Dennis Rader BTK Killer: Profile, Capture, and Psychology

Introduction to Serial Killers and Dennis Rader

Serial killers can be defined as people who murder at least three individuals on at least three separate occasions over a span of time, primarily to satisfy themselves psychologically. While many of them suffer from Antisocial Personality Disorder, they adapt and present a normal front to the people around them — a state Hervey Cleckley refers to as the "mask of sanity." Some murders may have a sexual dimension, and they may be executed in a way that reveals a common characteristic among the victims, such as sex, occupation, or race. Nonetheless, the victim's race and the serial killer's race are seldom the same (Vronsky, 2004).

It is not yet known who exactly coined the term serial killer. Many believe that Robert Ressler, an FBI agent, or Robert D. Keppel may have been the one who coined it. The term came into popular usage due to the infamous criminal activities of David Berkowitz and Ted Bundy (Vronsky, 2004).

Dennis Rader, alias the BTK killer, believed that he had reached an understanding with the Wichita, Kansas, police lieutenant Ken Landwehr, who was then heading the task force making attempts to catch him (Bardsley, Bell & Lohr). Before his arrest, Rader had asked the police whether communications made through a floppy disk could be traced to a specific computer. The police responded through a classified advertisement in a local newspaper, telling Rader that communicating via floppy disk would be safe (Hansen, 2006).

In the weeks that followed, BTK sent a floppy disk to a local television station. Police traced the disk to a computer at Rader's church and confirmed that Rader was indeed BTK. DNA testing corroborated this finding. Rader had named himself "BTK," an acronym standing for Bind, Torture, and Kill (Hansen, 2006).

The days following the discovery saw BTK taken into custody. He had been the serial killer terrorizing the Wichita area since the 1970s, reportedly murdering ten people. He had gone silent in 1991 and resurfaced just two years before his arrest, beginning to communicate with the media and police after news reports speculated that he was either in prison or dead (Hansen, 2006).

Rader pleaded guilty to ten counts of first-degree murder and is currently serving ten consecutive life sentences in a Kansas state prison (Hansen, 2006). He had been married to Paula Dietz for 34 years; their marriage collapsed when she learned that her husband was the BTK killer. She was granted a divorce within a day of filing her application, after the Sedgwick County District Judge granted her a speedy divorce that waived the standard 60-day waiting period. The Wichita Eagle reported that in her divorce papers, Paula stated she had suffered severe emotional distress upon learning of her husband's true character. The judge's favorable and rapid response suggests he was deeply sympathetic to her situation (Bardsley, Bell & Lohr).

Crime Profiles: Modus Operandi and Signature Behavior

The methods a criminal uses in carrying out a crime are referred to as the modus operandi (MO). The MO is shaped by repeated criminal acts and evolves as the criminal learns from each experience. Dennis Rader, for instance, resolved to carry his own "toolkit" after his experience killing Kathryn Bright. Rader had waited for her at her home; she arrived with her brother Kevin. Because Rader had not brought his own tools, he used whatever he found at the scene. Kevin managed to escape despite sustaining two gunshot wounds. Kathryn, however, was not as fortunate — she became the fifth person Rader had killed (LaBrode, 2007).

Rader was not implicated in Kathryn's killing at the time, yet he later stated that following those events, he resolved to bring his kit to all subsequent killings. Alongside the MO, criminologists identify a signature aspect in serial murders. Unlike the MO, the signature goes beyond what is strictly necessary to commit the crime — it satisfies the murderer's fantasies and is essential for the killer to derive personal gratification from his acts. While the MO evolves with experience, the signature remains consistent. After dumping his victims' bodies, Rader often returned to the scenes to relive his crimes by engaging in sexual acts with the bodies. He also taunted the police by sending letters detailing his crimes and the locations of his victims. Most of these letters were signed "BTK," with the letters of the acronym arranged explicitly (LaBrode, 2007).

How Rader Was Caught

Lieutenant Landwehr later noted that what made it possible to catch Rader was his decision to send the floppy disk. Had Rader stopped murdering and gone silent, police would likely never have identified him (Hansen, 2006).

Rader was deeply hurt to discover he had been deceived by the police. On February 25, 2005, following his arrest, he expressed shock that he had been intentionally misled. He also said he believed he and Landwehr had developed a genuine rapport (Hansen, 2006).

During the interrogation, Rader asked Landwehr why he had lied to him, to which Landwehr replied plainly that he was trying to catch him. Regarding the floppy disk, Landwehr noted that Rader could not accept that the detective had deceived him. Rader was visibly upset. He revisited the floppy disk during interrogation, admitting he had sensed that sending it to the television station was a risky gamble — yet he had trusted Landwehr's word (Hansen, 2006).

The interrogation strategy was to keep Rader talking. Initially, he played it safe, speaking hypothetically and referring to BTK as if the killer were someone else. When he realized there was no way out, he confessed, recounting chilling accounts of his torture and murders. He admitted to killing ten people, including a nine-year-old boy and an eleven-year-old girl (Hansen, 2006).

Landwehr recalls that Rader believed he shared a strong bond with law enforcement. Rader even remarked at one point that he and the police were colleagues of a sort, since they were all in law enforcement — Rader himself having served as a code compliance officer (Hansen, 2006).

Rader's egoism allowed investigators to manipulate him into revealing incriminating information. He was so convinced of his own importance that he had talked himself into believing the police were his allies, and he bantered with them as if among friends (Hansen, 2006).

One investigator, Rasch, noted that a sophisticated and skilled user could theoretically have covered his tracks in the floppy disk scenario. However, bringing in a skilled forensic expert with the right tools means that even a sophisticated user's faint electronic trail can be followed back to its origin. This is the domain of computer forensics — an entire field of study dedicated to this kind of digital investigation (Hansen, 2006).

O'Connor argued that the police deserve considerable credit for how they handled the case overall — both their management of the DNA evidence and their skill in keeping BTK talking, fully aware that he might incriminate himself, were exercises in investigative expertise (Hansen, 2006).

Conclusion: Rader's Legacy and Cooperation with Research

Dennis Rader wrote a letter stating that in order to help the families of his victims financially, he is cooperating in the writing of a book. The self-confessed serial killer said that there is no way he could compensate these families and that this is the only way he could help. In the letter written from prison, he acknowledged that his deeds were indeed very "dark" (The Associated Press, 2014).

In the handwritten four-page letter, Rader stated that he would not profit from the book's proceeds, as a court settlement bars him from benefiting financially from his criminal activities. The media rights were signed over to the families of his ten victims — people he murdered between 1974 and 1991 — before he was transferred to prison in 2005 (The Associated Press, 2014).

An attorney representing some of the victims' families, James Thompson, confirmed that a book deal was nearing completion and that a portion of the profits would go to those families. Thompson, based in Wichita, viewed it as an appropriate, if modest, means of providing some comfort to the affected families (The Associated Press, 2014).

Katherine Ramsland, the author collaborating with Rader on the project, aims for the book to serve as a significant academic resource from which criminologists and investigators can draw insights to better understand serial killers like Rader. She has committed considerable time and effort to ensure the work is comprehensive and valuable to those who study killers with behavioral tendencies similar to Rader's. Ramsland is a widely published author with fifty-four books to her name — most of them non-fiction — and serves as a professor of forensic psychology at DeSales University (The Associated Press, 2014).

Rader wrote that he had previously refused to cooperate with media outlets that contacted him because he wanted to honor his agreement with the victims' families. He expressed a desire not to damage those relationships further. He stated his belief that people like him need to be better understood so that law enforcement can more effectively identify and stop such criminals — and that he hoped his eventual openness would represent his way of paying a debt to society (The Associated Press, 2014).