“suspicious-looking” stranger in the tion on February 10. “How many do I have to kill,” he area, but published sketches of the unknown subject led asked, “before I get my name in the paper or some police nowhere. A local teenager confessed to the mur-national attention?”
ders, naming two accomplices, but none had any In his latest note, the BTK Strangler claimed seven knowledge of the crimes beyond stark details published victims, naming Vian and Fox as the latest. That left in the press. Still, their arrests served a purpose, one still unaccounted for, as he closed with a taunting prompting the killer to clamor for credit.
punch line: “You guess the motive and the victims.”
In October 1974, Wichita’s bogeyman penned the Unable to prove their correspondent’s latest claim, first of several letters to the media, placed in a book at authorities still took him at his word, announcing theo-the public library. A phone call directed an editor of the retical acceptance of the body count. The killer’s last Wichita Eagle to the hidden letter, filled with numerous letter in 1978 was addressed to an elderly Wichita misspellings, which advised police: “Those three woman who eluded him by staying out late on the night dude[s] you have in custody are just talking to get pub-he had chosen to kill her. “Why didn’t you appear?” he licity for the Otero murders. They know nothing at all.
asked.
I did it by myself and no one[’]s help.” The slayer Alternately blaming his crimes on “a demon” and a proved his point by describing the murder scene in mysterious internal “Factor X,” the strangler compared detail, down to the color of each victim’s clothing. He his work to that of London’s “JACK THE RIPPER,” New added a clincher, informing detectives of a fact they had York City’s “Son of Sam,” and the “Hillside Strangler”
28
“BTK Strangler”
in Los Angeles. “When this monster enter[ed] my Rader had confessed six murders, doubly amazed brain,” he wrote, “I will never know. But, it [is] here to when he was charged with 10 slayings on March 1.
stay. Maybe you can stop him. I can’t. It seems senseless While only seven homicides were previously linked to but we cannot help it. There is no help, no cure except the BTK series, detectives now listed three more vic-death or being caught and put away.” Psychiatrists who tims, including:
analyzed the letters felt the killer saw himself as part of some nebulous “grand scheme,” but they were unable
• Kathryn Bright, age 21, bound and stabbed to to pinpoint his motive or predict his next move.
death in her home on April 14, 1974. Her brother In fact, there would be none for 26 years, until the Kevin, shot and left for dead in the same incident, Wichita Eagle received another BTK letter on March was a coworker of Rader’s at a local camping-gear 19, 2004. The envelope contained a one-page letter in factory.
familiar style, together with a photocopy of murder vic-
• Marine Hedge, age 53, kidnapped from her subur-tim Vicki Wegerle’s driver’s license and three snapshots ban Park City home on April 27, 1985, later
of her corpse, each with the clothing arranged in found strangled with a pair of pantyhose and dis-slightly different positions. Police informed the media carded on a rural road. At the time of her murder, that no official photos had been taken of Wegerle’s Hedge lived on the same street as Rader.
body in situ, when she was found on September 16,
• Delores Davis, age 62, snatched from her home 1986, thus proving that her killer was the cameraman.
outside Park City on January 19, 1991. When
Predictably, the letter’s return address—from a fictitious found beneath a bridge on February 1, she had
B ill T homas K illman—led detectives to a long-vacant been bound and strangled with pantyhose.
apartment house in Wichita.
Another BTK letter arrived in early May 2004, this Police remain tight-lipped about
ders, naming two accomplices, but none had any In his latest note, the BTK Strangler claimed seven knowledge of the crimes beyond stark details published victims, naming Vian and Fox as the latest. That left in the press. Still, their arrests served a purpose, one still unaccounted for, as he closed with a taunting prompting the killer to clamor for credit.
punch line: “You guess the motive and the victims.”
In October 1974, Wichita’s bogeyman penned the Unable to prove their correspondent’s latest claim, first of several letters to the media, placed in a book at authorities still took him at his word, announcing theo-the public library. A phone call directed an editor of the retical acceptance of the body count. The killer’s last Wichita Eagle to the hidden letter, filled with numerous letter in 1978 was addressed to an elderly Wichita misspellings, which advised police: “Those three woman who eluded him by staying out late on the night dude[s] you have in custody are just talking to get pub-he had chosen to kill her. “Why didn’t you appear?” he licity for the Otero murders. They know nothing at all.
asked.
I did it by myself and no one[’]s help.” The slayer Alternately blaming his crimes on “a demon” and a proved his point by describing the murder scene in mysterious internal “Factor X,” the strangler compared detail, down to the color of each victim’s clothing. He his work to that of London’s “JACK THE RIPPER,” New added a clincher, informing detectives of a fact they had York City’s “Son of Sam,” and the “Hillside Strangler”
28
“BTK Strangler”
in Los Angeles. “When this monster enter[ed] my Rader had confessed six murders, doubly amazed brain,” he wrote, “I will never know. But, it [is] here to when he was charged with 10 slayings on March 1.
stay. Maybe you can stop him. I can’t. It seems senseless While only seven homicides were previously linked to but we cannot help it. There is no help, no cure except the BTK series, detectives now listed three more vic-death or being caught and put away.” Psychiatrists who tims, including:
analyzed the letters felt the killer saw himself as part of some nebulous “grand scheme,” but they were unable
• Kathryn Bright, age 21, bound and stabbed to to pinpoint his motive or predict his next move.
death in her home on April 14, 1974. Her brother In fact, there would be none for 26 years, until the Kevin, shot and left for dead in the same incident, Wichita Eagle received another BTK letter on March was a coworker of Rader’s at a local camping-gear 19, 2004. The envelope contained a one-page letter in factory.
familiar style, together with a photocopy of murder vic-
• Marine Hedge, age 53, kidnapped from her subur-tim Vicki Wegerle’s driver’s license and three snapshots ban Park City home on April 27, 1985, later
of her corpse, each with the clothing arranged in found strangled with a pair of pantyhose and dis-slightly different positions. Police informed the media carded on a rural road. At the time of her murder, that no official photos had been taken of Wegerle’s Hedge lived on the same street as Rader.
body in situ, when she was found on September 16,
• Delores Davis, age 62, snatched from her home 1986, thus proving that her killer was the cameraman.
outside Park City on January 19, 1991. When
Predictably, the letter’s return address—from a fictitious found beneath a bridge on February 1, she had
B ill T homas K illman—led detectives to a long-vacant been bound and strangled with pantyhose.
apartment house in Wichita.
Another BTK letter arrived in early May 2004, this Police remain tight-lipped about
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