BTK Dennis Lynn Rader (born March 9, 1945) is an American serial killer known as BTK (a nickname he gave himself, short for "bind, torture, kill") or the "BTK Strangler". Between 1974 and 1991, Rader killed about ten people in the cities of Wichita and Park City, Kansas, and sent taunting letters to local police and newspapers describing the details of his crimes. After a hiatus of a little over a decade, Rader returned to sending letters in 2004, the investigation of which led to his arrest the following year. Shortly after his arrest, Rader confessed to several crimes and pleaded guilty before a judge. He was sentenced to ten life sentences for the murders he committed and was incarcerated at the El Dorado Correctional Institution in Prospect Township, Butler County, Kansas. Dennis Lynn Rader was born in Pittsburg, Kansas, on March 9, 1945. His parents were accountant Dorothea Mae Rader (née Cook) and Kansas Gas Service William — the largest natural gas distributor in Kansas — Elvin Rader. Rader is the oldest of four children. Growing up in Wichita, Rader later recalled feeling ignored by his mother. His parents worked long hours and paid little attention to their children at home. Wichita is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Kansas, located in Sedgwick County, of which it is the county seat. With nearly 400,000 residents, according to the 2020 national census, it is the most populous city in the state and the 49th most populous in the country. Just over 13.5% of Kansas's total population lives in Wichita. In the United States, a county is an administrative subdivision of a state, equivalent to a "comarca" in Portugal or a "municipio" in Brazil. It is a territorial division with defined geographic boundaries and some level of governmental authority, responsible for local services and maintaining order. From a young age, Rader harbored sadistic sexual fantasies about torturing "trapped and helpless" women. He also exhibited zoosadism by torturing, hanging, and killing small animals. Rader practiced sexual fetishes of voyeurism and transvestism, often spying on neighbors while dressed in women's clothing, including women's underwear that he had stolen. He also masturbated with ropes or other restraints around his arms and neck - autoerotic asphyxiation. Years later, during his "cool" periods between murders, Rader would take photographs of himself wearing women's clothing and a female mask while tied up. He later admitted to pretending to be his victims as part of his sexual fantasy. However, Rader kept his proclivities well hidden and was widely regarded in his community as "normal and well-mannered." After graduating from Wichita Heights High School, Rader attended Kansas Wesleyan University. He received only mediocre grades and dropped out after one year. Rader served in the United States Air Force from 1966 to 1970. After his discharge, he moved to Park City, a suburb of Wichita, where he worked in the meat department of an IGA supermarket, where his mother worked as an accountant. IGA, Inc. is an international supermarket chain with a presence in 22 countries. Unlike other chains, IGA franchises are independently owned and operated. Many of these stores operate in small towns and are family-owned. IGA was founded in the United States as Independent Grocers Alliance in 1926. Its headquarters are in Chicago, Illinois. Rader married Paula Dietz on May 22, 1971. They had two children, Kerri and Brian. He attended Butler County Community College in El Dorado, where he earned an associate's degree in electronic engineering in 1973. He then enrolled at Wichita State University and graduated in 1979 with a Bachelor of Science degree, majoring in administration of justice. Rader initially worked as an assembler for the Coleman Company, an outdoor supply company. He then worked at the local office of ADT Security Services in Wichita from 1974 to 1988, where he installed security alarms. Ironically, many of his clients were concerned homeowners seeking security from their own murders, such as BTK. Rader was a field operations supervisor for the Wichita area for the 1990 federal census. In May 1991, Rader became a dog catcher and compliance officer in Park City. In this position, neighbors remembered him as sometimes overzealous and extremely strict, and as taking particular pleasure in intimidating and harassing single women. Two women he stalked in the 1980s and one he stalked in the mid-1990s filed restraining orders against him; one of those women also changed her address to avoid him. One neighbor complained that Rader killed her dog 1 052 / 5 000 for no reason. Rader was a member of Christ Lutheran Church in Wichita and was elected president of the church council. He was also a Boy Scout leader. By the 2000s, public awareness of the murders began to fade. Local author Robert Beattie began writing a book about the murders, "A Nightmare in Wichita," after being shocked to learn that many young people he spoke to had never heard of the BTK case. Hungry for attention, Rader resurfaced as BTK in 2004 after learning that the book was being written. On July 26, 2005, after Rader's arrest, his wife was granted an emergency divorce, waiving the normal sixty-day waiting period. In a 2019 interview with ABC News, his daughter Kerri said she writes to her father and has now forgiven him, but still struggles to reconcile her "normal" childhood with the knowledge that she was raised by the BTK killer. However, at Crime Con 2024 in Nashville, Tennessee, Kerri revealed that he had sexually abused her when she was young. Alex