http://www.chron.com/CDA/umstory.mpl/nation/3058978 Suspect in BTK serial killings arrested in Kansas Wichita slayer broke a 25-year silence with letters written in 2004 By ROXANA HEGEMAN Associated Press AP / Park City Web site Dennis Rader WICHITA, KAN. - Police said Saturday they have arrested a man they believe is the notorious BTK serial killer who terrorized Wichita throughout the 1970s and then resurfaced about a year ago after 25 years of silence. "The bottom line: BTK is arrested," Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams said at a news conference in Wichita with some of the victims' family members. BTK investigator Lt. Ken Landwehr identified the suspect as Dennis Rader, a 59-year-old city worker in nearby Park City, who was arrested Friday at his suburban home. The BTK killer — a self-coined nickname that stands for "Bind, Torture, Kill" — had been linked to eight killings committed between 1974 and 1986. Police said Saturday they have attributed two more slayings to BTK, from 1985 and 1991. No charges had been filed Saturday. Prosecutor Nola Foulston said that while there is no statute of limitations for homicide, the death penalty would not apply to any crime committed before 1994, when the death penalty was introduced in Kansas. RESOURCES VICTIMS Authorities have linked these slayings to the BTK case: • Jan. 15, 1974: Joseph Otero, 38, and his wife, Julie, 34, are strangled in their home along with two of their children, Josephine, 11, and Joseph II, 9. • April 4, 1974: Kathryn Bright, 21, is stabbed to death in her home. • March 17, 1977: Shirley Vian, 24, is found tied up and strangled at her home. • Dec. 8, 1977: Nancy Fox, 25, is found tied up and strangled in her home. • Sept. 16, 1986: Vicki Wegerle, 28, is strangled in her home. • Two more: Authorities also are linking suspect Dennis Rader to the 1985 slaying of Marine Hedge and the 1991 killing of Delores Davis. DNA linked suspect Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, attending a conference in Washington, said state highway patrol officials familiar with the case told her DNA evidence linked the suspect. BTK sent letters to media about the crimes in the 1970s, but stopped for more than two decades before re-establishing contact last March with a letter about an unsolved 1986 killing. Since then, authorities said the killer has sent at least eight letters to the media or police, including three packages containing jewelry that police believed may have been taken from BTK's victims. One letter contained the driver's license of victim Nancy Fox. The new letters sent chills through Wichita but also rekindled hope that modern forensic science could find some clue that would finally lead police to a killer most thought was dead or safely locked in prison for some other crime. Lived on Rader's street Thousands of tips poured in, and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation conducted hundreds of DNA swabs in connection with the BTK investigation. A source with knowledge of the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity said surveillance gave police their "first big piece" of recent evidence, leading authorities to a vehicle and the suspect. One of the victims newly identified by police, 53-year-old Marine Hedge, lived on Rader's street in Park City. She was abducted from her home in 1985, and her body was found eight days later along a dirt road. Investigators searched Rader's house Friday and seized computer equipment. SEE IT NOW Video • Kansas authorities arrest BTK suspect 2/26 Video courtesy The AP; (Free Real Player required) Messages from killer The BTK slayings began in 1974 with the strangulations of Joseph Otero, 38, his wife, Julie, 34, and their two children. The letters began that same year, with poems and graphic descriptions of the crimes. The killer even called police with details of Nancy Fox's 1977 slaying. When one of his messages, a poem sent to the Wichita Eagle-Beacon in 1978, was mistakenly routed to the classified ads department, BTK sent a letter to KAKE-TV days later complaining: "How many do I have to kill before I get my name in the paper or some national attention?" The letters stopped in the late 1970s, but picked up last March, when a letter arrived at the Wichita Eagle with information on an unsolved 1986 killing, a copy of the victim's driver's license and photos of her slain body. The return address on the letter said it was from Bill Thomas Killman — initials BTK. The address appeared to refer to a now-vacant building.
According to a source he confessed to the killings. Why, after so many years of being free and out of prison would you give folks more evidence against yourself and with forensics as advanced as it is too? Glad he is caught and put away though.
I'm normally against the death penalty, but a guy that old should be gassed for his confessed crimes.
