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GameChanger [Music] [Applause] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:43
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that was not invited but he's certainly glad he made
00:01:49
it he is the captain I just assumed the invitation got lost in the mail it's good to be seen and it's good to see you
00:01:55
thanks for listening thanks for telling my friend well hi too Captain I'm glad that you
00:02:04
made it because today we are drinking dim Wht By The River City Brewing Company garage grade 3 and A2 bottle
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caps out of five dimwit is a fantastic wit beer brw in witch all and delivering everything one would expect from a great
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wit beer and dim wit is a fantastic co-host it's citrusy it's light and it's warm and today's beer was brought to us
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by these witty guys and girls first up we have Ladon up in Alberta Canada big we like your jib to Sarah and stock to
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New Jersey and Captain everybody knows you don't mess with Texas and down there we got Adrien and Denton we also have
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Catherine and Houston big shout out you mess with the bull you get the horn next
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up at shears to Veronica and Matt in Charleston South Carolina also it cheers the Carrie listening in the farmlands in
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Ledger Montana and last but not least we have Brenda and Bloomington Illinois so
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thanks to everybody for your continu support to get involved go to True Crim garage.com check out our blog check out
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our store Page also True Crime garage Is Awesome on Instagram and untapped and if
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you're in or around Columbus Ohio this Thursday May 10th we're going to be doing a live event through Columbus
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podcast festival for more information or tickets check out Columbus podcast festival.com I will see you there
00:03:22
Captain everybody gather around grab a chair grab some beers let's talk some true
00:03:28
crime [Music] February 10th 1978 Friday evening in the Witchita Kansas city hall building the police
00:04:03
chief made the following announcement the purpose of this news conference is to advise the public of an
00:04:12
extremely serious matter involving a series of murders which occurred in our city as you know in January of
00:04:21
1974 four members of the Otoro family were murdered in March of 1977 Shirley VN was killed
00:04:30
and in December of 1977 Nancy Fox was also murdered earlier today k a KV immediately brought me a letter where
00:04:40
the author took credit for the uro The Fox and the vien murders in addition whoever wrote this letter has taken
00:04:49
credit for a seventh victim we are in no doubt and are convinced that the person that killed
00:04:55
the uros Miss Fox and Miss ven is the same person I want to restate there is no question
00:05:03
in our minds that the person who wrote The Letter killed these people this person has consistently identified
00:05:10
himself with the initials BTK and wishes to be known as the BTK Strangler because we are sure this man
00:05:18
is responsible for seven murders we wish to enlist the assistance of each citizen
00:05:24
of this community our police department has already begun special efforts which is
00:05:30
as follows one additional uniformed officers are already on the street two a special detective task force involving
00:05:41
the major case squad has been established three a special phone number for Citizens to call has been
00:05:49
established this phone will be staffed 24 hours a day four we have solicited the assistance of the district attorney
00:05:58
the sheriff and and Professionals in the field of human behavior and would welcome the assistance from any person
00:06:04
regardless of their expertise I know it is difficult to ask people to remain calm but we are asking
00:06:12
exactly this when a person of this type is at large in our community it requires
00:06:19
special precautions and special awareness by everyone when we left off last week we finished
00:06:38
the week by announcing that the BTK killer had named himself had sent a letter to k a
00:06:45
KV and immediately that letter was sent to the police department that same evening they held the press conference
00:06:52
where we just discussed that announcement that they made now as you can imagine the police announcing to the
00:06:58
public and to the local media that a predatory sexual killer is on the loose sent a wave of Widespread Panic shock
00:07:06
and fear across the community the announcement quickly became national news with the public aware that BTK was
00:07:14
hunting people in Witchita many rumors were swirling about who the killer was and how and why he chose certain victims
00:07:24
one thing that was also mentioned during the Public Announcement was that the killer had cut the phone line to the
00:07:30
houses before he entered the home to attack and kill the occupants this information inspired a
00:07:36
safety precaution that became a ritualistic habit of nearly all the citizens of the greater Witchita area
00:07:43
especially something practice by single women that lived alone because the phone
00:07:49
line was cut people would upon arriving back at their homes they would run to the phone in the house and pick up the
00:07:55
receiver and listen for a dial tone mhm a lot of people would call their home from another location before returning
00:08:02
home to make sure that the phone would ring other precautions were taken by citizens as well this included the
00:08:09
increased sales of pee holes dead bolts other additional door locks and of course guns and dogs were in high demand
00:08:17
but a pattern that we would see time and time again after this communication BTK
00:08:23
went dark and it was 14 months later when we have another incident yeah this is going to be around 10 p.m. on April
00:08:30
29th 1979 this is when Dennis Raider shattered the basement window of a 61-year-old woman who lived alone now
00:08:39
she lived just one mile from one of his previous victims Nancy Fox MH he climbed
00:08:44
into the home and his victim she was not home at this time he he would wait for her to return there was a guest bed down
00:08:53
in the basement beside it he decided to lay out some ropes and a broom handle then the woman returned to her house she
00:09:02
had spent the night out with several friends the friends had drove her home she got out of the car and she
00:09:08
approached the front door reaching into her purse she pulled out the keys to her
00:09:13
house she turned and smiled and waved at her friends she looked down to make sure
00:09:18
that she had the right key and then she heard her friend shout from the car Anna
00:09:23
wait why don't you come over to our house for a cup of coffee Anna turned from the door put her keys back back in
00:09:29
her person walked back to the car got in and they drove away mhm inside the house
00:09:35
BTK grew angry as he waited and waited for her to return eventually he ends up leaving the house when Anna did return
00:09:44
home she found the broken window the ropes and the broom handle she picked up the phone to call the police and report
00:09:51
a Breakin but the phone line was dead and there was no dial tone right she ran to her neighbor's home and called the
00:09:58
police from there when police arrived they had found that the phone line had been cut and they also discovered that
00:10:04
some jewelry and several articles of clothing along with $35 in cash were missing from the home initially this
00:10:13
incident was not linked to BTK but that changed when on June 15th an envelope addressed with block letters arrived at
00:10:22
Anna's Home inside was an article of clothing and jewelry that had been stolen from Anna's home these items were
00:10:31
accompanied by a letter and a drawing now the drawing was of a bound and nude woman the letter was a poem and it was
00:10:40
titled oh Anna why didn't you appear and it read TW perfect plan of deviant pleasure so bold on that spring night my
00:10:49
inner felling hot with propension of new awakening season worn wet with Inner Fear and Rapture my pleasure of
00:10:58
entanglement like new Vines at night oh Anna why didn't you appear drop of fear fresh spring rain roll down from your
00:11:07
nakedness to scent to lofty fever that burns within in that small world of longing fear Rapture and Desperation the
00:11:16
game we play fall on devil ears Fantasy Spring forth mounts to storm Fury then winter clam at end oh Anna why didn't
00:11:26
you appear alone now and another time span I lay with sweet and Rapture garments across most private thought bed
00:11:35
of spring moist grass clean before the sun enslaved with control warm wind senting the air sunlight Sparkle tears
00:11:43
in eyes so deep and clear alone again I Trot in past memory of MIRS and Ponder why for number eight was not oh Anna why
00:11:54
didn't you appear 2 Days Later the newspapers are going to report that be TK Strangler tried to get his eighth
00:12:01
victim but he failed when she didn't return home so the would be victim was Anna Williams now she actually moved out
00:12:08
of town shortly after the incident because even though the police didn't connect the Breakin with the actions of
00:12:15
BTK uh until the letter was received Anna's instincts told her that it was the serial killer and she feared that he
00:12:22
would return to claim her at another time right and actually in fact when the letter was sent to her home she had
00:12:29
already moved out by that time she had sent someone to collect the mail until the home could be sold or whatever they
00:12:36
intended to do with it so the letter was actually received by somebody else but one thing that I think that this shows
00:12:42
here and I think there's there's a lot of evidence of this in the actions of the BTK Strangler here right is that
00:12:51
after so after the announcement of the BTK Strangler just like the Son of Sam who commit you know communed with law
00:12:59
enforcement and with the public and I also suspect this to be the case with the Zodiac as well though we may never
00:13:06
know Dennis Raider became well he became like addicted to the news coverage about
00:13:12
him and about the case right and he loved being the city's so-called Boogeyman let's say
00:13:18
right yeah or what everybody's fearing right right he right he loved the fear of the city's people uh he loved that he
00:13:25
knew the answer to the biggest question around town who was BTK yeah or who was POS well and I tell you what though he
00:13:33
he loved the secrets that he was keeping and I would suspect and well later we would we would learn that this was fact
00:13:41
actually that he collected the newspaper articles about him and like we learned from Gary Ridgeway the Green River
00:13:49
Killer we learned from his wife after he was finally caught that Gary seemed to be obsessive about not missing the
00:13:56
evening or nighttime newscast this probably would have been the case with Raider as well right now regarding
00:14:04
the newspaper articles and collecting them well we also know that BTK has a wife and two kids so he would have to
00:14:12
hide his collection he wouldn't want for his family or others to know that he had
00:14:17
an unhealthy fascination with the case yeah they're probably watching for two reasons one if they sent a letter what
00:14:25
is the reaction and also just is there any updates from the police so they can monitor you know is law enforcement
00:14:32
closer to catching me yeah yeah it's kind of double duty I guess right two birds yeah you get to monitor the
00:14:39
investigation or what what the public can see of the investigation as well as see the reaction and and it's filling
00:14:46
your ego at the same time yeah scary while we while we were talking about his family um you know we talked about
00:14:54
people checking the phone lines one thing that I found very interesting about this case was his wife Dennis
00:15:00
Raider's wife was afraid of the BTK um to the point she was one of the people that would check the phone line in her
00:15:09
house and she was vocal to friends and family about being afraid of the BTK Strangler well and denn probably got off
00:15:17
on that well he he may have but I know there was one time that he did not like it at all because remember last week we
00:15:25
spoke about the phone call when Dennis Raider made that very short phone call announcing a homicide to the dispatcher
00:15:34
and of course they show up to the address that he gives and sure enough there's a victim there well remember
00:15:39
they played that on the newscast they played that as bad as that audio was they played that on the newscast hoping
00:15:47
somebody would recognize the voice the strange thing here though is the two of them Mr and Mrs Raider were watching the
00:15:54
news together that night and after they played it multiple times she looked looked over at him and almost kind of
00:16:00
like jokingly very casually says to him that sounds like you or BTK talks like you do and let's let's reenact that okay
00:16:10
so I'll be Dennis Raider okay and then you be his wife okay play they just played my voice go ahead that sounds
00:16:22
like you honey a lot of people sound like me it couldn't be me yeah I think I I don't
00:16:32
know what was actually said but uh according to Dennis Raider he got he got very agitated and and pretty defensive
00:16:40
when that had happened oh so I played it completely wrong I I figured he'd just you know laugh it off oh yeah that
00:16:47
sounds like me honey I'm the BTK I'm going to stab you uh the wife told Dennis that the the phone call sounded
00:16:54
like him but but we also have to keep in mind that they've been together for quite some time by this point she she
00:16:59
never actually thought that her husband was the killer right but so he pulled the old you know she's just trying to
00:17:07
make a joke hey honey that kind of sounds like you and he pulled old what the hell are you talking about I I don't
00:17:12
know what went down he just said he his only comment on it would be that he was annoyed no he wasn't annoyed he was
00:17:20
scared when she had said that to him that he was he was scared so now but I want to I just point out here that this
00:17:27
this letter this letter that we just discussed or this communication I believe is proof of his addiction to his
00:17:33
notoriety of his BTK Persona because when the cops in the local media failed to connect this break into BTK it's
00:17:42
about 15 months later and he wants to let the public know that he is still around so you know be afraid because I'm
00:17:49
still out here I haven't left I'm still hunting people we've spoke quite a bit about Dennis Raider's personal life so
00:17:56
he is this man living in Park City City who had terrorized witch killing seven people announcing to the public his name
00:18:03
and presence sending taunting letters and threatening everyone to kill more people but he's he's a guy living this
00:18:11
quiet and pretty reserved life in Park City living in a a modest home with his wife son and daughter and working for
00:18:18
the ADT company Rising through the ranks over the years yeah he is not killing during this time but he has trophies he
00:18:26
has trophies from his kills and unbeknownst to those close to him and to those living with him he is constantly
00:18:33
fantasizing and reliving his sick murderous fantasies behind closed doors in his home Raider also did what he
00:18:41
called self bondage um and he did this in wooded areas he did this at his home and he
00:18:48
also did this this is uncomfortable really this whole conversation is uncomfortable but he also did this in
00:18:56
his parents' basement was like one of his favorite places to to go about this self bondage thing that he liked to do
00:19:04
and what he would do is I guess his parents um you know they they lived not terribly far from where he was living
00:19:11
and they traveled a decent amount you know several times a year and I think he would go check on their house maybe
00:19:18
collect the mail things like that his parents basement was a place that was one of his favorite spots for what he
00:19:25
called self- bondage and this is where he would take these long drawn out um sessions of of himself where he would be
00:19:35
you know he would he would wear mask women's clothing uh he was hanging himself tying himself up using handcuffs
00:19:43
on himself and he would also take pictures of himself when he was doing this self- bondage uh let's say hobby of
00:19:51
his yeah and and I believe that um a fetish well yeah and and I don't know how many you can find online but there
00:19:59
are some of these these pictures have gone uh public uh of of his his crazy hobby but you know he's also doing
00:20:08
normal things though at this time he's raising his family being a husband he's he's listed as a regarded as a hard
00:20:14
worker at the ADT company he is involved in his church uh by the early 80s Dennis's son Brian is in grade school
00:20:23
and he joins the Cub Scouts now Raider was in the Cub Scouts and boy scouts when he was a kid and teenager so this
00:20:30
is something that he he enjoyed himself but he also passed it on to his son and Dennis was involved uh he was a
00:20:37
volunteer there he helped out quite a bit with the Boy Scouts and with his son's Cub Scouts and I have seen several
00:20:44
websites that state that Dennis was a very officially appointed Boy Scout leader I think this is just more
00:20:51
folklore I think he just helped out there but he was involved but for Dennis Raider uh for BT K the Boy Scouts would
00:21:00
later become an important thing to his crimes and to his murders now we had recently mentioned pictures um you know
00:21:09
taking the Polaroids of himself one Theory early on in the BT case was that the killer was not only taking some
00:21:17
trophies from the houses but he was probably taking photos of the victims and of the crime scenes as well this is
00:21:26
a very strong Theory and a part one with a lot of thought to back it up now remember he killed four members of the
00:21:33
Otoro family and then many years later in a communication to the police he recalls very specific details about each
00:21:42
one of the victims and about what he did using which items and specifics about the crime scene yeah to prove it was him
00:21:51
right and there was FBI that stated you know what either this guy's taking photographs of the crime
00:21:58
and that's how he's able to give us such a great detailed account of what had happened a few years later or he has a
00:22:05
photographic memory now the FBI didn't think that photogra photographic memory was likely with this character now the
00:22:15
early 80s in wiah was there was the birth of something that would later be called the Ghostbuster
00:22:21
Squad by this time though there had not been a murder or communication from BTK in years now what was the Ghostbuster
00:22:29
Squad well this was comprised of eight officers and it was you had all kinds of different ranking officers in this
00:22:37
Ghostbuster Squad did they have a cool car uh I I don't think that they actually had a vehicle at all I think
00:22:44
these were these were men that spent a lot of time in closed door meetings trying to come up with new Clues they
00:22:52
were reviewing the old cases uh trying to find something within those Case Files that might lead them to BTK and
00:22:59
coming up with the strategy for tracking this guy down now some of these officers
00:23:04
like I said different ranking officers some of them would be experienced homicide detectives some that had
00:23:10
originally worked the uro murders and the other two murder cases as well and then you have you have officers that
00:23:18
were just G you know I believe one of them was even on like desk Duty because he was injured in the line of duty and
00:23:25
couldn't go out of the office but one office that was involved in this a young officer named Ken landware he was a
00:23:32
police officer at the time and he he's somebody that we would see he's going to end up working this BT
00:23:39
case for like 20 years you know so he's one of the early guys in on this and one
00:23:46
of the guys that worked this case and saw it through to the end now the name the Ghostbuster Squad that was not an
00:23:53
official name you know they weren't called that by the police department it's really annoying when people don't
00:23:58
use official names well I don't know that they had a name they were probably just referred to as some type of task
00:24:04
force would be my guess what it was kind of a nickname that the department gave the task force because one day there was
00:24:13
an officer talking to another officer and said hey all those officers and detectives I see them in there every day
00:24:19
working on something having meetings what are they doing in there and the other officer said to the guy don't
00:24:25
worry about that they're just chasing ghost yeah and so that became the kind of nickname that they slapped on to this
00:24:33
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[Music] Freedom all right cheers mates and a big shout out to all the beautiful people
00:26:55
that we met at crime con this weekend Marine Wallace hedge was 53 years old was a quiet Dependable second shift
00:27:02
supervisor at a medical center Coffee shop now she was originally from Arkansas but she had moved to Kansas
00:27:10
with her late husband she was widowed she was described as a kind petite well-dressed woman with a Charming
00:27:18
Southern Voice she was a devoted mother to her three daughters one son and a devoted she was devoted to her
00:27:25
grandchildren as well now she enjoyed playing bingo doing yard work and attending the Baptist Church she lived
00:27:33
on the same block as Dennis Raider actually she had lived there on the same block as Dennis Raider for over 30
00:27:40
years at some point Dennis started to fantasize about Marine Hedges mhm he got a strong sexual charge thinking about
00:27:49
what she would look like tied up gagged and with a rope tight around her neck now this could be a big big problem for
00:27:57
Dennis because factor x is telling him to kill her but killing a neighbor would be extremely risky but once factor x
00:28:05
focused in on a victim Dennis had to get to work trolling the subject checking up
00:28:11
on them as he would call it now during this process Dennis learned that the woman had worked at a coffee shop and he
00:28:18
would call this project cookie sometimes at night Dennis would take a bike ride and he would sneak around her home
00:28:26
watching her through the Windows sometimes he would stare at her as she lie in bed at night with the light on
00:28:32
reading Dennis didn't care about the risk it it the The Urge that he got to kill her was so strong he was willing to
00:28:41
take the risk he was going to create some kind of plan so that he could kill her but also give himself an alibi as
00:28:49
well okay so on the weekend of April 27th 1985 Dennis Raider was attending a Boy
00:28:56
Scout camp camp this is just outside of witch he left the camp in the evening with the pretext of having a headache
00:29:03
and needing to get to town to buy something for his headache in his vehicle Dennis Raider had what he
00:29:10
referred to as his hit kit this would be his kit of prepared items he thought he
00:29:16
needed or intended to use during the course of one of his murders you know we saw this type of thing with Bundy you
00:29:23
know that you keep this thing in your vehicle or you keep it close at hand you have these materials or items that you
00:29:30
think you're going to need to use right but this time Captain he had actually stored these items in a pre-selected bag
00:29:37
he he put them in a different bag this time he was using a bowling bag mhm so after he left the camp he parked his car
00:29:45
by a bowling alley inside the city and he bought himself a beer at the bowling alley he drank half the beer and
00:29:52
deliberately spilled beer on his clothing and on his hands so he would have smelled like he had been there all
00:30:00
night drinking a lot mhm so he calls a cab and when the cab gets there he pretends to be drunk and he tells the
00:30:08
driver that he's far too drunk to drive home and he needed a ride but Dennis instructed the driver to take him to
00:30:15
take him home but he didn't give the driver an actual address he told the driver to take him to a park in Park
00:30:23
City so that he could walk it off before going home saying he wanted to get some
00:30:27
fresh air was too drunk to see his wife whatever right so this park it was near the backyard of hedge's property Raider
00:30:36
shows up he makes the walk to her property and he's actually disappointed to see Marine's car in the carport so he
00:30:44
assumed when he saw the vehicle that she was at home he didn't want her to be home when he arrived at the house he
00:30:51
cuts the phone line and he quietly Pride open a rear door using a SC screwdriver
00:30:58
and it turned out that that no one was home to his surprise even though that car was there right nobody was in the
00:31:04
house but soon A car pulled up and Raider decided to hide in a bedroom closet now Marine hedge and a friend
00:31:12
this was Gerald Porter entered the home they stayed there talking for approximately 2 hours the whole time
00:31:21
Dennis Raider is hiding in this closet listening to the two of them talk waiting for the man to leave well Gerald
00:31:29
left the house that night around 1:00 a.m. now Raider waited until Marine went to bed and you know till till he he
00:31:39
thought that she had fallen asleep at that time he crept out of the closet he turns on the the bathroom light so he
00:31:48
can see what he's he's doing and then he pounces on Marine who's still in the bed
00:31:53
he manually is choking the this woman now now I I said she's a petite woman this woman weighed less than 100 lb MH
00:32:02
so Dennis Raider would seem like a giant on top of her he ends up killing her when he's he's choking her he was really
00:32:09
just trying to get control of her and get control of the situation but because he was so much larger than her his hands
00:32:16
strong he ended up strangling her to death now this this fantasy-driven outing was far from over though there
00:32:24
was other stuff that he wanted to do looks like he's going to have to make up for it now that he accidentally killed
00:32:31
her too fast for his liking so he decided to rumage through the house looking for trophies that he could keep
00:32:38
and he decided to take her purse and everything in it he was going to do something he had not done before he was
00:32:45
going to remove the victim's body from the house and dump her somewhere else he didn't want this to look like a BT BTK
00:32:54
killing remember this is way too close to to his home right so he dragged the body with the bedding to her car and put
00:33:03
her in the trunk of her own car then Dennis Raider drove directly to his church where okay so he was so trusted
00:33:13
at his church that he had keys to the building he could get into the building anytime he wanted to so he dragged the
00:33:21
body underneath some Tre well I mean let's be real he could get into it whether he had keys or not yeah I that's
00:33:27
true you know he could break into the place he dragged the body underneath some trees and he entered the building
00:33:33
um down and went down to the basement and then he taped black plastic over the basement window so no one could see
00:33:41
inside he had actually stashed the plastic there a few days maybe a week before knowing that this was his
00:33:48
intention knowing that he was going to need it and then dragged the body down to the basement and he photographed it
00:33:54
in various poses when BTK is done living out these fantasies he's going to return
00:33:59
his victim to her trunk and he's going to then take off yeah he's going to be looking for a place to ditch this body
00:34:06
so he's looking for a dumping ground and he finds a place that he likes uh this is in a ditch along a dirt road several
00:34:13
miles outside of Park City M when he gets there he takes her out of the trunk he places her on the ground and then he
00:34:19
covers her with leaves and branches now he also left a knotted pair of panty hose near the body then Dennis Raider
00:34:28
dropped her car off about 6 miles away at a shopping Center parking lot he left the car there after wiping it down for
00:34:37
fingerprints by now it was getting it was almost light out by this time Raider had made his way back to where he had
00:34:44
left his vehicle and then he drove and returned to the Scout camp that he had deserted earlier right then he went into
00:34:53
his tent and pretended like he had been in there sleeping all night long and he emerged a short time later giving the
00:35:00
impression that he had just woke up for the day he spent that morning scrambling
00:35:04
eggs for the scouts for whatever reason and I think it was because she had died so quickly
00:35:10
so early on in the attack he would later say that this kill that this was not a very satisfying kill for him next BTK
00:35:19
and factor x are going to focus in on Vicky werly Vicki's a 28-year-old wife and mother she was uh calm quiet kind
00:35:29
person she loved children and when she became pregnant with her child she began providing Child Care from her home Vicki
00:35:37
attended two churches she attended the Lutheran Church because it was her faith but she also attended the Methodist
00:35:44
Church because it was the neighborhood church she volunteered to watch children in the church nurseries now Raider
00:35:52
started stalking her in 1986 he he would walk by her house and Vicky would be inside playing the piano many times so
00:36:03
he started calling Vicky project piano okay in preparation for this project Dennis made up a fake repair man hard
00:36:11
hat he had glued a Southwestern Bell logo onto the hard hat on his shirt he placed a fake name tag that he had
00:36:20
fashioned out of someone's Southwestern Bell business card that he had found he brought a along with him a briefcase to
00:36:28
look you know official inside the briefcase was the BTK hit kit right he's always finding ways to disguise this hit
00:36:37
kit that he's going to bring along with him on September 16th this is sometime after 10: a.m. he parked his car a few
00:36:45
blocks away from her home and then he first went to Vicky's neighbor's house and he's dressed as this telephone
00:36:52
repair man he knocks on the door and then he goes through his Spiel with the elderly woman who answered the door you
00:36:58
know saying I need to check your phone we're checking phones in the neighborhood blah blah blah you know
00:37:04
this was kind of a smart move on his part and he said that the reason why he knocked on the neighbor's door first was
00:37:11
if Vicky happened to be looking out the window he didn't want to just walk from far away and she see him knock on her
00:37:18
her door first he was determined to he was determined to attack and kill somebody that day almost to the point
00:37:26
that when the L woman had answered the door it crossed his mind maybe I just attack her instead of going next door
00:37:33
after he talks to the neighbor lady he's going to end up at Vicky's front door and somehow Dennis Raider managed to
00:37:39
talk himself inside the home claiming that he needed to check the phone line from inside once inside he he goes over
00:37:48
and he kind of like fiddles with the phone for a little bit he even brought with him some kind of fake testing
00:37:53
Gadget that he threw in his briefcase and then he turns on her and he informs her that he is going to need
00:38:01
to tie her up I wonder if he you know she was married so I wonder if the intent of let me get into the house
00:38:09
under the the guys of checking this phone just to make sure that she's alone being there for enough time to make sure
00:38:16
she's alone right I imagine using a gun he forced her into a bedroom and then he
00:38:22
attempted to tie her up but she she fought him pretty bad and and uh she gave a fierce battle she scratched him
00:38:29
several times in the process Raider ended up winning the physical fight though and he would
00:38:36
secure her with ropes and then he proceeded to strangle her to death using panty hose as a leature he photographed
00:38:43
the body in several poses and then he left in wager Le's vehicle yeah and during this attack she is you know
00:38:52
claiming that her husband's going to come home too cuz she's trying to scare him off yeah she wants to to scare BTK
00:38:58
out of the house but the weird thing is and I don't know if this was routine or not Captain but her husband Bill werly
00:39:05
and did come home he did come home soon after the attack he came home so much soon after the attack that he actually
00:39:14
saw Vicky's car driving in the opposite direction from their home now when the car was kind of far away he thought that
00:39:22
it was Vicki you know he spots the vehicle he's like oh there's there's our car she's probably going somewhere yeah
00:39:29
well as the car got closer he couldn't identify the driver but he knew that it wasn't Vicki and actually assume that it
00:39:36
was not his vehicle that he was seeing at that time when he gets home something very strange it happened remember we
00:39:44
talked about how much Vicky loved children and she even took care of other people's kids but when he arrives home
00:39:50
the home appears to be empty and his 2-year-old son Brandon is just sitting there in the living room un ended mhm B
00:39:58
Bill walked the home and he couldn't find Vicki well he's there for quite some time I think he even like made his lunch
00:40:06
you know he had returned home for lunch that day and he comes home and he starts
00:40:10
to prepare his lunch he's getting angry at his wife because why in the hell is his son there this little 2-year-old boy
00:40:18
unattended in the home and and furthermore where does she go right he's home for about 45 minutes maybe an hour
00:40:26
and he's kind of you know at first probably just walking around kind of nonchalant but as the time goes on he's
00:40:34
getting angrier and he's starting to look and look and look around this house eventually he discovers her lifeless
00:40:40
body was placed between the bed in the wall there's you know how sometimes people put their bed near the wall and
00:40:46
there's only a small space there her body was either pushed down in there or had fallen down in there and he hadn't
00:40:53
he didn't see her so he calls the police and and he tells them what had happened
00:40:58
he calls and he says you know I I'm pretty sure my wife is dead I came home and my 2-year-old son is by himself well
00:41:04
he's also going to tell him that he thinks he saw well now he thinks he saw his vehicle driving away from the house
00:41:10
yeah and when the paramedics arrive they are desperately trying to revive her keep in mind she would have only been
00:41:16
dead if in fact she was dead when BTK left the home for a short period of time but unfortunately it she was pronounced
00:41:23
dead a short time later before they could get to the hospital now BTK meanwhile had been driving around the
00:41:32
city and he is disposing of evidence as he's driving eventually he returned to the area near Vicky's house and he
00:41:41
parked werley's car just a couple blocks from their home in fact he exited the vehicle in the area on foot um and he
00:41:51
returned to his own car that he had left nearby changing his clothes uh he escaped all detection for this
00:41:59
crime and was actually for the longest time never suspected of this murder at all you think somebody would have
00:42:07
reported his car being you know a suspicious car within within a few blocks of a crime taking place and
00:42:14
nobody knows whose car that is correct yes and but one thing that might help him with this is that this is an attack
00:42:21
during the middle of the day in the neighborhood there's a good chance you know a lot of people off at work
00:42:26
people are less likely to see some things right this story right here you know all of these stories are extremely
00:42:33
tragic this one is a little has a little more added tragedy to it because not only is a young mother
00:42:42
killed here and a young wife killed here but this is a real tough one because a lot of the police and detectives thought
00:42:49
for sure that the husband actually had killed his wife you know he's the one that finds her dead um they couldn't
00:42:56
believe that the sun was there right they could not believe that he was home for 45 minutes to maybe an hour before
00:43:03
discovering her body and so yeah that that sounds a little fishy exactly so you can see you
00:43:10
can see that side of the fence now on the other side of the fence we have other detectives that had issue with
00:43:17
this thought and and one reason was the knots that were found at the scene some of them thought they resembled some
00:43:23
knots that they had seen at BTK crime scenes M and now number two they thought that you know this this
00:43:31
would take some time in their investigation but once they found the vehicle and I know that it wasn't
00:43:36
terribly far from her home but but the the problem they had with that was while logistically it was possible for this
00:43:44
man to move her vehicle a few blocks from the home and return nobody had seen him just like you said about btk's
00:43:52
suspicious car nobody saw that either I guess but the thought was they thought somebody would have seen him walking
00:43:58
back to his home they couldn't find anybody that had said that and then three and this is probably the most
00:44:04
important was the little boy like you said their son is still at home well when police talk to the little boy mind
00:44:11
you he's only two so he's limited on Words and stuff like that yeah but but the nightmares that kid is going to have
00:44:20
well the the only thing that he was able to tell the investigators was was a single sentence that was man hurt mommy
00:44:28
man hurt mommy well a lot of the detectives found it strange that the boy would say man hurt mommy they if if if
00:44:35
he had seen his father kill his mother yeah he would say daddy or whatever he called him now January 31st
00:44:44
1987 Upon returning home to witch Kansas after visiting family for a few days Mary fager was understandably shocked to
00:44:53
discover her husband Melvin dead on the floor this is directly in front of the door to their home her husband had been
00:45:01
shot twice in the back now there two daughters this is Sher she's 9 years old and Kelly who's 16 years old they were
00:45:08
found in the basement they had been left in a covered hot tub with the hot with the water running I think it was at like
00:45:15
90° in this hot tub Sherry had been bound with electrical tape and placed in the water after having been
00:45:23
strangled Kelly had been drowned now there were no signs of forced entry to the home implying that maybe the
00:45:31
killer was known to the family or at least good enough to talk his way or their way into the house the husband and
00:45:39
father like I said was found by the front door still wearing his coat so there was one police theory about this
00:45:46
crime is that the man may have been shot upon entering into the home that he had
00:45:52
un you know unknowingly returned home during some portion of a crime being committed and startled the killer or
00:45:59
Killers MH one big clue in this case was the family car was missing now along with a local handyman um there was a guy
00:46:09
by the name of William Butterworth who had been employed by the family for some work around the house I like their syrup
00:46:17
it was initially feared by the investigators that Butterworth was either another victim or he had you know
00:46:24
possibly been taken by force or that P perhaps he was party to whatever had happened in the house now his own van
00:46:33
was found several days later this was just blocks away from the house a search of the van came up empty they found no
00:46:42
evidence in this van whatsoever on January 3rd 1988 so almost a year later Butterworth is arrested in
00:46:51
Florida he had called his wife and a family member reported this to the police and in fact he was still on the
00:46:59
phone when he was arrested they had been looking for this guy ever since this murder went down they find him in
00:47:05
Florida because he decides to call his wife now when he's arrested the car keys the keys to the fager family vehicle MH
00:47:13
they were found in his pocket and the stolen car was found nearby he was unarmed and he did not
00:47:24
resist when he was arrested now while being questioned by the police he told the officers that he had entered
00:47:31
the home discovered the body of Melvin that's the father heard some noises in the house got scared and ran away he had
00:47:40
no obvious reason to flee to Florida the police couldn't figure out look if you're not guilty why did you flee the
00:47:48
area he didn't have a police record he was not a match for the there was seamen found in the hot tub he was not a match
00:47:56
for that that Sean he was also not a match for strange fingerprints that were found inside the home he was described
00:48:04
as a guy who would always go out of his way to do a favor for someone nice guy he had three children a three-year-old a
00:48:11
six-month old six-month old twins I'm sorry and he had been having some Financial issues at the time just weeks
00:48:19
before these murders MH under questioning you know he's questioned multiple times Captain he did not change
00:48:26
his story his story did not change he stuck to it he said that he entered the house saw the body heard something ran
00:48:33
away he also said that that being terrified in this situation he thought he was going to die yeah and being
00:48:41
terrified in the situation he didn't recall what he was doing or his whereabouts for several days after that
00:48:49
went down he said when he came to he it was like four or five days later and he was in Florida and he was afraid to
00:48:56
return right so Butterworth's defense attorney he's going to be he's going to be charged with this however his defense
00:49:04
attorney has him undergo 20 hypnosis sessions over the course of four months they're trying to get a full story or to
00:49:13
see if possibly he's lying right under hypnosis Butterworth gave a similar but much more detailed story of what had
00:49:21
happened that day he said that he had been building the family sun room which was true he took a break for lunch when
00:49:29
he returned he said that Kelly this is the oldest daughter and someone that he assumed was possibly her boyfriend were
00:49:38
in the hot tub he he did not see um anyone in the sunro but he said that he heard movement or saw some type
00:49:50
of movement so he decided that he was going to leave the home and he would come back later you know keep in mind he
00:49:56
assumes that he saw the oldest daughter with probably her boyfriend maybe he felt awkward at walking in on this
00:50:05
situation decides to leave happens so during this time he goes out and he goes shopping cuz he's just trying to kill
00:50:11
some time while he's out he bumps into a retired police captain this is William dots now later William dots would verify
00:50:20
having seen and spoke with Butterworth that day at that approximate time dots went on to say that Butterworth did
00:50:28
not seem to be shaken or to be nervous or acting strange when he met with him that day then Butterworth returned to
00:50:37
the house at approximately 4:30 at this time he said that the lights were off he
00:50:43
entered the salarium and he found Sherry face down in the hot tub then he saw Melvin dead in the hallway he heard a
00:50:52
noise and he realized that the murderer was still in in the house so frightened he bolted now for some reason captain
00:51:00
and I apologize because I do not know why but apparently this man in the confusion ended up with the wrong set of
00:51:07
keys somehow I'm not sure how this happened but when he was trying to get the heck out of there right he had
00:51:14
accidentally tried to use Fager's keys to start his van when he realized that he had the wrong set of keys he wasn't
00:51:21
he was afraid he didn't want to enter the home again he grabbed his stuff out of his van and then took off in Fager's
00:51:28
car yeah but can you imagine you have a psycho killer that you believe is still in the house you're running for your
00:51:34
life and then you get into a vehicle you go to start it and you have the wrong damn keys and you have a victim's set of
00:51:41
keys in your hand and you're going to end up taking their vehicle because you don't want to go back into the house at
00:51:47
that point right now remember he says that he kind of he's uncertain of his whereabouts or what he was doing for
00:51:53
approximately the next four days he says when he came to the next thing he remembers he's in Florida that he he
00:52:01
magically wakes up in Florida once he comes to he said that he felt shame and cowardice for running he was also afraid
00:52:10
that he would be picked out to be the suspect or to have murdered these people and that made him not want to return and
00:52:18
that's why he waited so long before he contacted anybody after he had already been out he was charged with these three
00:52:25
murders mhm but it was on June 7th well that's because his story never changed what we've learned from shows like
00:52:32
serial is if you change your story over and over that they normally put you on the prosecutor's team yeah and that's a
00:52:39
good way to get your conviction overturned years later possibly at least on June 7th 1988 Butterworth was
00:52:49
acquitted of all of the charges now most people to this day believe that this is
00:52:54
not an open case they they don't believe that the you know that the they believe
00:53:00
that the police have closed this case because the police firmly believe in the Public's eye that Butterworth was the
00:53:08
killer of these three individuals but then you have to wonder we have this guy BTK who's active at the
00:53:16
time killing people inside their homes and we have two female victims there and remember Dennis Raider was not opposed
00:53:23
to attacking and killing children and what we do know is this captain on January in January of 1988 Dennis Raider
00:53:32
sent a letter to the mother who had discovered the bodies of her husband and children and this letter simply said I
00:53:40
did not kill your family but I admire the work so an interesting still unsolved to this very day triple
00:53:48
homicide so maybe maybe Butterworth did it maybe Butterworth has a partner you know maybe that would explain some of it
00:53:55
because some of the evidence doesn't match up with him 100% right or maybe BTK did it but isn't claiming
00:54:03
responsibility for it for some reason then you have the other possibility which is the Killer is an unknown
00:54:09
suspect at the time that this letter was sent from Dennis ra Raider to Mary fager
00:54:16
it was actually believed to be a hoax simply someone pretending to be the BTK but after his arrest it was confirmed
00:54:24
that the letter was in fact from Dennis Raider because like most of his Communications Raider would make a
00:54:32
photoc copy of his letters and to further elude detection Dennis Raider would mail the photocopy not the
00:54:40
original to either the police or to the media right after his arrest police found the original amongst Raiders BTK
00:54:50
memorabilia right but I'm just going to assume that BTK didn't do this cuz one he wanted credit for these crimes and he
00:54:58
wanted to be in the spotlight and he he wanted people talking about him that he wanted people fearing him you know so he
00:55:05
wrote a letter so he could get into the spotlight but he also said hey I admire your work but I didn't do this and I
00:55:12
think you're exactly right I think him sending that letter is simply just a reminder to the general public I'm still
00:55:18
out there now there's another crazy person out there too right I'm still out here and I'm watching and I'm
00:55:27
[Music] waiting thanks for listening and stick around for the finale of BTK tomorrow
00:55:39
until then be good be kind and don't [Music] litter [Applause] [Music] you can start your day off right when
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