B-T-K Interview

July 6, 2005

In court on the day he pled guilty, Dennis Rader says he did not know he would be giving significant details of each of his 10 murders. He thought he would just be pleading guilty to each count of first-degree murder.

"I was totally unprepared for what the court asked me. I was a little shocked that the defense didn't step up, tap me on the shoulder and say, let's reconsider this or approach the bench. But basically, just a shoot from the hip approach the bench, I realize it was very cold and everything, I just wanted to get the facts out as quick as I could without being too emotionally involved."

On that day in court, viewers across the nation were shocked at the calm way Rader described the killings of innocent people.

"I was pretty cold. I shot from the hip very quickly."

So does Rader have any remorse over the killings?

"Yes, I do."

But with that admission, he changes the subject and says,

"Very compartmentalized. I can wear many hats; I can switch gears very rapidly. I can become emotionally involved. Be cold at it. Maybe that is something I will finally figure out, if I ever figure it out. It's history."

I asked what he would say to the victims families.

"I had mentioned earlier, I have a lot of remorse, I feel very sorry for them. I know that is something I wouldn't want to have happen to my family. I look in Mr. Fox's eyes, I saw him on TV once, and I see the tears in his eyes, I feel for him. I feel for them. I know they won't understand that, but I do."

In the Otero murders, four members of Joseph Otero's family died including two children: Josephine and Joseph Otero Jr. I asked, how he could kill children, especially when he had kids of his own.

"That's a very hard question. I think in the long run, it was a sexual fantasy, the children."

Then he said he committed that crime more towards the adults than the children. He says the children just happened to be there.

"Josephine was probably the only one where I really expressed that sexual fantasy."

In a letter to KAKE in the 1970's, BTK said it was 'factor X' that drove him to kill. The question has always been what was 'factor X'. As we talked inside the jail, we may have a partial answer. Charlie Otero, Joseph Otero's son, has always maintained as late as last week that he believed BTK had an accomplice when he killed the Otero family. So, I asked Rader directly.

"Did you have an accomplice?"

Rader paused, hesitated, and said he wanted to be 'truthful' to the public and that 'no' he used no accomplice and then he added mysteriously, "But I did have a little friend with me."

Jeff Herndon and I believe the 'friend' he was referring to is a 'demon'. He alluded to it in the telephone conversation when he told me what drove him to kill.

"I know it is a dark side of me that controls me. I personally think, and I know it's not very Christian, that it's demons within me, at some point in time when I was young that controlled me."

In letters sent to several of us at KAKE since Rader has been incarcerated, we have seen a drawing on the envelopes that appears to have undergone a metamorphosis from a frog to a 'demon-like' figure.

"I think it is a really deep subject. I don't know that a telephone conversation can bring it out. I know it is a dark side of me that controls me."

He calls the drawing of what appears to be a demon "Batter". Why? We do not know.

In my telephone conversation with Rader we learn that he knew he had problems at a young age, even in elementary school.

"When did you first know that you had a problem?"

"This was a building thing; this was many, many years ago."

"Can you point to when you knew?"

"I would say even in grade school I had problems."

"And what kind of problems were those?"

"Sexual fantasies, probably more than normal. But you have to remember that was coming from puberty, and I, all males, go through some sort of sexual fantasies. Mine were just a bit weirder than other people. I knew somewhere along the line of eighth grade or freshman in high school that I had some abnormal tendencies at that point in time. But it exploded on January 15, 1974. That's when the ball game exploded. You know, at some point in time, someone should have picked something up from me and identified it."

But if anyone did, it wasn't treated.

"I think bottom line, I want the people of Sedgwick County, the United States and the world to know that, yeah, I am a serial killer. I'm not trying to profit from this. I'm going to pay for it with a life sentence. The final victims are actually the family."

In person, Dennis Rader is much like you saw on your television screen during his last court appearance. He discusses his life and the killing in a detached way, like he is talking with a neighbor about a garden. In part two of the interview, we find out if Dennis Rader could have killed again before he was caught. Plus, why he stopped for so long, and we learn what it was that caused him to start communicating again last year.