G-LS3Z87V2FY Scarlet TCP | Dennis Rader | BTK | True Crime Podcast - Scarlet TCP
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Episode 39

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Published on:

27th Jul 2020

BTK Killer | Dennis Rader - Part 1

For 3 decade Dennis Rader terrified the Kansas City region of Kansas preying on women, children, and any man that got in his way. Known mostly by his self-proclaimed acronym, BTK, Dennis Rader used the monicker "Bind Torture Kill, BTK" in his taunts to the police, newspapers, and local communities.

Dennis Rader's prolific spree of murder from the 70s to the 90s are nearly unrivaled. Perhaps the Devil incarnate, BTK terrified sleepy small towns near Kansas City while keeping up the guise of a leader in the community. He was a father, scout leader, and strong Christian, or that's how he wanted the world to see him.

Listen as the Ladies of Scarlet discuss the early life and crimes of Dennis Rader and his evolution into BTK. Listen to this week's Scarlet True Crime Podcast.



This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Transcript
Brittney Sherman:

Hey, there's Carlitos.

Brittney Sherman:

I just cut you off.

Brittney Sherman:

You were about to start, go for it.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

No, I wasn't.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I wasn't.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Oh, I thought you go,

Brittney Sherman:

okay, well, this is a fun start.

Brittney Sherman:

Hopefully it's not a sign of things to come, but welcome back to

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Scott.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

We have

Brittney Sherman:

a big popular topic that may have fallen out of the headlines

Brittney Sherman:

a little bit recently, but was huge news 15 years ago when it happened.

Brittney Sherman:

Uh, Sonia, what is our true crime topic today?

Brittney Sherman:

Today,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

we are talking about Dennis Rader, also known as BTK,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

which stands for bind, torture, kill.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And he was essentially the BTK killer.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Self-proclaimed, uh, not shy about letting people know that.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He anonymously of course, took responsibility for the murders

Sonia Meza-Leon:

that happened, which there were 10 of them between 1974 and 1991.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He was not actually caught until 2005 and he was caught because of his own.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, I think I would call it, uh, a slip up, you know, and, uh, oh,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

definitely because of his hubris and a bit of his naive a D in my opinion,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I mean, he was stupid for believing.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

It

Brittney Sherman:

was pretty, you know, we'll, we'll cover why it was dumb, but

Brittney Sherman:

it was a really dumb way to get caught.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Exactly.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, but that sort of speaks to his arrogance.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He is serving 10 consecutive life sentences right now in Kansas.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He was born in Wichita, Kansas.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, he spent his time there growing up and then he moved to park city, Kansas.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He was born in 1945 on March 9th.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And he was born to, um, Dorothea may Raider and William Elvin.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Raider

Brittney Sherman:

sidebar.

Brittney Sherman:

Yeah.

Brittney Sherman:

I had an oboe instructor named when I was a kid and I have

Brittney Sherman:

never heard that name since.

Brittney Sherman:

So I think that's awesome.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

DOR Tia or door Dorothea.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Well, I think what this same thing,

Brittney Sherman:

but like positions, I think it's the same thing

Brittney Sherman:

because it's spelled the same way.

Brittney Sherman:

It's just, she pronounced it like the original German intended.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

very macho.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, all right.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So Dennis Rader, he's one of, uh, four.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yes, he's one of four sons.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, well, I'm not going to get too much honestly, into the Raider family,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

especially, um, you know, out of respect for the tenders, Raiders wife and his two

Sonia Meza-Leon:

children who had to endure the craziness that ensued after he was found out.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And then of course, you know, these are people who were, you know, raised by him

Sonia Meza-Leon:

and who were married to him for all those years while he was doing these crimes.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So, you know, I, I've watched a lot of documentaries with, um, in

Sonia Meza-Leon:

particular Dennis rater's daughter talking about, um, how they didn't

Sonia Meza-Leon:

know and how devastating it was.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And I really feel for these people.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So I'm not going to spend a ton of time on that.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

We'll talk a little bit later about some of the current situations, but, um, you

Sonia Meza-Leon:

know, I have to say Dennis Rader, BTK, I'm not going to say he's my favorite

Sonia Meza-Leon:

serial killer because that's a weird word.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I do believe.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yeah.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

In my heart of hearts, I hate him the most of all other serial killers.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And I'll tell you why.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Okay.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, and you got, yeah, no for sure.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

This guy for all of these years.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So he, he, what what's interesting about Dennis rater and his ability

Sonia Meza-Leon:

to sort of, um, hide from the police and the authorities for so long

Sonia Meza-Leon:

was that he was not a stupid man.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Certainly he was moderately educated.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He was white.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He was like five, nine.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He was, you know, your regular old guy.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He worked for in a variety of capacities that gave him access

Sonia Meza-Leon:

and taught him, um, how to really get really good at his crime.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

In addition to that, he had.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Pretty serious issues, uh, sexual perversions.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And when I say that, because there's lots of whatever's out

Sonia Meza-Leon:

there, you can fetish all day.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

How about it?

Sonia Meza-Leon:

But he enjoyed torturing animals.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He endured joy tortured.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

People in particular women and, um, in ultimately murdering them

Sonia Meza-Leon:

and leaving him them in an UN undistinguished, humiliating state.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, you know, and he did this for what, 30 years.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I mean, it's kind of incredible to think that he went on for that

Sonia Meza-Leon:

long, especially because he taunted the police as much as he did.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So, you know, let's, we'll dive into each of the murders individually, but

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Britney, any, anything you want to talk about in particular with Dennis Rader

Sonia Meza-Leon:

before we really start going down?

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And I think it's important

Brittney Sherman:

to paint a little bit of a picture of his background,

Brittney Sherman:

or you covered it a little bit.

Brittney Sherman:

Um, and we don't need to go into a lot of detail cause we're going to have a

Brittney Sherman:

lot to talk about, uh, with the crimes themselves, but just to get to know the

Brittney Sherman:

man Dennis Rader, before he became BTK, as he wanted to be known as, uh, he.

Brittney Sherman:

When he was growing up as a child, he was a, a quiet, withdrawn, socially

Brittney Sherman:

awkward kid who showed tendencies of violence early on, as Sonia

Brittney Sherman:

mentioned, by killing animals and taking pleasure in that he was never a

Brittney Sherman:

good student, never very intelligent.

Brittney Sherman:

Um, I mean, he was a pretty good looking guy growing up, but always

Brittney Sherman:

kind of struck out with the ladies.

Brittney Sherman:

Uh, he graduated high school in 1963 and he went to a community

Brittney Sherman:

college for a couple of years.

Brittney Sherman:

And then in 1965, he went to Kansas Wesleyan university or college in Salina.

Brittney Sherman:

And he dropped out because he wasn't really making his grades cause he

Brittney Sherman:

wasn't a really a smart guy and.

Brittney Sherman:

And this was of course, like the heart of the Vietnam war.

Brittney Sherman:

And so he was afraid of getting drafted.

Brittney Sherman:

So he enlisted himself in the air force.

Brittney Sherman:

So he would not be on the front lines, on the battlefield.

Brittney Sherman:

And so while he was in the air force, he started to show signs of his future.

Brittney Sherman:

Uh, violent side is stalking tendencies.

Brittney Sherman:

He would, uh, he had a very inflated ego.

Brittney Sherman:

He envisioned himself like James Bond.

Brittney Sherman:

He would go to bars and like I women, and like stalk them a little bit, not,

Brittney Sherman:

not to your point where that he got, but he carried a gun with him because

Brittney Sherman:

he felt like he was undercover and always needed to be protected and would

Brittney Sherman:

step up if anything were to happen.

Brittney Sherman:

And he was always prepared then, uh, he, he came back in 1969, I believe it was.

Brittney Sherman:

And he in 1970 and he, uh, He, he met his future wife who Sonia, you

Brittney Sherman:

know, I kind of agree with you.

Brittney Sherman:

We don't need to discuss too much.

Brittney Sherman:

Uh, they were, they dated for a short time.

Brittney Sherman:

Paula Dietz is her name and they were married in 1971.

Brittney Sherman:

Uh,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

after they were married, they had two children, Carrie and

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Brian, and for all practical purposes, you know, if you hear from Paula and

Sonia Meza-Leon:

from the kids, they had a very normal.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, you know, they were, they were as shocked as everyone else.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, and so betrayed, obviously when they heard about this, because until then,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

you know, there was no, there was no, um, information, you know, or nothing

Sonia Meza-Leon:

that would lead them to believe that he was capable of anything like that.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I think there was only one time where Dennis Rader lost his temper with his son

Sonia Meza-Leon:

and they had to pull him off of the sun.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, but that doesn't make you a murderer.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

That just means that you've got some anger issues.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Right.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, so, you know, really, there's a lot of interviews out there with, um, you know,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

the daughters, uh, and, and I don't know, maybe the son, but, um, it's a lot of

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Lynch, interesting information out there.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I would definitely take a look at it.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So, Brittany, as you said, there was a lot of let's go back to, um, you know,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

of course talking about the zoo Satan.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Which is torturing, killing and hanging of animals.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He also acted out a lot of sexual fantasies he had, and he will go on

Sonia Meza-Leon:

to talk about these fantasies and tell and say that ultimately that's what

Sonia Meza-Leon:

drove him to do the things he did.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He called his drive a factor X, and he blamed everything really on factor X.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And that seemed to drive really every move he made, um, or at

Sonia Meza-Leon:

least all the moves when it came to his, um, criminal behavior.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And what's crazy about it is, you know, here's a guy who,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

again, this is a very long time.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And if you look at, you know, how he murders these people over time,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I mean, it's all over the place.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

It's like some in the seventies, eighties, and then in the nineties, but like

Sonia Meza-Leon:

he skips like 10 years between them.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, sometimes, you know, no, and I think that's, of course, one of the reasons

Sonia Meza-Leon:

they couldn't catch him also because we're always led to believe that serial

Sonia Meza-Leon:

killers, um, you know, they escalate.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So in my opinion, when we get to the first.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I feel like that's the worst crime he committed and nothing.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I'm not saying, you know, not to, it's not picking favorites,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

but it was the one where children were involved and were murdered.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And to start to me at that level is where I'm, I'm just terrified at this person.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And also so angry with him.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I have no tolerance for, for torturing children and the things that he, he did.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, but let's talk about the sexual fetish that he was interested in, including

Sonia Meza-Leon:

voyeurism autoerotic asphyxiation and cross-dressing, he would always

Sonia Meza-Leon:

like in his neighborhood, when he was young, sneak around, watch women get

Sonia Meza-Leon:

undressed, he would wear women's clothing.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He would masturbate with ropes and bindings on.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He would even do that dress up thing.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And, um, you know, in-between the murders, right?

Sonia Meza-Leon:

By the way, I don't know if you guys realize what autoerotic asphyxiation is.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, it's a fairly, I don't know, common thing actually, which I

Sonia Meza-Leon:

it's shocking, but essentially it's the strangulation of yourself.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Hence the auto, um, until you write about to the point where you climax

Sonia Meza-Leon:

and then you take off whatever you're strangling yourself with and it's

Sonia Meza-Leon:

supposed to really, um, sort of.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Elevate your, your orgasm.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Exactly.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

There are many people, um, out there in the world, um, celebrities who

Sonia Meza-Leon:

we know have died while trying, uh, well, well, not trying, but they

Sonia Meza-Leon:

did try cause they didn't succeed.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yeah.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

But, um, a couple of them that you will remember would be Michael Hutchins.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And then also, um, you, I think David Carradine passed away like that.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

What I saw, um, on the documentation that I looked at was that Rader

Sonia Meza-Leon:

would tie himself to a rope that was tied to the bathroom door

Sonia Meza-Leon:

knob, and then leaned forward.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So that's how he would control himself now.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And I, and I guess, because he was so close to the floor,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

maybe, I dunno, I dunno.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I don't know how he kept himself, but you know, there's always

Sonia Meza-Leon:

a risk when you're practicing.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Autoerotic asphyxiation that you're not going to recover from it.

Brittney Sherman:

I don't know how he, how he got away with this, but there

Brittney Sherman:

is a picture that he turned over to the police of himself when he was caught in

Brittney Sherman:

2005 of himself wearing a woman's mask, which was a common theme for him while he

Brittney Sherman:

was partaking in autoerotic asphyxiation and wearing some of his victims clothes.

Brittney Sherman:

And he actually tied himself to a tree branch and was hanging in the air one.

Brittney Sherman:

I don't know how you physically do that without actually killing yourself.

Brittney Sherman:

And two, I don't know how you get away with that and set up a camera to take

Brittney Sherman:

a picture of it, but it was a really disturbing picture that he was kind of

Brittney Sherman:

proud to turn over to police officers.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Oh, he was a weird dude.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He, he definitely taunted the police.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He wanted people to know that he, whoever he was, um, and he hourly caught

Sonia Meza-Leon:

himself BTK that he wanted them to know.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, and we'll talk a little, a little bit later.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I think we should go ahead and get into the crimes, but we can talk a

Sonia Meza-Leon:

little bit about how along the way he communicated with the police.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, but you know, let's start, let's start, uh, at Dennis

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Rader, you know, Has two kids.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

This is right around the time.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Oh, one more thing I do want to mention by the way he was going to, and he

Sonia Meza-Leon:

graduated from Wichita state university and of course he was studying, he

Sonia Meza-Leon:

was studying justice administration.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So he, from an early, early, early on, he started really working out, um, and trying

Sonia Meza-Leon:

to educate himself on the typical, um, you know, the, the criminal justice system and

Sonia Meza-Leon:

how he could get work his way around it.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And Wichita state university is also where BTK, I, uh, also known

Sonia Meza-Leon:

as Dennis Rader made a lot of the photocopies of the documents and

Sonia Meza-Leon:

letters he sent to the police.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So they were able to trace those back to Wichita state university.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

'cause and, and just remember guys, if you read anything about this case,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

he was fairly crafty sometimes, but then other times he was fairly stupid.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So I was like, well, I don't, I don't know what this guy's doing.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He seems to be off the rails.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He would make photocopies, he would never send the original letters to the police.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I assume that's because he didn't want them to trace anything about

Sonia Meza-Leon:

the letters, but there was still, you know, you could still track down.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And I think IBM helped them track down.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, you know, at least the photocopy model photocopier models and where he could get

Sonia Meza-Leon:

them and they traced them back to Wichita state, but everybody in the Republic.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So you couldn't really figure it out.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

It was, uh, it was too hard to track down, but they got to at least have that detail.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

But, um, yeah, no.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

See he for a guy who didn't have any time, he had some time.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I mean, it sounded like every waking moment he had was either spending

Sonia Meza-Leon:

with his kids in his family, going to school or studying how to

Sonia Meza-Leon:

kill people and honestly stopped.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Well, he,

Brittney Sherman:

I almost feel like he was, you know, he went

Brittney Sherman:

to when he was trying to fill his time by being a community guy.

Brittney Sherman:

And like, he was a boy scout troop leader.

Brittney Sherman:

He was like president of the church council.

Brittney Sherman:

He was always trying to be well-known.

Brittney Sherman:

And I, I got the impression and I don't know about you, but I got the

Brittney Sherman:

impression that the murders happened when the other activities died down.

Brittney Sherman:

And he actually did the other activities to try and quell his urge to kill.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Sometimes sometimes, but I think his number

Sonia Meza-Leon:

one priority was always, you know, the sideline piece of it.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

It just you're you're right.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

There were definitely moments in his life where either he was experiencing

Sonia Meza-Leon:

stress or pressure that would drive him.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

But most of the documentation in the letters that he, he first off

Sonia Meza-Leon:

he's very well, you know, written when it comes to or well documented.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Anyway, he wrote, he has all of these letters.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He has like journals.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He has.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Pictures that he drew of these poor people being tortured.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And then he wrote a book and he, uh, and so nicely of him, he was

Sonia Meza-Leon:

like, oh, I'm writing this book.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, but I'm going to donate the, donate, the proceeds to the victims.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So I think he did that.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And that was, again, really well-documented he spoke in, in

Sonia Meza-Leon:

depth with the police about exactly what happened at each murder too.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So he, and that's one of the ways that they were able to tie some

Sonia Meza-Leon:

of these murders to him because he would, no one else would have known

Sonia Meza-Leon:

the information that he provided to them, um, except for the murder.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So it was really, really weird and interesting, but, um, you know, let's

Sonia Meza-Leon:

talk a little bit about the first, um, set of murders because the first,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

the first set of murders actually were formers two adults and two children.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And this was on January 15th, 1974 in Wichita, Kansas.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

The victims were Joseph Otero.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He was 38, Julie Otero.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Age 33, Joseph Otero Jr.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And he was nine and then Josephine Oterra who is 11.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So, um, I can, you know, let's walk through some of this, you know, I

Sonia Meza-Leon:

don't want to spend too much time on it because the, the, the, the

Sonia Meza-Leon:

stuff with the kids is just horrific.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

It is, um, By the way the bodies were discovered by the kids or the

Sonia Meza-Leon:

family's oldest son who was not there at the time and walked in on this.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yep.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So, so very, very sad.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, from what I understand, it sounds like that, you know, in typical

Sonia Meza-Leon:

fashion he breaks into the house.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

This is, was fairly common.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Emma of his, he would break into the house, he would have a gun.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He would tell whoever he was breaking in that, you know, he was, he told a lot

Sonia Meza-Leon:

of them that he was going to rape them, but not kill them and then robbed them.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And so, but he never, we all know he never raped anyone.

Brittney Sherman:

I mean, anyone, there was a lot of sexual tendencies,

Brittney Sherman:

but there was never any indication of.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Exactly.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And there was never any semen or any physical, you know, proof of rape as well.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So it seemed apparent that what he was after was a sexual, um, you

Sonia Meza-Leon:

know, sort of, uh, he was really trying to fulfill a sexual need, but

Sonia Meza-Leon:

didn't have anything to do, honestly.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Sex per se with another person.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, I think that, um, and as we can go through this, we'll talk a little

Sonia Meza-Leon:

bit more about it, but, you know, emotions of the people that Dennis Rader

Sonia Meza-Leon:

murdered were suffocated and strangled.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, and, and then one of them I think was stabbed.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

But for the most part, he liked to watch people die slowly.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And of course, if he was murdering more than one person, that he was probably,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

um, the, uh, the rest of whoever, the people there were likely watching him

Sonia Meza-Leon:

kill some of the people in front of him.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So for instance, the Otero family.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So we have a mom and dad who have their two children, nine and 11 with them.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Of course, this guy goes into the house.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

They're terrified.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

This is the beginning of the BTK murders.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So nobody has any idea.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Now, remember in crazy ass, 1970s, um, where Brittany, you know, we just

Sonia Meza-Leon:

were talking about, you know, all the craziness that happens in the 1970s,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

like the California freeway killer, which there were multiple, the golden

Sonia Meza-Leon:

state killer, the east area rapist.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Like it just doesn't seem like anybody like PR.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I mean, nobody cared what, you know, it was a free for all.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

It was so easy to find people and to murder them.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

There seems to be so much tension.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

It was crazy.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I know crazy.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Like, I just, I mean, it, in a most of these crimes to me were targeted

Sonia Meza-Leon:

at women and what was even crazy.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I think you and I talked to your dad the other day, but with the

Sonia Meza-Leon:

golden state killer, which has bananas, like I think around that

Sonia Meza-Leon:

time where the east area rapist, you know, the rapes were happening.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

If you got caught for raping someone, you would probably get like 30

Sonia Meza-Leon:

days or 90 days or even probation.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

You're not even going to get really in trouble coral Raisy.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So maybe that's why Dennis Rader was telling these people, oh,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I'm just going to rape you.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Because at the time, apparently that was not a big deal or as

Sonia Meza-Leon:

not as bad as murdering them.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

But I was really confused a lot about Dennis Rader.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, you know, I, I have questions along the way.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Let's again.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Sorry, go back to our first set of murders.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Joseph Otero, Julio Terros Joseph junior and Josephine.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So it sounds to me like Dennis Rader in his first foray.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And by the way, this might've been his first set of murders, but he

Sonia Meza-Leon:

was very, very well-planned in this.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He had, here's what he says that he used to do.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He, because he spent quite a bit of time finding his art, his targets,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

and then he would find, spend quite a bit more time studying them.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So he would, what he said he would do is he was, he would troll for

Sonia Meza-Leon:

a new victim or set of victims.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And then he, once he determined who that would be or who they would be, he

Sonia Meza-Leon:

stalked them for a quite a period of time.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He figured out how to get into their houses when they were

Sonia Meza-Leon:

home, who was going to be.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And he made himself, um, you know, he planned around those events.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So he was really good at it.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So back to January 15th, 1974, these, this families, you know, in their house.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, and again, Raider comes in.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He's saying that he's only going to rape them or he's only gonna

Sonia Meza-Leon:

burglarize them actually just looking

Brittney Sherman:

for, he was like looking, he says he was

Brittney Sherman:

looking for money and a car to get away because he was on one

Sonia Meza-Leon:

in criminal, on the road.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yeah.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He loved to have this say, you know, this idea that he was

Sonia Meza-Leon:

all famous, which has bananas.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, but that's somewhere something sort of consistent with his behaviors.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I think she had a really like, his ego is huge.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So here we have the entire family in the bedroom.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, we will later know that they find Joseph, uh, the father

Sonia Meza-Leon:

and the mother in the bedroom.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And what Dennis Rader does without getting into too much graphic detail is

Sonia Meza-Leon:

he puts a bag over Joseph Arturo's head.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And while the other people are sitting there, right.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

We're all in the same room together.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So clearly they could see what was happening.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

The daughter and the son were watching his parents like be murdered.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Essentially.

Brittney Sherman:

It's important to know though he.

Brittney Sherman:

Like his name would he bound all of the Otero family.

Brittney Sherman:

He tied them up by their arms and legs behind them.

Brittney Sherman:

So they couldn't fight back.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Oh yeah.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And he has he even.

Brittney Sherman:

He had a gun with him that he never had any intention

Brittney Sherman:

of using, like you said, he w he didn't use guns in his murders.

Brittney Sherman:

He had other means, uh, but he used the gun as intimidation to allow

Brittney Sherman:

them to get the family to comply.

Brittney Sherman:

So that way he could proceed with his crimes.

Brittney Sherman:

A lot of people usually think of compliance as the best defense,

Brittney Sherman:

because they believe that they will survive because that's what they are

Brittney Sherman:

being told by the perpetrator where in most cases we ultimately find that

Brittney Sherman:

compliance is actually the worst option.

Brittney Sherman:

And most of the time it does not end well for the victims when they may have

Brittney Sherman:

had other opportunities to fight back,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

especially with.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

You have a situation like this?

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Now, granted, there was, it was a very naive time.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So I'm sure these people were hope we're believing them, but they had a lot

Sonia Meza-Leon:

at stake if they didn't and you know, what's weird is he rarely wore a mask.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He which I also find really weird because here's a guy who was pretty

Sonia Meza-Leon:

well known in the, um, the town.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And I don't know how big the town is, but I mean, to be involved in all the

Sonia Meza-Leon:

things that he was doing and to not wear a mask, I am shocked that people

Sonia Meza-Leon:

didn't, weren't able to identify him.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

But what everybody said was he's like a 5, 9, 5, 8 white

Sonia Meza-Leon:

guy with dark hair, big deal.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Like, I mean, nothing interesting or out of the ordinary.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, so really hard to track him down.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Okay.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So let's go back to Joseph Otero, Joseph Matera bag on his head, Dennis Raiders,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

centrally stuff, stuff, suffocating him, sitting there watching this guy.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Die.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

That's what Dennis Rader liked to do.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

That's what got him off.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He liked to watch the last breath come out of people's faces, whether

Sonia Meza-Leon:

it be a man, a woman or a child, and that's what, that's what got him off.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

That's why he masturbated to it.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, and I'm assuming that it had something to do with him practicing

Sonia Meza-Leon:

autoerotic asphyxiation himself, but he knew what that felt like.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And it got him to the, you know, all amped up or tweaked up.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He called it teed up, I think is what he would refer to it as he was teed up.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And he had to do something about it.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, this guy, by the way, this fucker, he, I don't think there's a Pintu.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Uh, w w bad enough for this guy, this guy, I think at the time,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

cause he's 10 consecutive licenses.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, I mean, I would have said to death for sure, but I think at the time Kansas

Sonia Meza-Leon:

didn't have the death penalty in place.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

There are also some people who say that he murdered other people and he didn't tell

Sonia Meza-Leon:

the police about those people, because that would have put him around the time

Sonia Meza-Leon:

where Kansas did have the death penalty and he didn't want to disclose that.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So all kinds of crazy.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So, sorry, back to the here's this dad on the ground bag on his head suffocating.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He passes out Dennis Rader, think this is a member.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

This is his first time that sort of enacting this on humans.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And so Dennis Rader thinks he's died.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So moving on, the fun is gone.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He moves on to the wife, Juliet or Tara.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Now again when remember

Brittney Sherman:

actually no, no, no, it was, it was reversed.

Brittney Sherman:

He actually, he actually killed or thought he killed Julie

Brittney Sherman:

first, before he attacked Joseph.

Brittney Sherman:

And it was

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Julie.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Well, both of them did multiple times.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I think they came to over and over again because he just didn't

Sonia Meza-Leon:

know how much he had to, like, you know, just strangle them.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, it was, I think, more than four, um, it sounded like, and I don't know who

Sonia Meza-Leon:

could attest to that except Dennis Rader.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So, I mean, he's, he's telling his own story, but he struggled with it and he

Sonia Meza-Leon:

was, he admitted that his, he went back and forth between them multiple times.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And he, and then I think what, and one time Joseph doTERRA came back to, he had

Sonia Meza-Leon:

bitten a hole through the plastic bag.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So Dennis, Dennis Rader took off the plastic bag, put on a t-shirt and then

Sonia Meza-Leon:

put the plastic bag on top of that.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So he couldn't bite through it.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So they went back and forth with this quite a number of times,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

which must've been horrific again.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

It's awful horrible.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Horrible.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So again, so those have been Julie either dead or unconscious, but pretty

Sonia Meza-Leon:

sure dead, um, hard to tell because I think they were there, you know,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I don't know how long they were in the house before someone found them.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Probably not that long because the kid who found them was, um, I did 10th grade.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So he would've been staying there.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Certainly.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, again, these Joseph and Julia, um, you know, suffocated, strangled,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Now that we have those two folks, either dead or incapacitated.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He turns to the Joseph Jr.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Who is nine years old.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He takes Joseph the nine-year-old into another bedroom.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He ties him.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Or if he's not already tied, he, it appears that they think he laid

Sonia Meza-Leon:

this young man, this little boy.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, and this little boy was conscious and I don't know if it was mouth was

Sonia Meza-Leon:

gagged or not, but he's eyes were open.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He was aware Dennis Rader could see the terror in his face.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And I just can't find them how you would do that to a child, not only to dentistry.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Do that to a child, but he had got off on watching the blast

Sonia Meza-Leon:

breath come out of Joseph.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And he, the, like I said, the police have some thought that cause there

Sonia Meza-Leon:

are there, I guess chair marks in the carpet that he pretty much put the chair

Sonia Meza-Leon:

on over Joseph or around him or near him and just sat right there and look

Sonia Meza-Leon:

straight in his face while he died.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Oh, what's so awful.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yeah.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

But if you're trying to get, if that's what you get off on, that's what you

Sonia Meza-Leon:

want to see what I don't understand.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And it sounds to me like that most of these people had a

Sonia Meza-Leon:

t-shirt on over the plastic bag.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So that's a little conflicting because if you're, what are you seeing, if you can't

Sonia Meza-Leon:

see their face, when they're dying, you just waiting for them to stop breathing.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And then, you know, that's a little different than looking

Sonia Meza-Leon:

someone in the eyes as they die.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So my thought is.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I don't know.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I don't remember what Dennis Rader says, or if he's saying it accurately,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

but I'm not sure if he ever discloses, which he puts on first with Joseph.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He definitely said that he put the t-shirt on first because he didn't want

Sonia Meza-Leon:

them to buy through the plastic anymore.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

That's just, that's all he kept coming back to life.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Uh,

Brittney Sherman:

well, yeah, I mean, yeah, sure.

Brittney Sherman:

But while, well, I, I didn't hear anything about the t-shirts actually,

Brittney Sherman:

um, certainly about the, you know, the other stuff he discussed, but

Brittney Sherman:

I didn't know about the t-shirts.

Brittney Sherman:

So that's, that's brand new information that is

Sonia Meza-Leon:

more disturbing.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Oh, rebel.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, Brittany, do you want to tell us about, so again, we know that

Sonia Meza-Leon:

little Joe Little Joseph died.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Do you want to tell us about Josephine the last that's the only members.

Brittney Sherman:

Yeah.

Brittney Sherman:

So, so Josephine to me, as you said, the Otero family is probably for you.

Brittney Sherman:

The worst one for me, it's also the worst one.

Brittney Sherman:

And it Josephine in particular because I just found this absolutely disgusting.

Brittney Sherman:

So after Joseph, Julie and Joe Jr, have all been killed, he takes Josephine into

Brittney Sherman:

the basement with her arms and legs tied up behind her and hangs her from a pipe.

Brittney Sherman:

And she is strangled and dies hanging from a pipe while he.

Brittney Sherman:

Masturbating next to her watching her die.

Brittney Sherman:

And semen was actually found in the basement next to her

Brittney Sherman:

body at the crime scene.

Brittney Sherman:

Now we said he never raped anyone.

Brittney Sherman:

He never sexually assaulted anyone, but he left DNA, which at the time was not

Brittney Sherman:

known, but he left his mark and showed how severely, sexually driven he was.

Brittney Sherman:

And to an 11 year old girl, this is the part that would, this is the first one.

Brittney Sherman:

Well, I guess she's the fourth one, but the first crime for her spree.

Brittney Sherman:

And it's, it's the most horrendous to me because like you said, not

Brittney Sherman:

only is it killing children, it's getting sexual satisfaction out of

Brittney Sherman:

doing so this, this man, who's a stand up citizen member of the church.

Brittney Sherman:

Uh, at the time his wife was pregnant with his first daughter, Carrie.

Brittney Sherman:

And like, he was this amazing family man who just, it was, I, I

Brittney Sherman:

was so disgusted and the left is like I said, he left his evidence.

Brittney Sherman:

He didn't really clean up.

Brittney Sherman:

He, he, uh, uh, wanted it to be a disgusting scene that officers would

Brittney Sherman:

find that would make the press.

Brittney Sherman:

And, uh, it would be and unique a unique crime that he could take credit for.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yeah.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So this is, this is the beginning.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

This is the beginning of, you know, BTK.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, all right.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So moving on to our next murder slash victims, more than one.

Brittney Sherman:

I think before we move on to the next victim, we have to talk

Brittney Sherman:

about his first d'Elegance in reaching out for fame and taunting the police.

Brittney Sherman:

Because after the Hewitt, he was actually, I believe seen leaving the

Brittney Sherman:

house, but the person that saw him could not give an accurate description.

Brittney Sherman:

And since he didn't feel like he was giving, getting enough press,

Brittney Sherman:

he sent a letter to the television station, K a K E in Kansas, uh,

Brittney Sherman:

admitting that he was responsible.

Brittney Sherman:

And again, this guy not very intelligent, always had poor spelling and grammar.

Brittney Sherman:

He wrote that he wants to be known as BTK for bind, torture, kill,

Brittney Sherman:

except he didn't even spell it.

Brittney Sherman:

Right.

Brittney Sherman:

He grew up bind Totour you left out the R.

Brittney Sherman:

Kill.

Brittney Sherman:

So this guy was, I just thought it was, it was an early sign of what seemed

Brittney Sherman:

to be a lot of mix ups, mess ups of things that I feel like you almost

Brittney Sherman:

should have been caught sooner for.

Brittney Sherman:

And then that didn't give him enough press.

Brittney Sherman:

So he called a news editor at a newspaper and said, Hey, go to the library because

Brittney Sherman:

I left a letter in engineering book and he was hoping someone would find it.

Brittney Sherman:

And so this guy went and in the, uh, letter, he again, claims

Brittney Sherman:

responsibility for the murders.

Brittney Sherman:

And he said, you will know me as bind them, torture them, kill them.

Brittney Sherman:

B T K.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

But L well, let's go back a minute because he, that letter was left

Sonia Meza-Leon:

and, well, I don't know when it was left, but he called them and let them know that

Sonia Meza-Leon:

letter was available in October of 1974.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Right.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

But he actually had killed someone in April of 1974.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So he killed another person and damaged her brother before the letter.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And I think that's where he got frustrated was that there were

Sonia Meza-Leon:

two sets of, you know, crimes.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And that's where he's like, what do I got to do to get some attention around it?

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yeah.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Good point.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So that's where we start.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

That's where we talked about Kathryn Bright and her brother, Kevin Bright,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

who is a survivor of BTK and who has been on multiple interviews

Sonia Meza-Leon:

talking about what he went through.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He saw the guy, he saw Dennis Rader.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He saw his sister die.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, he.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Came back to live multiple times and somehow ran out.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, but let's talk a little bit about what, what happened with

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Kathryn Bright in her home?

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Kathryn Bright was Burt murdered in 1974, April 4th, 1974.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

She was 21.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Her brother, Kevin was with her and he was 19, uh, essentially done.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And Ray, Dennis Rader broke into the house, um, from the front porch

Sonia Meza-Leon:

and he hid in the bedroom, which is what he would typically do.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And sometimes for quite a long time, um, she arrived home and Raider wasn't

Sonia Meza-Leon:

expecting her brother to be there too.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So of course he came rushing into the room, you know, gun

Sonia Meza-Leon:

out, um, the whole nine yards.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He told them the same shenanigans, right?

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He was at war criminal.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I just needed to get out of there.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He needed money.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He forced the two into the bedroom.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, they tied each other up essentially.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And then, um, He took Kevin into the other bedroom.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Now this poor guy is still alive.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Like, oh my God talking about this.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, they takes Kevin to the other room so that he can have his way with Catherine,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Kevin breaks out of the, the cord or the, whatever he was tied up with.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He runs in there to the other room to try and help assist her in Dennis Rader shoots

Sonia Meza-Leon:

him right in the face, which is crazy.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yeah.

Brittney Sherman:

It doesn't like to use guns, but again, he

Brittney Sherman:

was using it as intimidation.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Well, it wasn't intimidation.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He needed, he needed to get his brother away from the Kevin Bright away from,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

because that was in a way they were, I mean, he was going to be without man.

Brittney Sherman:

Totally.

Brittney Sherman:

But I think that, I don't think he had any intention of using the gun.

Brittney Sherman:

It was meant as intimidation, but he ha he was forced into a position.

Brittney Sherman:

She had to use it, but that's not how he got satisfaction out of.

Brittney Sherman:

Yeah,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

no, definitely.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He was only using it.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I mean, he didn't expect Kevin to be there.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, that's, what's crazy about it, you know, so he was thrown off by this.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, so of course he shoots Kevin in the head.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Kevin goes down, he thinks he's dead.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Apparently Kevin's not dead.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, Catherine, um, you know, also put up a really big fight

Sonia Meza-Leon:

and he ultimately strangled her.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, he, but it didn't work.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He, I don't know if it was because she was so young, but you know,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

he, he, he couldn't control her as much as he wanted to.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So he, um, ultimately ended up stabbing her to death, but her

Sonia Meza-Leon:

and her brother were very, very, very challenging for Dennis Rader.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I mean, it was, um, not an easy, um, you know, not an easy murder for sure.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yeah.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Maybe at, you know, in, remember Kevin Bright runs out, he escapes, he there's

Sonia Meza-Leon:

a lot of conversations with him.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yeah.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

There's tons of interviews.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I have a feeling that's why Dennis Dennis Rader stopped.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And then his next murder wouldn't occur until 1977, because he's probably scared

Sonia Meza-Leon:

that this guy who had seen him right in his face, like literally standing there

Sonia Meza-Leon:

with him, talking to him, you know, there's a guy out there who can, you

Sonia Meza-Leon:

know, who can essentially identify him.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I have a feeling that Dennis Rader stopped or waited because of that.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And then he got his courage up and he couldn't control his factor X and

Sonia Meza-Leon:

that's when he went back out again.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

But, um, yeah, Catherine, Catherine Bright, uh, put up a heck of a fight and

Sonia Meza-Leon:

ultimately that one didn't go as well.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

As I know, I think that Dennis Rader had expected.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I don't know if he masturbated.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

At that scene or not, but it sounds to me like it was quite a debacle in, you

Sonia Meza-Leon:

know, he was just trying to get out of there and to think that he would

Sonia Meza-Leon:

have someone out there running around who knew what he looked like, but when

Sonia Meza-Leon:

they asked the guy multiple times and he was shot in the face, by the way.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So the police really couldn't believe and they didn't know.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And, and Kevin couldn't really say either.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He was like, okay, 5, 8, 5, 9 white guy, you know, I mean,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

what looks like everybody else?

Sonia Meza-Leon:

You know, how do you, how do you pin that down?

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I mean, it was, it was tough.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So that, that one's a, that one's a tough one.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And I think it's really interesting to watch some of those, um, those

Sonia Meza-Leon:

interviews, Kevin Bryant was on Larry King live and he talked a bit

Sonia Meza-Leon:

about how that, how it went down.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And if I'm not mistaken with the exception of some of the children who witnessed

Sonia Meza-Leon:

the murder of their parents in the later murders, Kevin Brightspot any one of

Sonia Meza-Leon:

the only witnesses that's still alive.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So, uh, two more murders down a horrible.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So now, well,

Brittney Sherman:

or, sorry, sorry.

Brittney Sherman:

One more.

Brittney Sherman:

Yes.

Brittney Sherman:

Yeah.

Brittney Sherman:

So, so we're at five murders and then once

Sonia Meza-Leon:

survivor.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So moving on to 1977, this is when, for some reason in there, uh, Dennis

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Rader takes a break, not Brittany.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

You had said.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

You had said that his daughter, he, his wife was pregnant

Sonia Meza-Leon:

with his daughter was at 1974.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Exactly.

Brittney Sherman:

So after actually he found out that his wife was pregnant.

Brittney Sherman:

Um, I think she was so I know she was pregnant during the Otero murders.

Brittney Sherman:

I don't know if he knew she was pregnant during your Terra martyrs,

Brittney Sherman:

but he certainly found out at minimum after the Catherine Bright murder.

Brittney Sherman:

And he was so excited to be a father.

Brittney Sherman:

Like he, as I said before, like, I feel like he had this like empty, nervous

Brittney Sherman:

energy that drove him to commit crimes when he didn't have anything else to do.

Brittney Sherman:

But he was so excited to be a father.

Brittney Sherman:

He decided I got to turn my life around.

Brittney Sherman:

I got, gotta be a good dad.

Brittney Sherman:

And so he took like three years off, like you said, he so BTK.

Brittney Sherman:

He was so proud.

Brittney Sherman:

He left all of this evidence.

Brittney Sherman:

He claimed excitement for like, he, he claimed responsibility for it.

Brittney Sherman:

And one of the notarized.

Brittney Sherman:

But then he wouldn't dormant for three years because he was so

Brittney Sherman:

dedicated to be a doting father.

Brittney Sherman:

But ultimately that factor X crept back up and he couldn't suppress it anymore.

Brittney Sherman:

He even referred to it as a monster or his evil.

Brittney Sherman:

And so 1977 BTK strikes again against Shirley violin.

Brittney Sherman:

I think that's how you pronounce her name.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I'm not sure.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yep.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

That's right.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Shirley violin.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So

Brittney Sherman:

here's another instance of a young child.

Brittney Sherman:

Child's not a victim here, but he uses the child essentially to bait the mother.

Brittney Sherman:

He's trolling apart.

Brittney Sherman:

I

Sonia Meza-Leon:

think he's a victim.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

You don't think he's a victim?

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Well, I mean,

Brittney Sherman:

he's totally a victim, but he's not, he's he, wasn't

Brittney Sherman:

a victim of violence set the word.

Brittney Sherman:

I don't even know the word to say

Sonia Meza-Leon:

he's a surplus.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I want to survive.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Uh, yeah, he was held hostage.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I mean, he

Brittney Sherman:

was, he was held hostage.

Brittney Sherman:

So this, this little kid, you know, he's, he's playing at the park

Brittney Sherman:

and as we always say, and totally true stranger danger, uh, Mr.

Brittney Sherman:

Raider comes up to this kid and shows him a picture of his wife and kids

Brittney Sherman:

and says, do you recognize them?

Brittney Sherman:

Uh, and the kid is like, Nope, no I don't.

Brittney Sherman:

And I think what Raider was doing was trying to ultimately see this kid

Brittney Sherman:

and, uh, follow him to his mother.

Brittney Sherman:

Well, he never found the mother, so he just kept on kind of stalking

Brittney Sherman:

the kid and the kid goes home.

Brittney Sherman:

Raider takes his time.

Brittney Sherman:

He's, he's very good at stalking women because in the three years

Brittney Sherman:

that he kind of took his break, even though he wasn't violent, he.

Brittney Sherman:

I was following women and stalking them.

Brittney Sherman:

So he's watching this woman from the streets.

Brittney Sherman:

He's watching this kid, he decides he's going to take his chance.

Brittney Sherman:

So he goes and knocks on the door, the kid answers.

Brittney Sherman:

And then he's essentially like, Hey, you remember me?

Brittney Sherman:

I showed you those pictures.

Brittney Sherman:

Well, I'm actually a detective and I need to talk to your mom.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So, so you know, what's interesting about this kid.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

How old is this kid?

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Brittany?

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Six years old, I believe.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yep.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He's little.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He's a little boy.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He's a little kid.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

There were three, there were three kids in the house at the time

Sonia Meza-Leon:

that Shirley Vian was killed.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

It's so awful.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And the kid who, the kid, uh, they enter, I saw an interview with this kid, the

Sonia Meza-Leon:

six year old kid, who's now grown up.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He saw everything and he blamed himself as an adult.

Brittney Sherman:

I mean, he's six years old.

Brittney Sherman:

There's nothing he could have done.

Brittney Sherman:

He again, he had his gun that he brought for intimidation.

Brittney Sherman:

He forced the three kids into the bathroom and locked them in the bathroom.

Brittney Sherman:

Uh, Ben, while he attacked their mother, uh, he told her that he was going to

Brittney Sherman:

rape her, uh, and, but not kill her.

Brittney Sherman:

And so she again, seemed to be compliant.

Brittney Sherman:

Uh, they even smoked a cigarette together before he, she let him, well,

Brittney Sherman:

she believed was letting him rape her.

Brittney Sherman:

Uh, but of course he bound her.

Brittney Sherman:

He put a cord around her neck and strangled her and then

Brittney Sherman:

ejaculated into her panties.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So hold on a second.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So surely violin is sitting, I mean, who said that he, they

Sonia Meza-Leon:

smoked a cigarette together.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I believe he did.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yeah, obviously.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yeah.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Right, right.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I can't imagine that.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I'm like, what.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I mean, I guess

Brittney Sherman:

I, well, I know, but like, if, again, I mean, I think these,

Brittney Sherman:

I think these people unfortunately are thinking, okay, if I comply, I'll be okay.

Brittney Sherman:

And so this woman is thinking my kids are in the bathroom.

Brittney Sherman:

As long as they stay safe, I'll be compliant with this man,

Brittney Sherman:

but he's not going to kill me.

Brittney Sherman:

Of course we know that's not what happened.

Brittney Sherman:

I'm just trying to, I'm trying to get in the mind of the victim to

Brittney Sherman:

just think why they would come.

Brittney Sherman:

They would work in the way that they.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I probably thinking that, you know, doing whatever she

Sonia Meza-Leon:

could to make sure kids are safe, who were locked in a bathroom and

Sonia Meza-Leon:

something happens to her, then he's probably going to hurt them as well.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

The other thing is he doesn't have a mask on again.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So, you know, the likelihood of her letting him go, yeah, the

Sonia Meza-Leon:

likelihood of her letting you know him letting her go, it's pretty slim.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

But I guess she's not thinking in those terms, even though you've had.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Previous murders happen.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And, and I'm assuming people remember that those

Brittney Sherman:

were three years.

Brittney Sherman:

Those were three years ago now.

Brittney Sherman:

So you kind of think that if you're living in that time, it's a little bit forgotten.

Brittney Sherman:

You think that it's moved on it can't, it can't be the same

Sonia Meza-Leon:

thing, I guess.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I mean, I just, I don't know.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I would be on alert.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I mean, they're in Wichita, Kansas.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I mean, I, to, I apparently before this, there was very little crime

Sonia Meza-Leon:

or very little, um, you know, murder happening in which doc, Kansas.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So all of a sudden it amped up like for, you know, three years in the seventies,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I'm surprised, especially at the extent that which the kids were killed.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, but you know, cause at that point they were like, The it's not just

Sonia Meza-Leon:

women, it's kids, it's a free for all.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

It could be men as well, back to Shirley VN.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So she has a cigarette.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

They're doing whatever.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, you know, as you said, he ejaculated into some panties,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

but didn't officially rape her.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, and then the kids somehow, or another, there was an eight

Sonia Meza-Leon:

year old, a six year old.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And what a younger kid, I

Brittney Sherman:

think, I think the other child was younger.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

These kids smart.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Well, first off they could see out the door, the door wasn't all the way.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Shut the guy.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Demonstrator tied it shut so they could pull it a bit open and they did, and

Sonia Meza-Leon:

they watch their mother be killed.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, then of course I'm sure that terrified them.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So they broke the bathroom window out and they were able to escape.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So now we've got four people who could identify Dennis Rader.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

A couple of, of three of them are children, but still, you know, you've

Sonia Meza-Leon:

got, you've got people and they were able to interview these poor kids and, and

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I'm sure gave them a lot of counseling.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I mean, it must've been horrific because I think she was a single mother.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So I don't know where these kids went after she died, but you know,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

this, this turned her life around.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I don't

Brittney Sherman:

know.

Brittney Sherman:

I don't know if there's anything more traumatic that you could

Brittney Sherman:

ever experience in your life.

Brittney Sherman:

Of course, it's life around.

Brittney Sherman:

I mean, it's unreal.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, especially if this guy harbors the guilt

Sonia Meza-Leon:

for this, because that's

Brittney Sherman:

so tragic.

Brittney Sherman:

So later in 1977, again, he is, uh, he can't control his factor X anymore.

Brittney Sherman:

So he decides to move in on one of the many women that he was

Brittney Sherman:

stalking and he begins to have an obsession with Nancy Fox.

Brittney Sherman:

So like many times you see in scary home invasion movies that are terrifying,

Brittney Sherman:

the criminal cuts the phone line.

Brittney Sherman:

The beginning of the nut of nightmares for generations caused by horror movies.

Brittney Sherman:

He broke into her duplex and we did her there for a while

Brittney Sherman:

for her to get home from work.

Brittney Sherman:

He brought in his gun.

Brittney Sherman:

He told her, which is oddly, I think kind of true that he had a sexual dysfunction.

Brittney Sherman:

And the only way to fix it was to rape her.

Brittney Sherman:

Now that part is crazy.

Brittney Sherman:

Of course, that's ridiculous.

Brittney Sherman:

But if we jump back to when he served his time in the Vietnam war, he

Brittney Sherman:

actually hired a sex coach because he had, I dunno if it was true sexual

Brittney Sherman:

dysfunction, but he felt that he was terrible at sex and needed guidance.

Brittney Sherman:

I don't know if it's what we would consider like EDD today, or if it

Brittney Sherman:

was really just, he wasn't as good as he hoped he would be, but he

Brittney Sherman:

really believed that he needed help.

Brittney Sherman:

So I think he was actually kind of calling up back on his early

Brittney Sherman:

years as an excuse to attack.

Brittney Sherman:

And in his words, rape this moment, which of course he would never do.

Brittney Sherman:

They both changed clothes or took off their clothes, got into the bedroom

Brittney Sherman:

and he prayed for, uh, proceeded to bind and torture and string.

Brittney Sherman:

He even told her who she, who he was and confess to his previous murders to her.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And then like, not like it couldn't get any worse, but

Sonia Meza-Leon:

at this time let's recall that Dennis Rader was working for ADT alarm company.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I know isn't that crazy?

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Why not?

Sonia Meza-Leon:

You know, I mean, talk about having access and information that he would really find

Sonia Meza-Leon:

useful to be able to commit these crimes.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So on his way to work the next day, um, uh, unfortunately it was when they

Sonia Meza-Leon:

found Nancy, Joe, and they found her because he called them and told them that

Sonia Meza-Leon:

there was a murder at her address who she was and that he had murdered her.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He called, I mean, he called, I think he called the, um, he called the news.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Who did he call the newspaper?

Brittney Sherman:

He called the police.

Brittney Sherman:

He actually, he, no, I think he called

Sonia Meza-Leon:

the police.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Oh, he did.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He called the local police.

Brittney Sherman:

He called the police.

Brittney Sherman:

And again, Dennis, not the most smartest, most intelligent guy he

Brittney Sherman:

said, and I'm going to quote this.

Brittney Sherman:

Yes.

Brittney Sherman:

You will find a whole aside at 8 43 south Pershing Nancy Fox.

Brittney Sherman:

That is correct.

Brittney Sherman:

So he's trying to get caught.

Brittney Sherman:

The police know are on high alert.

Brittney Sherman:

He drops, the phone starts running away and I believe it was, it was

Brittney Sherman:

a, a fire fighter, a first responder that actually picked up the phone

Brittney Sherman:

and continue talking to the police and may have seen him running away.

Brittney Sherman:

So there's potentially another

Sonia Meza-Leon:

witness.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yeah.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

But like white guy, five, nine, you know, dark hair.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

It's.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He's so sloppy.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Well, I'm, you know, like I said, I'm really shocked that he didn't get caught

Sonia Meza-Leon:

so much earlier because he was sloppy.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And because he's like, uh, you know, I mean, how did no one ever

Sonia Meza-Leon:

notice this guy had a, no one ever be able to identify him?

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He was fairly well known.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I mean, he was the leader of a church.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He was a leader of the Cub Scouts.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I mean, he knew people, he was respected, um, or at least early on.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

We'll talk a little bit later when he's a compliance officer with, which is when

Sonia Meza-Leon:

he really starts taking things out on, on hid, the people he's working with.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I mean, it was kind of terrifying.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So right around this time, again, BTK is feeling like he's on

Sonia Meza-Leon:

top of the world because he has successfully murdered another person.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, apparently he must have forgotten about the guy that he left, uh, live

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Kevin Bright, because if he was going to say something or cause I'm sure

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Kevin Bright, you know, they interviewed and I'm sure that they publicized

Sonia Meza-Leon:

that he didn't have any information.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So that must have been a sigh of relief for Dennis Rader.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Right?

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So then at some point after he kills Nancy, Joe Fox Raider

Sonia Meza-Leon:

sends a sarcastic poem to the newspaper and he does sign it BTK.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

But for some reason, the news in it's a, it's a, it's a, uh, it's a

Sonia Meza-Leon:

poem about his murdering Shirley, um, which was one of his previous murders.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Right?

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I think it was the one before Nancy and he sends it to the, the newspaper.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Really even notice it, they send it to the classified section and then

Sonia Meza-Leon:

it doesn't have any money with it.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Cause I guess that was around December.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Right.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So I guess they're thinking, you know, early 78.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So probably before Valentine's eighth, they thought it was

Sonia Meza-Leon:

a Valentine's day thing.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So they were, they didn't, it didn't include any money, so they're not

Sonia Meza-Leon:

going to run the ad, but they had it another time where they had something

Sonia Meza-Leon:

and signed by BTK where they just, you know, um, you know, they had gotten

Sonia Meza-Leon:

multiple letters from him by now.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Somebody should have put this together.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I mean, it's all in Wichita, right?

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So it's not even a matter of it being a different jurisdiction.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

It's all the same.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I think the police struggled with trying to, um, even those went on for so long.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I don't know if they didn't have enough manpower or they weren't focused or they

Sonia Meza-Leon:

didn't have, I mean, they, they certainly didn't publicize the information.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

It sounds to me like they had a moment where, and maybe they didn't, but

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Raider, you know, is upset with them because he's not giving them enough.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And it leads them to believe in what he says to them is, you know, I'm going to

Sonia Meza-Leon:

do this again, and now he does it again.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And the police do blame themselves a bit for not stopping it because they

Sonia Meza-Leon:

think if they acknowledged him in the Shirley, um, the Shirley murder,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

then they wouldn't, he it's possible.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He wouldn't have murdered Nancy Fox surely, uh, via, I doubt that.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I think he still would've murdered Nancy Fox.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I honestly, I mean, we know that he progresses.

Brittney Sherman:

Yeah.

Brittney Sherman:

Yeah, definitely.

Brittney Sherman:

Uh, the w here's another area where I feel like he should have gotten caught, which

Brittney Sherman:

has no shame or blame here, but he, he wrote a poem called Shirley locks that he

Brittney Sherman:

sent to the paper and his wife actually read that poem and commented to a friend.

Brittney Sherman:

That person writes like Dennis, they have poor spelling and

Brittney Sherman:

grammar, just like he does.

Brittney Sherman:

So

Sonia Meza-Leon:

she had no suspicion, but

Brittney Sherman:

she recognized

Sonia Meza-Leon:

it.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Well, she caught him writing that letter and he told her that he was writing

Sonia Meza-Leon:

a free as criminal justice class.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And yeah, no, she, not only did she see it in the newspaper later, but

Sonia Meza-Leon:

she saw it in his hands when he was writing it, he continued to write it.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And then he went ahead and sent it and he talk and he told her that he

Sonia Meza-Leon:

was, it was, he was writing it for his criminal justice class about BTK.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So he told his wife there's a letter in his hand was written about BTK, which was.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

No, that was his wife again.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

There's no you in a million years.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I don't care if I was his wife.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I wouldn't have known either.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I wouldn't have thought about it.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I mean, they've also got his phone call.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

They've got this voice, they released this voice.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

They released that recording a bit later, but again, I don't know why they waited.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

They needed some, the police really needed some strategy here.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I don't think that they, um, they had a really clear strategy

Sonia Meza-Leon:

behind what they were trying to achieve other than solving it.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And I don't know if they just really, they thought about it and they really

Sonia Meza-Leon:

plotted as well as they probably should have to actually make this happen.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So, so again, Nancy, Jo Fox, 25 years old murder, December 8th, 1977 in Wichita.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And she was strangled as well.

Brittney Sherman:

Victim number

Sonia Meza-Leon:

eight.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yeah, we are number eight.

Brittney Sherman:

So, uh, from 1978, December of 78, through 1985, or until

Brittney Sherman:

1985, Dennis was able to quell his factor X and resumed his activities

Brittney Sherman:

in the community and in the church.

Brittney Sherman:

And his son was super into boy Scouts.

Brittney Sherman:

So he became a troop leader who was active in the community until he was

Brittney Sherman:

unable to keep that factor down and saw an opportunity being a troop leader with

Brittney Sherman:

his son on an outing of camping outing.

Brittney Sherman:

So victim number eight is Marine hedge, a widow and neighbor, uh,

Brittney Sherman:

from down the street of Dennis Rader.

Brittney Sherman:

So in this story on April 27th, he led his boy scout troop out on a camping

Brittney Sherman:

trip with a couple other chaperones and.

Brittney Sherman:

Said that he was going to go to bed early.

Brittney Sherman:

He took this opportunity while the kids were still up doing camping

Brittney Sherman:

stuff and drove his car to a bowling alley of all places had a beer then

Brittney Sherman:

pretended to be drunk and call the taxi to take him to Marines home.

Brittney Sherman:

When he got to her home, he did what his become his emo cutting her

Brittney Sherman:

phone line, snuck in through the back and waited for her to get home.

Brittney Sherman:

This is extremely similar.

Brittney Sherman:

Profiling and activity to Nancy Fox.

Brittney Sherman:

A man came home with her, which he wasn't expecting, but left Dennis came out of

Brittney Sherman:

the, uh, the, of hiding after the man left and choked 53 year old Marine to death.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Oh my God.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Uh let's I'm going to back up a little bit and talk about Marine because

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I had a couple of things that are really important to say about Marine.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, number one, she's older than her other victim, his other victims.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, but that's, he was aging too.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So that actually doesn't surprise me that much.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

She was 53 and most of his other victims were, uh, 40, uh, when it

Sonia Meza-Leon:

comes to women and things like that.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Well, I thought they

Brittney Sherman:

were like in their twenties.

Brittney Sherman:

Well, there were a variety of ages.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Actually you're right.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

No, no.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

They were in their thirties in there.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yeah.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

You're out 38, 28,

Brittney Sherman:

25.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yeah.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So yeah, you're

Brittney Sherman:

right.

Brittney Sherman:

You're totally right about, he was 40 now, so he was getting

Brittney Sherman:

older, so yeah, you're right.

Brittney Sherman:

I mean, he was like, he was actually almost like attacking

Brittney Sherman:

women similar in age to him.

Brittney Sherman:

And now he's 40, she's 53, but he he's aging.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yeah.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yeah.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Well, one of the reasons too is because he may have, I mean, his ability to

Sonia Meza-Leon:

control them, you know, as if they're younger, it may not be that easy anymore.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

What's interesting.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

A couple of other things that are interesting about Maureen first off his

Sonia Meza-Leon:

entire family, newer, she lived about six houses down, which is pretty ballsy.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

If you asked me, Dennis knew this woman, um, you know,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

she, I think she lived alone.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He, I cannot believe that he chose his neighbor six doors down to

Sonia Meza-Leon:

stock and then figure out this plan.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

It was right.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yeah.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And his daughter recalls when this woman died and nobody tied it to BTK at all.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Even though it seemed fairly obvious, right?

Sonia Meza-Leon:

At least maybe the daughter at the time didn't tie it.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

But you know, it, if somebody dies six doors down from me, I'm

Sonia Meza-Leon:

going to freaking remember it.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

It's going to be a thing.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And it's like, you're your friend, you know, their family friend or whatever.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um, all right.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So backing up to, to your point, Dennis re and that's why I wanted to say that

Sonia Meza-Leon:

was because what's important about that is that's why he had to figure

Sonia Meza-Leon:

out another way to get to her house.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Besides just walking down the street or taking a direct route, he needed an alibi.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So it was a Cub scout thing.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Then he had to come back into town, drop his car off at the bowling alley.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Like you said, it takes a cab pretends, like he's drunk.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Oh, let me get out right here.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So he has the cab dropper drop him off somewhere close to her

Sonia Meza-Leon:

house, but not in front of it.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So nobody would have been the wiser.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Right.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Also, I want to sort of lay the scene of it.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

This is a 53 year old woman, a woman that he knows a nice woman.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Apparently he stands there in hides for quite a long time and

Sonia Meza-Leon:

then waits for her to go to sleep.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And then the middle of the night, he turns on the bathroom

Sonia Meza-Leon:

light and the closet light.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Well, I'm sure she's pooping, you know, bricks by now.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Cause she's like, oh my God, there's somebody in my house.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He comes in and he lays down next to her in bed.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So freaking gross.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So yeah, same old bullshit that he always pulls.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Like you said, Brittany, you know, he strangled her, but

Sonia Meza-Leon:

this is a woman that he knew.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

This is what is perplexing to me.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Not only did he know her and not only did he murder her, but he defiled her.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He took her dead.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

To his church.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He, he had it set up at the church.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He had like black plastic and all this shit.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And so he was ready for her.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And so he took her there and he took this to this nice woman.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And go ahead.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He

Brittney Sherman:

was president of the church council.

Brittney Sherman:

So he had full access to the church whenever he wanted.

Brittney Sherman:

So this wasn't like a weird thing for him to go into it.

Brittney Sherman:

I mean, it might be weird to go in the middle of the night regardless, but it's

Brittney Sherman:

not like he was this guy breaking in and that had w that shouldn't have access.

Brittney Sherman:

It was okay.

Brittney Sherman:

That he was there when he was there.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Well, yeah, but he still brought a woman in and then back out.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yeah, terrifying.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So he brings poor Marine and he's got this planned ahead of time that he

Sonia Meza-Leon:

is going to take photographs of her.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And he ties her up in a variety of bondage, you know, I guess positions.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And he takes photographs of her.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And then when he's done, he takes her body and he dumps her in a remote location.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I don't think they find her for like nine days, this poor woman.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I mean, just so, so terrible.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

What's

Brittney Sherman:

of so weird about this to me is he's almost treating her with

Brittney Sherman:

reverence and taking these pictures and then he just decides to dispose of her.

Brittney Sherman:

Like it it's like kind of polar opposites, the way that he treats her.

Brittney Sherman:

I don't really, I mean, I don't understand what's going on in his head, but I just,

Brittney Sherman:

to me, this was, it was especially weird.

Brittney Sherman:

I think this was the weirdest strangest one for me, because it was just a bunch

Brittney Sherman:

of activities that don't seem to have.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yeah.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Well, remember this was when he had come back from his hiatus too.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So of course he may have been a little off his game.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

He maybe was teed up, like he says, you know, with factor X.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Oh.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

By the way, he, um, I'm pretty sure that he nicknamed his penis.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Um,

Brittney Sherman:

yeah.

Brittney Sherman:

That's okay.

Brittney Sherman:

I don't know.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yeah, no, it's important though.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Oh, my phone died.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

You have to look it up on your computer.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I can look it up right now.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So, um, S S B T or something is what it is.

Brittney Sherman:

Okay.

Brittney Sherman:

Well, uh, while I look that up on my computer and I should probably block my

Brittney Sherman:

search history for this, um, you know, what's on you, we're going so strong.

Brittney Sherman:

I think this needs to be a two-parter.

Brittney Sherman:

So, um, I think we should wrap this up right now.

Brittney Sherman:

We actually have gone over an hour, but, um, we will come back

Brittney Sherman:

and talk about his last killings.

Brittney Sherman:

And then of course, how he ultimately got himself caught, which was

Brittney Sherman:

another horrible act of hubris.

Brittney Sherman:

Anything else you want to add?

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Well, I think you guys can look forward to the second

Sonia Meza-Leon:

episode where I'm going to have a lot of strong opinions about Dennis

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Rader and my feelings for him as a human being more than they've

Sonia Meza-Leon:

already had the victims through.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Yes, I, it will.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

It gets worse.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

It gets worse.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I can't, I can't even believe that it gets worse, but it gets worse

Sonia Meza-Leon:

because, and we'll, we'll talk about it in a minute, but we'll talk about

Sonia Meza-Leon:

the ninth victim and then we'll also talk about again, how he got caught.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

So stay tuned, scar lettuce.

Brittney Sherman:

All right.

Brittney Sherman:

Well, um, thanks for listening.

Brittney Sherman:

Stick around for the end to hear from some of our other favorite shows that

Brittney Sherman:

we like to give shout outs to you.

Brittney Sherman:

We always love supporting independent podcasters.

Brittney Sherman:

Uh, keep in mind, we are part of the pod all the time podcast

Brittney Sherman:

network, check them out on social media when you're checking us out.

Brittney Sherman:

All right.

Brittney Sherman:

We are the ladies of Scarlet.

Brittney Sherman:

Oh.

Brittney Sherman:

And, uh, Dennis Raiders nickname for his penis.

Brittney Sherman:

Keep killing it.

Brittney Sherman:

Nana Checko, a couple other podcasters that support us

Brittney Sherman:

and we want to give them some

Sonia Meza-Leon:

support.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Hey fellow Scarlet, true crime listeners.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I'm CC the host of a new true crime podcast.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Sooner state, true crime as a born and bred Oki I'll cover cases

Sonia Meza-Leon:

based in my wonderful home state of Oklahoma, the term sooner actually

Sonia Meza-Leon:

refers to tutors in the land run.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

My state's very first true crime.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

New episodes are released twice a month in apple podcasts and most

Sonia Meza-Leon:

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Sonia Meza-Leon:

So come away with me to my crime state on the Sooners state, true crime podcast,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

and please stay sooner, safe out there.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Y'all

Sonia Meza-Leon:

hi everyone.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I'm Ariel Cooksey, host of malice.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

When violent acts occur, we tend to think the predators are monsters.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Surely no human could do such things, but if we're honest, only

Sonia Meza-Leon:

humans commit malicious crime.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

And if you're like me, you want to know why to find out.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Join me at malice, wherever you listen to podcasts by,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Hey, y'all I'm Brandon Hall.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I'm one of those two musics that he now will want a podcast about the good,

Sonia Meza-Leon:

the bad and the dark side of nine 11.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Dispatching me and my co-hosts are 9 1 1 dispatchers with over 60 years of expanse.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Join us as we play 9 1, 1 calls and discuss them.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

Oh, did I mention that we get dark 9 1 1.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

What's your emergency?

Brittney Sherman:

How many people did you

Sonia Meza-Leon:

shoot?

Sonia Meza-Leon:

yeah, my husband and they stopped my daughter and laid me.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

you can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at music city nine 11, and we're

Sonia Meza-Leon:

downloadable on every podcast platform.

Brittney Sherman:

We want to give a shout out to the pod all the time

Brittney Sherman:

podcast network that we Scarlet TCP are proud members of other

Sonia Meza-Leon:

members of the pod, all the time podcast network, our creative

Sonia Meza-Leon:

intuitive, another digital citizen history of a haunting round and round the podcast.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

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Sonia Meza-Leon:

Surburban folk three peas in a podcast, Ross sex podcast.

Sonia Meza-Leon:

I think we're doing it podcasts.

Brittney Sherman:

So if you like what you're hearing from Scarlet TCP, check

Brittney Sherman:

out these other shows that members of the pod all the time podcast network.

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About the Podcast

Scarlet TCP
True Crime podcast featuring the unique perspective of a couple of ladies working in the entertainment industry with stories to share.
The Scarlet true crime podcast is a female driven true crime show presented from the unique perspective of life-long crime junkies working in the entertainment industry. In Scarlet, Sonia Meza-Leon and Brittney Sherman unravel stories and evidence from a variety of sources and put their own spin on what happened in a thoughtful, and entertaining presentation.

Special thanks to:
John McGrew for writing the intro and outro song.
Juan Meza-Leon for logo design.
Renevee Romero-Villegas for additional artwork design.

Part of the Pod All The Time Podcast Network.
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About your hosts

Brittney Sherman

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A murderino since early in life, Brittney grew up in Wisconsin and her fascination with true crime started from her parents. Her dad’s favorite show was Unsolved Mysteries and he loved reading about true crime, and her mom’s favorites were 20/20 and Dateline. Originally freaked out, Brittney grew into the fascination over the years, and particularly the psychology of the criminals behind the crimes. 



Now, a veteran of the entertainment industry, Brittney has worked behind the scenes on Emmy winning shows and #1 movies. Driven by her passion for entertainment, and the ability to provide content as escapism, whether they are on their commute to work, grieving and seeking solace, or blocking out pain in a hospital bed, Brittney strives for excellence and the ability to entertain at the highest level.

Sonia Meza-Leon

Profile picture for Sonia Meza-Leon