BTK Back: The Lost Tapes

Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2005

In this television station we maintain a video archive that is massive. Thousands of boxes of video tape containing thousands of stories. Much of it computerized, but not all of it. Last week, in a room full of uncataloged tapes we found it. BTK stories none of us had seen for 27 years.

"It was nearly one year ago today that KAKE-TV employee Linn Gray was standing here in the lobby sorting mail..."

Gary Shapiro is the reporter who did a four part series on BTK in 1978.

"That letter was written by the BTK strangler who still remains at large today."

Back then, the police department allowed him to shoot video of the detectives at work in their offices. Video not possible to shoot today because police won't permit it.

"Police have just announced that the strangler admitted killing seven people in Wichita and would probably strike again. The bombshell announcement was spurred by a letter mailed to KAKE-TV."

We also saw, for the first time in 27 years, the original BTK envelope in which contained the first communication to KAKE-TV. That was Feb. 10, 1978.

"Fear spread quickly in the community."

In this piece from 1978, we also saw the massive volumes of collected evidence from each murder. This just five years after the first Otero killing.

But perhaps most interesting, were the subliminal messages buried in a newscast. Again, reporter Gary Shapiro.

"It's the same principal as splicing shots of popcorn into a movie to make a viewer hungry. Subliminal messages of all kinds are illegal, but KAKE was given special permission by the FCC to air the report and here is what it looked like:"

"That's the Kathryn Bright murder that occurred in April of '74. When we slow the picture down electronically, you can see the subliminal message. The message shown here, still framed, urged BTK to call the Chief. He did not."

That wasn't the only attempt at communications. In 1974, after the Otero murders, then police chief Floyd Hannon ran an ad in the Eagle. It had no response.

"People began looking over their shoulders. Doors and windows were locked tight."

The series also contained a wide-ranging interview with then Wichita Police Chief Richard Lamunyon. In what turns out to be a prophetic statement, he talked about if BTK would ever be caught.

"You know, in a police officer's career which spans 20-40 years, you probably find very few that run across a crime such as this. I think we'll solve the crime. The question is, when will we solve the crime."

That search for BTK continues today. It's not known if police are any closer to catching the killer than they were in 1978. Police decline all requests for interviews.