Sheriff: Dennis Rader is suspect in disappearance of Oklahoma teen, other unsolved cases
WICHITA, Kan. (KAKE) — A northeastern Oklahoma sheriff says Wichita-area serial killer Dennis Rader is the prime suspect in the disappearance of a 16-year-old girl in 1976, and he could be connected to other unsolved cases in Kansas and Missouri.
Authorities on Tuesday dug up a section of the grounds where the self-proclaimed BTK Killer's Park City home once stood. Osage County Sheriff Eddie Virden told KAKE News that during the search, they found some items deep in the ground. They also found some items during a previous excavation of the property in April, including a piece of pantyhose that was ripped up and aged.
"It was very very clear someone had created this hole and refilled it with a different material. Took some precaution to kind of protect some of those items," said Virden.
Virden said Wednesday that in his opinion, he's 100% certain Rader is involved in the disappearance of Cynthia Kinney, a 16-year-old cheerleader who was last seen at a laundromat in Pawhuska, Oklahoma on June 23, 1976.
"This ongoing investigation has uncovered potential connections to other missing persons cases and unsolved murders in the Kansas and Missouri areas, which are possibly linked to Dennis Rader," the sheriff's office said in a release. "The Osage County Sheriff’s Office has been working alongside the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI), sharing crucial information and collaborating on this case."
The release said that items recovered on the vacant lot will undergo thorough examination to determine their potential relevance to the ongoing investigations.
"At this stage, Dennis Rader is considered a prime suspect in these unsolved cases, including the Cynthia Dawn Kinney case from Pawhuska."
Across the street from that laundromat where Kinney was last seen in 1976, a bank was having new alarms installed, Virden said, and Rader was a regional installer for ADT. The sheriff's office looked into whether Rader installed the systems, but wasn't able to confirm.
Virden said that in writings for the book Rader was working on, he had the phrase "bad wash day," and the date was 1976. He said that when he saw that and has a missing person who was last seen at a laundromat, he had to investigate.
The sheriff added that Pawhuska was one of the first areas in which Rader was involved in Boy Scouts.
"Through the investigation, we were able to determine that he was fairly familiar with the area and, of course, he was active during that time," Virden said.
Rader's daughter, Kerri Rawson, said that in June she became aware of the unsolved murder case of Shawna Garber, whose remains were found near Pineville, Missouri in December of 1990. She said she's assisting law enforcement with that case and the Kinney case.
Garber was from Garnett, Kansas, and an autopsy revealed she had been raped and strangled months before her body was found.
Details of any other unsolved missing persons or murder cases potentially tied to Rader have not been released. Raider denied any involvement in any cases except the string of murders in the Wichita area from 1974 to 1991.
As Rader went uncaught for decades, he continued mailing cryptic letters to the media — including KAKE News, Fox Kansas and the Wichita Eagle — and investigators, a practice that ultimately lead to his capture. Rader was arrested in 2005 after police traced a floppy disk he mailed to a local TV station to a computer at his church. Investigators then determined that Rader’s DNA matched the killer’s.
Rader, who is serving 10 consecutive life terms in the El Dorado Correctional Facility, admitted in 2005 to carrying out 10 brutal killings to fulfill his sexual fantasies. He suggested in a letter found long before his capture that he should be called “BTK,” short for “bind, torture, kill.”
