Further Reading For Dennis Rader, The BTK Killer
My Boss was the BTK Killer… I was the Next Victim by Mary Capps & Jim Dobkins
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Early episodes of Last Podcast are a real mixed bag of general topics but this is the one where the show starts to take on the form that we all know. It’s the first episode to focus sharply on a single topic and present research and boy, did they pick a good one.
Until his capture in 2004, Dennis Rader, also known as BTK (which stands for Bind Torture Kill), flew under the radar as one of America’s more obscure serial killers. Somehow, in the midst of serial killer fever, this case, equal parts fascinating and pathetic, managed to go mostly unnoticed among true crime afficionados. Between 1974 and 1991, Rader murdered 10 people, acting out a series of extremely elaborate fantasies in which they were tied up, strangled to the point of unconsciousness, revived, and then strangled again until Rader, satisfied and at the point of ecstasy would finally strangle them to death and then beat off over the bodies.
This is some terrifying shit. He killed whole families this way. But he contrasted it by actively attempting to foster a terrifying monster movie personality. He left notes detailing the murders in the pages of books at the local library. Like Jack The Ripper, he sent strange letters to the police and media containing poetry and suggested names that investigators and reporters call him. His entire criminal path was an attempt to be more than just some loser in Kansas. His murders remained unsolved for years and the case had gone cold but in the end, after a long hiatus, Rader started messing with the cops again and fell into a trap where his identity was discovered in the meta data of a digital file he sent to police.
Episodes: 59 & 61
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