DENNIS LYNN RADER HANDWRITTEN AND HANDSIGNED D.L.R TREE OF HEART POEM

Dennis Lynn Rader (born March 9, 1945), better known as the BTK Strangler or simply BTK is an American serial killer who murdered at least ten people in Wichita and Park City, Kansas, between 1974 and 1991. Although he occasionally killed or attempted to kill men and children, Rader typically targeted women. His victims were often attacked in their own homes, then bound, sometimes with objects from their homes, and either suffocated with a plastic bag or manually strangled with a ligature.In addition, he stole keepsakes from his female victims, including underwear, driver's licenses, and personal items.

Dennis Lynn Rader was born in Pittsburg, Kansas, on March 9, 1945. His parents were bookkeeper Dorothea Mae Rader (née Cook) and Kansas Gas Service worker William Elvin Rader.He was the eldest of four sons. Growing up in Wichita, Rader later recalled feeling ignored by his mother. Both of his parents worked long hours and paid little attention to their children at home At a young age, Rader harbored sadistic sexual fantasies about torturing "trapped and helpless" women.He also exhibited zoosadism by torturing, killing and hanging small animals. Rader acted out sexual fetishes for voyeurism, autoerotic asphyxiation and cross-dressing, often spying on female neighbors while dressed in women's clothing, including women's underwear that he had stolen. He also masturbated with ropes or other bindings around his arms and neck.Years later, during his "cooling off" periods between murders, Rader would take pictures of himself wearing women's clothes and a female mask while bound. He later admitted that he was pretending to be his victims as part of his sexual fantasy.However, Rader kept his proclivities well hidden, and was widely regarded in his community as "normal, polite, and well mannered.After graduating from Wichita Heights High School, Rader attended Kansas Wesleyan University. He received only mediocre grades and dropped out after one year. Rader served in the United States Air Force from 1966 to 1970.On discharge, he moved to Park City, a suburb of Wichita, where he worked in the meat department of an IGA supermarket where his mother was employed as a bookkeeper.Rader married Paula Dietz on May 22, 1971. They had two children, Kerri and Brian.He attended Butler County Community College in El Dorado, earning an associate degree in electronics engineering in 1973. He then enrolled at Wichita State University and graduated in 1979 with a Bachelor of Science degree, majoring in administration of justice.Rader initially worked as an assembler for the Coleman Company, an outdoor supply company. He then worked at the local Wichita office of ADT Security Services from 1974 to 1988, where he installed security alarms. Ironically, many of his clients were concerned homeowners seeking security from his own killings as BTK.Rader was a field operations supervisor for the Wichita area for the 1990 federal census.In May 1991, Rader became a dogcatcher and compliance officer in Park City.In this position, neighbors recalled him as being sometimes overzealous and extremely strict, as well as taking special pleasure in bullying and harassing single women.Two women he stalked in the 1980s, and one whom he stalked in the mid-1990s, filed restraining orders against him; one of these women also changed her address to avoid him.One neighbor complained that Rader killed her dog for no reason.Rader was a member of Christ Lutheran Church in Wichita, and at one point was elected president of the church council.He was also a Cub Scout leader.By the 2000s, the public's memories of the murders had begun to fade. Local author Robert Beattie began writing a book about the killings, Nightmare in Wichita, after being shocked that many young people he spoke to had never heard of the BTK case. Hungry for attention, Rader re-emerged as BTK in 2004 after learning that the book was being written.On July 26, 2005, after Rader's arrest, his wife was granted an emergency divorce, waiving the normal 60-day waiting period.In an interview with ABC News in 2019, his daughter Kerri stated she writes to her father and has now forgiven him, but still struggles to reconcile her "normal" childhood with the knowledge that she was raised by the BTK killer. However, at the 2024 Crime Con in Nashville, Tennessee, Kerri revealed excerpts from her father's journal that revealed he had sexually abused her when she was a child.