00:00:00
In 1932, one man opened a two- room business school above a nondescript storefront in downtown Manchester, New
00:00:07
Hampshire. How did it become one of the largest universities in the country? Okay, this case isn't exactly a mystery.
00:00:15
Southern New Hampshire University offers over 200 degrees you can earn from your
00:00:20
couch. And with low online tuition, Southern New Hampshire University makes earning your degree affordable, too.
00:00:28
Find your degree at snhu.edu/g. That's snhu.edu/g. Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure
00:00:42
where to start? Thumbtac knows homes so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint finish
00:00:47
and satin or what that clunking sound from your dryer is. With Thumbtac, you don't have to be a home pro. You just
00:00:53
have to hire one. You can hire top rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews, all on the app. Download today.
00:01:07
[Music] [Applause] [Music] Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks
00:01:44
for listening. I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a guy that knows that April showers bring May flowers and
00:01:51
May flowers bring pilgrims. Ladies and gentlemen, the captain. It's going to be me. It's good to be seen and it's good
00:01:59
to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a [Music] friend. Today we are drinking Demon
00:02:10
Dweller by the Green Man Brewery. garage 3 and 3/4 bottle caps out of five. Demon
00:02:16
Dweller is an Imperial style aged in oak barrels and buried deep in the cellar. They reluctantly release this creepy
00:02:24
deviant for your reckoning. And Demon Dweller was brought to us by these goodkeepers of the peace. First up
00:02:30
today, what day is it today, Captain? Oh yeah, it's true crime garage day. A shout out to Adam in Cheshire, UK. And a
00:02:38
big we like your jib to Ashley in Franklin, Tennessee. Next, a toast to Andrew and April at the Null Winery in
00:02:45
California. And a big cheers to a cheese head Katie in Madison, Wisconsin. And a
00:02:50
shout to Patty in Salem and her sister Laura in Dunstable, Massachusetts. And last but not least, longtime friend of
00:02:57
the show, Paul in Germantown, Wisconsin. Thanks everybody for the beers. Thanks for the wine. Thanks for the kind words.
00:03:04
If you want to help us out, go to true crimegar.com and click on the donate button. And we have a pre-order going on
00:03:10
for team Nick tanks, team captain tanks, nice jib tanks, skull logo tanks, and a
00:03:18
very special douche canoe tank top. So if you would like to get one of those, the order ends May 9th. Well, thank you
00:03:26
very much. Thank you very much. Everybody, gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime.
00:03:57
[Music] The following is a BT. BTK offender criminal profile. This profile was written several years after BTK's first
00:04:11
set of murders. It reads, "The attached analysis is only as good as the information that has been
00:04:19
provided. In addition, it may be necessary to totally change or modify this analysis if new information is
00:04:26
developed, such as additional victims, more forensic evidence, or more information obtained from research.
00:04:36
Multiple homicides, Witchah, Kansas. The murders of the offender known to the public only as the BTK are
00:04:44
the result of a fantasy acted out. A fantasy where for the first time in his life, he is in a position of dominance.
00:04:53
He is an inadequate type, a nobody who through his crimes has placed himself in a position of importance.
00:05:03
The BTK strangler is now a somebody who is receiving the recognition he feels is
00:05:08
long overdue. He is not even very original in his crimes. He has patterned himself
00:05:16
after other killers such as the son of Sam in New York City. Most of the verbiage used by the
00:05:24
offender in his letters probably comes out of recent publications in detective magazines.
00:05:31
The subject is alienated, lonely, and withdrawn. He would not be expected to have any lasting relationships with
00:05:39
others and would lead a solitary existence dominated by fantasy and magical thinking. His killing is an attempt on
00:05:48
his part to find affection and acceptance. He fears everyone, including himself.
00:05:56
He would not be expected to have had any normal relations with women and probably
00:06:01
has never had a normal heterosexual relationship with one. When he is not killing, he
00:06:07
experiences intense feelings that he is not normal and therefore he kills to cope with this disorder and attempt to
00:06:15
escape within his own fantasies. Thus, he can be expected to kill again and to do so in a compulsive repetition
00:06:25
pattern that he has already established. His victims can be either male or female who are both loved and
00:06:33
outgoing. His victims will be in a position of vulnerability where he can totally render them helpless. His
00:06:41
victims represent his own feeling of helplessness and hopelessness. His own life has been
00:06:47
disruptive. He probably comes from a background where his family was broken. He was raised by an overbearing mother
00:06:56
who was inconsistent in her discipline and his father was absent either because of marital separation or
00:07:03
death. This would have occurred when he was a youth. Your subject may have been raised by foster parents. Your subject
00:07:11
was an average student in the classroom. However, he was more adept to disrupting
00:07:16
the class by using profanity and pranks. His language and statements make us believe that he has some military
00:07:23
experience and or is a police buff. He probably has had run-ins with the police in the past, such as assault
00:07:33
and/or breaking and entering. During these break-ins, items taken will be items of insignificance.
00:07:41
These items would have been taken because of a fetish or to feed a strong urge to take an article of clothing or
00:07:47
an item that he is fond of or the satisfaction of committing a crime that will leave little evidence to
00:07:55
investigators. BTK may have a history of voyeristic activity and he may have an arrest record for these types of
00:08:03
offenses. He hunts his victims by selecting neighborhoods where he can peruse different houses without being
00:08:10
detected. Furthermore, his victims will live in an area where, if need be, he can have an easy escape route, such as a
00:08:17
neighborhood park where he can hide to elude police. His killings are impulsively motivated and without
00:08:24
elaborate planning. He seeks out targets of opportunity. Such individuals of this
00:08:29
type suffer from insomnia and thus find it difficult to hold steady employment. Control of himself and of
00:08:37
his environment is essential to such a person. Although he is gaining in confidence, he is still shy, withdrawn,
00:08:44
and isolated. As a counter strategy technique, your department must not make any statements concerning the killer's
00:08:52
mental condition. Do not allow the media to label him as some kind of psychotic killer.
00:08:58
If they have already done so, your best strategy will be to align yourself with the killer and not the psychiatric
00:09:05
experts. Any press releases should clearly state that he is a killer who must be apprehended and that he is not a
00:09:12
psychotic animal. This approach may reduce the killer's anxiety and reinforce his own
00:09:18
guilt feelings. this removing any psychiatric excuses for his acts and leaving him responsible
00:09:25
for his murders. Extended periods between his murders may be for reasons when he was absent from the area either
00:09:33
as a result of military service, schooling, incarceration, or mental treatment. It is not uncommon for
00:09:40
subjects such as yours to frequent police hangouts and an attempt to overhear officers discussing the case.
00:09:47
Such offenders may be at the crime scene observing detectives investigating the case. All of this allows the murderer to
00:09:55
fulfill his ego and gain a feeling of superiority. He may go so far as to telephonically contact your department
00:10:03
and provide details specific to his crimes. Your advantage in this case is his very strong self-centered attitude
00:10:11
will be his downfall. He will provide information to a friend or an acquaintance at a local tavern
00:10:17
concerning information he knows about the case. He may even pretend to be an officer working the case. He may carry a
00:10:25
fake badge on his person. If so, he may use this to gain entry into his victim's
00:10:31
homes. BTK will continue to kill until he is caught or killed. [Music] [Music] Dennis Raider born in March of 1945 in
00:10:57
Pittsburgh, Kansas. And he would be the oldest of four children born to William and Dorothia Rider. Dennis's father, who
00:11:04
went by Bill, was a member of the US Marine Corps. When he retired from the Marines, he went to work for the Kansas
00:11:11
Gas and Electricity in 1948. Dennis's mother, Dorothia, was a bookkeeper. Dennis had three younger
00:11:19
brothers, Jeff, Paul, and Bill. The family moved to Witchah, Kansas, when Dennis was young, and it was there that
00:11:26
he would spend most of his childhood. The Raiders lived in a workingclass neighborhood on North Senica Street.
00:11:34
Dennis's childhood friends describe his father, Bill, as strict, but never cruel. Bill's cousin, Lee Raider,
00:11:41
commented that he could not remember a time when Bill Raider's family had done anything that might attract attention,
00:11:48
much less cross the law. And from all accounts, Dennis was a normal average child. Yeah. And later in life, he would
00:11:56
describe his father as distant and his mother, well, she was the disciplinarian. Now, Dennis tried to be
00:12:02
the good kid. He was a member of the Boy Scouts and participated in church youth
00:12:08
group activities. Dennis attended Riverview Elementary School, and his teachers later stated that Dennis was an
00:12:15
average student, although some other reports indicate that he got poor grades. Kids who grew up with him say
00:12:22
that Dennis loved dime store novels and comic books. And like most kids, he played cops and robbers until it was
00:12:29
dark. As he got older, people who knew him from his school days report that Dennis
00:12:35
exhibited withdrawn tendencies. He was described to be a quiet and polite young man who preferred to keep to himself. He
00:12:43
was also described to be a person that would think before he spoke. He would always listen very carefully when spoken
00:12:49
to and would give you his full attention. What? One of Dennis's former friends described him as utterly lacking
00:12:56
in a sense of humor, but tending to be focused. In the eighth grade, the colonel. In the
00:13:03
eighth grade, Dennis was chosen to be a crossing guard. He carried a big red stop sign and told classmates and
00:13:10
drivers when to go and when not to go, but otherwise, Dennis appeared outwardly unremarkable and blended seamlessly into
00:13:18
the background. In 1963, Dennis graduated from Witchah Heights High School. He got a job working at a
00:13:25
grocery store, but in 1965, he decided to move away from Witchah to go to Kansas Wesleyan College. Dennis joined a
00:13:34
fraternity, but he was a poor student and he soon returned to Witchah and enrolled in a community college. By the
00:13:41
summer of 1966, at age 21, Dennis had decided to join the US Air Force. He did his basic training and technical
00:13:50
training in Texas. Yeah. I believe he spent four years in the Air Force. Yes. And he would achieve the rank of
00:13:56
sergeant. At 26 years old, Dennis returned to Witchah in 1970. And in May of 71, he married 23-year-old Paula
00:14:05
Deetsz, a bookkeeper. Paula had also grown up in Witchah and had gone to the same high school as Dennis. Mhm. They
00:14:12
settled in the Park City area just north of Witchah, not far from the home in North Witchah where Dennis had grown up.
00:14:19
And didn't Dennis Rder work in the meat department? Yeah, he did this at the IG Supertore while attending Butler County
00:14:26
Community College. There he earned an associate degree in electronics in 1973. But in 1972, Dennis actually left the IG
00:14:35
Superstore to go work for Witchah's largest employer at the time. This is the Coleman Company, a manufacturer of
00:14:42
camping supplies. Yeah. That make the grills. Yeah. Amongst a bazillion other things. He worked on an assembly line
00:14:50
there building heating and cooling units. Dennis left Coleman in 1973 to go work for Cessna, a manufacturer of small
00:14:58
aircrafts. But by late 1973, he was let go. And in 1973, Dennis started taking classes at Witchah State University,
00:15:08
taking criminal justice classes. Do we know why he was let go or was it just like a situation where they laid off a
00:15:15
bunch of people? Uh, I I honestly I don't know. Um, he had a he had a background in electronics and that's
00:15:22
what he was in the Air Force for. So, I'm a little surprised that he would be let go. I don't know if there were major
00:15:27
cuts back then or if if he just couldn't hack the work. You got to keep in mind Dennis Rder, while he will present
00:15:34
himself throughout the course of his life as being above average intelligence, trying to be superior to
00:15:40
the rest of us, he is very much a a very average guy in his intellect. So, by the
00:15:46
end of 1973, Dennis Rider, he's married, he's unemployed, but he's taken some college classes. But Dennis is also
00:15:54
hiding a secret. Mhm. So all of these mundane details paint the picture of a completely normal, even somewhat dull
00:16:03
life. But by his own admission, Dennis developed fantasies about bondage, control, and torture from a very early
00:16:12
age while still in grade school. In fact, when his mother would spank him, remember he said that she was the
00:16:19
disciplinarian. When his mother would spank him, Dennis would later say that he felt a mixture of pain and pleasure.
00:16:25
Once he reached puberty, Dennis dreamed of tying up girls and having his way with them. Dennis has admitted to
00:16:31
torturing and killing cats and dogs when he was young by hanging them in barns. He also had a fetish for women's
00:16:39
underwear. He realized that he realized that he could kind of keep his fantasies
00:16:45
and of torture and murder a secret from everyone else. And and one way that I think that he helped himself kind of
00:16:52
keep these things quiet to kind of quiet the beast, if you will, was by stealing
00:16:58
underwear from undergarments from women and from girls in the area. And he'd walk he'd put them in his pocket and
00:17:05
walk around and sniff them. No. No. But uh no one in his life ever imagined that
00:17:12
this average unremarkable boy was leading a depraved inner life that would become dramatically more pronounced when
00:17:19
he reached adulthood. Now according to the journals that Dennis kept from his time at Kansas Wesleyan State in Salina
00:17:27
in 1965. It was during this period that he first started trolling for victims to
00:17:33
act out his fantasies. Although it appears that he did not have any success in actually carrying anything out at
00:17:40
that time. His journals also indicate that it was around this time that Dennis was able to successfully break and enter
00:17:47
into homes and buildings, stealing small items of interest to him. He found this
00:17:53
sort of activity exhilarating. Dennis further admitted that while in the Air Force, he would
00:17:59
peep at women undressing. He would stalk women and he would burglarize their houses to steal their underwear. While
00:18:05
he was in the Air Force, he began to spend time with local sex workers. He was trying to get them to play along
00:18:12
with his fantasies, his bondage obsession, but he was unsuccessful at getting any of them to play along with
00:18:19
this. He would later say that he thought that they feared that he was going to take it too far. Right. I mean, this guy
00:18:27
that you don't know is paying you for sex, and then he's probably saying, "Um, I'll pay a little bit extra if you let
00:18:35
me tie you up." And they're probably going, "Yeah, I'm not not going to let that happen." And that's an interesting
00:18:41
thought because I tell you what, something that we will learn about Dennis as we go through his life and his
00:18:46
crimes, um, I'm of the suspicion that maybe he wasn't paying them for sex. I don't know that he had the confidence
00:18:55
to have sex with a professional. Um being so he was just hanging out with them. I No, I bet you he was paying them
00:19:04
to spend time with them, but I don't I think that he lacked the confidence to actually have sex with them.
00:19:12
[Music] With longer daylight hours, you may be spending more time away from the house
00:19:21
and giving burglars more opportunities to strike. Protect your home with simply safe, proactive security that helps stop
00:19:29
threats before they happen. Traditional security systems only take action after someone has already broken in. That's
00:19:36
too late. Simply Safe's active guard outdoor protection can help prevent break-ins before they happen. AI powered
00:19:44
cameras backed by live professional monitoring agents monitor your property and detect suspicious activity. If
00:19:52
someone's lurking around and acting suspiciously, those agents see and talk to them in real time, activate
00:19:59
spotlights, and even contact the police, all before they have the chance to get inside your home. Simply Safe is simply
00:20:07
the best. It's easy to use, easy to set up, and you're going to feel confident that your home is protected. But not
00:20:14
just your home, your loved ones as well. Visit simplysafe.com/g to claim 50% off a new
00:20:21
system with professional monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's simply.com/g. There's no safe like
00:20:30
Simply Safe. You all know what speed dating is, right? Well, if you're the owner of a growing business, what if
00:20:37
there was a feature like speed dating only for hiring? In other words, you could meet several interested, qualified
00:20:43
candidates at once, all at a designated time. Well, good news, there is. It's Zip Intro from Zip Recruiter. You can
00:20:53
post your job today and start talking to qualified candidates tomorrow. Zip Intro
00:20:58
gives you the power to quickly assess excellent candidates for your job via back-to-back video calls. You simply
00:21:05
pick a time and Zip Intro does all the work of finding and scheduling qualified candidates for you. Then you can choose
00:21:13
who you want to talk to and meet with great people as soon as the next day. So easy. Enjoy the benefits of speed hiring
00:21:22
with new Zip Intro only from Zip Recruiter. rated the number one hiring site based on G2. Try Zip Intro for free
00:21:31
at ziprecruiter.com/g. Again, that's ziprecruiter.com/g. Zip Intro. Post jobs today. Talk to qualified candidates
00:21:42
tomorrow. Do you say data or data? However you say it, it's time to stop overpaying for your monthly data plan
00:21:50
with Mint Mobile. Ditch overpriced wireless and get three months of premium wireless service from Mint Mobile for 15
00:21:59
bucks a month. All plans come with high-speed data or data, your choice, and unlimited talk and text delivered on
00:22:07
the nation's largest 5G network. I love Mint Mobile. I'm getting the same high-speed data and data that I was
00:22:15
getting with my old service provider. Plus, I'm getting unlimited talk and text delivered on this great 5G network.
00:22:22
It's everything that I was paying a lot more for in the past at a fraction of the price. Currently, I'm saving almost
00:22:29
$20 a month with Mintmobile. No matter how you say it, don't overpay for it. Shop data plans at
00:22:38
mintmobile.com/tcg. That's mintmobile.com/tcg. Upfront payment of $45 for 3 months. 5 gigabyte plan
00:22:48
required equivalent to $15 a month. New customer offer for first three months only. Then full price plan options
00:22:58
available. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile for details. Check out mintmobile.com/tcg today. True crime
00:23:07
garage is sponsored by Row. Want the fastest working GLP1 for half the list price? Row's got you. Row now offers FDA
00:23:16
approved weight loss files for half the list price of auto injector pens without
00:23:21
applying insurance or savings cards. And with the results, you can see faster. Your ROW affiliated provider can help
00:23:28
you understand if GLP1s are right for you and your goals. But that's just the beginning. Row members have the support
00:23:35
throughout the process. Plus, you can sign up online from the comfort of your own home. That means no waiting for an
00:23:42
in-person doctor's appointment, no commute to the doctor's office, and no waiting rooms. Weight loss faster,
00:23:50
confidence, higher, price, cheaper. Join the over 385,000 people who have already chosen
00:23:59
row to access GLP1s. Go to row.co/g to see if you qualify. That'sco/g. Go to row.co.
00:24:11
co/car for boxed warning and full safety information about GLP1 medications, medication indicated with diet and
00:24:26
exercise. All right, we're back. Cheers, Madies. Cheers, Captain. Tuesday, January 15th, 1974 in Witchah, Kansas.
00:24:36
As expected, this was a cold day. And like most other days, 15-year-old Charlie Otero counted down until the
00:24:43
final school bell rang. 3:00. Charlie collected his things and he made his way outside. Charlie was 15 years old and in
00:24:52
the 10th grade. It was his duty as the oldest child to gather up his brother and sister and lead the charge home back
00:25:00
to their little white house with black shutters on North Edgemore Street. The family had only been in town for a
00:25:07
little more than 10 weeks. They were still figuring out the logistics of their new life together in Witchah. They
00:25:14
still had boxes of household items that were to be unpacked. Mhm. Charlie's brother Danny was just a tad younger at
00:25:22
14 years of age and their sister Carmen June, she was 13. Now, their home was not terribly far from their school, so
00:25:30
it was a short walk on a cold day. When they arrived at the little house, the door was locked as usual, and the family
00:25:38
dog, Lucky, was out in the fenced in backyard, pacing near the gate. Charlie used his key to unlock the door. When
00:25:47
they entered the home, they noticed the kitchen had been left in a strange manner. It was incredibly hot inside the
00:25:54
house. Charlie expected to see his father, Joseph. Their father, Joseph, was a hardworking man, but he had
00:26:00
practically been confined to the home after a recent car accident. In the kitchen, open food containers were
00:26:07
sitting on the countertops, and it looked like someone was making a sandwich. Charlie called for his father
00:26:13
several times, but got no answer. The three kids walked the house looking for their mom, dad, little brother, and
00:26:20
sister, anyone who may be home. Charlie opened the door to the master bedroom and walked into a horrific scene. His
00:26:28
mother lay dead on the bed, his father lifeless on the floor. Charlie called out to Danny and Carmen June. Both
00:26:37
parents were bound at the feet and wrist. One of the children grabbed a knife from the kitchen and the children
00:26:43
cut bindings from their parents. This was a hopeless effort as both had been dead for a couple of hours. Charlie ran
00:26:50
to the kitchen, grabbed the phone receiver hanging on the wall, and called zero for the
00:26:57
operator. Charlie listened but heard nothing as the phone was dead. He would not be able to call police or medics. He
00:27:05
shouted for Danny and Carmen to join him as he ran to the neighbor's house. They
00:27:09
pounded on the door and luckily their neighbor was home. They told him that they found their parents dead and their
00:27:16
parents' room and then they called the police. While they waited for police to arrive, the neighbor ventured to the
00:27:22
otto home to see if he could help in any way. He saw what the children had seen and he knew it was too late. Mhm. The
00:27:30
first to arrive on the scene were the medics. They arrived just 5 minutes after the call was placed. When they
00:27:37
arrived, the threeo teenage children were standing out front waiting for their arrival. The children were begging
00:27:43
for the medics to go inside and help their parents, but the EMTs explained that for now they would have to wait for
00:27:49
police to arrive on the scene to clear the house and give them the okay to go in. When the neighbor man was describing
00:27:57
to the first responders what he had saw in the bedroom, the medics began to think that they might be at the scene of
00:28:03
a murder suicide. That maybe somehow in a fit of rage, Joseph had killed his wife and then killed himself. All right,
00:28:11
let's get into the investigation a little bit to to get a better understanding of what may have happened
00:28:17
to these two people in that house that day while the children were at school. Well, I just want to point out something
00:28:23
that supposedly it's a murder suicide, but we have legs bound and arms bound, right? Well, that's where I think the
00:28:33
confusion comes in. So, and what we will see happen here is the children when they found their parents, the parents
00:28:41
were bound at the the hands and feet, right? Remember the children went to the to the kitchen, they got a knife and
00:28:48
they cut the bindings from their parents trying to revive them or save them or something. Mhm. So when the neighbor
00:28:55
goes in to see what had happened, all he sees is Joseph the father dead on the floor, the mother dead on the bed, and
00:29:02
there's a knife lying next to Joseph the father. Right. Right. So he tells this to the medics, and the medics are like,
00:29:09
"Crap, this is a these these kids just walked in to the result of a murder suicide of their parents." So, inside
00:29:18
the home, Captain, in that master bedroom, the two people that were found dead were Joseph Otto Jr., who is 38
00:29:25
years old, and his wife Julie, aged 34. The Otteros have five children, three of
00:29:31
which we have already introduced. These are the three oldest children, and again, they were Charles, who is 15,
00:29:38
Danny, who is 14, and Carmen, who was 13. They had walked home from school and found their parents dead in the home.
00:29:45
The other two children attended a different school. They were like their older brothers and sisters. They walked
00:29:51
to and from school as well, but they were younger, so they were in elementary school. Now, Charlie, the oldest of the
00:29:58
children, did not want his little sister, Josephine, who was only 11, and his little brother Joseph, aged nine, to
00:30:06
see the swollen, stiff bodies of their parents like he had. So Charlie stayed on the scene to help in any way that he
00:30:15
could, but he sent Dany and Carmen off to intercept the younger children before they could make it all the way home.
00:30:23
Around this same time, a police officer had arrived. This is officer Bola. He went into the home and made his way to
00:30:31
the master bedroom. He stepped into the room. He saw the bodies of Joseph and Julie. He touched their skin to gauge
00:30:39
temperature. Both bodies were cold and stiff as rigor had set in. They had both been dead for a few hours, and Joseph's
00:30:48
body would be lying on the floor on his back. Now, next to Joseph was a plastic bag and a knife. Julie was barefoot and
00:30:56
her body was on the bed. She had dried blood around her mouth and nose. She had some bruising around her neck as well.
00:31:04
There was some type of cloth lying next to her. Now, her feet were still bound by white cord. Strips of cord lay next
00:31:12
to each of the bodies. Someone had opened all of the drawers to the dresser and rummaged through them. Okay, so I
00:31:20
want to go over some information provided to the police by Charlie or the other children. And we kind of got into
00:31:27
this a little bit before, but just to kind of clear it up. So the knife next to Joseph's body was the knife from the
00:31:34
kitchen that the children had used to cut the bindings from around his wrist, right? So not from the perpetrator. So
00:31:40
that also explains the cord lying next to Joseph. The plastic bag had been on Joseph's head that was found next to
00:31:50
him. This was removed by the children as well. Mhm. The cloth that was lying next
00:31:55
to Julie was actually a gag that her daughter had removed when they found her. The cord lying next to her had been
00:32:02
tied around her hands. So they first thought maybe a murder suicide like we talked about, but be this because of
00:32:10
what the neighbor had described. However, the neighbor had not realized that he was seeing it. It was an altered
00:32:16
crime scene altered by the children trying to save their parents. was very brave of them to for the children to try
00:32:22
to save their parents. Mhm. Yeah. So now now the police know that both of the victims had actually been tied up and
00:32:29
left that way when the children had found them. Then the officer made his way to another bedroom inside this room.
00:32:36
To his shock and surprise, there was another body. This was little Joseph. He was found dead in his room lying on his
00:32:44
side next to the bunk bed. He and Danny shared that room, him and his older brother. In the room with him were a
00:32:52
phone book and a chair with a broken leg. The chair was from another room and had been moved into the boy's bedroom.
00:33:00
Why? The investigators did not know. The boy had been tied around his ankles and
00:33:06
the cord ran from his ankles up behind him and bound his hands together behind his back. The boy's hands were swollen
00:33:14
to about three times the size of their normal size. The boy's face and head were covered with multiple items. A
00:33:21
t-shirt and two plastic bags all hooded the boy's head. The officer then set off
00:33:29
to search the remainder of the home. Could the killer or killers have left something behind? Could there be some
00:33:36
trace as to who had committed these hor horrible murders? After searching the main level, Officer Bola ventured to the
00:33:44
basement. The basement was dark and he could not find a light switch, so he relied on the light of his flashlight.
00:33:51
Once at the bottom of the stairs, he moved the beam around to see what was in the room. He spotted, you know, normal
00:33:58
things, items you would expect to find in a basement, boots, extra clothing, old toys, things like that. He noticed
00:34:05
an opening. There was there was another room down there. So, still not having found a light switch, he walked slowly
00:34:12
toward the doorway, using his flashlight to guide his steps. Once in the room, he
00:34:18
first noticed that the room felt and appeared to be smaller than the room he had just been in. This smaller room
00:34:24
housed the family's uh washer and dryer, their washing machine and their dryer. Right. As Officer Bola backed up and
00:34:31
started to pivot back around to the exit. Yeah. To the stairs. Right. Yeah. his well his back and shoulder brushed
00:34:38
up against something at this point, something with some weight to it. He swung his arm around to reach out to the
00:34:45
object, but when he hit it with his forearm, it gave way and it moved. Now, this terrified the officer and he
00:34:53
started to back up, you know, shuffling his feet to maintain his balance as he pulled his other hand around to shine
00:34:59
the light on the object that he had just touched that had just moved. As he fell
00:35:04
back and spotlighted the object, he could feel the color run from his face as he realized that he was looking at
00:35:10
the dead body of a young, almost teenage girl. Her mouth was gagged, her hands tied behind her back, her head and
00:35:19
shoulders slumped in a lifeless position. A noose was around her neck, and she was hanging just a foot or two
00:35:26
of rope from a pipe that had run the length of the ceiling. Mhm. The body swayed from where he had bumped into it
00:35:35
and hit it with his arm. The officer had to Yeah. The officer had to announce to
00:35:42
the other officers responding to the call uh that there were four bodies at 803 North Edgemore Street. It's a
00:35:51
quadruple homicide. After a little bit of time to confirm the detectives suspicions, the officer
00:35:59
told the three teenaged Otto kids that they had walked home from school together, that their their parents and
00:36:06
their young sister and brother had all been killed that day before they arrived. Police scoured the home and
00:36:13
yard for clues. Detectives and officers set out on foot to canvas the area and interview neighbors. Over the course of
00:36:21
the evening, they spoke with three separate individuals that provided them with a similar clue. All three of these
00:36:28
people had seen the OTO's vehicle. This is a Plymouth station wagon. It was being driven by someone other than the
00:36:37
Otteros on that day. One said that he had saw a short, possibly Middle Eastern man driving the vehicle. One said he saw
00:36:46
some man, but not Joe Otero driving. and another said, "I I don't know who was driving the vehicle, but the vehicle
00:36:54
backed out of the driveway so fast that this eyewitness had to slam on his brakes to avoid crashing into the car."
00:37:02
Right. So, we got three very undetailed accounts. Yeah. Um I think I know I know
00:37:10
it was a man, right? Well, the and the thing is I don't it's one of those situations where
00:37:17
you don't know that you're seeing the Otto's car being driven by somebody else. You're just seeing a car that
00:37:23
matches that description, right? And then later realizing some [ __ ] has happened. Some stuff has gone down now.
00:37:30
Oh, I saw a car that looked just like theirs, but I didn't think it was theirs because it was a man that I didn't
00:37:35
recognize driving the vehicle. Now, later that night, Captain, they ended up finding the uh vehicle at Dylan's
00:37:43
grocery store. Somebody had left it in the parking lot at Dylan's grocery store. An eyewitness later told police
00:37:51
that they had seen a man park the vehicle, exit the vehicle, and walk away. The man was visibly nervous to the
00:37:58
point that he was shaking. And they're not the most detailed accounts, but at least we do have eyewitnesses in this
00:38:04
investigation. Yeah. And they're all similar. one man having been driving the family's vehicle. Yeah. So for as for
00:38:11
more details, Captain, so Joseph Ouro, he served in the Air Force for 20 years and he had recently retired at the rank
00:38:19
of master sergeant. The Otteras had been married for about 16 years. Julie, his wife, had worked at the Coleman Company
00:38:28
plant. Joseph had once been a champion boxer. Now, I don't know if this was while he was in the Air Force or a local
00:38:36
thing when he grew up in New York, but but he he was a boxer at one point in his life. And Julie and the children
00:38:43
studied and practice judo. So, the FBI would later tell investigators that the fact that we have four members of a
00:38:50
family that were all trained fighters attacked and killed in their home pointed to two possibilities. either
00:38:57
they were dealing with multiple offenders or in what they believe to be the most likely situation is that they
00:39:04
were dealing with a single killer that was able to gain entry to the home and used a gun to control the four
00:39:11
individuals. The other issue here is like you said before the the husband, the father, he was basically housebound
00:39:18
because of a car accident. Mhm. So, you know, he could have been in a lot of pain having difficulties moving and
00:39:25
stuff. So, he might not have been able to fight. Well, and I also think the reason the reason why they believed that
00:39:31
we're working with a single offender here is because they firmly believe that this was a sexually motivated home
00:39:39
invasion and murders. And the murderer appeared to have a fascination with bondage, strangulation, and suffocation.
00:39:48
Uh-huh. And one particular FBI agent believed that the likelihood that more than one offender would share the same
00:39:54
distinct sexual urges and murderous fantasies, well, he believed that to be very unlikely. Yeah. And there's some
00:40:03
evidence to support this. Yeah. Both female victims were found partially disroed. Uh Seaman was found present on
00:40:11
Josephine and on the floor of the basement. Um from the appearance of the kitchen. Mhm. Now, it looked like the
00:40:18
killer or killers gained access to the house and surprised the Otto family while the children were preparing their
00:40:26
school lunches before leaving for their school day. They were there were food products out on the counters and table.
00:40:35
The girls winter gloves were discovered just outside of the house and police had
00:40:40
a theory on this that they were making their lunches and Joseph told the little girl to take out the trash. She goes
00:40:47
outside and is grabbed up by the offender who then took her inside and was able to gain control because he
00:40:54
already had a hostage. Right. So you he used her like, "Hey, do what I say. I'm going to shoot her." Yeah. And also
00:41:01
there was no sign of a struggle anywhere in the house. No sign of breaking and entering, right? And because this was a
00:41:08
family of fighters. Again, we have the gun is the thought here to gain control. The things that the police found the
00:41:16
most alarming was that nothing appeared to have been taken from the home. So not
00:41:21
a robbery gone bad as most would think. And and secondly, the cords and bags and
00:41:26
ropes used in the murders didn't come from inside the home. leading to the terrifying thought that the killer
00:41:32
showed up prepared, that he intended to kill the family before he ever entered the home. The police theorized about the
00:41:40
chair with the broken leg as well. The chair was from another room. This was told to them by the children. Right. The
00:41:47
police theorized that the killer after using a gun to gain control of the family tied them up. Then he killed
00:41:53
Joseph, the father, first to get rid of the biggest threat to him. Mhm. Then he molested and killed the mother. The boy
00:42:01
who who suffocated due to the plastic bags. The killer placed the chair in the room. And their theory, this is just a
00:42:09
kind of a wild speculation theory here, but they wondered if maybe he had held the little girl that he sat with her in
00:42:18
the chair, forcing her to watch her brother die. And during this struggle, maybe the leg to the chair had broke.
00:42:26
And after the three were dead, then he takes the girl to the basement because it was actually her. They wondered if it
00:42:33
was actually the little girl that he had targeted that and that maybe he wanted to spend some time with her. Now, he
00:42:40
hung her with a rope over the top of a pipe in the basement. He m some sick [ __ ] man. Yeah, he he masturbated
00:42:48
either while she was being killed or just after. I say sick [ __ ] and then he just dropped that on us. Well, then he
00:42:56
collected everything that he brought to the home with him. Mhm. He cranked up the thermostat and then left in the
00:43:03
family's vehicle. Now, the two detectives that took the case, I mean, cranked up the thermostat. I don't know
00:43:11
how hot it was in the house, but but the children and police and medics all described the home to be extremely warm,
00:43:20
and they believe that the offender cranked up the thermostat to maybe speed up the the decomposition process. Okay.
00:43:28
That maybe they would decompose a little faster if it was 90 or 95 or I don't know how hot it was in the home. Yeah.
00:43:36
But the two detectives that took the case, Captain, I found this to be extremely interesting and dedicated on
00:43:42
their part, they had a suspicion, even though they thought it might be a small chance, they thought that there was a
00:43:49
small chance that the killer might return to the scene of the murders. So, the two detectives that caught the case,
00:43:56
they actually spent several nights staying overnight at the murder house. Uhhuh.
00:44:03
So going on with some more police thoughts here. Can you imagine that? That that that'd be us. We'd be on the
00:44:09
case. Chief would say, "Hey, you two knuckleheads. You guys like to talk to each other. You guys are going to stay
00:44:15
in the the house. Just wait till he comes back." Yeah. Well, and I I want to point out a few things as this is going
00:44:23
on. You got to understand the confusion here amongst just the officers involved in the investigation because this is not
00:44:30
a crime that they're used to seeing. Okay. This is not a crime that anybody is used to seeing where a whole family,
00:44:37
well, most of a family is wiped out in the course of a morning or afternoon. Yeah. And you have little to no evidence
00:44:45
left behind. The thing here though too is Captain when you have a situation like this, you know, in Witchah at the
00:44:52
time, you know, it was a big city, yes, but they didn't have a high murder rate.
00:44:56
And the murders that they had, they typically solved them fairly quickly back then because usually they were
00:45:01
committed by somebody. If if a family member was killed, good chance it was killed by another family member, right?
00:45:06
Um, you know, people on the inner circle were killing committing these types of crimes. They were solved very quickly.
00:45:13
this situation we have we have where police are not fully understanding what they are seeing. They're not fully
00:45:20
understanding the crime that took place that day. And so therefore, you have officers and investigators that are not
00:45:27
going to share the same theories about what took place that day. Yeah. Because it's not just it's not just a murder. We
00:45:34
we have a rape. Well, not rape. Okay. So, it's not actual rape because there there was no penetration. Right. Right.
00:45:42
Okay. Okay. So, sexual assault, correct? And he's basically masturbating to the torture that's going on. Um, you know,
00:45:51
these sick [ __ ] These wouldn't have been fast deaths. You know, they weren't It's not like putting a gun to
00:45:58
somebody's head and pulling the trigger. These this type of death, this type of killing takes some time. And he
00:46:06
jerked off to it, right? He he enjoyed witnessing it whether it was during or after. And that's why when we spoke
00:46:13
earlier about Dennis Rder spending time with sex workers, now he has said that he had sex
00:46:20
with these sex workers. I actually question if he would have been able to physically because when we see his
00:46:28
crimes, he doesn't show that he has that he's capable of that. That there's some
00:46:34
something in his makeup that does not allow him to do that. Now, we talked about the police and investigators
00:46:41
capable of jerking off, right? But that's mentally that's much different than um than actual
00:46:50
intercourse. Mhm. So, the we talked about some of the different police and investigator theories and thoughts as to
00:46:59
motive. Um there were three popular ones at the time of the early investigation.
00:47:05
And one was that this could be some type of revenge killing that somebody went out to kill one member of the family or
00:47:13
wipe out the entire family for some purposes of revenge. Mhm. The other theory as to motive number two was the
00:47:22
family had recently moved from Panama and Joseph was a pilot. So were there there were some people that wondered
00:47:30
could this be something that is tied to the drug trade or some type of gang hit?
00:47:37
Was Jose Joseph involved in anything moving drugs uh things of that nature and somebody had sought him out to put
00:47:45
an end to him and the other three were just collateral damage. The third theory, and this is probably
00:47:53
the most terrifying one when you think about the community, is that Mrs. Otero and the little girl were actually
00:48:02
targeted by the killer, and the killer was surprised to find the father at home that day. And there's some there's some
00:48:10
thoughts to support this theory, and that being that there were no cars in the driveway when the killer had entered
00:48:17
the home. And remember, Joseph was only home because just a couple of weeks earlier, he had been in a car accident.
00:48:25
So, the car that that he drove was in the shop because it was being fixed and Joseph was off of work nursing some
00:48:34
injuries, right? So, I'm assuming there was a way that, you know, the killer would have been able to see into the
00:48:41
garage to see if there was cars in the garage. Well, their their vehicle was home. the one that the otter mother
00:48:49
typically drove. Right. Um but the other one was gone. Correct. And so even if the killer had been watching the house,
00:48:57
if he wasn't watching the home cons, you know, consecutive days, right, he might
00:49:01
not have any clue that Joseph would have been in the home. You know, there was no
00:49:05
evidence to support or to suggest to him that Joseph was there, right? So the police had, like we said, little to no
00:49:15
leads. the case was going to go cold very quickly. This was until October of that
00:49:23
same year, till October of 1974. This is when police picked up a man for molesting a little girl behind the
00:49:30
public library. This man, his name is Gary Sebring. Now, this is a man with a lengthy criminal record that included
00:49:38
beastiality uh that he had committed in the local park there. Now, so he's picked up for
00:49:45
possibly molesting this little girl behind the library. Now, during the interrogation regarding that attack on
00:49:51
the little girl, he started talking about the Otto murders and saying some weird stuff. He said, you know, had had
00:49:59
he done the OTO murders, he would have committed them with his brother Ernest and their friend Thomas Meyer would have
00:50:08
helped them commit this crime. So, it' be three people. Yeah. So, and he would have raped their cat. Well, all three of
00:50:16
these men had a record of sex offenses. Uh, the brother Ernest was brought in for questioning. Mhm. Police were
00:50:24
looking for Thomas Meyers. Now, it took some time for them to find this Thomas Meyers character. He was eventually
00:50:31
located after he tried to take his own life. Now, all three men were found to be mentally unstable, and they were all
00:50:39
taken to a mental hospital for observation. They remained there for quite some time, but none of the three
00:50:45
would be charged with the quadruple homicides. Yeah, anybody that's raping an animal is obviously not mentally
00:50:54
stable. Well, yeah, you touched on some on something there, Captain, that the the FBI would say as well that they
00:51:01
found that the these three individuals, they didn't find any of them capable of getting away with these
00:51:08
murders, that it would have gotten out of hand. The the crime scene would have looked much differently. It just didn't
00:51:14
make any sense to them. Now, they're not just the police are not just going to go
00:51:17
off of the FBI's thoughts and theories on this. There was also no evidence to suggest that they had had anything to do
00:51:25
with these. They one of them probably read about it in the newspaper or overheard people talking about it. This
00:51:31
was a very very famous crime when this took place in 1974. Witchah had not witnessed or experienced something of
00:51:40
this level before. Like I said, none of them would be charged in the quadruple homicide, but there was plenty of news
00:51:48
coverage regarding the arrest of these three men. Uhhuh. And the real killer was watching and reading it all. And the
00:51:56
thought that someone else may take credit for his hard work was making him very, very
00:52:05
angry. Don't forget to check out the Stitcher app and Stitcher Premium. Yeah, check out our show, Off the Record, on
00:52:11
Stitcher Premium today. The first episode is out now. It's $4.99 a month. Not only do you get our show, but you
00:52:20
get all of our shows commercial free, and you get a bunch of other shows. It's all for $4.99. All right, we'll see you
00:52:27
back here in the garage tomorrow for part two of this four-part series on the BTK killer. Until then, be good, be
00:52:34
kind, and don't litter. [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music]