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Home / World

Book reveals Kansas serial killer's plans for 11th victim

By Megan Palin
news.com.au·
19 Aug, 2016 09:10 PM3 mins to read

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Dennis Rader. Photo / Getty Images

Dennis Rader. Photo / Getty Images

He called himself BTK for "bind, torture and kill".

But serial killer Dennis Rader is still carrying out "acts of horror" from behind bars, according to investigators.

A disturbing insight into the mind of the sadistic killer, who is currently serving a life sentence for each of his victims, has been revealed in a new book, 'Confession of a Serial Killer: The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer'.

The book's author Katherine Ramsland said lust and a desire for fame and power drove Rader to brutally murder 10 people in Wichita, US from 1974 to 1991.

Rader was a married father who worked as a city by-laws supervisor - a job which gave him access to other people's yards and homes.

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During his murder spree, Rader sent anonymous notes to police and local media in which he called himself the "BTK Killer".

Ramsland, a professor of forensic psychology worked with Rader on the book under an agreement that proceeds from its sale goes to the victims' families trust fund.

Rader wrote three and a half pages of the book about his plans for his last kill.

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He said he planned to kill an 11th woman by hanging her upside down in her Wichita, Kansas, home.

"This was supposed to be my opus, my grand finale, and to make it different, I would set the house on fire using propane canisters," he wrote.

He said he got into the woman's backyard and knocked on her door, but aborted his plan when a city street crew showed up unexpectedly to work outside the house. He planned to kill her the following spring, but was arrested in February 2005.

Rader's daughter, Kerri Rawson, said that her father co-operated on the book because he's proud of his murders. She said the book feeds his ego and his narcissism, and disputed some of the accounts of his family life in the book.

"He's a psychopath," she said. "You can't take anything he says as truth."

Eight of 10 victims of serial killer Dennis Rader, AKA 'BTK'. Clockwise from top left: Joseph Otero, Julie Otero, Kathryn Bright, Shirley Vian, Dolores Davis, Vicki Wegerle, Marine Hedge and Nancy Fox. Photo / AP
Eight of 10 victims of serial killer Dennis Rader, AKA 'BTK'. Clockwise from top left: Joseph Otero, Julie Otero, Kathryn Bright, Shirley Vian, Dolores Davis, Vicki Wegerle, Marine Hedge and Nancy Fox. Photo / AP

Wichita police detectives who captured Rader in 2005 told the Wichita Eagle they are incensed with the pride he exhibits as he goes into detail about the tortures he planned to inflict on the 11th victim.

He was arrested before he was able to carry out the murder.

"For him to reveal this information now is cruel," former BTK task force investigator, Tim Relph said.

Relph and fellow task force investigator Kelly Otis said the book allows Rader to carry out one more act of horror.

Otis said the problem with anything Rader says is that most of it is fantasy, although police found that a street crew did show up outside her house on October 22, 2004.

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Police said they suppressed most of the details of the planned murder for 11 years because they feared what the shock of a public revelation might do to the woman. But authorities did inform the woman after finding out that defence attorneys for Rader had hired investigators who might contact her.

"She's a pretty tough lady, but this shook her up quite a bit," Relph said.

It's a story police heard from Dennis Rader in 2005, but decided at the time to suppress to protect the woman.

The story was made public for the first time in the book, scheduled for release on September 6 this year.

Ramsland said the purpose of her book was to give criminologists, forensic psychologists and others some insights into a serial killer's mind by relating the stories he tells and how he tells them.

- Additional reporting: AAP

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