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[Music] Heat. Heat. Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks
00:00:43
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
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it. He is the captain. I just assume the invitation got lost in the mail. It's good to be seen and it's good to see
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you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a [Music] friend. Well, I too, Captain. I'm glad
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that you made it because today we are drinking Dimwit by the River City Brewing Company garage three and a half
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bottle caps out of five. Dimwit is a fantastic wit beer brewed in Witchah and delivering everything one would expect
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from a great Wit beer. and Dim Wit is a fantastic co-host. It's citrusy, it's light, and it's warm. And today's beer
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was brought to us by these witty guys and girls. First up, we have Ladonna up in Alberta, Canada. And a big we like
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your jib to Sarah in Stockton, New Jersey. And Captain, everybody knows you don't mess with Texas. And down there,
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we got Adrian and Denton. And we also have Catherine in Houston. Big shout out. You mess with the bull, you get the
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horn. Next up, a cheers to Veronica and Matt in Charleston, South Carolina. Also, a cheers to Carrie listening in
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the farmlands in Ledger, Montana. And last but not least, we have Brenda in Bloomington, Illinois. So, thanks to
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everybody for your continued support. To get involved, go to true crimegar.com, check out our blog, check out our store
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page. Also, true crime garage is awesome on Instagram and Untappd. And if you're
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in or around Columbus, Ohio, this Thursday, May 10th, we're going to be doing a live event through Columbus
00:02:17
Podcast Festival. For more information or tickets, check out columbuspodcastfestival.com. I will see
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you there, Captain. Everybody, gather around, grab a chair, grab some beers. Let's talk some true crime.
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[Music] February 10th, 1978, Friday evening in the Witchah, Kansas City Hall building.
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The police chief made the following announcement. The purpose of this news conference is to advise the public of an
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extremely serious matter involving a series of murders which occurred in our city. As you know, in January of
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1974, four members of the Ouro family were murdered. In March of 1977, Shirley Vienn was killed. And in
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December of 1977, Nancy Fox was also murdered. Earlier today, KV immediately brought me a letter where
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the author took credit for the URO, the Fox, and the Vienn murders. In addition,
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whoever wrote this letter has taken credit for a seventh victim. We are in no doubt and are convinced
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that the person that killed the oturos, Miss Fox and Miss Vienn is the same person. I want to restate there is no
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question in our minds that the person who wrote the letter killed these people. This person has consistently
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identified himself with the initials BTK and wishes to be known as the BTK strangler. Because we are sure this man
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is responsible for seven murders, we wish to enlist the assistance of each citizen of this
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community. Our police department has already begun special efforts which is as follows. One, additional unformed
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officers are already on the street. Two, a special detective task force involving
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the major case squad has been established. Three, a special phone number for citizens to call has been established.
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This phone will be staffed 24 hours a day. Four, we have solicited the assistance of the district attorney, the
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sheriff, and professionals in the field of human behavior and would welcome the assistance from any person regardless of
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their expertise. I know it is difficult to ask people to remain calm, but we are asking
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exactly this. When a person of this type is at large in our community, it requires special
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precautions and special awareness by [Music] everyone. When we left off last week, we
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finished the week by announcing that the BTK killer had named himself, had sent a
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letter to K Akev, and immediately that letter was sent to the police department. That same
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evening, they held the press conference where we just discussed that announcement that they made. Now, as you
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can imagine, the police announcing to the public and to the local media that a predatory sexual killer is on the loose
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sent a wave of widespread panic, shock, and fear across the community. The announcement quickly became national
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news. With the public aware that BTK was hunting people in Witchah, many rumors were swirling about who the killer was
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and how and why he chose certain victims. One thing that was also mentioned during the public announcement
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was that the killer had cut the phone line to the houses before he entered the home to attack and kill the
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occupants. This information inspired a safety precaution that became a ritualistic habit of nearly all the
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citizens of the greater Witchah area, especially something practiced by single women that lived alone. Because the
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phone line was cut, people would upon arriving back at their homes, they would run to the phone in the house and pick
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up the receiver and listen for a dial tone. Mhm. A lot of people would call their home from another location before
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returning home to make sure that the phone would ring. Other precautions were taken by citizens as well. This included
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the increased sales of peeppholes, dead bolts, other additional door locks, and of course, guns and dogs were in high
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demand. But a pattern that we would see time and time again after this communication, BTK went dark and it was
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14 months later when we have another incident. Yeah, this is going to be around 1000 p.m. on April 29th, 1979.
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This is when Dennis Rder shattered the basement window of a 61-year-old woman who lived alone. Now, she lived just one
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mile from one of his previous victims, Nancy Fox. Mhm. He climbed into the home and his victim, she was not home at this
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time. He he would wait for her to return. There was a guest bed down in the basement. Beside it, he decided to
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lay out some ropes and a broom handle. Then the woman returned to her house. She had spent the night out with several
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friends. The friends had drove her home. She got out of the car and she approached the front door. Reaching into
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her purse, she pulled out the keys to her house. She turned and smiled and waved at her friends. She looked down to
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make sure that she had the right key. And then she heard her friend shout from the car, "Anna, wait. Why don't you come
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over to our house for a cup of coffee?" Anna turned from the door, put her keys back in her purse, and walked back to
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the car. Got in, and they drove away. Inside the house, BTK grew angry as he waited and waited for her to return.
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Eventually, he ends up leaving the house. When Anna did return home, she found the broken window, the ropes, and
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the broom handle. She picked up the phone to call the police and report a break-in, but the phone line was dead
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and there was no dial tone. Right. She ran to her neighbor's home and called the police from there. When police
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arrived, they had found that the phone line had been cut. And they also discovered that some jewelry and several
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articles of clothing along with $35 in cash were missing from the home. Initially, this incident was not linked
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to BTK. But that changed when on June 15th, an envelope addressed with block letters arrived at Anna's home. Inside
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was an article of clothing and jewelry that had been stolen from Anna's home. These items were accompanied by a letter
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and a drawing. Now, the drawing was of a bound and nude woman. The letter was a poem and it was titled, "Oh Anna, why
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didn't you appear?" And it read, "Twerfect plan of deviant pleasure so bold on that spring night. My inner
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felling hot with propension of new awakening season worn wet with inner fear and rapture. My pleasure of
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entanglement like new vines at night. Oh Anna, why didn't you appear? Drop of fear, fresh spring rain roll down from
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your nakedness to scent to lofty fever that burns within. In that small world of longing, fear, rapture and
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desperation, the game we play fall on devil ears. Fantasy spring forth mounts to storm fury. Then winter clam at end.
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Oh Anna, why didn't you appear alone now in another time span? I lay with sweet and raptured garments across most
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private thought. Bed of spring moist grass clean before the sun, enslaved with control, warm wind scenting the
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air, sunlight sparkle, tears in eyes so deep and clear. Alone again I trod in past memory of mirrors and ponder why
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for number eight was not. Oh, Anna, why didn't you appear? 2 days later, the newspapers are going to report that BTK
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Strangler tried to get his eighth victim, but he failed when she didn't return home. So, the wouldbe victim was
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Anna Williams. Now, she actually moved out of town shortly after the incident because even though the police didn't
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connect the breakin with the actions of BTK uh until the letter was received, Anna's
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instincts told her that it was the serial killer and she feared that he would return to claim her at another
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time. Right. And actually, in fact, when the letter was sent to her home, she had
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already moved out by that time. she had sent someone to collect the mail until the home could be sold or whatever they
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intended to do with it. So, the letter was actually received by somebody else. But one thing that I think that this
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shows here and I think there's there's a lot of evidence of this in the actions of the BTK strangler here, right? is
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that after so after the announcement of the BTK strangler just like the son of Sam
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who commit you know communicated with law enforcement and with the public and I also suspect this to be the case with
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the Zodiac as well though we may never know Dennis Raider became well he became like addicted to the news coverage about
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him and about the case right and he loved being the city's so-called boogeyman let's say
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right or whatever Everybody's fearing. Right. Right. He Right. He loved the fear of the city's people. Uh he loved
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that he knew the answer to the biggest question around town. Who was BTK? Yeah. Or who was POS? Well, and I tell you
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what though, he he loved the secrets that he was keeping. And I would suspect and well later we would we would learn
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that this was fact actually that he collected the newspaper articles about him. And like we learned from Gary
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Ridgeway, the Green River killer, we learned from his wife after he was finally caught that Gary seemed to be
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obsessive about not missing the evening or nighttime newscast. This probably would have been the case with Raider as
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well. Right now, regarding the newspaper articles and collecting them, well, we also know that BTK has a wife and two
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kids. So, he would have to hide his collection. He wouldn't want for his family or others to know that he had an
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unhealthy fascination with the case. Yeah. And they're probably watching for two reasons. One, if they sent a letter,
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what is the reaction? And also just is there any updates from the police so they can monitor, you know, is law
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enforcement closer to catching me? Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of double duty, I guess,
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right? Two birds. Yeah. You get to monitor the investigation or what what the public can see of the investigation
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as well as see the reaction and and it's filling your ego at the same time. Yeah.
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So scary. While we while we were talking about his family, um, you know, we talked about people checking the phone
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lines, one thing that I found very interesting about this case was his wife, Dennis Rder's wife, was afraid of
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the BTK. Um, to the point she was one of the people that would check the phone line in her house and she was vocal to
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friends and family about being afraid of the BTK strangler. Well, and Dennis probably got off on that. Well, he he
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may have, but I know there was one time that he did not like it at all because remember last week we spoke about the
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phone call when Dennis Rder made that very short phone call announcing a homicide to the dispatcher and of course
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they show up to the address that he gives and sure enough there's a victim there. Well, remember they played that
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on the newscast. They played that. As bad as that audio was, they played that on the newscast hoping somebody would
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recognize the voice. The strange thing here though is the two of them, Mr. and Mrs. Raider, were watching the news
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together that night, and after they played it multiple times, she looked over at him and almost kind of like
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jokingly, very casually says to him, "That sounds like you." Or, "BTK talks like you do." And let's let's reenact
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that. Okay. So, I'll be Dennis Rider. Okay. And then you be his wife. Okay. Play. They just played my voice. Go
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ahead. That sounds like you. Honey, a lot of people sound like me. Couldn't be me. Yeah. I think I I
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don't know what was actually said, but uh according to Dennis Rder, he got he got very agitated and and pretty
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defensive when that had happened. Oh, so I played it completely wrong. I I figured he'd just, you know, laugh it
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off. Oh, yeah, that sounds like me, honey. I'm the BTK. I'm going to stab you. Uh the wife told Dennis that the
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the phone call sounded like him. But but we also have to keep in mind that they've been together for quite some
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time by this point. She she never actually thought that her husband was the killer, right? But so he pulled the
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old, you know, she's just trying to make a joke. Hey honey, that kind of sounds like you. And he pulled the old What the
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hell are you talking about? I I don't know what went down. He just said he his only comment on it would be that he was
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annoyed. No, he wasn't annoyed. He was scared when she said that to him that he was he was scared. So now, but I want to
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I just point out here that this this letter, this letter that we just discussed or this communication, I
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believe is proof of his addiction to his notoriety of his BTK persona because when the cops in the local media failed
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to connect this break into BTK, it's about 15 months later and he wants to let the public know that he is still
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around. So, you know, be afraid because I'm still out here. I haven't left. I'm still hunting people. We've spoke quite
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a bit about Dennis Rder's personal life. So, he is this man living in Park City who had terrorized Witchah, killing
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seven people, announcing to the public his name and presence, sending taunting letters, and threatening everyone to
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kill more people. But he's he's a guy living this quiet and pretty reserved life in Park City, living in a a modest
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home with his wife, son, and daughter, and working for the ADT company, rising through the ranks over the years. Yeah,
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he is not killing during this time, but he has trophies. He has trophies from his kills. And unbeknownst to those
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close to him and to those living with him, he is constantly fantasizing and reliving his sick, murderous fantasies
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behind closed doors in his home. Raider also did what he called selfbondage. Um, and he did this in
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wooded areas. He did this at his home. And he also did this, this is uncomfortable. Really, this whole
00:17:54
conversation is uncomfortable, but he also did this in his parents' basement was like one of his favorite places to
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to go about this self-bondage thing that he liked to do. And what he would do is I guess his
00:18:07
parents um you know, they they lived not terribly far from where he was living and they traveled a decent amount, you
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know, several times a year. And I think he would go check on their house, maybe collect the mail, things like that.
00:18:21
Right. His parents' basement was a place that was one of his favorite spots for what he called self-bondage. And this is
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where he would take these long drawn out um sessions of of himself where he would
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be, you know, he would he would wear mask, women's clothing. uh he was hanging himself, tying himself up, using
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handcuffs on himself, and he would also take pictures of himself when he was doing this self-bondage uh let's say
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hobby of his. Yeah. And and I believe that um a fetish. Well, yeah. And and I don't know how many you can find online,
00:19:00
but there are some of these these pictures have gone uh public uh of of his his crazy hobby. You know, he's also
00:19:08
doing normal things though at this time. He's raising his family, being a husband. He's he's listed as a regarded
00:19:14
as a hard worker at the ADT company. He is involved in his church. Uh by the early 80s, Dennis's son, Brian, is in
00:19:23
grade school and he joins the Cub Scouts. Now, Raider was in the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts when he was a kid
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and teenager. So, this is something that he he enjoyed himself, but he also passed it on to his son. And Dennis was
00:19:36
involved uh he was a volunteer there. He helped out quite a bit with the Boy Scouts and with his son's cub scouts.
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And I have seen several websites that state that Dennis was a very officially appointed Boy Scout leader. I think this
00:19:50
is just more folklore. I think he just helped out there, but he was involved. But for Dennis Rder, uh for BTK, the Boy
00:20:00
Scouts would later become an important thing to his crimes and to his murders. Now, we had recently mentioned pictures
00:20:08
um you know, taking the Polaroids of himself. One theory early on in the BT case was that the killer was not only
00:20:17
taking some trophies from the houses, but he was probably taking photos of the victims and of the crime scenes as well.
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This is a very strong theory and a smart one with a lot of thought to back it up.
00:20:31
Now remember, he killed four members of the Otoro family and then many years later in a communication to the police,
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he recalls very specific details about each one of the victims and about what he did using which items and specifics
00:20:48
about the crime scene. Yeah. To prove it was him, right? And there was FBI that stated, you know what, either this guy's
00:20:56
taking photographs of the crime and that's how he's able to give us such a great detailed account of what had
00:21:03
happened a few years later or he has a photographic memory. Now, the FBI didn't think that photog photographic memory
00:21:11
was likely with this character. Mhm. Now, the early8s in Witchah was there was the birth of something that would
00:21:20
later be called the Ghostbuster Squad. By this time though, there had not been a murder or communication from
00:21:27
BTK in years. Now, what was the Ghostbuster Squad? Well, this was comprised of eight officers, and it was
00:21:35
you had all kinds of different ranking officers in this Ghostbuster squad. Did they have a cool car? Uh, I I don't
00:21:42
think that they actually had a vehicle at all. I think these were these were men that spent a lot of time in closed
00:21:49
door meetings trying to come up with new clues. They were reviewing the old cases, uh, trying to find something
00:21:56
within those case files that might lead them to BTK and coming up with a strategy for tracking this guy down.
00:22:04
Now, some of these officers, like I said, different ranking officers. Some of them would be experienced homicide
00:22:09
detectives, some that had originally worked the oturo murders and the other two murder cases as well. And then you
00:22:16
have you have officers that were just gone, you know, I believe one of them was even on like desk duty because he
00:22:23
was injured in the line of duty and couldn't go out of the office. But one officer that was involved in this, a
00:22:30
young officer named Ken Landwear. He was a police officer at the time, and he he's somebody that we would see,
00:22:38
he's going to end up working this BT case for like 20 years, you know, so he's one of the early guys in on this
00:22:46
and one of the guys that worked this case and saw it through to the end. Now, the name the Ghostbuster Squad, that was
00:22:53
not an official name. You know, they weren't called that by the police department. It's really annoying when
00:22:58
people don't use official names. Well, I don't know that they had a name. They were probably just referred to as some
00:23:04
type of task force would be my guess. What it was kind of a nickname that the department gave the task force because
00:23:12
one day there was an officer talking to another officer and said, "Hey, all those officers and detectives, I see
00:23:19
them in there every day working on something, having meetings. What are they doing in there?" Mhm. And the other
00:23:24
officer said to the guy, "Don't worry about that. They're just chasing ghost." Yeah. And so that became the kind of
00:23:31
nickname that they slapped onto this task [Music] [Music] force. All right. Cheers, mates. And uh
00:23:55
big shout out to all the beautiful people that we met at Crime Con this weekend. Marine Wallace Hedge was 53
00:24:02
years old, was a quiet, dependable second shift supervisor at a medical center coffee shop. Now, she was
00:24:09
originally from Arkansas, but she had moved to Kansas with her late husband. She was widowed. She was described as a
00:24:17
kind, petite, well-dressed woman with a charming southern voice. She was a devoted mother to her three daughters,
00:24:24
one son, and a devoted she was devoted to her grandchildren as well. Now, she enjoyed playing bingo, doing yard work,
00:24:32
and attending the Baptist church. She lived on the same block as Dennis Rider. Actually, she had lived there on the
00:24:40
same block as Dennis Rder for over 30 years. At some point, Dennis started to fantasize about Marine Hedges. Mhm. He
00:24:48
got a strong sexual charge thinking about what she would look like tied up, gagged, and with a rope tight around her
00:24:56
neck. Now, this could be a big big problem for Dennis because Factor X is telling him to kill her, but killing a
00:25:04
neighbor would be extremely risky. But once Factor X focused in on a victim, Dennis had to get to work trolling the
00:25:12
subject, checking up on them, as he would call it. Now during this process, Dennis learned that the woman had worked
00:25:18
at a coffee shop and he would call this Project Cookie. Sometimes at night, Dennis would take a bike ride and he
00:25:27
would sneak around her home watching her through the windows. Sometimes he would
00:25:31
stare at her as she lie in bed at night with the light on reading. Dennis didn't
00:25:36
care about the risk. It it the the urge that he got to kill her was so strong, he was willing to take the risk. he was
00:25:45
going to create some kind of plan so that he could kill her but also give himself an alibi as well. Okay. So on
00:25:53
the weekend of April 27th, 1985, Dennis Rder was attending a Boy Scout camp. This is just outside of
00:26:01
Witchah. He left the camp in the evening with the pretext of having a headache and needing to get to town to buy
00:26:08
something for his headache. In his vehicle, Dennis Rder had what he referred to as his hit kit. This would
00:26:16
be his kit of prepared items he thought he needed or intended to use during the course of one of his murders. You know,
00:26:23
we saw this type of thing with Bundy. You know, that you keep this thing in your vehicle or you keep it close at
00:26:29
hand and you have these materials or items that you think you're going to need to use, right? But this time,
00:26:35
Captain, he had actually stored these items in a pre-selected bag. He he put them in a different bag. This time he
00:26:41
was using a bowling bag. Mhm. So after he left the camp, he parked his car by a bowling alley inside the city and he
00:26:50
bought himself a beer at the bowling alley. He drank half the beer and deliberately spilled beer on his
00:26:57
clothing and on his hands. So he would have smelled like he had been there all night drinking a lot. Mhm. So, he calls
00:27:05
a cab and when the cab gets there, he pretends to be drunk and he tells the driver that he's far too drunk to drive
00:27:12
home and he needed a ride. But Dennis instructed the driver to take him to take him home. But he didn't give the
00:27:19
driver an actual address. He told the driver to take him to a park in Park City so that he could walk it off before
00:27:27
going home, saying he wanted to get some fresh air, was too drunk to see his wife, whatever. Right? So, this park, it
00:27:35
was near the backyard of Hedg's property. Raider shows up. He makes the walk to her property, and he's actually
00:27:42
disappointed to see Marine's car in the carport. So, he assumed when he saw the vehicle that she was at home. He didn't
00:27:50
want her to be home when he arrived at the house. He cuts the phone line and he quietly pried open a rear door using a
00:27:59
screwdriver. And it turned out that that no one was home to his surprise, even though that car was there, right? Nobody
00:28:06
was in the house. But soon a car pulled up and Raider decided to hide in a bedroom closet. Now, Marine Hedge and a
00:28:14
friend, this was Gerald Porter, entered the home. They stayed there talking for approximately 2 hours. The whole time
00:28:23
Dennis Rder is hiding in this closet listening to the two of them talk, waiting for the man to leave. Well,
00:28:31
Gerald left the house that night around 1:00 a.m. Now, Raider waited until Meereen went to bed and, you know, till
00:28:40
till he he thought that she had fallen asleep. At that time, he crept out of the closet. He turns on the the bathroom
00:28:49
light so he can see what he's he's doing. And then he pounces on Meereen who's still in the bed. He manually is
00:28:57
choking the this woman. Now I I said she's a petite woman. This woman weighed less than 100 pounds. Mhm. So Dennis
00:29:05
Rder would seem like a giant on top of her. He ends up killing her when he's he's choking her. He was really just
00:29:12
trying to get control of her and get control of the situation. But because he was so much larger than her, his hands
00:29:18
strong, he ended up strangling her to death. Now, this this fantasy driven outing was far from over, though. There
00:29:27
was other stuff that he wanted to do. Looks like he's going to have to make up for it now that he accidentally
00:29:33
killed her too fast for his liking. So, he decided to rummage through the house looking for trophies that he could keep.
00:29:41
And he decided to take her purse and everything in it. He was going to do something he had not done before. He was
00:29:48
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
00:29:56
BTK killing. Remember, this is way too close to his home, right? So, he dragged the body with the bedding to her car and
00:30:05
put her in the trunk of her own car. Then Dennis Rder drove directly to his church where Okay. So he was so trusted
00:30:15
at his church that he had keys to the building. He could get into the building anytime he wanted to. So he dragged the
00:30:24
body underneath some trees. Well, I mean, let's be real. He could get into it whether he had keys or not. Yeah, I
00:30:29
guess that's true. You know, he could break into the place. He dragged the body underneath some trees and he
00:30:34
entered the building um down and went down to the basement and then he taped black plastic over the basement window
00:30:42
so no one could see inside. He had actually stashed the plastic there a few days, maybe a week before, knowing that
00:30:49
this was his intention, knowing that he was going to need it. He then dragged the body down to the basement and he
00:30:55
photographed it in various poses. When BTK is done living out these fantasies, he's going to return his victim to her
00:31:02
trunk and he's going to then take off. Yeah. He's going to be looking for a place to ditch this body. So, he's
00:31:08
looking for a dumping ground. And he finds a place that he likes. Uh this is in a ditch along a dirt road several
00:31:16
miles outside of Park City. When he gets there, he takes her out of the trunk. He
00:31:20
places her on the ground and then he covers her with leaves and branches. Now, he also left a knotted pair of
00:31:27
panty hose near the body. Then, Dennis Rder dropped her car off about 6 miles away at a shopping center parking lot.
00:31:36
He left the car there after wiping it down for fingerprints. By now, it was getting it was almost light out by this
00:31:43
time. Raider had made his way back to where he had left his vehicle and then he drove and returned to the scout camp
00:31:52
that he had deserted earlier. Right. Then he went into his tent and pretended like he had been in there sleeping all
00:31:58
night long and he emerged a short time later giving the impression that he had just woke up for the day. He spent that
00:32:05
morning scrambling eggs for the scouts for whatever reason. And I think it was because she had died so quickly so early
00:32:13
on in the attack. He would later say that this kill that this was not a very satisfying kill for him. Next, BTK and
00:32:21
Factor X are going to focus in on Vicky Wagggerly. Vicki is a 28-year-old wife and mother. She was uh calm, quiet, kind
00:32:31
person. She loved children. And when she became pregnant with her child, she began providing child care from her
00:32:38
home. Vicki attended two churches. She attended the Lutheran church because it was her faith, but she also attended the
00:32:45
Methodist church because it was the neighborhood church. She volunteered to watch children in the church nurseries.
00:32:54
Now, Raider started stalking her in 1986. He he would walk by her house and Vicki would be inside playing the piano
00:33:03
many times. So, he started calling Vicki Project piano. Okay. In preparation for
00:33:10
this project, Dennis made up a fake repairman hard hat. He had glued a Southwestern Bell logo onto the hard
00:33:18
hat. On his shirt, he placed a fake name tag that he had fashioned out of someone's Southwestern Bell business
00:33:26
card that he had found. He brought along with him a briefcase to look, you know,
00:33:31
official. Inside the briefcase was the BTK hit kit, right? He's always finding ways to disguise this hit kit that he's
00:33:40
going to bring along with him. on September 16th. This is sometime after 10:00 am. He parked his car a few blocks
00:33:48
away from her home. And then he first went to Vickiy's neighbor's house and he's dressed as this telephone repair
00:33:54
man. He knocks on the door and then he goes through his spiel with the elderly woman who answered the door, you know,
00:34:01
saying, "I need to check your phone. We're checking phones in the neighborhood." Blah blah blah. You know,
00:34:06
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
00:34:14
if Vicki happened to be looking out the window. He didn't want to just walk from
00:34:17
far away and she see him knock on her her door first. He was determined to he was determined to attack and kill
00:34:26
somebody that day. Almost to the point that when the elderly woman had answered the door, it crossed his mind maybe I
00:34:32
just attack her instead of going next door. After he talks to the neighbor lady, he's going to end up at Vicky's
00:34:38
front door. And somehow Dennis Rder managed to talk himself inside the home, claiming that he needed to check the
00:34:46
phone line from inside. Once inside, he he goes over and he kind of like fiddles
00:34:51
with the phone for a little bit. He even brought with him some kind of fake testing gadget that he threw in his
00:34:57
briefcase. And then he turns on her and he informs her that he is going to need to tie her up. I wonder if he, you know,
00:35:07
she was married, so I wonder if the intent of let me get into the house under the the guise of checking this
00:35:14
phone just to make sure that she's alone, being in there for enough time to make sure she's alone, right? I imagine
00:35:20
using a gun he forced her into a bedroom and then he attempted to tie her up but
00:35:26
she she fought him pretty bad and uh she gave a fierce battle. She scratched him
00:35:32
several times in the process. Raider ended up winning the physical fight though and he would
00:35:38
secure her with ropes and then he proceeded to strangle her to death using panty hose as a legature. He
00:35:45
photographed the body in several poses and then he left in Wager Lee's vehicle. Yeah. And during this attack, she's, you
00:35:54
know, claiming that her husband's going to come home, too, cuz she's trying to scare him off. Yeah. She wants to scare
00:35:59
BTK out of the house, but the weird thing is, and I don't know if this was routine or not, Captain, but her
00:36:06
husband, Bill Waggerly, and did come home. He did come home soon after the attack. He came home so much soon after
00:36:15
the attack that he actually saw Vicky's car driving in the opposite direction from their home. Now, when the car was
00:36:23
kind of far away, he thought that it was Vicki. You know, he spots the vehicle. He's like, "Oh, there's there's our car.
00:36:29
She's probably going somewhere." Yeah. Vicki and actually assumed that it was not his vehicle that he was at that
00:36:41
time. When he gets home, something very strange had happened. Remember, we talked about how much Vicki loved
00:36:48
children and she even took care of other people's kids. But when he arrives home,
00:36:52
the home appears to be empty and his 2-year-old son, Brandon, is just sitting there in the living room unattended.
00:36:59
Mhm. Vicki Bill walked the home and he couldn't find Vicki. Well, he's there for quite some
00:37:06
time. I think he even like made his lunch. You know, he had returned home for lunch that day. And he comes home
00:37:12
and he starts to prepare his lunch. He's getting angry at his wife because why in
00:37:17
the hell is his son there, this little 2-year-old boy unattended in the home? And and furthermore, where does she go?
00:37:24
Right? He's home for about 45 minutes, maybe an hour, and he's kind of, you know, at first probably just walking
00:37:32
around kind of nonchalant, but as the time goes on, he's getting angrier and he's starting to look and look and look
00:37:38
around this house. Eventually, he discovers her lifeless body was placed between the bed and the wall. There's,
00:37:46
you know, how sometimes people put their bed near the wall and there's only a small space there. her body was either
00:37:52
pushed down in there or had fallen down in there and he hadn't he didn't see her. So, he calls the police and he
00:37:58
tells them what had happened. He calls and he says, "You know, I I'm pretty sure my wife is dead. I came home and my
00:38:04
2-year-old son is by himself." Well, he's also going to tell them that he thinks he saw Well, now he thinks he saw
00:38:10
his vehicle driving away from the house. Yeah. And when the paramedics arrive, they are desperately trying to revive
00:38:16
her. Keep in mind, she would have only been dead if in fact she was dead when BTK left the home for a short period of
00:38:23
time. But unfortunately, it she was pronounced dead a short time later before they could get to the hospital.
00:38:31
Now, BTK, meanwhile, had been driving around the city and he is disposing of evidence as he's driving. Mhm.
00:38:39
Eventually, he returned to the area near Vickiy's house, and he parked WGly's car
00:38:45
just a couple blocks from their home. In fact, he exited the vehicle in the area
00:38:51
on foot. Um, and he returned to his own car that he had left nearby. Changing his clothes, uh, he escaped all
00:39:00
detection for this crime and was actually for the longest time never suspected of this murder at all. You
00:39:08
think somebody would uh reported his car being, you know, a suspicious car within
00:39:13
within a few blocks of a crime taking place and nobody knows whose car that is. Correct. Yes. And but one thing that
00:39:20
might help him with this is that this is an attack during the middle of the day in a neighborhood. There's a good
00:39:26
chance, you know, a lot of people off at work. People are less likely to see some
00:39:31
things, right? This story right here, you know, all of these stories are extremely tragic. This one is a little
00:39:38
has a little more added tragedy to it because not only is a young mother killed here and a young wife killed
00:39:46
here, but this is a real tough one because a lot of the police and detectives thought for sure that the
00:39:53
husband actually had killed his wife. You know, he's the one that finds her dead. Um, they couldn't believe that the
00:39:59
son was there, right? They could not believe that he was home for 45 minutes to maybe an hour before discovering her
00:40:06
body. And so yeah, that that sounds a little fishy. Exactly. So you can see you can
00:40:13
see that side of the fence. Now on the other side of the fence, we have other detectives that had issue with this
00:40:19
thought and and one reason was the knots that were found at the scene. Some of them thought they resembled some knots
00:40:26
that they had seen at BTK crime scenes. Mhm. And now number two, they thought that, you know, this
00:40:33
this would take some time in their investigation, but once they found the vehicle, and I know that it wasn't
00:40:38
terribly far from her home, but but the the problem they had with that was while
00:40:44
logistically it was possible for this man to move her vehicle a few blocks from the home and return. Nobody had
00:40:52
seen him, just like you said about BTK's suspicious car. Nobody saw that either,
00:40:56
I guess. But the thought was they thought somebody would have seen him walking back to his home. They couldn't
00:41:02
find anybody that had said that. And then three, and this is probably the most important, was the little boy. Like
00:41:08
you said, their son is still at home. Well, when police talk to the little boy, mind you, he's only two, so he's
00:41:15
limited on words and stuff like that. Yeah. But the nightmares that kid is going to
00:41:21
have. Well, the the only thing that he was able to tell the investigators was was a single sentence that was man hurt
00:41:29
mommy. Man hurt mommy. Well, a lot of the detectives found it strange that the boy would say, "Man hurt mommy." That if
00:41:37
if he had seen his father kill his mother, Yeah. he would say daddy or whatever he called him. Now, January
00:41:44
31st, 1987, upon returning home to Witchah, Kansas, after visiting family for a few
00:41:51
days, Mary Fagger was understandably shocked to discover her husband Melvin dead on the floor. This is directly in
00:42:01
front of the door to their home. Her husband had been shot twice in the back. Now, their two daughters, this is
00:42:07
Sherry, she's 9 years old, and Kelly, who's 16 years old, they were found in the basement. They had been left in a
00:42:13
covered hot tub with the hot with the water running. I think it was at like 90 degrees in this hot tub. Sherry had been
00:42:20
bound with electrical tape and placed in the water after having been strangled. Kelly had been drowned. Now,
00:42:28
there were no signs of forced entry to the home, implying that maybe the killer was known to the family or at least good
00:42:36
enough to talk his way or their way into the house. The husband and father, like
00:42:42
I said, was found by the front door still wearing his coat. So, there was one police theory about this crime is
00:42:49
that the man may have been shot upon entering into the home that he had un, you know, unknowingly returned home
00:42:57
during some portion of a crime being committed and startled the killer or killers. One big clue in this case was
00:43:05
the family car was missing. Now, along with a local handyman, um there was a guy by the name of William Butterworth
00:43:13
who had been employed by the family for some work around the house. I like their
00:43:18
syrup. It was initially feared by the investigators that Butterworth was either another victim or he had, you
00:43:26
know, possibly been taken by force or that per perhaps he was party to whatever had happened in the house. Now,
00:43:34
his own van was found several days later. This was just blocks away from the house. A search of the van came up
00:43:43
empty. They found no evidence in this van whatsoever. On January 3rd, 1988, so almost a year later, Butterworth is
00:43:53
arrested in Florida. He had called his wife and a family member reported this to the police. And in fact, he was still
00:44:01
on the phone when he was arrested. They had been looking for this guy ever since
00:44:05
this murder went down. They find him in Florida because he decides to call his wife. Now, when he's arrested, the car
00:44:11
keys, the keys to the Fagger family vehicle Mhm. they were found in his pocket and the stolen car was found
00:44:22
nearby. He was unarmed and he did not resist when he was arrested. Now, while being questioned by the police, he told
00:44:31
the officers that he had entered the home, discovered the body of Melvin, that's the father, heard some noises in
00:44:38
the house, got scared, and ran away. He had no obvious reason to flee to Florida. The police couldn't figure out
00:44:46
if Look, if you're not guilty, why did you flee the area? He didn't have a police record. He
00:44:53
was not a match for the There was seaman found in the hot tub. He was not a match
00:44:58
for that that seaman. He was also not a match for strange fingerprints that were
00:45:03
found inside the home. He was described as a guy who would always go out of his way to do a favor for someone. Nice guy.
00:45:11
He had three children, a three-year-old, a six-month-old six-month old twins, I'm
00:45:16
sorry. And he had been having some financial issues at the time, just weeks before these murders. Mhm. under
00:45:25
questioning. You know, he's questioned multiple times. Captain, he did not change his story. His story did not
00:45:30
change. He stuck to it. He said that he entered the house, saw the body, heard something, ran away. He also said that
00:45:38
that being terrified in this situation, he thought he was going to die. Yeah. And being terrified in this situation,
00:45:45
he didn't recall what he was doing or his whereabouts for several days after that went down. He said when he came to
00:45:55
he it was like four or five days later and he was in Florida and he was afraid to return. Right. So Butterworth's
00:46:01
defense attorney, he's going to be he's going to be charged with this. However, his defense attorney has him undergo 20
00:46:10
hypnosis sessions over the course of four months. They're trying to get a full story or to see if possibly he's
00:46:17
lying. Right. Under hypnosis, Butterworth gave a similar but much more detailed story of what had happened that
00:46:24
day. He said that he had been building the family a sun room, which was true. He took a break for lunch. When he
00:46:33
returned, he said that Kelly, this is the oldest daughter, and someone that he assumed was possibly her boyfriend were
00:46:40
in the hot tub. He he did not see um anyone in the sun room, but he said that he heard movement or saw some type of
00:46:52
movement. So, he decided that he was going to leave the home and he would come back later. You know, keep in mind,
00:46:58
he assumes that he saw the oldest daughter with probably her boyfriend. Maybe he felt awkward at walking in on
00:47:06
this situation. Decides to leave. Happens. So during this time he goes out and he goes shopping cuz he's just
00:47:13
trying to kill some time. While he's out he bumps into a retired police captain.
00:47:18
This is William Dots. Now later William Dots would verify having seen and spoke with Butterworth that day at that
00:47:26
approximate time. Dots went on to say that Butterworth did not seem to be shaken or to be nervous or acting
00:47:34
strange when he met with him that day. Then Butterworth returned to the house at approximately 4:30. At this time, he
00:47:43
said that the lights were off. He entered the salarium and he found Sherry face down in the hot tub. Then he saw
00:47:51
Melvin dead in the hallway. He heard a noise and he realized that the murderer was still in the house. So frightened,
00:48:00
he bolted. Now, for some reason, Captain, and I apologize because I do not know why, but apparently this man in
00:48:07
the confusion ended up with the wrong set of keys somehow. I'm not sure how this happened, but when he was trying to
00:48:14
get the heck out of there, right? He had accidentally tried to use Fagger's keys
00:48:18
to start his van. When he realized that he had the wrong set of keys, he was in he was afraid. He didn't want to enter
00:48:25
the home again. He grabbed his stuff out of his van and then took off in Fagger's
00:48:30
car. Yeah, but could you imagine you have a psycho killer that you believe is still in the house, you're running for
00:48:36
your life, and then you get into a vehicle, you go to start it, and you have the wrong damn keys, and you have a
00:48:42
victim's set of keys in your hand, and you're going to end up taking their vehicle because you don't want to go
00:48:48
back into the house at that point. Right now, remember, he says that he kind of he's uncertain of his whereabouts or
00:48:55
what he was doing for approximately the next 4 days. He says when he came to the
00:48:59
next thing he remembers he's in Florida that he he magically wakes up in Florida. Once he comes to he said that
00:49:07
he felt shame and cowardice for running. He was also afraid that he would be picked out to be the suspect or to have
00:49:16
murdered these people. And that made him not want to return. And that's why he waited so long before he contacted
00:49:23
anybody after he had already been out. He was charged with these three murders, but it was on June 7th. Well, that's
00:49:30
because his story never changed. What we've learned from shows like Serial is if you change your story over and over
00:49:38
that they normally put you on the prosecutor's team. Yeah. And that's a good way to get your conviction
00:49:44
overturned years later, possibly at least. On June 7th, 1988, Butterworth was acquitted of all of the charges.
00:49:53
Now, most people to this day believe that this is not an open case. They they don't believe that the, you know, that
00:50:01
the they believe that the police have closed this case because the police firmly believe in the public's eye that
00:50:09
Butterworth was the killer of these three individuals. But then you have to wonder, we have this guy BTK who's
00:50:18
active at the time killing people inside their homes and we have two female victims there. And remember, Dennis Rder
00:50:24
was not opposed to attacking and killing children. And what we do know is this, Captain, on January in January of 1988,
00:50:34
Dennis Rder sent a letter to the mother who had discovered the bodies of her husband and children. And this letter
00:50:42
simply said, "I did not kill your family, but I admire the work." So, an interesting, still unsolved to this very
00:50:50
day, triple homicide. So, maybe maybe Butterworth did it. Maybe Butterworth has a partner, you know, maybe that
00:50:56
would explain some of it because some of the evidence doesn't match up with him 100%. Right? Or maybe BTK did it but
00:51:04
isn't claiming responsibility for it for some reason. Then you have the other possibility which is the killer is an
00:51:10
unknown suspect. At the time that this letter was sent from Dennis Raider to Mary
00:51:17
Fagger, it was actually believed to be a hoax, simply someone pretending to be the BTK. But after his arrest, it was
00:51:26
confirmed that the letter was in fact from Dennis Rder. Because like most of his communications, Raider would make a
00:51:34
photocopy of his letters and to further elude detection, Dennis Rder would mail the photo copy, not the original, to
00:51:43
either the police or to the media. Right. After his arrest, police found the original amongst raiders BTK
00:51:52
memorabilia. Right. But I I'm just going to assume that BTK didn't do this because one, he wanted credit for these
00:51:59
crimes and he wanted to be in the spotlight and he he wanted people talking about him that he wanted people
00:52:05
fearing him, you know, so he wrote a letter so he could get into the spotlight, but he also said, "Hey, I
00:52:11
admire your work, but I didn't do this." And I think you're exactly right. I think him sending that letter is simply
00:52:18
just a reminder to the general public. I'm still out there. Now there's another crazy person out there too, right? I'm
00:52:25
still out here and I'm watching and I'm [Music] waiting. Thanks for listening and stick
00:52:39
around for the finale of BTK tomorrow. Until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter. Heat. Heat.
00:52:54
[Music] [Applause] [Music]