Encore: Dennis Rader: BTK

A listener note. This episode contains adult content and is not suitable for everyone. Please be advised. In November 1973, the simple act of pulling out of a driveway sealed the fate of the Otero family of Wichita, Kansas. The driver, 34-year-old Julie Otero and her 11-year-old daughter, Josephine, were leaving their home in the family station wagon when a man named Dennis Raider spotted them. The 28-year-old Raider had recently been fired from what he described as his "dream job" and had been driving the streets for hours, almost as if he was looking for something to distract him, and Julie and Josephine Otero were exactly the distraction that Raider had been looking for. The Oteros had recently moved to Kansas from New York. Julie's husband, Joseph, had recently retired after 20 years in the Air Force and chose to relocate to Wichita so that he could continue working in the aviation industry as a plain mechanic and flight instructor. The family of seven had only been in their new home for six weeks when Raider fixated on them. Raider followed Julie for a month studying her routine. He learned when her husband went to work and when she returned from taking the youngest children to school. Their predictable schedule gave him confidence to move forward with his plan. On the morning of January 15, 1974, Raider drove to the Oteros neighborhood and parked a few blocks away from their small corner house. He was dressed in his old Air Force parka with the coat pockets stuck with what he called his kit kit, which included rope, tape, plastic bags, knives, and a gun. At 8.20 a.m., he approached the Oteros house after taking note that only Julie's station wagon was there. He snuck into the backyard and cut the phone line. Suddenly, the back door opened and the Oteros' nine-year-old son, Joey, walked out. Raider pointed his gun at Joey and hustled him back inside and put the family dog outside. Julie was serving breakfast and Raider was surprised to find Joseph's senior seated at the kitchen table. He was home nursing cracked ribs from a recent car accident. His car was not in the driveway because it had been total. And Joseph's senior saw Raider's gun. He initially thought it was a practical joke set up by his brother-in-law. Raider told the Oteros that this was a robbery, and he said that if they cooperated, he would not hurt them and he would quickly be on his way. Even though Joseph was a former champion boxer and Julie practiced judo, the Oteros believed him and decided the safest thing to do was cooperate. They could not have been more wrong. Pine and holland done. From Wondry and Trifort Media, I'm Candice DeLong, and this is the third season of Killer Sight. I was a psychiatric nurse, and then an FBI criminal profiler. In the five decades I've spent studying people's minds, I've interviewed countless murderers including many serial killers. Why did they do it? To get a satisfying answer, we have to dive deep into their psyche to figure out what made them do what they did. This episode is Dennis Raider, VTK Part 1 of 2. Raider led the four Otero family members to the master bedroom and bound Joseph and Julie's hands and feet with tape and cords. Joseph remained on the floor, while Julie was tied up on the bed. Noticing that Joseph was in pain from his recent car accident, Raider placed a pillow underneath him to make him more comfortable. This famed concern tripped the Oteros into being more compliant. After he bound the children, he gagged all four Oteros. Raider then wrapped a cord around Joseph's neck and began to strangle him as his family watched in horror. Raider then took out a plastic bag and placed it over Joseph's head, securing it with a cord. He strangled Julie next. After she lost consciousness, Raider returned to tighten the ligature around Joseph's neck, because he was trying to tear the plastic bag on his head. After Joseph's senior died, Raider then pulled a plastic bag over Joey's head. Julie regained consciousness and begged Raider to spare her son. Raider removed the bag and took Joey to his bedroom to asphyxiate him there. After he watched Joey die, Raider returned to Julie and strangled her to death with his hands. He then carried 11-year-old Josephine downstairs to the basement. He undressed her and then asked her if her parents had a camera so he could take photos. And she said no, Raider placed a hangman's noose around her neck, strung it over a drainage pipe, hoisted her up and watched her die. Afterwards, Raider masturbated on her body. He then collected the various items he had brought in his hit kit, along with personal items of the family. Just before he left, he turned up the heat in the house to interfere with the victim's body temperatures. This was something he learned in his detective magazines. The heat would interfere with investigator's ability to determine time of death. Two hours after he first burst into their kitchen, Raider drove off in the Otero's 1966 Oldsmobile station wagon. He abandoned it at the grocery store parking lot a half mile away. The three older Otero children returned home from school just after 3 p.m. They noticed the car was gone and the garage door wide open. Their dog was outside in the yard. Upon entering the back kitchen door, they encountered the horrific sight of their parents' dead bodies and later found out the devastating news that Josephine and Joey's bodies were also in the house. When Raider got home, he spent the next two weeks typing up what he had done to the Oteros and included drawings. He signed the document, BTK, "Bind, Torture, Kill." He then stored the pages in a three-ring binder so that he could relive those moments whenever he pleased. Six weeks later, Raider targeted a twenty-one-year-old college student who lived alone near the campus. She was blonde and petite, traits that were consistent with his victim type. Like the Oteros, he spent the next few weeks casing her house. But this time, things did not go as planned. Around 1 p.m. on April 4, 1974, Raider broke into Katherine Bright's empty house and hid in her bedroom. Katherine arrived just before 2 p.m. with her 19-year-old brother, Kevin. Again, Raider was not expecting a man. Raider ambushed them with his gun and told them he did not want to hurt them, but they needed to cooperate. Raider forced Kevin to tie Katherine to a chair, then took Kevin to another room and bound and gagged him. Raider then rummaged through the house and returned to strangle Kevin with a knotted stocking he found. Kevin, who was only 5'4", and 125 lbs, broke free and fought with Raider, who was a much bigger man. Kevin grabbed Raider's gun, but it didn't fire. Raider pulled a second gun from his waistband and fired, grazing Kevin's forehead. Then fell to the ground, bleeding. Raider went back to Katherine. She had also broken out of her bindings. They struggled. Then Raider heard Kevin moving in the next room. He returned and shot Kevin a second time in the face above his mouth. This time, Kevin pretended to be dead. Raider was worried that the gunshots would draw attention. He needed to hurry, but Katherine was still putting up a fight. He pulled his knife and stabbed her twice in the back under her ribs, and then again in the gut. She still kept fighting. In the end, he stabbed her 11 times. Raider then heard Kevin opening the front door. Moments later, he saw Kevin running down the street. Raider quickly collected his things and fled on foot toward the Wichita State Campus. Kevin approached two men across the street. One of the men took Kevin to the hospital, while the other called police. When police arrived, Katherine was still alive. Unfortunately, she died at the hospital four hours later. Katherine described to the police the intruder as about five feet 11 inches, 180 pounds, and 25 to 30 years old. He had a fair complexion, a mustache, and dark hair. However, after taking two bullets to his head, some questioned whether Kevin's memory was reliable. Police did not link the Otero and Bright murders. As weeks passed, Raider began to think he was smarter than the cops. He typed up a seven-page document called An April Death. Then he heard that three men in the local jail were claiming that they killed the Oteros. Deeply frustrated by this, Raider decided he wanted to make his presence known to the media and take credit for the murders. In October 1974, Raider alerted the newspaper, The Wichita Eagle Beacon, about a letter he left in the Wichita Public Library. The newspaper contacted police. His letter described the Otero murders, offering details only the killer would know. Raider wrote, "The code words for me will be, 'Bind them, torture them, kill them, BTK.' The police chief did not reveal this information to the public, for fear it would encourage BTK to kill again." More than two years passed without another word or murder. Then on March 17, 1977, BTK took his sixth victim. By chance, Raider encountered a six-year-old blonde boy returning home from the corner grocery store with a can of soup. Raider followed him to his house and knocked on the door. When the boy answered, Raider saw a 26-year-old Shirley Viang behind the child. Shirley and her three young children were home sick with the flu. Raider pulled out his gun and forced his way in. He told Shirley that he had a problem with sexual fantasy and was going to tie her up. She began to cry and then said that her neighbor was expected to check on her any minute. Raider took Shirley and the children to the bedroom. He attempted to tie up the children, but they became hysterical, so he locked them into the bathroom with blankets and toys. At that moment, Shirley threw up. Raider got her a glass of water he would later say to "comfort her." But his act of comfort didn't extend to her children, who, through a crack in the door, watched as Raider tied their mother up. He then put a plastic bag over her head and strangled her with the rope. Raider had planned to strangle the children next, but the phone rang and stopped him. Fearful it was the neighbor, he quickly cleaned up and left. Eight months later, Raider attacked his seventh victim, a 25-year-old woman named Nancy Fox. On the afternoon of the attack, he approached Fox's door and knocked. When she didn't answer, he went around back and cut the phone lines. He broke in through the porch door, sat in her kitchen and waited. When Fox arrived, she demanded to know what he was doing in her home. Raider told her, "I have a sexual problem and we'll have to tie you up and have sex with you." Of course, Fox was upset and told Raider she wanted to smoke a cigarette. Raider obliged. Another act he later claimed showed his humanity. Afterwards, she said to him, "Let's get this over with so I can call the police." First, she asked to use the bathroom. When she exited, Raider forced her to remove her pants and then handcuffed her, hands behind her back. He made her lie down on the bed and began to strangle her with his own belt. He leaned down and whispered in her ear, "I am BTK and I am going to kill you like I killed the Oteros." He revived her once before retightening the belt. After she died, he masturbated on her nightgown. Raider then took Fox's driver's license, lingerie, and several pieces of jewelry and left. The next morning, BTK called 911 from a pay phone. His voice was captured in the chilling dispatch, casually reporting the homicide that he had just committed. On January 31, 1978, Raider mailed a poem to the Wichita Eagle newspaper. It was patterned after a nursery rhyme and referred to Vianne's homicide. The newspaper thought it was a poem someone meant to post in the classifies. Since no money came with it, they threw it in a dead end file. Several days later, Raider grew irritated by the lack of media coverage. On February 10, 1978, Raider mailed a two-page single-space letter to a local news station, claiming responsibility for the murders, and compared himself to Jack the Ripper, son of Sam, Richard Speck, and the Hillside Strangler, and named about 15 other serial killers. He said they were all driven by Factor X. In the letter, he says, quote, "it seems senseless, but we cannot help it. There is no cure but death or being caught and put away." In his letter, Raider gave a long, lured description of the Otero killings, and what a sexual turn on it was for him to see Josie Otero suffer. He closed by saying, "How many people do I have to kill before I get a name in the paper or some national attention?" The news director hand delivered the letter to the local police chief, who went on the air that evening and announced that a serial killer was at large in the community and had threatened to strike again. His name was BTK, and they had little to no information on who he was. Once again, by early 1979, it had been over a year since BTK had killed someone, and since he was no longer communicating with the media or police, speculation grew that BTK was in jail or dead. Then in late April 1979, Raider entered the home of a 63-year-old woman that he had been stalking. He waited several hours in her basement for her to return. When she never did, Raider left in frustration after taking some personal items from her home. He then sent the TV station another taunting letter, letting the woman know he was there, along with items he had stolen. Police released the audio of BTK's 911 call for Nancy Fox's murder, hoping someone could identify the voice. They received hundreds of tips, but they led nowhere. Six years passed without another sign of BTK. Then, on the evening of April 27, 1985, 40-year-old Raider murdered his eighth victim, his 53-year-old neighbor, Marine Hedge. Raider orchestrated an elaborate cover to shield him of suspicion. The morning of the murder, Raider was with his son's scout troop at a campsite 20 miles north of Wichita. That evening, Raider said he had a headache and was going to bed early. Instead, he snuck off in his car and drove the country roads back to Park City. He switched into dark clothing and put his hit kit in a bowling bag. He cut through several yards to Hedge's house. Her car was there, but she wasn't. He cut her phone line and broke in a back door. He hid in her bedroom closet and waited for her to get into bed. Then he pounced on her tiny five-foot frame. Raider took his time strangling her manually. Afterwards, he stripped her body nude, wrapped her up in her bedding, along with her purse, and stuffed her into the trunk of her car. He took her to his church, posed her nude body in bondage, and took several polaroid photos. Afterwards, he dumped Hedge's body on a rural road. Raider drove her car to the shopping center near the bowling alley and retrieved his car. He returned to the Boy Scout camp and snuck back into his tent. If anyone asked, he had been in the tent all night. Nine days later, a park ranger and animal control officer discovered Hedge's body in a wet ditch covered with brush. Raider took his ninth victim on September 26, 1986. 28-year-old Vicki Wagerley was home with her two-year-old son. This time, Raider used the ruse of a telephone repairman. He drove his company's van to her street and changed into his hit clothes. He had pasted a cutout of a logo from a southwest bell repair manual onto a hard hat. His hit kit was a briefcase with rope cord, knife gun, and leather bootlaces pre-tied into knots to make strangling go quicker. He knocked on Wagerley's door and said he needed to test the line inside her house. He used a caudal gadget and pretended to check the phone jack. A moment later, he grabbed his gun from his briefcase and said he was going to assault her. As they walked past her two-year-old son in his playpen toward the bedroom, Wagerley said her husband would be returning any minute. Raider responded then, they would have to hurry. He tied her hands and forced her onto the bed, but Raider could not get his leather lace rig around her neck, so he grabbed some nearby pantyhose and strangled her to death. Because the phone line was not cut and her two-year-old son was not harmed, police did not think the killer was BTK. They suspected Wagerley's husband of the crime, but could not prove it. The murder would remain unsolved for almost 18 years. A 62-year-old woman became Raider's 10th and final murder victim on January 18, 1991. Again, Raider used a Boy Scouts camping event to cover for his whereabouts. Dolores Davis was a retired secretary and living alone in Park City. Raider entered her home after throwing a cinder block through her back, sliding glass door. Like he did before, Raider put her body in her trunk and drove off. He got lost looking for a barn that he planned to use to suspend the body up with pulleys. Fearing his absence at the Boy Scout Camp would soon be noticed, he dumped her body under a bridge. Some days later, a boy walking his dog found Davis' body. But because her murder did not fit BTK's modus operandi, it went cold. Shortly after Davis' murder, Raider took a new position as a Park City Compliance Officer, and BTK went silent for 13 years. On the 30th anniversary of the Otero murders, the Wichita Beacon published a feature which speculated that BTK was either imprisoned or dead. BTK could not resist resurfacing. Over the next year, Raider sent packages to the media, or simply left items in public places. He even mailed the newspaper photocopies of Vicky Wagerley's driver's license and a photocopy of the three polaroids of her post-body at the crime scene. Homicide detectives knew immediately that it was no hoax. No police crime scene photos were taken at the scene. Only the killer could have taken the polaroids. The BTK task force was reestablished. Within days, they tested the DNA left at the Otero crime scene and tested it against the DNA under Vicky Wagerley's fingernail. It was a match. After 28 years, her husband was finally cleared as a suspect. An FBI profiler working with the task force suggested that Lieutenant Ken Landware became the "public face" for BTK to focus on. Landware held media briefings about the investigation and asked for the public's help. This encouraged BTK to communicate. After the next 10 months, BTK responded by sending letters describing the killings. He began to think he was playing a cat and mouse game with the task force. In May 2004, Raider sent a letter to the local TV station containing chapter headings for the BTK story, plus photocopies of fake IDs, and a cryptic word puzzle that included dozens of hidden mentions of his name, address, and the professions he had held. Then on January 25, 2005, police received a break after recovering a cereal box, which Dennis Raider had placed in the bed of a pickup truck in a home depot parking lot. They reviewed surveillance video and saw his shadowy figure place the package and then leave in a dark colored Jeep Cherokee. The cereal box included a note in which Raider asked police whether they would be able to trace a floppy disk he wanted to send them. He asked them to respond to "Rex" in the newspaper classified ads. Rex was the Latin word for "King" and also a reference to Jesus. From January 29 through February 3, the Wichita police ran an ad in the Wichita Eagle classifies indicating that it would be safe. On February 16, 2005, Raider sent them a necklace, a photocopy of a murder mystery cover, instructions for further communications, and a purple floppy disk cat within two hours the police forensic computer text recovered the name Dennis and Christ Lutheran Church from its source code. A Google Christ Lutheran Church and saw that Dennis Raider was the president of the congregation. Officers immediately drove by his house and spotted a black Jeep Cherokee in the driveway. It was registered to his son Brian, who was away serving in the Navy. On February 25, 2005, after getting a positive DNA match from Seaman at one of the crime scenes, Dennis Raider was arrested. BTK was no longer a threat. If you want to dive deeper into the world of killer psyche, there's a vault of exclusive episodes available only on Wondering Plus. By joining Wondering Plus, you will be able to uncover the twisted mind behind cinema's most chilling character in the episode Ed Gein, Hollywood's favorite killer, unraveled the complex psychology of a terrorist who eluded the FBI for nearly two decades in the unibomor evil genius episode, and so much more. With Wondering Plus, you get access to exclusive episodes, as well as early and ad-free access to the latest episodes of killer psyche, days before everyone else. Wondering Plus also gives you early access to some of the biggest true crime podcasts out there, like Dr. Death, Morbid, and Red Handed. Join Wondering Plus by clicking the link in the episode description or head over to Wondering.com/plus. Dennis Lynn Raider was born on March 9, 1945 in Pittsburgh, Kansas, a small town in the southeastern corner of the state. He was the oldest of four sons born to William and Dorothea Raider, William fought in World War II with the Marines. He and Dorothea married when he was 20 years old and stationed at Fort Pendleton, and she was an 18 year old senior in high school. Upon returning home, William found work as a mechanic at Boeing while Dorothea was a homemaker. One of Raider's earliest memories of his mother was witnessing her catch her wedding ring on a sofa spring while she was vacuuming. After a panic struggle to free her hand, she told Dennis through tears to run to his grandparents nearby house for help. He would later say that image of his mother's hand being trapped, excited him, and he replayed it many times in his head. When he was about three years old, his family moved to Wichita where his father began a long career with the Kansas State Gas Plan. His parents were stripped, but loving. They disciplined in a manner customary of the times, doling out the occasional lashing with the belt. The family were also active members of the Lutheran Church, and the boys participated in church youth programs, 4-H clubs, and the boy scouts. Raider described spending as childhood hunting and fishing with his brothers and cousins, and playing in the barns and silos on his grandparents' farms. In games of cowboys and Indians, he enjoyed being tied up. He also had vivid memories of his grandparents chopping the heads off chickens and watching with fascination as their headless, bloody bodies flopped around. Raider said that while he loved his mother, he never felt close to her. We preferred to read or watch television instead of spending time with her sons. He was fond of both his grandmothers, but also saw them as distant. He viewed the wife of his father's cousin as a surrogate mother. He adopted her love of poetry and hatred of cats. So he felt no remorse drowning them in sacks or stringing them up by the neck in the barn and watching them die. He said he liked dogs, but he would use them to practice bondage. As a child, Raider loved monster movies like The Mummy and The Invisible Man. The wrapping and mummification scenes excited him. And The Invisible Man was the ultimate voyeur. Raider started his own foray into voyeurism, peeping through the curtains and windows of his girl cousins and then neighbors. He even removed screens so that he could see them better. In school, Raider was a slow learner and struggled with reading comprehension, writing, and higher level math. He struggled to be a sea student, but he preferred art class and spent hours drawing. During middle school, he started practicing self-bondage in his parents' basement and his grandparents' barn, imagining the pretty girls in his class were his victims. About age 14, he became fixated on detective magazines, particularly issues with illustrations of gagged women posed in bondage. He spent class time daydreaming about these victimized women and he especially liked the look of terror on their faces. In high school, he did not join sports teams or school clubs, but worked as a stockboy and grocery beggar to earn spending money. He began breaking into homes and stealing panties, slips and hoesery from neighbors and classmates. At home in his basement, he tied himself up and ejaculated into the stolen lingerie. He also used them to tie hangmen's nooses and he practiced auto erotic esticiation. He managed to keep these erotic practices well hidden. How he did that in a house where six people lived is beyond me. Nevertheless, his high school friends just thought he was a regular guy. Clearly, he knew what he was secretly doing and enjoying was taboo and that enhanced the fantasies even more and he knew not to speak of it to anyone. After graduating high school in 1963, Raider briefly attended Wichita State University. In 1966 at age 21, he enlisted in the Air Force, possibly to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War. When he was deployed overseas, he visited sex workers in Greece and Asia. If they agreed to it, Raider tied their hands up during sex. When he was stationed on American bases, he stalked women, peeked through windows and broke into homes to steal personal items. He practiced inventing cover stories if caught. After four years of service, Raider returned to Kansas and lived with his parents. In early 1971, Raider's parents introduced him to the daughter of a fellow church parishioner. 23-year-old Paula Deeds was a secretary at the VA hospital. She had graduated from the same high school three years after Raider. After just a few months of dating, they married. Raider was 26 years old. Even though he was happily married to Paula, the sadistic fantasies continued. This is because one aspect of his life had nothing to do with the other. His life with Paula was his cover life. He did not engage in bondage sex play with her. It was his secret life that really motivated him. He imagined kidnapping women from their cars and driving them to abandoned barns or silos to tie them up and torture. And soon enough, he would progress from merely fantasizing to acting out those fantasies. In early 1973, he snagged his ideal job working at a Cessna aircraft company testing, measuring and installing wire hangers in airplanes. The newlywed couple was able to purchase a new house. However, just nine months later, he, along with many others, was laid off. He deeply resented being let go. Raider admitted that he had a low frustration tolerance in stressful situations. He could not tolerate any criticism and loss of personal power would "cause burning resentment." For Paula to be the breadwinner was a huge blow to his ego. Up until this point in his life, Raider had never acted upon the sadistic fantasies with another person that occupied his brain most of the day. But after he was fired from Cessna, he could no longer control those urges. This is not uncommon in the world of serial sex offenders and serial killers. Many of them have reported that when they first acted out a long-standing sexual fantasy of rape, torture, and/or murder, they were under unusually high stress. It's called a "precipitating factor." Raider spent the first few days of unemployment, burglarizing homes. He also stepped up planning for his first victim. He had three stages. The first stage was trolling or searching for victims. Once identified, he called them "projects" and phased to began where he would spend weeks stalking his prey. The third stage was locking in or making a detailed execution plan. This was where he assembled his "hit clothes," clothing he could dispose of, and his "hit kit," the bondage and killing devices. He selected a teller who worked at his bank to be his first real-life victim. The plan was to kidnap her as she was getting into her car after work. When he tried to grab her, the woman screamed and fought back. Raider backed off, flustered. He apologized and said he was only trying to steal her car. He fled on foot and was never caught. That woman, resisting his approach, saved her own life. But the experience made Raider switch his plans. Taking women in their homes would be less risky for him. He could be more controlled. A few months later, after weeks of planning, he entered the Otero family home on January 15, 1974. His next victim was four months later in April. It's interesting to know here that Raider did not sexually penetrate his victims. Ever. Does that mean the murders were not sexually motivated? No. Absolutely not. The whole purpose of the murder was to play out a sexual fantasy of sadism, domination, and control. It was highly arousing for him sexually, and every time he did it, he was seeking a greater and greater sexual thrill. According to Dr. Louis Schlesinger, a board certified forensic psychologist, "Also an important point with respect to this, and many people get this wrong, including non-clinical psychologist and sociologist and so on, is there does not have to be intercourse in order for it to be sexual? Why? Because the violence takes the place of it." As a matter of fact, in many, many of these cases, there is no sexual penetration at all. Upon returning home, Raider would keep the thrill alive by writing and drawing about it. This is also very common among serial offenders of any kind, especially serial child molesters. In November of '74, Raider finally secured a job at ADT security systems. You heard me right. The irony of him supervising the installation of home security systems was not lost on Raider. That job made it possible for him to continue his trolling while working. In later interview, several co-workers said no one could stand him at work. Raider was known as arrogant, rude, and confrontational. Nine months later, Paula gave birth to their son, Brian. There were almost three years between Raider's fifth and sixth victims. Their daughter, Carrie, followed three years later in 1978. A year later, 34-year-old Raider graduated from Wichita State University with a degree in administrative justice. He tried to get a job with the police or sheriff's office, but he got no offers, so he continued working at ADT. Perhaps they saw something in Raider that gave them pause about bestowing him with a badge and a gun. About nine years later, Raider left ADT after 14 years and worked one year as a field supervisor for the US census. Of course, that would give him access and knowledge of who lived where and who lived in what house. Perfect job for a serial killer. After that, he became a park city, compliance supervisor in charge of animal control, nuisances, inoperable vehicles, and general code compliance. His co-workers said he paid attention to detail with his desk, paperwork, and neatly pressed work slacks. With others, he earned a reputation for harassing some citizens with excessive ticketing. A few women filed complaints with the city because they caught him peeping into their windows or trespassing in their yards. Five years later, Raider became the president of the Christ Lutheran Church. His job responsibilities included setting the agenda and leading council meetings attended by leaders of committees. He had a reputation among parishioners as someone who always said yes when asked to help. Raider was an unremarkable man, and like most serial killers, he blended in. He held down a job, participated in scouts and church activities, and he lived in the same community as his very unfortunate victims. Yet in his fantasies, he was remarkable. He was all powerful, all controlling, and all dominating over his victims. Every time he got away with the murder, he believed he was smarter than the cops. I find Dennis Raider to be particularly interesting because there is nothing in his background, his childhood, family life upbringing, medical history, nothing that we frequently see in men who become serial killers. No head injuries, brutal beatings, neglect, nothing at all, and yet he is without a doubt one of the most notorious serial killers in American history. So what sets him apart? Why are we so fascinated with him? For me, it's the fact that his affinity for bondage, also known as a parapheralia, started when he was a very young child. Raider was only five or six when his mother's hand got caught in the sofa, effectively trapping her, restricting her ability to move. She was at that moment a woman in peril, something he would grow to enjoy, something that he found deeply, emotionally, and sexually satisfying. Could that event have been the genesis of his bondage parapheralia that took so many innocent lives and eventually destroyed his own as well? Apparently the answer is yes, it could have been. Now before you reach for your Google machine, a parapheralia is a pattern of abnormal sexual impulses and behaviors. Some would call it a perversion and it involves intense and persistent sexual fantasies and urges. A parapheralia can involve an inanimate object, children, non-consenting adults or in Dennis's case, the suffering or humiliation of his victim. His parapheralia was bondage and sadism. We know that once it started, it only grew and grew. When he was a child playing Cowboys and Indians, as I mentioned earlier, he reported that when the other kids tied him up, he found the experience of being utterly helpless, erotic. Another formative moment came when he was only eight years old. He saw his grandmother go down to the chicken coop, tie the bird's legs together with a shoe string, then chop its head off with an axe, resulting in blood everywhere. Raider said his siblings would all run away screaming, but when he watched, it gave him an erection at eight years old for Pete's sake. Note to self, do not kill and dismember animals in front of young children. Just a thought. But Raider had more than one parapheralia, a cross-dressing can be a symptom or type of it as well. Why did he do that? Because he liked the way he looked in pantyhose? Hardly. He did it because doing so helped him imagine what his female victims were feeling when he strangled or suffocated them to death. And it also was sexually arousing for the same reasons. As odd as it may seem, I've seen it in other serial killers of women. And all of the ones I am aware of were also married and had children, just like Dennis Raider. Being aroused by something others view as odd is not a crime. Cross-dressing is not a crime, but what Dennis Raider did to achieve that climax absolutely was. Immediately after his arrest, Paula Raider, Raider's wife of 34 years, expressed total disbelief, confusion, a lot of pain and bewilderment when told her husband was BTK. Within weeks though, she filed for divorce and has never contacted him again. Raider pleaded guilty on June 27, 2005 to 10 counts of first degree murder. He waived his right to a jury trial. In court, Judge Gregg Waller asked Raider to take him through each victim and describe what he did. For nearly an hour, on live television, Raider calmly recounted each of his 10 murders to the court. There was no remorse in his voice as he gave more details than anyone expected. On August 17, 2005, Raider was sentenced to 10 consecutive life terms with no possible parole for 40 years. Raider is being held at the El Dorado Correctional Facility, East of Wichita, Kansas. He is 79 years old and in poor health. Next week on Killer Psychie, we will be speaking with Dr. Catherine Ramslin, whom Dennis Raider chose to write his memoir with. From Wondery and Treefort Media, this is Killer Psychie. I'm your host, Candace DeLong. This episode was written and produced by Lisa Amerman and Julie Burke. Anne Lou is our producer and Jada Williams is our associate producer. Story research and additional writing by Anne Lou, Will Christensen, and Jada Williams. Mix and Sound Design by Matt Dyson, Abigail Sullivan, and Aaron Bauman. Pederv audio Tom Lonehan with audio assistance from Massuzu Enaga. For Wondery, Yasmin Ward is our producer and Lizzie Bassett is our senior producer. Mariah Gossett is our coordinating producer and Kalim Pluse is our senior managing producer. The executive in charge of production for Treefort is Oscar Guido, and the co-executor producer is Julie Burke. Lastly, our executive producers are Kelly Garner and Lisa Amerman for Treefort, and Marshal Louis and Aaron O'Flairity for Wondery. And last but not least, myself, Candace DeLong. The series is produced by Wondery and Treefort Media.