Infamous BTK serial killer held by US police

THE 31-year manhunt for a serial killer who taunted police with letters about his crimes ended over the weekend when the authorities finally caught up with the man who called himself BTK. He was linked with at least 10 murders.

“The bottom line: BTK is arrested,” Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams said, setting off applause from a crowd that included family members of some of the victims.

The suspect was identified as Dennis L Rader, a 59-year-old city worker in nearby Park City, who was arrested on Friday. Police did not say how they identified Rader as a suspect or whether he has said anything since his arrest.

BTK - a self-coined nickname that stands for “Bind, Torture, Kill” - stoked fears throughout the 1970s in Wichita, a manufacturing centre with 350,000 residents, about 180 miles south-west of Kansas City.

Then the killer resurfaced about a year ago after 25 years of silence. He had been linked to eight killings between 1974 and 1986, but police said they had identified two more, from 1985 and 1991.

Rader, a cub scout leader who was active at his Lutheran church, lived with his wife, neighbours said. Public records indicate they have two grown children.

A few neighbours recalled receiving small favours from Rader, but most interviewed said he was an unpleasant man who often went looking for reasons to cite his neighbours for violations of city codes.

“A part of me was scared when I heard, because I talked to him. It’s a little creepy,” said Chris Yoder, 23, who once lived nearby.

Rader has yet to be charged, but a jubilant collection of law enforcers and community leaders told the crowd in city council chambers that they were confident the long-running case could now be closed.

“Victims whose voices were brutally silenced by the evil of one man will now have their voices heard again,” Kansas attorney general Phill Kline said.

Rader was being held at an undisclosed location, and it was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer. In Kansas, suspects generally appear before a judge for a status hearing within 48 hours of their arrest.

Prosecutor Nola Foulston said the death penalty would not apply to any crime committed between 1972 and 1994, when Kansas did not have the death penalty. The BTK slayings began in 1974 with the strangulations of Joseph Otero, 38, his wife, Julie, 34, and their two children. The six victims that followed were all women, and most were strangled.

Along with his grisly crimes, the killer terrorised Wichita by sending rambling letters to the media, including one in which he named himself BTK for ‘Bind them, Torture them, Kill them’.

In another he complained, “How many do I have to kill before I get my name in the paper or some national attention?” But he stopped communicating in 1979 and remained silent for more than two decades before re-establishing contact last March with a letter to The Wichita Eagle about an unsolved 1986 killing.

The letter included 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.