From 1991 to 2004 BTK stayed in "hiding". No one heard from him for over 10 years. But on the 30th anniversary of the Otero murder, the Wichita Eagle newspaper ran an article about the crime and BTK. A book by Robert Beattie came out about the nightmare that haunted Wichita Kansas, a.k.a. BTK. This book and article angered Rader because he thought they were trying to tell his own story.
On March 17, 2004, Rader mailed a letter to the Wichita Eagle from an undercover name, Bill Thomas Killman. The envelope had three photocopy pictures of the ones he took of Vicki Wegerle and her drivers license then signed it with the same signature that had been used in the previous letters. The letter was sent to the FBI and the investigation on BTK started again, hitting the media and internet. Rader sent another letter on May 5, 2004 to KAKE-TV, it was a word puzzle that contained a deeper meaning with letters and numbers. Next, on June 9, 2004, he left a package taped to a sign in the middle of the city which had a gruesome description of the Otero murders and a sketch of a dead body hanging by a rope. He titled the sketch, "The Sexual Thrill is My Bill". On June 17, 2004 there was another package labeled "BTK" that was found at the Wichita Public Library. In this letter, Rader explained that time was running out for him and he wanted to wait for the right time for his next "HIT". The fifth item dropped by Rader was on October 22, 2004, when it was found by an UPS driver. There was a collage of children with bindings drawn across their bodies and faces inside the manila envelope. It also contained an autobiography that listed false details about BTK. For example the year he was born and the area that he lived in, to mislead the police officers. Just eight days after Rader became the President of the church council at the Christ Lutheran Church, there was a Special K box with markings "BTK" and "bomb" in the back of a pickup truck. Inside the box was information on his projects that he had watched or stalked along with even more misleading information. Also inside the box was a question asking if there was a a floppy disk made, if it would be able to be traced back to the computer that he used to make it. Later, the police replied and said no, which was a lie. The next clue found was another cereal box discovered on January 25, 2005 after he sent directions to KAKE-TV on where to find the box. Inside the box was a doll with rope around its neck and tied to a pipe, simulating the murder of Josephine Otero. The tenth drop was a post card that arrived on February 3, 2005, that was sent to KAKE saying that he was going to send a floppy disk. So when the eleventh was found 13 days later at the studio of KSAS-TV, the police analyzed the floppy disk which was drawn back to the Christ Lutheran Church under the name Dennis. They looked up the church and found the name of the president, Dennis Rader. They drove past his home one day in an undercover vehicle and saw a familiar car from past security cameras. It was Rader's black Jeep Cherokee. The police asked his daughter, Kerri, for a DNA sample saying it was for a medical record. But in reality the police were using it to match to the semen found in past crime scenes left by BTK. The Wichita Police Department found a match and finally solved the case after 30 years. On February 25, 2005, the WPD surrounded Rader's car after he ate lunch at work and led him to a waiting police car where he was handcuffed. |