A daughter has described how she discovered her dad was living a secret double life as a notorious serial killer – and even hid sick souvenirs of his crimes at their home
Kerri Rawson was in her mid twenties when she learned that the man she loved and called dad was in fact a serial killer who had murdered at least 10 people – two of them children.
To her he may have seemed like any other ordinary father – but it turned out that he’d spent more than 17 years prowling the streets of Kansas, US. Her dad was Dennis Rader – a churchgoer and stamp collector – also known as the ‘BTK’ (bind, torture, kill) murderer.
And if that wasn’t bad enough he also hid souvenirs from his disgusting crimes at their family’s home – including underwear stolen from his murder victims.
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Recalling one particularly stormy, thundery night in 1985, when she was just six, Kerri says: “I crawled into bed with Mum. I wouldn’t have if Dad was home. Slept on his side of the bed,” according to the New York Post. “Did that sometimes when he was gone. I only remember that night because our neighbour lady went missing.”
It later came to light that the neighbour was among those murdered by her dad who carried out the Wichita murders between 1974 and 1991. The serial killer slaughtered his first four victims – two parents and their two little boys – before Kerri was born.
As well as keeping some of his victims’ underwear, Rader also hid a business card at his home including details of his next kill written on it. But it was only in 2005 when he was arrested by police that Kerri discovered his sick secret. Then aged 26, the young woman found an FBI agent standing at her door after her father finally slipped up and revealed himself to be ‘BTK’.
It turned her world upside down, according to her book, ‘A Serial Killer’s Daughter: My Story of Faith, Love, and Overcoming’. Searching the web for information on the previously-unsolved murders, she found herself reflecting on items her dad had once carried or had in their home, wondering whether these were linked to the killings.
She also listened to a 911 call that ‘BTK’ made after he broke into a young woman’s home and strangled her with a belt when she returned from work. “Through the static, in seizing fear, I recognised my dad’s voice — younger, but him,” Kerri writes about the emergency call, placed in 1977.”
Rader pleaded guilty to his crimes, which he recalled in detail in court. The court heard how he masturbated after carrying out the brutal killing.
Rader, now 80, is serving 10 consecutive life terms at a Kansas prison. Sickeningly, he gave himself the ‘BTK’ nickname, which became his infamous signature as he evaded police for more than three decades.
He previously admitted having plans to kill an 11th victim, whom he said he planned to hang upside down in her home before he was caught. His downfall came when he sent a computer disk to a TV station in February 2005 – with an analysis of metadata linking him to the item.
He later worked with Katherine Ramsland, a forensic psychology professor at DeSales University, to publish a book about his crimes – ‘Confession of a Serial Killer: The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer’ – with the proceeds going to a trust fund for the victims’ families.
After his arrest, several grieving relatives sued Rader, securing a settlement that agreed he could never profit from his crimes or coverage of them.
But despite acknowledging he has devastated countless lives, she has written to him and says she has found forgiveness. She writes in her book that on “on the days when I’m not wrestling with hard, terrible truths, I will tell you: I love my dad – the one I mainly knew.”
