ALL NEWS REPORTS

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KSN has just reported from the AP that Rader has now confessed to 13 murders.

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Susan Peters is on Fox News right now, and she explained how they got Dennis Rader's DNA. First, when he sent that last package, with the floppy disk in it, the police tracked that to the church computer, and when they found that, they confiscated the church computer and did looking into everyone that used that computer and came up with Dennis.

The police then called the daughter and asked her for a DNA sample and she gave them one, and that DNA came back as a match for the murder scenes.

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[glow=red,2,300]Rader was being held in connection with a total of 10 deaths and the source said investigators were looking at three other killings.[/glow]
tinyurl.com/3nkfm

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[glow=red,2,300]Rader, 59, was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday via video[/glow]
tinyurl.com/63vay

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[glow=red,2,300]BTK's Family[/glow]
Dennis Rader's home is now a crime scene and it's a place family members say Paula Rader will never be able to call a home again. This is a terrible time for the Rader family, those who knew them say they're devastated.

"Paula was in a state of disbelief," said Christ Lutheran Pastor Michael Clark. "Paula is a very soft-spoken person to begin with. The tone in her voice indicated that she was definitely suffering."

People who know the Raders say Dennis's 29-year-old son is on suicide watch, unable to cope with what is unfolding.

Family members say there was never any inkling that Dennis was doing anything besides being a loving husband, devout Christian and hard-working compliance officer.

One of Dennis's brothers believes police have the wrong man.

"Dennis is innocent," he said.

He also admits that he's in denial about the past few day's events. He hadn't heard his brother was confessing and he says he has no idea how the family is going to be able to afford a good attorney.

The bottom line for this family is that they'll stand by Dennis through the entire ordeal.

www.kake.com/news/headlines/1315562.html

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[glow=red,2,300]BTK Arrest: ADT[/glow]
February 28 - It has been a long time since former ADT supervisor Michael Fitch thought about Dennis Rader. Then he saw Saturday's news conference.

Fitch met Rader while both worked for ADT security systems.

Fitch says, "His job was to install the alarm and my job at first was just to go out and find out why the alarm went off."

Fitch describes Rader as an odd character. At times Fitch says Rader would constantly argue with other employees. At other times he was a nice guy.

Thinking back, Fitch worries about all the sensitive information Rader was privy to, like how to cut phone lines. Fitch says Rader also had access to security badges.

Many of BTK's victims had their phone lines cut. And a letter sent to KAKE from BTK included photo copies of security badges.

Fitch says, "I do know working for a high profile security company like that he could do a lot of damage if unchecked."

Fitch says Rader was eventually fired from ADT for not meeting his quota. But he has thoughts like many people who knew the Park City man have wondered.

Fitch says, "I thought about the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde syndrome. How can someone be professional one minute and a killer the next?"

www.kake.com/news/headlines/1316577.html

[LadyBlue]

[glow=red,2,300]BTK Search Continues[/glow]
Feb 28-- Deputies with the Sedgwick County Sheriff's department spent Monday morning usng metal detectors to try and find evidence related to the btk case.
Sheriff Gary Steed told KAKE News the search pertains to information the task force has just received-but wouldn't give anymore details.

Dennis Rader lives off the road. And its the same road where authorities apprehended Rader after a car stop after several days of planning.

Rader is held in connection with ten murders.
But Sunday evening a wire report linked Rader to three additional homcides- it set off a chain of events, including the District Attorney immediately calling the report absolutely incorrect. Chief Norman Williams said right now Rader is linked to just the homicides for which he's being held

And Chief Williams warned the media to be careful about what they report. "These types of assumptions and speculations have and will continue to complicate an already complex investigation. In addition, inaccurate information does a disservice to the victims, their families and the community", said Chief Williams.

Sources tell KAKE News it was the slightest mistake that lead police to the man they say is Wichita's most notorious serial killer. Police traced a floppy disc sent to KSAS-TV to Christ Lutheran Church, where Rader is president of the congregation. Rader's name was on a list of people who had access to the computer.

Investigators started watching Rader immediately. The FBI obtained a DNA sample from Rader's daughter. Wher her DNA came back as a match police believed they had their man.

www.kake.com/news/headlines/1315507.html

[LadyBlue]

[glow=red,2,300]Looking For Other Killings[/glow]
Friday’s arrest has some Kansas police and sheriffs investigators giving their cold cases another look. They’re looking into whether BTK Suspect Dennis Rader could be linked to other killings outside of Sedgwick County. We’ve learned one murder in particular is looking suspicious.

On Feb. 11, 1977, Gail Sorenson disappeared, abducted from a Dillon’s Store in downtown Hutchinson.

“She was found two days later on the Arkansas River,” said Reno County Sheriff Randy Henderson.

Henderson says the case bears striking similarities to two Sedgwick County cold cases now definitively linked to BTK.

“One of the cases that Sheriff Steed discussed, one of the ladies had been kidnapped, found by a river,” Henderson said. “That enhanced my curiosity.”<br>
Henderson said he and his detectives kept a careful watch on news coming out of Wichita over the weekend and started looking at all of their old cases.

“We’ve got five total cold cases here in Reno County,” Henderson said. “Two in the city of Hutchinson and three in the county itself and this is the only one that appears to relate or has any kind of connection.”<br>
It’s a connection strong enough to make Reno County ask the Kansas Bureau of Investigation to take another look at DNA evidence taken from the decades-old crime.

Reno County may not be alone. Sheriff Byron Motter of Harvey County says his office has been in contact with Wichita police over their only outstanding cold case, that of 46-year-old Agnes Hayes, who was found strangled under a bridge near the town of Sedgwick in 2001. Motter says he hasn’t asked for a new DNA analysis, but he’s watching Wichita carefully, hoping new evidence may link Hayes’ murder to BTK as well.

www.kake.com/news/headlines/1317737.html

[LadyBlue]

Kansas City Reporting
[glow=red,2,300]BTK suspect has first court appearance
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BTK suspect Dennis L. Rader, 59, is scheduled to make his preliminary court appearance March 15, Judge Greg Waller announced in court this morning on 10 charges of first-degree murder, related to killings in Wichita and Park City.

Public Defender Steve Osburn, Deputy Public Defender Jama Mitchell and Assistant Public Defender Sarah McKinno, the top three lawyers in the public defenders office,were appointed Rader's lawyers.

McKinno said Rader's next court appearance will likely be rescheduled to allow for more preperation time.

Rader appeared in District Court on closed-circuit television from the Sedgwick County Jail -- standard practice for the initial court hearing for prisoners in custody there.

Standing next to Rader was defense attorney Richard Ney, who was temporarily assigned to him.

For more on this story, visit Kansas.com for updated information, and read Wednesday's Eagle.

www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/11022238.htm

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[glow=red,2,300]Brother stunned at arrest of sibling in BTK serial-killer case[/glow]
He can't believe his brother did it.

No one in the family can believe it. But if he did it, Jeff Rader said, "may God have mercy on his soul."

Jeff Rader came to the door Monday and said he never closely followed the news about the BTK killings. He never paid much attention.

He first knew something was up with the family Friday afternoon, when two Wichita, Kan., police detectives visited him at the plumbing business where he works.

They refused to tell him anything except that it was a criminal investigation. They took him to City Hall, he said. They put him in a room, and they and an FBI agent began asking questions.

"The first questions were, who's your mother, your brothers, your grandparents and so on," Jeff Rader said. "Then they asked: Does your brother have a fascination with trains?

"Not that I know of," Jeff Rader told them. "But I do. I used to play on trains at the train yard when I was a kid. I love trains."

The detectives sat there.

"And then one of them just couldn't hold back any longer," Rader said. "He said, `Your brother is BTK.'"

"I laughed at them," Jeff Rader said.

"I said, `NO WAY. You got the wrong guy.'"

"But they just shook their heads. And one of them said, `We're sure.'"

Jeff Rader told this story from the front porch of his mother's neat, well-kept, small home in Park City, Kan.

He'd stepped out, folded his big arms across his blue denim bib overall chest.

He told the newspaper people that they could not come in to see his mother, Dorthea.

"It's too hard on my mother," he said. "And you'll get the dogs to yapping. But I'll talk with you for a minute."

He spoke politely.

"I don't think my brother is BTK," he said. "But if he is - if that's the truth - then let the truth be the truth. And may God have mercy on his soul."

The family never saw any sign that his brother could be a killer, he said. He still loves his brother, and so does his mother.

"My mother still can't believe it," he said. "She's still very much in denial. And so am I. But maybe, with me, acceptance is starting to creep in."

Inside the house, he said, were other family members, and his mother, Dennis Rader's mother, 79.

She's frail, he said.

"She falls down once in a while. Doctors think she might have water on the brain."

After police announced Saturday that Dennis Rader is a suspect in the BTK serial killings, people started making prank phone calls to harass his mother, Jeff Rader said.

He rolled his eyes.

"There are a lot of sick people out there," he said. "The sort who want to kick someone when they're down. They need to know that my mother is human, too."

Police have denied requests from him and his mother to go see Dennis in jail, he said. No one in the family has talked to his brother since the arrest.

Jeff Rader is a plumber, 50, nine years younger. Unlike his balding older brother, he's got a full head of hair, brown and curly.

He wears a huge, walrus mustache touched with gray. He's got blue eyes, big shoulders, a big chest and a bit of a big belly pooching out the front end of his faded blue denim bibs.

He spoke politely, though he said he's grown tired of television broadcasts that have put out errors and false speculation about the family.

No one in the family turned Dennis in, for example, he said.

The four brothers (Dennis is the eldest) grew up with a loving mother and a tough but decent father, he said.

Their father, William Rader, was a former Marine, a God-fearing man, strict but not unreasonable. He died in 1996.

"All four boys became Boy Scouts," Jeff Rader said. "We were a normal family. The boys all liked to be outdoors, go for hikes. We loved to hunt and fish."

There was no trouble in the family, no abuse, he said.

He rolled his eyes.

The FBI agent asked him whether he or any of the boys had been sexually abused by their father, he said.

"I told them no," he said. "And that's the truth." The same agent asked whether he had ever been in trouble.

"I looked at him and asked how come he was asking me that, considering that he probably had already found out everything under the sun about me before he talked to me," Rader said. "He laughed, and said, well, yeah, we already did."

Twice, Jeff Rader opened the door to the house and spoke to people inside, asking them to stir a Mexican dish he'd put on the stove.

"I'm talking to you," he said to a reporter with a grin. "But I'm also doing all the cooking here."

With nine years between them, he did not spend a lot of time with his brother. And Dennis didn't want him around him at times when they were younger, he said.

"But that was common in that an older brother never wants a younger brother around to tell on him," Jeff Rader said.

He said his brother was a good kid.

"I wasn't," Jeff said.

"I was a hell-raiser. But Dennis wasn't."

They were not close in recent years. It was just a matter of living busy lives, he said.

The brothers gathered with their mother at Thanksgiving, at Christmas. They enjoyed each other's company when they got together.

Dennis and his wife, Paula, came to this house often to look after his mother, Jeff said. His brother often took the lead on that, driving their mother to the doctor when needed.

When the January ice storm knocked out power to tens of thousands of people, Jeff said, Dennis and his wife came over and stayed with his mother for a week, until power was restored to their house.

The family never had a clue, he repeated.

They grew up having fun, he said. "We had a loving mother, and a loving father."

He said both those parents tried to teach them to be religious.

And to know the difference between right and wrong.

www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/11017252.htm?1c

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[glow=red,2,300]ADT Fellow Worker Discribes Rader[/glow]
www.ksn.com/bin/video/7087794.html

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[glow=red,2,300]High School English Teacher Speaks Of Dennis Rader[/glow]
www.ksn.com/bin/video/7087797.html

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[glow=red,2,300]Slayings not only horrors left by BTK
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For years, the horror stirred by BTK greeted us each time we came home to an empty house at night. Each time we picked up the receiver to make sure the phone lines hadn't been cut. Each time news of a new communications drop entered our world.

If Dennis Rader is indeed BTK, many of us may now feel comfortable packing away these memories and fears.

But a new fear threatens to replace the one we've lived with the past 30 years.

Paranoia.

How terrifying that when this suspect emerged from our subconscious and stepped into the light, we saw our own reflection. Someone indistinguishable from most of us:

White. Male. Christian. Father. Husband. Brother. Neighbor. Republican. Suburbanite. Volunteer.

What's bound to follow is a creeping and pervasive feeling of "Who else is flying under my radar?" "How could we not know? Whom can I really trust these days?"

How do we begin trusting our gut again?

We'd better get to it.

Threads of trust tie our lives together every day.

From the day care provider we entrust our infants to every day, to the school bus drivers who take our kids to school to the teachers who spend 40 hours a week alone with them. To the pharmacist who handles our prescriptions, to the delivery, moving, repair and installation people we invite into our homes.

The change in how we perceive each other, how we size each other up, remains BTK's collateral crime -- the fraying of our collective sense of trust.

We simply can't function without trusting one another. We couldn't do something as simple as drive into an intersection unless we trusted other drivers not to enter at the same time and slam into us.

This question of trust reverberates in the piercing questions we'll field from our confused children.

What should we say when children ask, "Didn't he go to church? Wasn't he a Boy Scout leader? He couldn't be a bad person if he went to church and was a Boy Scout, could he?"

So what do we do now, as each new twist, each new wrinkle in this case pulls us toward a sense of general mistrust?

One of the more insightful comments I heard last weekend came from Attorney General Phill Kline.

A reporter asked Kline how Rader, if he is BTK, could have lived among us for so long without betraying a hint of who he was.

Kline responded that evil resides in hearts, not on faces.

And therein lies the answer: Don't let the effects of this evil wriggle into your heart.

Don't allow it to weaken our interdependency.

Don't let it substitute fear for good judgment.

Don't succumb to the paranoia that such evil spawns.

If Rader really is the man police have sought for decades, then apparently not even his wife and children hadany idea about this deadly alter ego.

So really, how could we know?

We couldn't. We never can. Going through life trying to peer into people's hearts won't work.

It's up to us, to our community, what we allow these crimes to steal from us beyond the lives lost and the broken lives left behind.

We have to figure out if we're going to allow these crimes to seal us up behind locked doors and windows or if we're going to work at learning to depend on each other again.

That is the very definition of trust. The foundation of civilization. What separates fear from hope.

What separates us from him.

[LadyBlue]

[glow=red,2,300]Jail Inmates Speak Of Rader[/glow]
tinyurl.com/5hljd

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[glow=red,2,300]Other Cold Cases Being Looked Into[/glow]
tinyurl.com/5hljd

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[glow=red,2,300]BTK Judge Calls Press 'Mad Dogs'[/glow]
Likening press coverage of the BTK serial killings to a "bunch of mad dogs after a piece of meat," the judge in the case said yesterday he spoke to attorneys about his displeasure with the coverage but stopped short of issuing a gag order.

However, Judge Gregory Waller's anger over press reports since the arrest of Dennis Rader has spawned two memos from Wichita and Park City officials warning all employees they could be jailed and fined if they discuss the case.

Sedgwick County sent out a less-threatening memo asking its employees not to talk. The district attorney's office sent an e-mail to press outlets listing family members of BTK victims who did not want to be contacted by reporters.

"I'd like to have this case tried in a court of law and not in the newspaper or television or on the radio," Judge Waller told The Associated Press. "That is where it should be tried."

Since Mr. Rader was charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder in connection with the slayings, local and national press have reported about a purported confession, DNA evidence, and a computer floppy disk that led police to the suspect's church in Park City.

"I think the news media has given up all professionalism," Judge Waller said.

Both the Wichita and Park City memos, sent last week, told employees that judges, having a responsibility to provide fair trials for defendants, have the authority to direct the filing of criminal charges against government officials and employees who disclose information regarding the investigation and prosecution of the case.

The memo to Wichita employees was from City Attorney Gary Rebenstorf, who did not return messages left for comment. The one sent to Park City employees was from Park City Mayor Emil Bergquist.

Mr. Rader lived in the Wichita suburb of Park City, where he worked as the city's compliance officer until his arrest.

Media lawyer Mike Merriam, who frequently represents Kansas newspapers and broadcasters, said it would be "kind of a stretch" to charge employees with a crime for talking to the press.

"I can't recall any case in the last 28 years I've been doing this in which employees were threatened with criminal prosecution. That is why I am at a loss what the crime will be," Mr. Merriam said. "I can understand why they wouldn't want them to talk about it, but I am not sure how it becomes a crime if they do."

[LadyBlue]

[glow=red,2,300]No legitimate reason to close affidavits
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Should police documents on the arrest of BTK suspect Dennis Rader be open to the public? "Absolutely," said Vern Miller, with conviction. The legendary Wichita attorney and former Kansas attorney general and Sedgwick County sheriff has seen a lot of cases.

And he sees no reason for police affidavits -- the official document stating reasons for an arrest -- to be kept secret from the public. "As long as it doesn't interfere with an ongoing investigation, it should be made public," he said.

He's right. Unfortunately, local officials have taken the opposite path, imposing an almost total blackout on official information about the BTK case.

They've even gone so extreme as to threaten city employees with jail time if they reveal anything about the case.

It's heavy-handed and even funny, considering that Police Chief Norman Williams was one of the first to say more than prosecutors wanted with his "BTK is arrested" statement.

Opponents of public disclosure maintain that police information must remain sealed to protect the prosecution's case and avoid a change of venue.

Such fears are vastly overblown. To our knowledge, there has never been a change of venue in a criminal case in Sedgwick County history -- not even after the intense publicity surrounding the Carr brothers case.

Moreover, the risk of damaging a prosecution's case by opening affidavits is next to nil.

In fact, neighboring states such as Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas have open records laws that ensure public access to probable-cause affidavits.

They've had no problems.

"We don't see any downside to it," Tom Kelley, spokesman for the Texas attorney general's office, told The Eagle last week. He pointed out that through disclosure, the public and the media "can get a sense of what the case is. That's vital information, and it is open."

Think of Roger Valadez, who in December was wrongly identified as a BTK suspect, arrested at his Wichita home and involuntarily swabbed by police for DNA.

Shouldn't he have the right to know why police targeted him?

Openness is also a check on judges -- are they being sensitive to the rights of suspects, or merely rubber-stamping cases?

Still, the state Legislature doesn't seem inclined to change the law, which currently keeps affidavits closed unless there is a written court order opening them. State Rep. Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita, says the public is on a "need to know" basis with police information.

"I don't want to allow a criminal to walk because of an error in the case," she said.

But if the police have made an error, said Mr. Miller, "it's going to come out, sooner or later."

They either have a good case or they don't.

The public has a "need to know" basic information about why a person was arrested. By releasing details about the arrest, police could actually lessen the chance of a change of venue, by dampening intense public speculation and rumor, which feeds on the absence of information.

The Legislature should put aside unreasonable fears and amend the open records law to open police affidavits.

Criminals wouldn't walk, and citizens would better understand how their taxpayer dollars are being spent.

[LadyBlue]

[glow=red,2,300]BTK judge should apologize[/glow]
State District Judge Gregory Waller had reason to be angry.
The news media in Wichita went wild with the BTK story. Dennis Rader, the accused serial killer, is guilty as heck in the mind of the public.

The case should be tried in court, not the press, as Waller said.

But memos from the Wichita city attorney and the Park City mayor threatening criminal action to city employees for talking to reporters went too far.

As media lawyer Mike Merriam asked, what would the crime be? Can it be a crime for a garbage collector to respond to a reporter’s question about BTK?

The frenzy in the news media, locally and nationally, does not make Rader guilty. Neither does his reported confession.

He can only be found guilty by a jury of his peers or by a judge, should he, Rader, so plead. In our system of criminal justice, even he is presumed innocent.

Judge Waller was right to complain. After the Wichita police chief said the BTK killer had been arrested, all heck broke loose in the news media.

No doubt, the judge thought a strong statement was needed to quell that frenzy. Rader’s rights were being trampled. Local officials had little choice but to follow the judge’s lead.

Somewhere along the way, however, the rights of hundreds of Wichitans and Park City citizens to speak their minds were overlooked. They deserve an apology from the bench.

[LadyBlue]

[glow=red,2,300]Contradictions abound in descriptions of the BTK suspect[/glow]
Dennis Rader is at least two strangely separate people. Maybe three. He's a Mr. Good Guy. Most of the people who knew him from boyhood, and Boy Scouts and Christ Lutheran Church knew him as a diligent and considerate friend.

He's also a Mr. Bad Guy.

As the Park City compliance officer, he harassed people frequently, some say.

He might also be something else, if police are right -- if he is the BTK serial strangler.

A trial or guilty plea will tell us that someday.

For now, the story of Mr. Good and Mr. Bad is strange enough.

When you talk to the many people who knew Rader, you learn that he paid attention to detail and appreciated neatness, from his desk to his neatly pressed slacks.

And that he carefully created both these personas, Mr. Good and Mr. Bad, and kept them neatly apart.

Many people who knew Mr. Good Guy never met Mr. Bad Guy. Ever.

Some of his many friends knew him well, or thought they did. And they swear by him.

They are not stupid people. They are good parents, perceptive adults who trusted Rader to guide their sons in Scouts, come into their houses, meet their wives, help neighbors.

Five days before Rader's arrest, a seriously ill Deana Harris sent her 11-year-old daughter racing across the street to Rader's house to call an ambulance.

Harris trusted Mr. Good Guy with her life, and her child.

But those who knew Mr. Bad Guy?

The control freak? Barney Fife gone bat crazy? The Park City compliance officer in the neatly pressed uniform, issuing threats, measuring blades of grass, spying on people?

The people who met that guy almost never saw Mr. Good.

"He killed my dog," Jan Elliott said last week, in a voice filled with wonder. "He went out of his way to kill my dog."

Mr. Bad, by all accounts, was a cruel, arrogant, anal-retentive, power-tripping, rule-quoting son of a gun. A cartoon Sheriff of Nottingham gone way over the top.

Mr. Bad used power to control, to harass, to make Park City people feel miserable.

And then, at night, he would take off that uniform and slip seemingly into another's skin.

He nurtured friendships, handed out church bulletins, taught Cub Scouts how to tie knots. George Martin from the Boy Scouts cried last week when he told how much Dennis Rader loved his own son.

A strange man.

But the strangest thing is the realization that so much of him is so commonly human.

It may seem a stretch to say that there's a little Dennis Rader in all of us.

But we all subdivide our lives.

And we all lie.

Teenagers fib to their parents about the Friday night party.

Parents hug those same children on Saturday morning, sniffing for the scent of alcohol or smoke in the kid's hair.

Some of us subdivide our loves from our hates, our nights from our days. We put on masks and take them off.

Sometimes the only person fooled is the fool staring at the fool in the bathroom mirror.

That's the stuff of daily life.

But Dennis Rader? There was something more going on.

For years we wondered: Who is BTK?

Now we've met another mystery.

Who is Dennis Rader?

Mr. Good Guy

Rader was the best man at John Davis' wedding on Aug. 6, 1966.

Davis chose him because their friendship went back to when they were 4 ½ or 5 years old.

Their dads worked at the same power plant. Then Davis' family moved to a home 2 ½ blocks from Rader's.

The two boys rode bikes all over north Wichita, played along the river and joined the same Boy Scout troop.

They both graduated from Heights High.

In high school, Rader didn't go out for sports or join clubs. He started working at the grocery store to save money for a car and for spending, Davis said. Rader worked as a bag boy and then stocked shelves.

Rader was adventurous and dependable, and the two boys enjoyed camping in the snow.

"He spent as much time at my house as I did at his," Davis said. "He was an all-American boy."

Davis and Rader took a 50-mile backpacking trip with their troop to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico one year. They were told to pack no more than 45 pounds, but Rader took a pack weighing 65 to 70 pounds. He believed in being prepared. He carried it all the way.

Davis also says Rader saved a life.

It happened on a 50-mile Scout canoe trip down the Arkansas River. Davis was 14 and Rader was 15.

Heavy rainstorms hit. By the third day, the river ran 9 feet above normal.

They heard a roar up ahead. When they got closer, they discovered the roar was the sound of the water pouring over a dam.

All of the canoes except one quickly paddled to shore.

"The boy in Dennis' canoe was probably the lightest of the bunch," Davis said. There was a lot of cargo in the canoe. Rader turned the boat upstream and paddled furiously, but could not move against the current for 10 minutes, Davis said.

But Rader would not give up. He slowly fought his way to shore.

Right after Rader's boat reached land, a log much bigger than a canoe floated down the river and rolled over the dam, shattering.

"I truly believe that not only did Dennis save himself that morning, but he saved another boy's life," Davis said. "That's the Dennis I know."

[LadyBlue]

[glow=red,2,300]Mr. Good Guy[/glow]
Margaret (Roberts) McDowell remembers Rader playing Joseph in the third-grade Christmas play at Riverview Grade School.

"It was just so sweet," she said.

They have known each other since first grade. They were part of a tight-knit group of 10 to 12 kids who walked home from school together and explored the banks of the Little Arkansas River.

"Dennis was one of the quieter ones," McDowell said. She liked him. "I never dated him, but I could have thought of it."

She valued his friendship. "He would be someone I could count on," she said. "He would keep a confidence. (And) he did well in school, and I admired that."

She thinks of him like a brother.

She cried after his arrest.

• • •

Larry Jesseph and Ray Reiss liked that kid from school, too.

"He was really, really good-looking," Reiss said. "I wasn't. But he was really handsome."

They recall a helpful friend who dressed nicer than most.

He didn't play sports, join clubs, go dancing, play music or tinker with cars. He did not lose himself in books. He never bullied others or got into trouble.

"He just kind of hung back in the background," Jesseph said.

He utterly lacked humor. Both men remember that -- and that it wasn't a bad thing.

"He was just very intense," Reiss said. "Not unpleasant; just very studious. There was a lot going through his mind."

"He would sometimes have one of those stares that tells you his mind was about a thousand miles away," Jesseph said. "I can't remember ever seeing him crack a smile. But that was just that he wasn't interested in humor."

Jesseph and Reiss moved away from Park City after high school, then moved back and got to know Rader again.

He was still the same likable guy, they said. Reiss showed up one day at City Hall not long ago to introduce his wife to Rader, because Jane had grown up with Rader's wife, Paula.

Jane shook Rader's hand.

Rader sometimes gave citations to Jesseph, telling him to clean up his property. He gave the citations in a friendly way. Sometimes Rader would pull up in his truck to shoot the breeze.

"I could tell," Jesseph said, "he loved his authority, and he wanted you to know it."

• • •

Terry Wiechman went to Zion Lutheran with Rader in their youth.

The church, which used to be on 25th and Estelle, disbanded decades ago, he said. Wiechman, who is a vicar at Trinity Lutheran, remembers Rader as a well-liked young man, active in Sunday school and the youth group.

Wiechman said his sister's memory of Rader was about how handsome he was.

The two boys were confirmed together in the eighth grade. The church part of Rader's story bothers Wiechman now.

People will talk, he said, about what being a churchgoing man means.

"People say they don't go to church because of hypocrites. I can see people drawing a conclusion like that.

"I just take great comfort in the fact that my God is big enough to forgive anything much bigger than I am. That's why he's God."

• • •

The voice on the other end of the line sounded alert, friendly, and inviting.

Yes, Dennis Rader said.

He would be interested in becoming president of the church congregation.

Monty Davis felt good about this.

Davis was an assistant photo editor at The Wichita Eagle and a member of Christ Lutheran Church.

He enjoyed the fellowship at the church. He could let go a bit, be vulnerable and revealing to people in a spiritual way you can't show outside church walls.

He could do this because he trusted people like Rader, who worked hard to support others.

Dennis showed up with his wife every Sunday.

He dressed impeccably, often in a good-looking tweed jacket, a necktie, a buttoned-down shirt, neatly pressed slacks.

He had a wife everyone loved, a kind woman who spoke lovingly to Davis' wife and children. Paula Rader asked perceptive questions that a good mother would ask.

Dennis passed out church bulletins, ran the sound board, welcomed new members with conversation and offers of advice and help. A worker bee.

Davis felt grateful that he had a church like this to go to.

So Davis pitched in, too. He served on the committee to pick a new congregation leader. And, of course, Rader's name came up.

Davis called him.

Yes, Rader said.

He would take on the work of being vice president for a year, and then president of the church congregation.

A lot of work.

But Rader had a reputation: When asked for help, he said yes.

• • •

Paul Carlstedt of Bel Aire turned the congregation presidency over to Rader in January.

At Christ Lutheran, the president sets the agenda and leads monthly council meetings attended by the leaders of church committees.

Carlstedt and his wife didn't socialize with the Raders outside church. But they got together at church outings -- bowling, playing softball or attending Wichita Wranglers baseball games.

Rader appeared to live a wholesome life.

Family. Scouting.

"Kansas State football," Carlstedt said. "He and Paula had season tickets, and they would go to Manhattan to football games."

He never saw Rader be rude, arrogant or pushy.

• • •

Gary Van Dusen talked to Rader night after night for years.

About the weather.

Or Park City happenings.

"He was the nicest guy in the world."

Neighbors.

They talked three or four nights a week, out in the yard. He liked Rader.

One night Van Dusen told Rader that he moved to Park City to get away from Wichita crime.

"Yeah," Rader said. "It's bad out there."

• • •

Deana Harris needed an ambulance, fast.

Diabetic complications.

Her husband had gone to work.

No phone in the house.

She sent her 11-year-old daughter running out the door.

Call 911, she told her.

The girl ran across the street, banged on the neighbor's door.

Dennis Rader answered.

At 11, this girl was the same age as the girl that BTK hung from the basement ceiling in the Otero home in 1974.

Rader took this girl right to his phone.

It was 6 a.m. on a Sunday. Rader was cooking breakfast. He and Paula were getting ready for church.

The girl called 911.

Then she went to the door, to run back to her mother.

Rader called out to her.

"I hope your mommy will be OK."

Mr. Bad Guy

Shortly after he moved to Park City in 1993, Jan Elliott bought a young bird dog and began to train her to fetch.

He named her Jessie.

"Friendliest thing you ever saw," Elliott said. "Wouldn't hurt or bother anybody."

Jessie had one fault.

When it stormed, Jessie would freak out and climb her 10-foot chain link fence. Or slip the leash.

Rader caught her three times.

"He was the most arrogant man I ever met," Elliott said. "Way more than he needed to be. He talked down to me like I was a lower form of life."

After that third capture, Rader told Elliott there would be a $250 fine.

"I don't have that kind of money," Elliott says he told him.

"Then I'll put your dog down," Rader told him.

And he did.

Elliott said he moved out of Park City because of how Rader treated him.

But one thing puzzled him.

His mother, Thelma Elliott, lives in Park City, too. She lived across the street from a wonderful girl, Paula Dietz, who married Dennis Rader.

Because of that friendship, Thelma Elliott got to know Dennis Rader.

"And she likes him a lot," Jan Elliott said. "She thinks he's just the nicest person.

"But I never met that person."

[LadyBlue]

The phone call came to Patrick Walters' law office around 11 a.m. Aug. 3, 1998. It was a Park City resident who lived near his mother.

"The neighbor told me they saw a guy in the back yard shooting at the dog," Walters recalled. "I guess it was one of those tranquilizer rifles."

When he got to his mother's house, he found Rader inside her fenced-in yard. Rader later said he was investigating a report that Barbara Walters' dog was running loose.

"I told him who I was, and I asked him to get off the property," Walters said. "He wouldn't do it.

"I just repeatedly asked him to leave and he wouldn't. He was questioning my authority.

"The Park City police chief happened to pull up, and got us both to calm down. He got Mr. Rader to back off. The whole thing lasted maybe 10 or 15 minutes.

"It was a matter of who's going to be in control of the situation."

When it was over, the dog was gone. Escaped.

The neighbor told Walters that Rader opened the gate.

Three days later, Rader delivered a citation to Barbara Walters, saying she had allowed Shadow to run loose.

She received several tickets from Rader over the years.

"He used to drive by a lot -- several times a day. He would drive very slowly," she said.

As for the ticket: "I was prepared to fight to the bitter end. I'm quite sure he was going to dispose of Shadow."

Wichita lawyer Danny Saville, who works in the same law firm, agreed to represent Walters in Park City Municipal Court, in what is believed to be the only Rader dog case to go to trial.

By the time they got to court, Saville said, Rader had supplied a half-inch-thick stack of papers supporting his case.

He had audio tapes.

He had videotapes.

He had annotated, cross-referenced notes.

"They continued it twice because he was preparing his case -- for a $25 ticket. It's just amazing. This is something he took very personally."

The judge found Barbara Walters guilty.

She appealed, then settled with the city before the case reached district court.

She got to keep Shadow until he died of old age. But she had to pay a fine.

"It was a sweet little dog," Walters said. "That dog never hurt anyone. But he despised Dennis."

• • •

Like Jan Elliott, Misty King says she left Park City because Rader harassed her repeatedly.

He would park outside her house on Longmont and sit there, watching, she said. He did it at least 20 times in one six-month stretch.

She would glance up and see him peeking through her kitchen window or the window in the living room.

He would hand her one citation after another for code violations.

"He always found something new."

She thought he was a small-town official trying to be important.

It hadn't always been like that.

She first met Rader in 1998, the night she came home from the hospital after her husband was critically injured in a Toughman fight.

Rader asked her if he could do anything to help.

"He was just super nice," she said.

Rader continued to check on their well-being, even after her husband returned home.

When the marriage ended, Rader continued to stop by, offering to "keep an eye on things."

Then a boyfriend moved in.

Rader's demeanor changed, King said.

She began getting citations. He claimed the grass next to her fence was higher than the grass in her lawn. He issued a citation because her boyfriend was refurbishing a car in the driveway, even though her former father-in-law had done the same thing in the same spot for years without a citation.

Documents show King went to court over six citations between 1999 and 2001. She called several times to complain to police about Rader's behavior.

"They'd say, 'He's just doing his job,' " she said.

More than once, she said, Rader told her all her problems would go away if she got rid of her boyfriend.

In fall 2001, she came home to find a note on her door from Rader stating that her dog, a St. Bernard-chow mix, had gotten out of her fenced yard. Rader had taken it to the pound.

When she went to get the dog, she was told she had to meet with Rader first. She went to see him but was told he wasn't available. By the time they met the following Monday, the dog had been euthanized.

She moved to Wichita in 2001.

Rader's arrest prompted King's friends to speculate that she was being stalked. He'd studied her routine and her house. The dog had been killed. The boyfriend was being pressured to leave.

It's a possibility King never considered until Rader the day was arrested.

She never got to sleep that night.

"I kept thinking, 'What if?' "

[LadyBlue]

After Kimberly Comer moved to Park City a year and a half ago, she noticed a little red truck with tinted windows parked out front of her new home.

She noticed it several times.

The guy inside rolled down the window and took Polaroid photos of her and her kids.

She thought he might be stalking her and her roommate at the time, Michelle McMickin.

McMickin called Park City police.

Police came out. When McMickin and Comer described what she had seen, police acted as if they knew who it was, Comer said.

They left and never came back, never called.

She would not figure out until much later who that little red truck might belong to.

Shortly after that, she met the Park City compliance officer. He drove a white city truck.

"Dennis Rader first came to me about some stuff I left under my carport. That's how it started," she said.

Over the next year and a half, until the day before he was arrested, Rader came to see Comer repeatedly, handing out warnings, citations, threats.

Sometimes he walked up to her house, put his head into her open kitchen window, and looked around inside.

He chatted up her children, asked them a lot of questions.

It drove her crazy, she said.

It creeped her out.

She complained to Park City officials three times, she says. Nothing happened.

They declined comment for this story.

Harassment, she said. Bold, cold-blooded harassment.

"He was never rude to me from day one," she said. "Never."

But he showed up at her house every month, Comer said.

After she complained, he came more often to give another warning, another citation, another reminder. He recently claimed a 1995 Firebird she'd parked in her yard was inoperable.

There are other stories like hers circulating in Park City these days. These people never saw anything good in Rader.

But Comer might be one of the few people who knew Mr. Bad, but saw Mr. Good also, if only for a few moments.

About a month and a half ago, Comer's children, Kelsey, 11, and Jordan, 9, were playing at a park.

A big black dog suddenly began to bark and chase them.

Kimberly was at home, two blocks away.

Rader, driving by, saw the dog chasing the children.

He ran to them, scooped them up, put them into his truck.

He took them to their home, gave them toy sticker badges and his business card.

He was nice, the kids said.

At the first Park City court hearing regarding her "inoperable" car a few weeks later, Comer drove to the city building.

She told Rader the car he deemed inoperable was parked outside.

Rader ignored that, put his hand on her shoulder and told her what she needed to do at the next hearing.

That hearing is still on the court schedule, she said.

She's furious.

She thinks she was a target.

After his arrest, she saw TV footage of Rader's house.

She saw Rader's yard.

There, in the driveway, sat a red truck with tinted windows.

The mind of BTK

"When this monster enter my brain, I will never know. But, it here to stay... Society can be thankfull that there are ways for people like me to relieve myself at time by day dreams of some victim being torture and being mine. It a big compicated game my friend of the monster play putting victims number down, follow them, checking up on them waiting in the dark, waiting, waiting... Maybe you can stop him. I can't. He has already chosen his next victim."

--BTK strangler in an October 1974 letter left at the Wichita Public Library

• • •

Retired police Lt. Mike McKenna, who worked on several of the BTK homicides, is now the chief of police in Baldwin City.

"I've run across people who showed two completely different sides to themselves," he said. "In our business, you see the bad side of a lot of people."

McKenna recalled a rape case where the suspect had two distinct personalities.

"He was very cordial to people and very charismatic, yet he would rape women," he said.

It can be very difficult to find a criminal who hides his actions by leading an otherwise normal life, McKenna said.

"The hard part about it is that unlike the schizophrenic mass murderer the public hears about, he doesn't display bizarre and psychotic symptoms. People see him as a normal person."

• • •

Psychologist Tony Ruark got a close look into the mind of BTK starting in 1979.

The task force hunting BTK needed help.

They felt stumped.

So they asked a few mental health specialists to come in and look upon the works of BTK.

Ruark volunteered.

He worked with investigators for several years.

He studied BTK's drawings and writings.

And the crime scene photos.

In all his years, he would encounter many disturbed people. But what the task force showed him was the product of the sickest soul he's ever encountered.

They showed him the photos of 11-year-old Josephine Otero, hanging by the neck from the basement ceiling.

They gave him copies of BTK's description of the sexual thrill he got from torturing victims.

BTK wrote that he brought some victims to the brink of death.

Then he gave them some air.

Then he strangled them again.

You don't understand these things because your not under the influence of factor x. The same thing that made Son of Sam, Jack The Ripper, Havery Glatman, Boston Strangler, Dr. H.H. Holmes Panty Hose Strangler of Florida, Hillside Strangler, Ted of The West Coast and many more infamous character kill. It seems senseless but we cannot help it, There is no help, no cure, except death or being caught and put away.

[LadyBlue]

[glow=red,2,300]Two timelines[/glow]
Comparing BTK's crimes and Dennis Rader's life

Dennis L. Rader was born March 9, 1945, to William E. and Dorothea Rader. One of four boys, he graduated from Heights High School in 1963. Rader served in the U.S. Air Force from 1966 to 1970. He was stationed in Turkey, Greece, Japan and South Korea. Since about 1971 he has lived at the same address, 6220 Independence, in Park City.

Information for this timeline was drawn from public records, including property tax rolls, voter registration records, city directory listings and public education records, and from Wichita Eagle archives.

1971 -- Rader works in the meat department at Leeker's IGA, where his mother works as a bookkeeper.

1972 -- Death penalties across the country are invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court.

1970-71 to 1973 -- Rader works for Coleman Co. BTK victims Julie Otero and Kathryn Bright worked at Coleman in the early 1970s.

About 1973 -- Rader marries Paula Dietz (b. 1948), a 1966 graduate of Heights who had been working as a secretary at the VA Hospital.

Jan. 15, 1974 -- Joseph and Julie Otero are strangled in their home at 803 N. Edgemoor along with Josephine, 11, and Joseph II, 9. The family car is later found at the Dillons store at Central and Oliver.

1974-89 -- Rader works for ADT home security company.

April 4, 1974 -- Kathryn Bright, 21, is found stabbed to death in her home at 3217 E. 13th St. Her brother is shot but survives. Police later conclude their attacker was BTK.

October 1974 -- The Wichita Eagle-Beacon is alerted to a letter in a book at the public library. The letter includes details from the Otero crime scene that only the killer could have known. The killer first suggests that he be called the BTK strangler, adding that BTK stands for "bind them, torture them, kill them."

March 17, 1977 -- Shirley Vian, 26, is found tied up and strangled in her house at 1311 S. Hydraulic.

Dec. 8, 1977 -- Nancy Fox, 25, is found tied up and strangled in her home at 843 S. Pershing. BTK's voice is captured on tape when he calls an emergency dispatcher to report the homicide.

Jan. 31, 1978 -- A poem written with a child's printing set on an index card arrives at The Wichita Eagle-Beacon. The poem, patterned after a "Curley Locks" nursery rhyme, refers to the Vian homicide.

Feb. 10, 1978 -- A letter from BTK arrives at KAKE claiming responsibility for the deaths of Vian and Fox and an unnamed victim. At a hastily arranged news conference, Police Chief Richard LaMunyon announces that a serial killer is at large and has threatened to strike again.

April 28, 1979 -- The killer waits inside a home at 615 S. Pinecrest, but leaves before the 63-year-old homeowner returns. He later sends the woman a letter letting her know he was there. Police think he was targeting her daughter.

1979 -- Rader graduates from Wichita State University with a major in administration of justice.

Aug. 15, 1979 -- Wichitans listen to repeated radio and television broadcasts of the voice of BTK from the 1977 phone call. Police receive 110 tips during the first day of the broadcasts.

1984 -- A new BTK investigation is opened. Lt. Ken Landwehr is one of six detectives assigned to work full time on the case. "The Ghostbusters" spend three years using new techniques including DNA testing, computer database searches and psychological profiles.

April 27, 1985 -- Marine Hedge disappears from her home at 6254 Independence in Park City. The home is in the same block as Dennis Rader's home.

May 2, 1985 -- Hedge's car is found at 21st and Woodlawn.

May 3, 1985 -- Police recover Hedge's purse in a ditch near 143rd East and 37th North.

May 5, 1985 -- Hedge's body is found near 53rd North and Webb Road.

Sept. 16, 1986 -- Vicki Wegerle, 28, is strangled in her home at 2404 W. 13th St. The family car is found two blocks away in the 1300 block of North Edwards.

1989 -- Rader stops working for ADT.

About 1990 -- Rader becomes a compliance supervisor for Park City in charge of animal control, nuisances, inoperable vehicles and general code compliance.

Jan. 19, 1991 -- Dolores "Dee" Davis is abducted from her home one-half mile east of Park City.

Feb. 1, 1991 -- Davis' body is found near 117th North and Meridian.

1994 -- Kansas Legislature reinstates the death penalty for crimes committed after July 1, 1994.

April 10, 1996 -- Rader is appointed to the Sedgwick County Animal Control Advisory Board on the recommendation of then-County Commissioner Betsy Gwin. He resigns in 1998.

October 2001 -- Park City Mayor Emil Bergquist presents Rader with an award for 10 years of service.

Jan. 17, 2004 -- The Wichita Eagle publishes a story on the 30th anniversary of the Otero killings.

March 17, 2004 -- A letter arrives at The Wichita Eagle containing a photocopy of Wegerle's driver's license and three pictures apparently taken by the killer.

May 2004 -- KAKE receives a letter containing chapter headings for the "BTK Story," plus fake IDs and a word puzzle.

June 2004 -- Police receive a letter.

July 17, 2004: Package found at Wichita Public Library, 223 S. Main.

Oct. 22, 2004: Package found at Omni Center package dropbox, 250 N. Kansas.

Dec. 14, 2004: Package containing Fox's driver's license and bound doll found in Murdock Park, near Murdock and I-135.

Jan. 25, 2005: KAKE receives a postcard detailing the location and contents of a Post Toasties cereal box; it is found near 69th North and Seneca.

Feb. 3, 2005: KAKE receives a postcard, apparently from BTK, but at police request does not report on it until March 1.

Feb. 16, 2005: KSAS receives "Communication #11" from BTK, including a computer disk that police trace to Rader's church.

Feb. 25, 2005: FBI obtains a DNA sample from Rader's daughter to compare it to an earlier sample taken from her medical records. Rader is arrested less than a block from his home. He is interrogated by police detectives.

Feb. 26, 2005: Police Chief Norman Williams says "BTK is arrested." Rader's bond is set at $10 million.

Feb. 28 - March 3, 2005: Sedgwick County sheriff's officers search the 61st Street North roadside with metal detectors for BTK evidence, but find nothing.

March 1, 2005: Rader is charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder related to BTK. Three public defenders are assigned to his case.

March 2, 2005: Rader is fired by Park City for failing to report to work since Feb. 25.