Source says BTK suspect confessed
WICHITA, Kan. – The man arrested on suspicion of being the BTK serial killer has confessed to at least six slayings and might be responsible for as many as 13 – including one that could carry the death penalty, a source close to the investigation said Sunday.
Investigators, who suspect Dennis L. Rader in a decades-old string of 10 slayings, are probing whether he was responsible for another three killings – including at least one that occurred after restoration of Kansas’ death penalty in 1994, the source told news media.
Rader made the confession Friday, the day of his arrest, according to the source. “The guy is telling us about the murders,” the source said.
Police spokeswoman Janet Johnson declined to comment on the accuracy of the source’s statements.
Rader was being held on a $10 million bond in the deaths of 10 people between 1974 and 1991. Police had long linked the BTK killer to eight murders, but added two more after Rader’s arrest.
The source said police are investigating whether Rader was responsible for the deaths of two Wichita State University students and a woman who lived down the street from another known victim of BTK, the killer’s self-coined nickname for “Bind, Torture, Kill.”
Prosecutors initially said they could not pursue the death penalty against Rader because the 10 murders linked to BTK occurred when Kansas did not have the death penalty.
Rader, 59, could appear in court as early as today to stand in front of a judge via video while prosecutors recite yet-to-be-filed criminal charges against him.
The hearing, however, probably will be postponed until Tuesday, the district attorney’s office said Sunday. It was unclear whether Rader had a lawyer.
Police said they were confident Rader’s arrest last week would bring to an end 30 years of fear about the BTK strangler, who re-emerged over the last year, taunting police with letters and packages sent to media outlets.
Rader, a married father of two, a Cub Scout leader and an active member of a Lutheran church, was anything but a recluse.
His job as a city code enforcement supervisor required daily contact with the public, and he even appeared on television in 2001 in his city uniform for a story on vicious dogs running loose in Park City.
Before becoming a municipal employee, Rader worked for a home-security company, where he held several positions that allowed him access to customers’ homes, including a role as installation manager.