On the surface Dennis Rader was a normal man with a normal job and a normal family. He thus presented himself to society. However, behind a common face and kind gesture, a serial killer was hiding, capable of tying up, torturing and killing ten people in seventeen years. For almost twenty years his face and his name were a mystery to the FBI, although not his nickname: BTK.
BIND, TORTUR AND KILL
Given the misdeeds committed by this serial killer, Adolfo Arjona wonders if any of us would be capable of killing, to which the doctor Manuel Ángel Franco Martín, head ofe Psychiatry and Mental Health Service of the Zamora Assistance ComplexHe replies emphatically: “No, not all of us would be able to kill, we could kill by mistake. Most of the people are programs at an educational and biological level to help, cooperate and show solidarity with each other.”.
The next question for the doctor is whether any of us would be capable of torture. “We would not be able to torture either. For that it is necessary not to have empathy with the person you torture, otherwise it would be impossible to do. In relationships, one of the characteristics of the human being is empathy. That is, to identify with the suffering or even with the joy of the other. To torture it is necessary not to have empathy.” explains Dr. Franco.
The questions you ask ‘The Night of Adolfo Arjona’ to the expert are not free. And it is that the protagonist of the black chronicle, Dennis Rader enjoyed tying up his victims first, then torturing them, and finally killing them.
OTERO FAMILY
One of his most heinous murders was that of all the members of the Otero family.
It was breakfast time. The Otero family was in the kitchen when the doorbell rang. Joseph opened the door to find a man pointing a gun at him, ordering him to keep quiet. his name was Dennis Lynn Rader and claimed to be a fugitive who just wanted something to eat and a vehicle to get away in. But the intention of that stranger was different.
First he tied up Joseph and his wife Julie. Later, she did the same with Joseph II and Josephine, the couple’s two young children. He then covered the father’s head with a plastic bag, tied a rope around his neck and strangled him. Seconds later he masturbated before Julie, to later suffocate her in the same way. The same rope was used to murder the children.
TEN VICTIMS
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The modus operandi of the American Dennis Lynn Rader was always the same: bind, torture and kill, a system for which he earned the nickname ‘BTK’, the initials in English for Bind, to tie; torture, torture; and kill, kill.
Dennis would get in his car, drive around town, pick a victim, then follow and study it for days, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce on the prey.
The protagonist of this tremendous black story murdered ten people between 1974 and 1991, all of them in the state of Kansas. It was his desire for prominence, his habit of writing letters to the press and making calls to the police, that allowed him to be tracked down and arrested in February 2005. It had been 31 years since Dennis committed his first crime.
Currently, at 77 years old, he is still serving a sentence of ten consecutive life sentences, which means a minimum of 175 years in prison. Dennis Lynn Rader, known as ‘BTK’, will die behind bars.
NARCISITA AND PSYCHOPATH
Dr. Manuel Ángel Franco Martín, head ofThe Psychiatry and Mental Health Service of the Zamora Assistance Complex, ensures that Dennis Lynn Rader has a personality with two characteristics: “He is a psychopath and a narcissist.”
To understand it, the doctor explains in the microphones of ‘The Night of Adolfo Arjona’ that a narcissistic personality is that of a person who has a very high concept of himself and believes he is the best in the world. “When you think you’re worth ten and really are worth three, you start to think that the rest of the world is hurting you and doesn’t want to recognize your worth.” adds Manuel Ángel Franco Martín.
And the second characteristic of the serial killer nicknamed ‘BTK’ is his lack of empathy, “That is to say, he is a psychopath with a lack of ability to put himself in another’s place. One way to feel superior to others is through this formula that he used: I torture you because I’m above you, I can kill you& mldr; And besides, I’m smarter than the police because they don’t catch me”.
He needed to prove that he was smarter and more capable than anyone and that is why he ends up getting arrested. “He put clues because, deep down, he wanted to be discovered. If not, no one would have found out about everything he did and, consequently, all his ego would not have been sufficiently fed ”, says the expert.
MODEL CITIZEN?
One of the questions raised by the case of Dennis Lynn Rader is how could he kill for 17 years and not get caught?
It is one of the questions that Adolfo Arjona poses to the criminologist and private investigator, Enrique Vega, who assures that Rader was a very intelligent person who allowed long intervals of time to pass between his crimes: “He was able to lead a completely normal life with his family and in the neighborhood. He was an active member and deacon of the Lutheran church. President of the Scout community. He spent 14 years working as a facility manager for a multinational security systems company, acquiring some skill in getting around intrusion systems and closed circuit television. He had the consecrated image of a normal citizen ”, account Enrique Vega.
HUNTING
Despite having that image of a normal citizen, Rader’s rampant murderous instinct led him to commit a series of mistakes that culminated in his arrest. Events that occurred in 2005.
The task was not easy for the agents who handled the case. It is important to mention that the ‘BTK’ case was filed a year before his arrest, but thanks to a last attempt, the murderer was unmasked. The key was in a DNA test.
Enrique Vega points out that DNA samples were extracted from the nails of some of Rader’s victims. Samples that were contrasted with thousands of DNA tests that were taken from men voluntarily. Although Dennis Lynn Rader was not on that list. So how did they link him to the murders?
According to Vega “Dennis was sending tips to the police because of his arrogance. And in the last track sent in the year 2005 he made a mistake. He sent a padded envelope with a letter, a photocopy of a serial killer book cover, a gold necklace and locket, and a floppy disk with a file through a local newspaper, thinking the sender would not be visible. In those years, the police already had technological help in their investigations and managed to find a first name in the metadata of the document. Dennis, and the connection to a Lutheran church. Police found a suspect who matched the profile built. Dennis Rader. Other information was known that the police were able to reveal. They knew the killer had a Jeep Cherokee, which was a match. And due to coincidences, the judge was asked to admit to studying a sample of the blood that her daughter had submitted as a requirement to enter the university. The sample coincided in a high percentage with those found at the crime scenes”.
DETENTION
According to the crimonologist and private detective: “On February 25, 2005, Dennis Rader was pulled over while driving near his home by two SWAT units, a bomb squad and the fbi”.
During the searches, a computer equipment was found with evidence of the murders, and many elements of their victims as a trophy. Rader was indicted on February 28, 2005. And on June 27, he pleaded guilty.
As an anecdote, Vega tells that Rader confessed that he had been about to kill a new victim that was going to be his masterpiece. “He planned to mutilate a woman, hang her and burn her house. In fact, in October 2004, she was in the backyard of her victim, but she aborted it when he saw people appear ”.
Currently his family refuses to visit him in jail. Rader was spared the death penalty because the state of Kansas reinstated the death penalty in 1994, three years after his last murder.
JUDGMENT
Another of the regular collaborators of ‘The Night of Adolfo Arjona’Judge Bernardo Pinazo, tells that during the trial “His testimony disturbed those present due to the meticulous and macabre details he provided of each murder. He was proud to call himself the BTK murderer and plead guilty to all ten crimes.”