conference lasted nearly an hour.
In total, eight people spoke. It wasn't until Sheriff Gary Steed,
(20:40):
sixth in the lineup of speakers, took the podium that
any real details were revealed.
Speaker 15 (20:47):
I'm also pleased to announce today that we have brought
closure to two cases, and that of the homicides of
Marine Hedge and Dolores Davis Raiders.
Speaker 8 (20:58):
Name.
Speaker 5 (20:59):
What everyone had been hanging on the edge of their
seats waiting for wasn't even spoken until the very end.
Speaker 11 (21:08):
Shortly afternoon. Yesterday afternoon, agents from the KBI, agents from
the FBI, and members of the Wichitak Police Department arrested
Dennis Raider, fifty nine, a white male in Park City, Kansas.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
We shared the news with Wichita and the world.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
The bottom line, BTK is arrested.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
A quarter century search for Wichita's worst serial killer is over.
Speaker 8 (21:40):
Good evening.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
It is a day that will go down in Wichita history.
My coworkers and I exhaled the biggest news story of
our collective careers was finally hitting its closing sequence. Over
the twenty fifth and twenty sixth of February, the news
of raiders arrests shattered its way through the Wichita community.
(22:03):
Bob Smeiser, a member of Raider's church, Christ Lutheran, was
among the first group of church members to find out.
On the afternoon of the twenty fifth.
Speaker 6 (22:14):
Short of Alzheimer's I'll never Forget It.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
He had actually had plans with Rader for that weekend.
Speaker 6 (22:24):
We were playing a fishing trip. He can never go,
but that year and five he said, yeah, I'm gonna
go with the guests. He thought he was home free.
He thought I can just pop out and go, we
can go to this fishing trip. I'm the president of
the council now, and you know, and that would be
a good thing for me, you know, to go.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
That fishing trip. Obviously, didn't happen.
Speaker 6 (22:49):
So I got a call. Couldn't have been one o'clock yet,
I'll tell you. I said, Wellington at a communience store,
putting gas in my vand and my wife called him
and said, hey, Chan, just call something going on to church? Really,
I said, Mike's there. The police are there and they've
arrested Dnis. Sick to my stomach, not ready to accept
(23:14):
it at this point, but sick to my stomach. So
immediately started to call Mike, trying to get hold of
my of course he's busy with the investigators. And finally
get a hold of him and he said, I got
to get out of here. I got him out of
the church after they got done with the search, and
he went home. Dennis actually asked for him, but they
were not going it seems, so, you know. And once
(23:37):
Thenis started talking about today, just like him talk Why
wouldn't you.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
The next morning, the day of the police news conference,
Smiser rose early and had it back to Christ Lutheran Church.
Speaker 6 (23:53):
So Saturday morning and there there's five of us in there.
I can't even begin to tell you how surreal it was.
And we had to watch it from upstairs in that
part of the building because the only place we had
any TV reception. There isn't a lot to say, you know,
Stunned is still the best description. When the chief came
(24:15):
out and said we've caught BTK, denial was the first reaction.
And in the midst of that, the media started knocking
on the front door of the church. There was a
bunch of them, and it wasn't just a few hours
before national people were on.
Speaker 8 (24:32):
Top of us.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
Every news outlet was trying to get the story out.
An unfortunate consequence of the race to be first is
that it puts us at odds with those at the
very center of these monumental news events.
Speaker 6 (24:48):
They had a council meeting. I was not on a council.
That's why I was at the front door. They called
us guards or something whatever, and we would try to
be very nice to everybody. It was a little harder
with some Another council broke up. One of the young
ladies that was on the council. She won't talk to anybody.
I get that. So I took her out the side
(25:08):
door and put her in her car, and one of
the guys from the Channel twelve came out and he
said Are you protecting her from us? And I said, no,
she just doesn't. She's said, I'm want to talk. At
that time, there were twenty or thirty people out there
and they tried everything. One of them brought a basket,
you know, it was oranges and apples, and I'd like
(25:29):
to get this Pastory Clark. I said, yeah, I suppose
you would, but no, that's not happening to day. And
there was a lot of that trying to get through
the gatekeeper.
Speaker 5 (25:42):
The news was out to the world. With that came
the NonStop media requests and all the confusion, anger and
second guessing expected from discovering that a pillar of your
community was built on a lie.
Speaker 6 (26:01):
I heard the chiefs say we've captured BTK. I don't
have any evidence of why. He didn't say, you know,
he's admitted to ten murders. So I was skeptical at
that point. For people outside, or at least in that
group and that church group, there was no belief that
this was a real thing, especially the older people that
(26:25):
people have been friends with, Dorothea, Dennis's mom and dad,
and Paula's mom and dad, the people that you know
had been our nucleus for years. Now they weren't ready
at that point. I'm not sure that I one hundred percent.
I mean, I was angry with the chief. People interviewed
me outside the church on that Saturday, and I just said, listen,
(26:46):
I don't know that that's true. My sons they were
there that day that Sunday with all this media. The
night before, we had finally let the kids watched and
the picture came up Tennis and we said Tim was five,
(27:06):
he was about to be six if we watch quiet,
not asking any questions, and Tim sort of looked at
me and said, Dad, he tricked, used, didn't me yes,
And that's what he did.
Speaker 5 (27:23):
The news hit Raider's own family even harder. Carrie Rawson
was a few states away at her home in Michigan
when she was notified.
Speaker 7 (27:33):
February twenty fifth, two thousand and five. I was home
and I see this strange car parked out underneath this window.
It just it was out of place. I'm getting scared
because my dad had instilled such a stranger danger fairing
too me. They called my husband. I said, there's a
strange car with a man sitting in it. He's not moving.
(27:53):
I don't know what he's doing. I said, should I
call the police, So, in irony, almost called the police
on the FBI. I hear a knock on my door
and then he said on the other side of the door,
I'm with the FBI and I need to question you.
He said he was looking for Harry Raider Rosson and
he's like, is that you from Wichita, Kansas. I was
(28:15):
starting to calm down because I was like, oh, it
is the FBI. He's like, do you know about BTK?
And he just drops it, your dad is BTK.
Speaker 5 (28:26):
In the studio with Payne Lindsay, she recounted the visceral
feelings this news brocked.
Speaker 7 (28:33):
Everything just sears instant, like I can tell you where
the chocolate cake was that I hadn't made.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
I can tell you the.
Speaker 7 (28:40):
Color in my purse, orm my keys were color of
the kitchen towels instant. Did you ever think, no, he's not,
You're full of shit? It like, well, I mean at
that point, I've gone into physical shock. I'm shaking. I
shook for four days. He's realizing right away I'm not okay.
(29:04):
I'm spinning, literally about to pass out, and I make
it over to my couch. I asked the agent and
I'm like, well, can I call my Grandma Eileen, my
mom's mom that lives down the street from my parents,
And he said, yeah, you can call her, but you
can't tell her what's going on. So I called Grandma
Eileen and I said Dad's been arrested. I'd left out BTK,
(29:25):
but I said Dad's been arrested, and she says, oh shit,
and she says, hold on, I'll call you back, and
she walked out and down around the corner, looked past
missus Hedge's house and saw all of the crime scene
trucks and all of the police cars and FBI cars,
bomb disposal truck, everything down at my parents' house. My
grandma called me back, told us what was going on,
(29:46):
and then I have found out later they were picked
up not long after that and taken down to where
my mom was, and other family were picked up and
everyone was questioned.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
It is hard to imagine how any us would react
in Carrie's situation. Understandably, it was very difficult to process.
Speaker 7 (30:08):
I was trying to alibi my dad. I thought I
could sit there and prove right there, my dad's a
really great guy. Well, see, they had arrested the wrong
guy in December about four, my mom was being interviewed
by which TAB police and maybe KBIFBI, I'm not sure.
And she literally was saying, you got the wrong guy
in December, and you got the wrong guy again. You
(30:29):
know she was mad. I was mad too. You're just
very defensive with this person that you love that's only good,
and you're mad because you're like, you got the wrong guy.
So I'm sitting there and now my husband's Homi sitting
next to me. He's holding my hand where that I'm
basically completely falling apart. He's trying to astorb this. I'm
trying to alibi my dad. So I'm like, what are
(30:51):
the dates of the murders? The investigator gave me some
dates in the seventies, and I was like, I wasn't
alive then, and then he said September of eighty six,
and I said, I don't have memories of September of
eighty six other than I started third grade. And then
it hit. I remembered missus Hedge. My head sunk, and
(31:14):
it was like something steered inside of me, in my guts,
and I got really quiet, and it was like I
knew that Dad was BTK and had murdered missus Hedge.
I was Carrie and he was Dad, and then he
was arrested, and all of a sudden he was BTK
and I lost Carrie.
Speaker 5 (31:38):
Carrie also talked about the way the arrest affected her mother, Paula.
Speaker 7 (31:44):
Guy would spend a lot of time thinking about what
did I want to ask my mom and how much
can I push because she has a similar PTSD from
when she was notified and picked up. Everybody patted it
around my mom after the arrest. In John Douglas's book,
Keith talks about he was trying to get an idea
about my mom Paula, and he said the whole community
(32:04):
early on still they were very protective of her. They
they just surrounded her and took care of her, and
nobody really wanted to push her. My mom had been
gathlighted and conned by my father and thought he was
one thing and Harry has always been this other thing.
We are domestic abuse victims. I think my mom probably
(32:25):
does hold some answers, but we don't really go there.
My mom said it was like your dad died that day.
That's how she's dealt with it.
Speaker 5 (32:37):
The news had broken Carrie and Paula's hearts. Raiders' murders
had broken six families, and those families were still waiting
on answers. Across the country, family members of Raiders victims
(33:05):
were receiving once in a lifetime phone calls. Jeff Davis's mother,
Dolores Davis, was murdered in January of nineteen ninety one.
She was Dennis Raider's last victim. Jeff spent years wondering
who his mother's killer was. Now his personal grief was
(33:25):
becoming part of Wichita's history.
Speaker 8 (33:29):
I was writ in Memphis of that time, and I
was out playing pool in my favorite place on Friday afternoon,
and I got a call from the Sheriff's detjective and
all instead was we got him, but it wasn't children
the next morning, when Chief Williams of the police Department
(33:50):
and now they had Captain BGK, that I realized mom
was his victim and that he wasn't one of responsible.
I never suspected. For whatever reason, I never connected him
with it.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
I don't know why.
Speaker 8 (34:07):
It never crossed my mind. And literally I was ecstatic
that they caught ing, and of course we lived, and
all the painting had cost but it all happened so fast.
Once they announced that, my phone started ringing, and literally
he didn't quit ringing all day long.
Speaker 5 (34:29):
Again, the news media cut in.
Speaker 8 (34:33):
I couldn't take a call without another call cutting in
because I was talking to news outlets everywhere across the country,
and I was just overwhelmed. I remember going to bed
that next night exhausted because everything just hit like a
whole wind.
Speaker 4 (34:53):
It was just.
Speaker 8 (34:53):
A bizarre, kind of surrealistic situation. I'm still getting in
my head, well, a little human cockroach. She looks like
it took a while for an all to sink in it,
So I'm trying to say it took a while to
realize that it was him and that he was responsible
for everybody, to include my mother. In spite of all
(35:15):
the false alarms and the other speculations that had gone on,
he was the one. There was no doubt about that
at this point in time.
Speaker 5 (35:25):
I can't imagine how it felt to learn the identity
of your mother's killer after fourteen years, to learn, along
with the rest of the world, that it was the
same man responsible for terrorizing your hometown since the nineteen seventies.
Jeff had to make his way back home.
Speaker 8 (35:47):
I just started getting up and getting ready to get
myself be where I could get back. It was so
I could be a part of all that.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
In New Mexico, Charlie Taro was trying to start over
after his time in prison. His two parents, Joseph and Julie,
and his younger siblings Josie and Joey, were the very
first victims of BTK. Their murders had forever changed the
trajectory of the eldest Otero's siblings life.
Speaker 16 (36:22):
I was still in parole when he got caught. I
was in Albuquerque. I was working demolition. It was like
two weeks after I got out of prison. I was
blessed with having somebody hire me. The day I got
out of prison, I made a phone call. They hired
me up the next day. I was in their yard
one day and I was on my knees and I
was pulling up all these bushes. They had like twenty
(36:43):
little shrubs, and I was digging each one out, pullying.
I was taking me a couple of minutes apiece, and
the phone rings. I had my phone right here. I
picked up as my sister and she goes they caught him.
I'm said, are you serious, He goes says, Yep, they
got him, and then bushes were flying ten feet over
my head. I just started yanking him out of the
ground and they were flying over my head, and it's
(37:05):
like superhuman crazy stuff. That's how I found out.
Speaker 5 (37:10):
Similar to Jeff's reaction, Charlie was angry.
Speaker 16 (37:15):
Right then at that moment. I'm starting to plan my
revenge now that they got him, how am I going
to get.
Speaker 4 (37:22):
My hands on him?
Speaker 5 (37:24):
In Steve Ralford's case, I would be there when he
first learned the identity of Dennis Rader. Steve Ralford had
spent the last twenty eight years blaming himself for the
murder of his mother, Shirley Vyanne. Raider gained access to
Ryanne's home on the morning of March seventeenth, nineteen seventy seven,
(37:46):
after then five year old Steve opened the door, just
a few weeks before police caught BTK. I found Steve
and interviewed him for Cake TV. What would you do
if you met him face to face?
Speaker 4 (38:02):
Oh God, he would suffer, Yes, me and me would suffer.
Speaker 5 (38:15):
Once BTK had been arrested, I called Steve right away. Okay,
So the day he was caught you were in Las Vegas. Yeah,
And I called you and I said it was about
four weeks after I had interviewed you, so you were
probably like, Wow, they caught him that quickly, but it
had taken him a year. But I called you in
(38:37):
Las Vegas and I said, Steve, I think they caught BTK,
the man who murdered your mother. What'd you say to me?
Speaker 4 (38:51):
I don't really remember.
Speaker 15 (38:53):
I remember saying that fucking I'm going to ste him
right down away for money.
Speaker 4 (38:57):
I'm here more.
Speaker 5 (38:59):
That's exactly what you said. My team and I made
the decision to fly Steve back home to Wichita so
he could be there when the news was confirmed. The
following is a story we ran on Cake on February
twenty sixth, two thousand and five.
Speaker 17 (39:18):
As Steve Ralford watches today's news briefing, the emotion comes immediately.
This is not only Steve's first time back in Wichita
since his mother's murder in nineteen seventy seven, but also
for the first time we show Steve the picture of
his mother's killer.
Speaker 5 (39:34):
All right, yeah, what are you feeling right now?
Speaker 4 (39:40):
Glen?
Speaker 8 (39:41):
It cuts the bitch the mom conressed in peace.
Speaker 5 (39:49):
Everyone in Wichita was grappling with what we'd learned. We
blamed ourselves for allowing this monster to live among us
for this long. We were leaved angry and confused. The
police did their best to tie up the loose ends
on this thirty year investigation neatly, and we the media
(40:11):
worked diligently to put our personal emotions aside and report
accurately on this story. But with the mounting pressure and
heightened emotions, some things slipped through the cracks. What we
weren't clear on were the circumstances surrounding how he had
been caught. We went on what our sources shared with us,
(40:34):
and in those early days, not all of it was accurate.
We missed the mark on a crucial detail of the story.
Speaker 10 (40:43):
Sources tell us Raiders. Twenty six year old daughter Carrie
went to police with suspicions her father was BTK. Sources
say she gave a blood sample. That sample, we're told,
came back as a match.
Speaker 5 (41:00):
Eventually, we did clarify that while Carrie's DNA was key
in his arrest, she herself did not turn her father in.
I can understand how this mistake put Carrie in a
very tough spot. This inaccurate detail about how her DNA
was collected made its way to national news.
Speaker 7 (41:23):
Like a week later, seeing an embras in one news
saying that I had turned in my dad and given
a blood sample. We don't even have cable. I'm reading
it over the internet. I'm like, I didn't turn in
my dad and I didn't give blood. I gave a
cheek swab. So my dad literally writes me, sometime in
the spring, I heard you turn me in, and I knew,
(41:46):
deep down in my heart it wasn't true.
Speaker 5 (41:49):
Carrie had mixed feelings about her interactions with the investigators.
There was the trauma of her being initially notified, the
shock and frustration that herd was used without her permission,
But there was also the compassion she was shown the.
Speaker 7 (42:07):
Police like Clanderware and Otis, they all knew right away,
as soon as they started talking to my family that
we were all victims. And they said they knew right away.
There was an eighth family and it was ours. There
was the seven families from the seven murders. They had
been working with some of these people for twenty or
thirty years. They knew them well. They kept tabs on them.
They helped them, kept them up to date on all
(42:29):
the cases. They took care of these people, and all
of a sudden, now they had an eighth family on
their hands.
Speaker 5 (42:40):
In Park City, sightseers arrived at Raider's house on Independent Street.
It became a spectacle. One person even attempted to remove
the family's mailbox bearing his last name. While those who
knew Raider intimately had turned away from the media, neighbors
of Raiders were voicing their opinions of him on air.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
He's always been real nice.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
He's been a real property of.
Speaker 7 (43:05):
Every time I gotten to do the mail or get
my other.
Speaker 4 (43:07):
Thing, he says.
Speaker 8 (43:08):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
He was probably, in fact the friendliest they run.
Speaker 6 (43:10):
Home block too.
Speaker 8 (43:11):
Man.
Speaker 10 (43:11):
Well, nobody likes him around Park City's He's been accused
to let people's dogs out to catch him, or my
dad told.
Speaker 6 (43:17):
Him was just not to go down there because they
were strange.
Speaker 5 (43:22):
The monster had finally been captured, and now the whole
city and millions of onlookers waited to see if he
would be put away forever. Here again is Kevin O'Connor.
Speaker 9 (43:36):
For me, it was a time where it's like, okay,
now I got to go to work. We anticipated he
would want a trial. So that year, between the time
he started sending things in March of four to the
time he was captured, I had been preparing along with
the district attorney.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
We're preparing for trial.
Speaker 5 (43:58):
Nobody knew how Raider would plead, whether or not this
case would go to trial. He would soon face ten
first degree murder charges and would do something no one
was expecting.
Speaker 12 (44:14):
All right, christ Raider, at this time, I want to
ask how to plead to these ten counts?
Speaker 5 (44:26):
Next time? On Monster BTK.
Speaker 12 (44:29):
One Saturday morning, he called me and the operator said,
I have a collect call from the Cedric County Detention Center.
Speaker 6 (44:36):
Will you accept the charges? And you go, wow, Yes,
I will.
Speaker 9 (44:41):
I remember Judge Waller asking what kind of bond we wanted,
and I think I said something to the effect of
a I mean, Judge, I don't know ten kazillion million.
I don't know if there is a number.
Speaker 12 (44:52):
A judge asked Dennis Rader to take him through all
the killings in the courtroom live on.
Speaker 8 (44:59):
T my mouth pure an adult ray the police.
Speaker 7 (45:06):
They wanted everything my dad had done on record. Now
were they trying to humiliate my dad on the stand?
Speaker 13 (45:11):
I Don't Know.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Monster BTK is a production of tenderfoot TV and iHeart Podcasts.
The show is written by Nomes Griffin, Trevor Young, and
Jesse Funk. Our host is Susan Peters. Executive producers on
behalf of Tenderfoot TV include Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay,
alongside supervising producer Tracy Kaplan. Executive producers on behalf of
(45:44):
iHeart Podcasts include Matt Frederick and Trevor Young, alongside producers
Nomes Griffin and Jesse Funk and supervising Producerrima ilk Ali.
Marketing support by David Wasserman and Alison Wright at iHeart
Podsts and Caroline or Agemma at tenderfoot TV. Additional research
(46:05):
by Claudia Dafrico, original artwork by Kevin Mister soul Harp,
original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Special thanks to
Orrin Rosenbaum and the team at UTA and the Nord Group.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
(46:28):
favorite shows. Thanks for listening
New episodes of Monster BTK are released every Monday and
brought to you absolutely free. But if you want to
hear the whole season right now, it's available ad free
on iHeart True Crime Plus. For more information, check out
the show notes. Enjoy the episode.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You're listening to Monster BTK, a production of iHeart Podcasts
and Tenderfoot TV. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
It could be a breakthrough in the BTK investigation in
just a couple of hours, which you tall. Police are
expected to release new information about the BTK case. Police
took a person of interest.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
In for questioning.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Cake News has learned police are expected to say that
person is indeed a suspect in the BTK case.
Speaker 5 (00:57):
The day he was arrested, I was at the mall
because it was in the morning before we went to
work at two o'clock, and the boss called and said,
you got to get into work right away. I said,
why where Almost positive BTK was caught. I was standing
(01:18):
in the middle of the mall. The mall started going
round and round and round, and I thought, oh my god,
I'm going to faint. I'm going to faint, and I
started crying, and I sat down and put my head
between my legs. That was over a news story. We've
never done that before, but it involved us so much
(01:44):
that we became part of the fear, part of the story,
part of the extreme relief. When he was finally caught,
I remember I started to cry, thinking to myself, the
nightmare is over for Wichita.
Speaker 6 (02:11):
Someone killed four members of a family.
Speaker 7 (02:14):
Hedge vanished from her home suddenly last weekend. Her phone
lines had been cut, her door left open.
Speaker 8 (02:20):
You see the victim playing there with plastic bags over
their heads, strangled.
Speaker 9 (02:25):
You could tell there was a plan scenario.
Speaker 10 (02:28):
Well, police have said no more about the contents of
the letter. It does contain some sort of threat and
implies the killer may strike again.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
He's going to play with these victims.
Speaker 11 (02:38):
He'd get him to the point of death and then
bring them back and then brings them back to the
point of death.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
From My Heart Podcasts and Tenderfoot TV. I'm Susan Peters
and this is Monster BTK. On February twenty fourth, two
thousand and five, the Wichita Police Department, alongside the KBI
(03:06):
and FBI, received the news they had been waiting for
the DNA preserved from the nineteen seventy four Otero killings
matched Dennis Rader. It was time to execute and arrest,
and they were ready. Over the past week, the police
(03:27):
had stalked Raider, marking every aspect of his daily routine.
They tailored their arrest to his patterns, planning every single
element down to the minute the arrest would occur. Raider
would not get away this time. The police officers, investigators,
(03:48):
and lawyers who had put in countless hours tracking down
BTK over the last year, were brimming with tension. They
went home to tell their families that tomorrow they may
finally get their guy. Here's former Sedgwick County Deputy District
Attorney Kevin O'Connor.
Speaker 9 (04:08):
When we did finally find and knew we were going
to arrest Ennis Raider, it was the night before. All
plans were made, all search warrants were prepared, the arrest
team was identified, the plan of action was done. It
was really very impressive, almost like an army maneuver type
of planning. I mean they even have it down to
who was going to put the cuffs on them, who
(04:30):
was going to walk them back to the car that
Kenny Landware was going to be in, and they said
go home, you can tell your loved ones what you're doing,
and that there's going to be arrest the next day.
And I remember going home and telling my wife. I said,
I have something to tell you, and she sat down
and she started crying, and I go, what, why are
you crying? And she goes, you're going to tell me
(04:52):
you're having an affair, and I go, no, I go,
We're going to arrest Betk tomorrow.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
On the morning of February twenty fifth, the arrest team
slipped quietly into Park City.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
On that day.
Speaker 9 (05:11):
I remember it was radio silence, and it was time coordinated,
so everybody moved at the same time so as not
to tip him off, because we didn't know what access
he had to police radio, police scanners. There was a
concern about somebody who was able to commit crimes over
a thirty year period, how savvy he might be and
(05:34):
how aware he might be, and then knowing that he's
on the other side of a wall from a police department,
so we raided essentially Park City City Hall.
Speaker 5 (05:47):
The arrest was scheduled for twelve to fifteen PM, when
Raider would make his way home from his Park City office,
as he did every Friday. They spent all morning staging
cops into their positions. Backing the arrest team were more
than two hundred people, many of them assigned to simultaneous searches.
Speaker 9 (06:11):
We planned it that the search warrants would be executed
at the same time, so as Dennis Raider was being arrested,
these search warrants were then being executed. We didn't want
to serve a search warrant at the Park City Library
and Dennis Raider would be sitting at the Park City
Police Department and become aware that the FBI and the
(06:32):
Wichtap Police Department were serving a warrant at the Park
City Library.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
In addition to the arrest team, they had prepped the
bomb unit, a computer seizure team, relief teams, and interview teams.
While police prepared, they worried the news would leak to
the media, jeopardizing the success of their arrest. Land where
wanted Raider in police custody. The media frenzy began, but
(07:02):
by nine am, the buzzing had already started.
Speaker 10 (07:07):
Now we've been hearing from sources that police are waiting
for d and a results. If this is the man
and they do get a match, it is going to
be very tough for them to keep this quiet.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
They stealed their nerves and told themselves they would not
fumble the most historic day of their careers. The arrest
team lined up on a side street in Park City,
two blocks from Raider's house. Officers Dan Hardy and Scott
Moon were first in line and would be the ones
(07:38):
to initially pull Raider over. Their fleet included four other
vehicles and nine other men, including Dana Gouge, Kelly Otis,
and Kenny Landware. Everyone wore body armor. They didn't know
how Raider would react to his arrest and prepared for
(07:58):
the worst. The minutes till go time ticked by. Finally,
their radio switched on. He's on the move, a voice said.
Over the next few moments, an officer in an unmarked
car tailed Raider, reporting on his every turn. Raider was
(08:22):
making his way home for lunch with his wife, Paula. Unsuspecting,
he pulled past the line of cops lying in wait
to arrest him. Officers Hardy and Moon let him pass
before gunning the engine, pulling up behind Raider and flipping
the flashing lights on the front of the car. Raider, ever,
(08:45):
the obedient citizen pulled over. Immediately, the arrest team surrounded Raider,
guns drawn and ordered him to the ground. Raider, for
his part, remained calm and collected. He turned to the
police and asked, with a straight face.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
Would you please call my wife? She was expecting me
for lunch. I assume you know where I live.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
He slipped into the cold serial killer role he had
crafted for himself over the last thirty years. Kevin O'Connor
says as police handcuffed him, he played up the dramatics.
Speaker 9 (09:29):
When Rader got into the car after being arrested, they
walked him back to a car that Kenny Landweer was
in and they opened the door and he says, well, hello, mister.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
Landwere Later, in confession of a serial killer, Rader would say.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
I did what Son of Sam did.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
Rader often looked to the other serial killers of the
time for inspiration. David Burkerwood's aka Son of Sam killed
six people between nineteen seventy six and seventy seven in
New York City. This is a clip from the Today
Show on the Dave Berkowitz was arrested when he.
Speaker 12 (10:08):
Was arrested late last night in his apartment at Yunkers.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
New York.
Speaker 12 (10:12):
He told the officers, Okay, you've got me.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
Police carried Raider off and would in short order hold
him for thirty six hours of questioning while WPD officers
and FBI made the arrest. The prosecutors prepped the interview room.
Speaker 9 (10:34):
When they arrested him and brought him up to the
Epic Center, there was a interview room that was prepared.
It was an old copy room from this office, and
I remember my boss, Nola Folston going in there and
turning the table around till you could initially see the
detective land wherein the guy from the FBI, Bob Morton,
(10:56):
who started the initial interview, and then Raider on the
other side. Well, Nola came in and switched it around
where the camera would be on Dennis Rader, with the
law enforcement officers with their backs to the camera.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
Folston was thinking ahead to the trial. Looking into Rayder's
eyes as he was interrogated about his heinous crimes would
have a greater impact on the jury and put a
face to the previously faceless monster of Wichita's history. Just
twenty minutes after Raider had been ordered to the ground
(11:32):
Land where and Morton brought him into the interview room
and handcuffed him to the table. They had planned to
play up the good cop interview tactic the arresting officers
had played the bad cops in the interrogation room. Land
Where introduced Raider to Detective Dana Guage, who held a
(11:52):
search warrant to collect Raider's DNA. They swabbed him and
sent the test off to confirm what Carrie Rawson's DNA
had proved just a day earlier. Two went to the
County forensics lab and two to the KBI lab in Topeka.
Rader agreed to talk, but he wouldn't make it easy
(12:12):
for them. He never even questioned why he was being interviewed.
To him, this was his fifteen minutes in the spotlight.
Here's Catherine Ramsland.
Speaker 13 (12:24):
When they brought him in for interrogation, he did kind
of play a game for a little ways. He didn't
break down right away. He said, I'm just don't want
to be I've been watching this all in the news.
You know, I know the cases really well, but I
really didn't do anything.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
Land Where asked why the oteros had been murdered.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Well, if you take that murder and some of the others,
I would say, you've got a serial killer loose.
Speaker 5 (12:51):
He asked Rader what he thought about BTK.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
The killer is like a lone wolf, kind of like
a spy or something.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
Fed up Land Where and Morton backed Raider into a corner.
Speaker 13 (13:07):
They came back and said, well, we do have DNA
from some of these scenes.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
Morton asked Rader what he thought would happen if his
DNA matched btk's.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
I guess that might be it.
Speaker 13 (13:20):
Then he was shocked that they still had some preserved
DNA from even back as far as the Otaro's when
nobody even knew anything about DNA.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
Back then, the walls were closing in on Raider. Land
where played his biggest hand. Here is an excerpt from
the Wichita Eagle book bind Torture Kill, read by a
voice actor.
Speaker 14 (13:46):
He pulled out a purple computer disc, land Where told
Rader that this disc sent by BTK, appointed the cops
to Raider's church and to him, could he explain that?
Speaker 5 (13:59):
Then Raider asked a few questions of his own.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Would BTK get the death penalty? BTK has killed some
kids and stuff? What would happen to btk's house, you guys,
have got me? How can I get out of it?
And finally, isn't any way you can get out of
DNA right?
Speaker 5 (14:23):
Morton had had enough. He yelled at Raider, just tell
us who you are.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
I'm BTK.
Speaker 13 (14:35):
Once he realized there was no getting out of this,
he then admitted to all the murders and so, well,
since you know about seven, i'll tell you that some others.
Speaker 10 (14:45):
For decades, it's been speculated BTK was responsible for more murders,
two murders in particular, the nineteen ninety one murder of
Dolores Davis and the nineteen eighty five murder of Marine Hedge.
Both women were found strangled and bound in Sedgwick County.
Speaker 5 (15:03):
Land, where and Morton took a break. After three hours,
they had secured a confession. While the two men were
out of the room, Raider told KBI Special Agent in
charge Larry Thomas.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Well, you guys got the evidence. There's no way I
can get out of it. I can't beat around the bush.
Whether it's a day or two or a week, you're
going to find it. So I might as well just
fess up. They'll probably find things that I've even forgotten about.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
Raider would lead police to the evidence he had accumulated
over the last thirty years. Drawing a map of his home,
Rader pointed investigators to a stash of scrap books in
the cupboard, his collection of slick ads in the closet,
and his hit kit in another corner of the home.
(15:59):
The attic contained his old detective magazines. The car held
a shotgun and dolls like those mailed to the Wichitau Eagle.
The important evidence, however, he kept in his office. Here
again is an excerpt from bind Torture.
Speaker 14 (16:19):
Kill at Raiders City Hall office, they found what he
called his mother load trophies in all his original writings.
In the bottom drawer of a cream colored filing cabinet,
they found seven three ring binders in more than twenty
five hanging file folders, newspaper clippings about many of the killings,
(16:40):
drawings depicting women bound at torture, machines of Raiders design,
a copy of the police wanted poster for the OTO homicides,
and computer discs that were labeled according to the chapters
of btk's book.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
Descriptions of the mother Load fill five pages of the
State of Kansas's Summary of Evidence. A document prepared by
Kevin O'Connor that provides full accounts of Raider's crimes. It
took investigators a month to digitally record all of the
(17:15):
mother load. As evidence was collected from raiders, Park City
Office police interviewed him in pairs for over thirty hours.
The footage from these interviews filled seventeen DVDs, and in them,
Raider describes in chilling, matter of fact detail, the cold
(17:38):
blooded murder of ten people.
Speaker 9 (17:43):
In looking at the drawings he made of Nancy Fox,
he will tell Detective Ralph that he's getting excited sexually
just remembering. He will even mimic Josephine Josie o'tero because
he killed her parents in front of her. He killed
her little brother in front of her, and he will
mimick her saying, don't hurt my mommy, don't hurt my mommy.
(18:05):
It's amazing to me the restraint that the law enforcement
officers had.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
He attempted to joke around with the interviewers.
Speaker 9 (18:15):
Once he started talking, they couldn't shut him up. He
became so comfortable that during a break in the interviewing,
he had a cup of some kind of drink and
the officer that came in to see if he wanted
to go to the bathroom or something. Said well, we
can put that drink for you in the refrigerator. He goes,
you just put your name on it. So he wrote
(18:36):
bt K on the cup.
Speaker 11 (18:40):
So that's who he really was.
Speaker 13 (18:43):
He wanted the notoriety. He does still kick himself over
the mistakes he made with that floppy disk, but once
caught okay, I'm just going to put it all out
there because i want to be famous.
Speaker 5 (18:58):
The Wichita Police Department had kept the rumors at bay
for as long as possible, but the commotion in Park
City was heating up. Once Raider was in custody, they
knew it wouldn't be long before the news reports began.
Speaker 12 (19:13):
As we've been telling you all day, they executed a
search warrant in Park City at a home. There's a
possible BTK suspect who is now in police custody. Police
have now called a Saturday morning news conference for ten am.
Speaker 5 (19:28):
We were buzzing at Cake News. We followed each story
that day with any updates we had. By the six
pm newslaught, we were airing coverage from every critical location.
The announcement would be broadcast worldwide. We waited with baited breath.
In just fourteen hours, we would finally have our answer
(19:53):
to a thirty year old question. The next day, Saturday,
February twenty sixth, at ten am, Wichita Police gathered local,
state and federal law enforcement, regular citizens, and family members
(20:17):
of btk's victims into the City Council Auditorium. Local national
and international reporters set up cameras. CNN and MSNBC carried
the news conference live. The press conference lasted nearly an hour.
In total, eight people spoke. It wasn't until Sheriff Gary Steed,
(20:40):
sixth in the lineup of speakers, took the podium that
any real details were revealed.
Speaker 15 (20:47):
I'm also pleased to announce today that we have brought
closure to two cases, and that of the homicides of
Marine Hedge and Dolores Davis Raiders.
Speaker 8 (20:58):
Name.
Speaker 5 (20:59):
What everyone had been hanging on the edge of their
seats waiting for wasn't even spoken until the very end.
Speaker 11 (21:08):
Shortly afternoon. Yesterday afternoon, agents from the KBI, agents from
the FBI, and members of the Wichitak Police Department arrested
Dennis Raider, fifty nine, a white male in Park City, Kansas.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
We shared the news with Wichita and the world.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
The bottom line, BTK is arrested.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
A quarter century search for Wichita's worst serial killer is over.
Speaker 8 (21:40):
Good evening.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
It is a day that will go down in Wichita history.
My coworkers and I exhaled the biggest news story of
our collective careers was finally hitting its closing sequence. Over
the twenty fifth and twenty sixth of February, the news
of raiders arrests shattered its way through the Wichita community.
(22:03):
Bob Smeiser, a member of Raider's church, Christ Lutheran, was
among the first group of church members to find out.
On the afternoon of the twenty fifth.
Speaker 6 (22:14):
Short of Alzheimer's I'll never Forget It.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
He had actually had plans with Rader for that weekend.
Speaker 6 (22:24):
We were playing a fishing trip. He can never go,
but that year and five he said, yeah, I'm gonna
go with the guests. He thought he was home free.
He thought I can just pop out and go, we
can go to this fishing trip. I'm the president of
the council now, and you know, and that would be
a good thing for me, you know, to go.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
That fishing trip. Obviously, didn't happen.
Speaker 6 (22:49):
So I got a call. Couldn't have been one o'clock yet,
I'll tell you. I said, Wellington at a communience store,
putting gas in my vand and my wife called him
and said, hey, Chan, just call something going on to church? Really,
I said, Mike's there. The police are there and they've
arrested Dnis. Sick to my stomach, not ready to accept
(23:14):
it at this point, but sick to my stomach. So
immediately started to call Mike, trying to get hold of
my of course he's busy with the investigators. And finally
get a hold of him and he said, I got
to get out of here. I got him out of
the church after they got done with the search, and
he went home. Dennis actually asked for him, but they
were not going it seems, so, you know. And once
(23:37):
Thenis started talking about today, just like him talk Why
wouldn't you.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
The next morning, the day of the police news conference,
Smiser rose early and had it back to Christ Lutheran Church.
Speaker 6 (23:53):
So Saturday morning and there there's five of us in there.
I can't even begin to tell you how surreal it was.
And we had to watch it from upstairs in that
part of the building because the only place we had
any TV reception. There isn't a lot to say, you know,
Stunned is still the best description. When the chief came
(24:15):
out and said we've caught BTK, denial was the first reaction.
And in the midst of that, the media started knocking
on the front door of the church. There was a
bunch of them, and it wasn't just a few hours
before national people were on.
Speaker 8 (24:32):
Top of us.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
Every news outlet was trying to get the story out.
An unfortunate consequence of the race to be first is
that it puts us at odds with those at the
very center of these monumental news events.
Speaker 6 (24:48):
They had a council meeting. I was not on a council.
That's why I was at the front door. They called
us guards or something whatever, and we would try to
be very nice to everybody. It was a little harder
with some Another council broke up. One of the young
ladies that was on the council. She won't talk to anybody.
I get that. So I took her out the side
(25:08):
door and put her in her car, and one of
the guys from the Channel twelve came out and he
said Are you protecting her from us? And I said, no,
she just doesn't. She's said, I'm want to talk. At
that time, there were twenty or thirty people out there
and they tried everything. One of them brought a basket,
you know, it was oranges and apples, and I'd like
(25:29):
to get this Pastory Clark. I said, yeah, I suppose
you would, but no, that's not happening to day. And
there was a lot of that trying to get through
the gatekeeper.
Speaker 5 (25:42):
The news was out to the world. With that came
the NonStop media requests and all the confusion, anger and
second guessing expected from discovering that a pillar of your
community was built on a lie.
Speaker 6 (26:01):
I heard the chiefs say we've captured BTK. I don't
have any evidence of why. He didn't say, you know,
he's admitted to ten murders. So I was skeptical at
that point. For people outside, or at least in that
group and that church group, there was no belief that
this was a real thing, especially the older people that
(26:25):
people have been friends with, Dorothea, Dennis's mom and dad,
and Paula's mom and dad, the people that you know
had been our nucleus for years. Now they weren't ready
at that point. I'm not sure that I one hundred percent.
I mean, I was angry with the chief. People interviewed
me outside the church on that Saturday, and I just said, listen,
(26:46):
I don't know that that's true. My sons they were
there that day that Sunday with all this media. The
night before, we had finally let the kids watched and
the picture came up Tennis and we said Tim was five,
(27:06):
he was about to be six if we watch quiet,
not asking any questions, and Tim sort of looked at
me and said, Dad, he tricked, used, didn't me yes,
And that's what he did.
Speaker 5 (27:23):
The news hit Raider's own family even harder. Carrie Rawson
was a few states away at her home in Michigan
when she was notified.
Speaker 7 (27:33):
February twenty fifth, two thousand and five. I was home
and I see this strange car parked out underneath this window.
It just it was out of place. I'm getting scared
because my dad had instilled such a stranger danger fairing
too me. They called my husband. I said, there's a
strange car with a man sitting in it. He's not moving.
(27:53):
I don't know what he's doing. I said, should I
call the police, So, in irony, almost called the police
on the FBI. I hear a knock on my door
and then he said on the other side of the door,
I'm with the FBI and I need to question you.
He said he was looking for Harry Raider Rosson and
he's like, is that you from Wichita, Kansas. I was
(28:15):
starting to calm down because I was like, oh, it
is the FBI. He's like, do you know about BTK?
And he just drops it, your dad is BTK.
Speaker 5 (28:26):
In the studio with Payne Lindsay, she recounted the visceral
feelings this news brocked.
Speaker 7 (28:33):
Everything just sears instant, like I can tell you where
the chocolate cake was that I hadn't made.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
I can tell you the.
Speaker 7 (28:40):
Color in my purse, orm my keys were color of
the kitchen towels instant. Did you ever think, no, he's not,
You're full of shit? It like, well, I mean at
that point, I've gone into physical shock. I'm shaking. I
shook for four days. He's realizing right away I'm not okay.
(29:04):
I'm spinning, literally about to pass out, and I make
it over to my couch. I asked the agent and
I'm like, well, can I call my Grandma Eileen, my
mom's mom that lives down the street from my parents,
And he said, yeah, you can call her, but you
can't tell her what's going on. So I called Grandma
Eileen and I said Dad's been arrested. I'd left out BTK,
(29:25):
but I said Dad's been arrested, and she says, oh shit,
and she says, hold on, I'll call you back, and
she walked out and down around the corner, looked past
missus Hedge's house and saw all of the crime scene
trucks and all of the police cars and FBI cars,
bomb disposal truck, everything down at my parents' house. My
grandma called me back, told us what was going on,
(29:46):
and then I have found out later they were picked
up not long after that and taken down to where
my mom was, and other family were picked up and
everyone was questioned.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
It is hard to imagine how any us would react
in Carrie's situation. Understandably, it was very difficult to process.
Speaker 7 (30:08):
I was trying to alibi my dad. I thought I
could sit there and prove right there, my dad's a
really great guy. Well, see, they had arrested the wrong
guy in December about four, my mom was being interviewed
by which TAB police and maybe KBIFBI, I'm not sure.
And she literally was saying, you got the wrong guy
in December, and you got the wrong guy again. You
(30:29):
know she was mad. I was mad too. You're just
very defensive with this person that you love that's only good,
and you're mad because you're like, you got the wrong guy.
So I'm sitting there and now my husband's Homi sitting
next to me. He's holding my hand where that I'm
basically completely falling apart. He's trying to astorb this. I'm
trying to alibi my dad. So I'm like, what are
(30:51):
the dates of the murders? The investigator gave me some
dates in the seventies, and I was like, I wasn't
alive then, and then he said September of eighty six,
and I said, I don't have memories of September of
eighty six other than I started third grade. And then
it hit. I remembered missus Hedge. My head sunk, and
(31:14):
it was like something steered inside of me, in my guts,
and I got really quiet, and it was like I
knew that Dad was BTK and had murdered missus Hedge.
I was Carrie and he was Dad, and then he
was arrested, and all of a sudden he was BTK
and I lost Carrie.
Speaker 5 (31:38):
Carrie also talked about the way the arrest affected her mother, Paula.
Speaker 7 (31:44):
Guy would spend a lot of time thinking about what
did I want to ask my mom and how much
can I push because she has a similar PTSD from
when she was notified and picked up. Everybody patted it
around my mom after the arrest. In John Douglas's book,
Keith talks about he was trying to get an idea
about my mom Paula, and he said the whole community
(32:04):
early on still they were very protective of her. They
they just surrounded her and took care of her, and
nobody really wanted to push her. My mom had been
gathlighted and conned by my father and thought he was
one thing and Harry has always been this other thing.
We are domestic abuse victims. I think my mom probably
(32:25):
does hold some answers, but we don't really go there.
My mom said it was like your dad died that day.
That's how she's dealt with it.
Speaker 5 (32:37):
The news had broken Carrie and Paula's hearts. Raiders' murders
had broken six families, and those families were still waiting
on answers. Across the country, family members of Raiders victims
(33:05):
were receiving once in a lifetime phone calls. Jeff Davis's mother,
Dolores Davis, was murdered in January of nineteen ninety one.
She was Dennis Raider's last victim. Jeff spent years wondering
who his mother's killer was. Now his personal grief was
(33:25):
becoming part of Wichita's history.
Speaker 8 (33:29):
I was writ in Memphis of that time, and I
was out playing pool in my favorite place on Friday afternoon,
and I got a call from the Sheriff's detjective and
all instead was we got him, but it wasn't children
the next morning, when Chief Williams of the police Department
(33:50):
and now they had Captain BGK, that I realized mom
was his victim and that he wasn't one of responsible.
I never suspected. For whatever reason, I never connected him
with it.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
I don't know why.
Speaker 8 (34:07):
It never crossed my mind. And literally I was ecstatic
that they caught ing, and of course we lived, and
all the painting had cost but it all happened so fast.
Once they announced that, my phone started ringing, and literally
he didn't quit ringing all day long.
Speaker 5 (34:29):
Again, the news media cut in.
Speaker 8 (34:33):
I couldn't take a call without another call cutting in
because I was talking to news outlets everywhere across the country,
and I was just overwhelmed. I remember going to bed
that next night exhausted because everything just hit like a
whole wind.
Speaker 4 (34:53):
It was just.
Speaker 8 (34:53):
A bizarre, kind of surrealistic situation. I'm still getting in
my head, well, a little human cockroach. She looks like
it took a while for an all to sink in it,
So I'm trying to say it took a while to
realize that it was him and that he was responsible
for everybody, to include my mother. In spite of all
(35:15):
the false alarms and the other speculations that had gone on,
he was the one. There was no doubt about that
at this point in time.
Speaker 5 (35:25):
I can't imagine how it felt to learn the identity
of your mother's killer after fourteen years, to learn, along
with the rest of the world, that it was the
same man responsible for terrorizing your hometown since the nineteen seventies.
Jeff had to make his way back home.
Speaker 8 (35:47):
I just started getting up and getting ready to get
myself be where I could get back. It was so
I could be a part of all that.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
In New Mexico, Charlie Taro was trying to start over
after his time in prison. His two parents, Joseph and Julie,
and his younger siblings Josie and Joey, were the very
first victims of BTK. Their murders had forever changed the
trajectory of the eldest Otero's siblings life.
Speaker 16 (36:22):
I was still in parole when he got caught. I
was in Albuquerque. I was working demolition. It was like
two weeks after I got out of prison. I was
blessed with having somebody hire me. The day I got
out of prison, I made a phone call. They hired
me up the next day. I was in their yard
one day and I was on my knees and I
was pulling up all these bushes. They had like twenty
(36:43):
little shrubs, and I was digging each one out, pullying.
I was taking me a couple of minutes apiece, and
the phone rings. I had my phone right here. I
picked up as my sister and she goes they caught him.
I'm said, are you serious, He goes says, Yep, they
got him, and then bushes were flying ten feet over
my head. I just started yanking him out of the
ground and they were flying over my head, and it's
(37:05):
like superhuman crazy stuff. That's how I found out.
Speaker 5 (37:10):
Similar to Jeff's reaction, Charlie was angry.
Speaker 16 (37:15):
Right then at that moment. I'm starting to plan my
revenge now that they got him, how am I going
to get.
Speaker 4 (37:22):
My hands on him?
Speaker 5 (37:24):
In Steve Ralford's case, I would be there when he
first learned the identity of Dennis Rader. Steve Ralford had
spent the last twenty eight years blaming himself for the
murder of his mother, Shirley Vyanne. Raider gained access to
Ryanne's home on the morning of March seventeenth, nineteen seventy seven,
(37:46):
after then five year old Steve opened the door, just
a few weeks before police caught BTK. I found Steve
and interviewed him for Cake TV. What would you do
if you met him face to face?
Speaker 4 (38:02):
Oh God, he would suffer, Yes, me and me would suffer.
Speaker 5 (38:15):
Once BTK had been arrested, I called Steve right away. Okay,
So the day he was caught you were in Las Vegas. Yeah,
And I called you and I said it was about
four weeks after I had interviewed you, so you were
probably like, Wow, they caught him that quickly, but it
had taken him a year. But I called you in
(38:37):
Las Vegas and I said, Steve, I think they caught BTK,
the man who murdered your mother. What'd you say to me?
Speaker 4 (38:51):
I don't really remember.
Speaker 15 (38:53):
I remember saying that fucking I'm going to ste him
right down away for money.
Speaker 4 (38:57):
I'm here more.
Speaker 5 (38:59):
That's exactly what you said. My team and I made
the decision to fly Steve back home to Wichita so
he could be there when the news was confirmed. The
following is a story we ran on Cake on February
twenty sixth, two thousand and five.
Speaker 17 (39:18):
As Steve Ralford watches today's news briefing, the emotion comes immediately.
This is not only Steve's first time back in Wichita
since his mother's murder in nineteen seventy seven, but also
for the first time we show Steve the picture of
his mother's killer.
Speaker 5 (39:34):
All right, yeah, what are you feeling right now?
Speaker 4 (39:40):
Glen?
Speaker 8 (39:41):
It cuts the bitch the mom conressed in peace.
Speaker 5 (39:49):
Everyone in Wichita was grappling with what we'd learned. We
blamed ourselves for allowing this monster to live among us
for this long. We were leaved angry and confused. The
police did their best to tie up the loose ends
on this thirty year investigation neatly, and we the media
(40:11):
worked diligently to put our personal emotions aside and report
accurately on this story. But with the mounting pressure and
heightened emotions, some things slipped through the cracks. What we
weren't clear on were the circumstances surrounding how he had
been caught. We went on what our sources shared with us,
(40:34):
and in those early days, not all of it was accurate.
We missed the mark on a crucial detail of the story.
Speaker 10 (40:43):
Sources tell us Raiders. Twenty six year old daughter Carrie
went to police with suspicions her father was BTK. Sources
say she gave a blood sample. That sample, we're told,
came back as a match.
Speaker 5 (41:00):
Eventually, we did clarify that while Carrie's DNA was key
in his arrest, she herself did not turn her father in.
I can understand how this mistake put Carrie in a
very tough spot. This inaccurate detail about how her DNA
was collected made its way to national news.
Speaker 7 (41:23):
Like a week later, seeing an embras in one news
saying that I had turned in my dad and given
a blood sample. We don't even have cable. I'm reading
it over the internet. I'm like, I didn't turn in
my dad and I didn't give blood. I gave a
cheek swab. So my dad literally writes me, sometime in
the spring, I heard you turn me in, and I knew,
(41:46):
deep down in my heart it wasn't true.
Speaker 5 (41:49):
Carrie had mixed feelings about her interactions with the investigators.
There was the trauma of her being initially notified, the
shock and frustration that herd was used without her permission,
But there was also the compassion she was shown the.
Speaker 7 (42:07):
Police like Clanderware and Otis, they all knew right away,
as soon as they started talking to my family that
we were all victims. And they said they knew right away.
There was an eighth family and it was ours. There
was the seven families from the seven murders. They had
been working with some of these people for twenty or
thirty years. They knew them well. They kept tabs on them.
They helped them, kept them up to date on all
(42:29):
the cases. They took care of these people, and all
of a sudden, now they had an eighth family on
their hands.
Speaker 5 (42:40):
In Park City, sightseers arrived at Raider's house on Independent Street.
It became a spectacle. One person even attempted to remove
the family's mailbox bearing his last name. While those who
knew Raider intimately had turned away from the media, neighbors
of Raiders were voicing their opinions of him on air.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
He's always been real nice.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
He's been a real property of.
Speaker 7 (43:05):
Every time I gotten to do the mail or get
my other.
Speaker 4 (43:07):
Thing, he says.
Speaker 8 (43:08):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
He was probably, in fact the friendliest they run.
Speaker 6 (43:10):
Home block too.
Speaker 8 (43:11):
Man.
Speaker 10 (43:11):
Well, nobody likes him around Park City's He's been accused
to let people's dogs out to catch him, or my
dad told.
Speaker 6 (43:17):
Him was just not to go down there because they
were strange.
Speaker 5 (43:22):
The monster had finally been captured, and now the whole
city and millions of onlookers waited to see if he
would be put away forever. Here again is Kevin O'Connor.
Speaker 9 (43:36):
For me, it was a time where it's like, okay,
now I got to go to work. We anticipated he
would want a trial. So that year, between the time
he started sending things in March of four to the
time he was captured, I had been preparing along with
the district attorney.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
We're preparing for trial.
Speaker 5 (43:58):
Nobody knew how Raider would plead, whether or not this
case would go to trial. He would soon face ten
first degree murder charges and would do something no one
was expecting.
Speaker 12 (44:14):
All right, christ Raider, at this time, I want to
ask how to plead to these ten counts?
Speaker 5 (44:26):
Next time? On Monster BTK.
Speaker 12 (44:29):
One Saturday morning, he called me and the operator said,
I have a collect call from the Cedric County Detention Center.
Speaker 6 (44:36):
Will you accept the charges? And you go, wow, Yes,
I will.
Speaker 9 (44:41):
I remember Judge Waller asking what kind of bond we wanted,
and I think I said something to the effect of
a I mean, Judge, I don't know ten kazillion million.
I don't know if there is a number.
Speaker 12 (44:52):
A judge asked Dennis Rader to take him through all
the killings in the courtroom live on.
Speaker 8 (44:59):
T my mouth pure an adult ray the police.
Speaker 7 (45:06):
They wanted everything my dad had done on record. Now
were they trying to humiliate my dad on the stand?
Speaker 13 (45:11):
I Don't Know.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Monster BTK is a production of tenderfoot TV and iHeart Podcasts.
The show is written by Nomes Griffin, Trevor Young, and
Jesse Funk. Our host is Susan Peters. Executive producers on
behalf of Tenderfoot TV include Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay,
alongside supervising producer Tracy Kaplan. Executive producers on behalf of
(45:44):
iHeart Podcasts include Matt Frederick and Trevor Young, alongside producers
Nomes Griffin and Jesse Funk and supervising Producerrima ilk Ali.
Marketing support by David Wasserman and Alison Wright at iHeart
Podsts and Caroline or Agemma at tenderfoot TV. Additional research
(46:05):
by Claudia Dafrico, original artwork by Kevin Mister soul Harp,
original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Special thanks to
Orrin Rosenbaum and the team at UTA and the Nord Group.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
(46:28):
favorite shows. Thanks for listening
Host
Susan Peters
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