In her latest true crime documentary film on Netflix, My Father, The BTK Killer, Skye Borgman presents the tale of one of the most vicious serial killers in the history of the USA, Dennis Rader, but with a unique switch in perspective. While the film puts ample focus on Dennis Rader, popularly known as the BTK Killer, and his multiple crimes, it is also set from the point of view of his daughter, Kerri Rawson, who has had to go through the ordeal of accepting her father’s real identity. My Father, The BTK Killer profoundly looks into how a criminal’s actions indirectly victimize their family members as well, while also making us wonder whether Kerri had been harmed by her father in a more direct manner as well.
Who is Kerri Rawson?
My Father, The BTK Killer begins with the account of Kerri Rawson, who will forever remember a certain day in February of 2005, when the course of her life was changed forever, through no fault of her own. Born in 1978 as the first child of Dennis Rader and Paula Dietz, Kerri had a mostly usual childhood, as her parents were the typical kind of people living in Wichita, Kansas. As a toddler, they showered her with love and attention, and then when she grew up a bit, they introduced her to a life of adventure. Although Paula was more protective towards her daughter and feared that she might hurt herself badly through said adventures, it was Dennis who introduced her to outdoor activities.
According to Kerri, her father did not really treat her as a young girl who could get hurt while riding a cycle or learning how to drive, and instead let her live more like a tomboy. He taught her and her brother, Brian, gardening when they were kids, instilling in them a deep sense of love for nature. He had built them a massive treehouse in their backyard, which the kids absolutely loved, and he then also taught Kerri to ride and often took her on rides around their neighborhood and around the freeway nearby. Just like any normal father, Dennis was always by Kerri’s side in every possible manner and supported her in every way, attending all major events like graduation and marriage.
To Kerri, her father was not just a great support and guiding figure but also a good friend, with whom she could share a lot about her life. Although, she is quick to admit that there were certain restrictions in the house as well, put in place because of Dennis’ objections against them, and everyone else very strictly abided by them. Nonetheless, she had a mostly normal and happy childhood and teenage life, with her friends and neighbors appreciating her father’s contributions in society. After briefly serving in the Air Force, Dennis had taken up a job at a local private security company, and he was more known for his attempts to help the neighborhood, either by locating and marking dangerous stray dogs or by casually, and almost jokingly, warning neighbors about the weeds and vines in their yard, reminding them to trim them in order to keep the neighborhood clean and welcoming.
Therefore, Kerri simply could not believe her ears when a couple of policemen walked up to the house on a morning in February of 2005 and asked to speak with her. She remembers how it had snowed the previous night, which is why she had skipped going to work as a substitute teacher in a nearby school, since she disliked driving in the snow. When the officers appeared at her doorstep, Kerri did not fully open the door, as she had been taught by her father to always be careful and vigilant, no matter who she was dealing with. But when they told her that her father, Dennis Rader, was the notorious BTK Killer, who had terrorized Wichita and Park City for 17 long years, Kerri was left stunned. After initially feeling that there must have been some mistake, or that her father was being wrongfully framed, the realization gradually hit her. Kerri had chosen to mostly keep her thoughts and opinions to herself for many years, but ultimately changed her mind upon seeing a TV interview in 2015 of Stephen King, who had just based the characters in his new story on Dennis Rader and his family members. To Kerri, this was not the right thing to do, and so she decided to come forward and reveal her perspective to the world, to tell people what she has had to go through after being exposed as the daughter of a serial killer.
How did the BTK Killer gain notoriety?
In January of 1974, four members of the Otero family were found murdered inside their own home. The parents and their two children had been strangled to death, and it was their other children, who had been at school at the time, who discovered this horrific scene. A few months later, two brothers were arrested for some other crime, and they confessed to having killed the four Oteros. This was naturally printed in newspapers as well, and this is when a local newspaper office received a letter from a confidential source. In this letter, the writer had clearly stated that the Sebring brothers were lying, for it was he who had actually killed the Oteros. Based on the very specific details that the sender had provided about the dead bodies and the crime scene, none of which had been made public by the authorities earlier, there remained no doubt that the anonymous sender of the letter was telling the truth.
In April 1974, a man broke into the house of Kathryn Bright and remained hidden, waiting for her to return home so he could attack her. Although Kathryn’s brother, Kevin, also accompanied her on that day, and he escaped to the street after suffering a gunshot wound to alert the neighbors about the intruder, Kathryn could not be saved, as she was fatally stabbed by the perpetrator. As would become clear soon afterwards, this perpetrator was the same man who had sent the anonymous letter. More crimes followed, eight to be precise, as the state of Kansas was gripped by fear of a serial killer running loose. His modus operandi was mostly the same in all the cases, as he broke into people’s houses and attacked them, tying them up, torturing them, and then killing them, almost as if following a specific pattern.
What was most chilling about the case was the fact that the perpetrator never tried to hide himself from the authorities or from the public, and rather was drawn to the attention that a serial killer gets from different facets of society. He often wrote letters to local newspapers, TV channels, and even the police department, describing his victims and how he had left the crime scene, with a clear taunt for the authorities each time. He promised that there would be many more murders to follow and called himself the ‘BTK Killer,’ a shortened version of his modus operandi and also his main motive—to bind (meaning tie with rope or other similar materials), torture, and kill his victims. In some cases, he would even leave objects related to the victims, like their driving license or the toy they used to play with, for the police as a sort of clue to help them in their investigation.
Both because of the gruesome nature of the crimes and also the extremely brash attitude of the perpetrator, the BTK Killer gained notoriety very quickly. Numerous TV talk shows, interviews, and programs were produced on the matter, along with very detailed coverage of the case in newspapers all over Kansas. While the crimes of the BTK Killer had traumatized the people of Wichita in the ‘70s and the ‘80s, the mass fear eventually died down, as there were no more crimes associated with him. It was believed, both by the authorities and the public, that the murderer had either died or been arrested on some other charge and had been keeping his secrets in prison. But when a newspaper published a special piece in 2004, on the 30th anniversary of the murder of the Otero family members, they soon received another chilling letter from the BTK Killer, stating that he was very much alive and well, and revealing how he had indeed committed multiple murders from 1985 to 1991, years after he was believed to have died or been arrested.
How was the BTK Killer caught?
Because of his extreme desire for attention and to be credited for his crimes, the BTK Killer eventually expressed his desire to send messages to the newspaper office via floppy disks, keeping up with the modern technological standards in 2005. When the authorities at the newspaper office lied that it was safe to send them floppies, the murderer went ahead and did so, which became instrumental in finally uncovering his identity. The metadata on the floppy showed that it had been used at the Park City Public Library and the Christ Lutheran Church, and the username of the person accessing it was Dennis. The authorities immediately searched for men named Dennis who were members of both organizations and were instantly led to Dennis Rader, the Congregational President at the Christ Lutheran Church.
Although the police found Dennis’ address in a quick second, they still needed to be sure that the man they were after was indeed the BTK Killer. They found out that Dennis Rader’s daughter, Kerri Rawson, was a student at Kansas State University, and so managed to find her DNA samples from the university’s medical center, obviously without taking her permission to do so. The sample was examined against the DNA evidence of the perpetrator found at the crime scenes, and the result was a complete match. There was no more doubt that Dennis Rader was indeed the BTK Killer. It seemed like Dennis had not realized how modern technology was quite easy to track by the authorities, and in his desire to be feared, he ended up being found by the police. He was apprehended by the police on February 25th, and perhaps expectedly, the man did not put up any protest at all. On the same day, police officers went to Kerri’s house to inform her of the development. Within just hours, Dennis Rader revealed everything about his crimes, without showing any sense of remorse or guilt for his actions.
Why did Dennis Rader commit the murders?
The reason for Dennis Rader’s crimes, as he himself admitted in court, was his sexual perversion and masochism, as he felt sexually aroused when attacking and torturing people, mostly women. It was all about dominating his victims for Dennis, which he achieved by tying them up and even by choking them to death. Many a time, he was noted to have performed acts of sexual domination on the corpses of his victims. On other occasions, he kept the undergarments of his female victims with him, which he then would wear and carry out perverted sexual fantasies by himself. Dennis would also actively photograph all these events, including his solo acts and also his necrophiliac activities. These photographs were later found by the police at his house and were even presented in court.
The fact that Dennis maintained a supposedly healthy and happy family life during all this time, while he was killing women, men, and sometimes even children outside, made it clear that he was an extremely shrewd and cunning criminal, with complete control over his mind and actions. He had started killing people years before the birth of his children, meaning that he had decided to extend his family by having children after having taken multiple lives, suggesting that his violent crimes had had no impact on his mind. Feelings of guilt and remorse were completely absent in him, even during the court trial, when he took the time to thank the authorities and the lawyers for dealing with his case, as if it was all an act that he enjoyed participating in, but he never apologized to the victims and their families. It remains unknown as to what had made Dennis this way, and Kerri believes that his childhood might have had an important role to play in the matter, but no details about his past are known to the world, or even to his family members.
Was Kerri Rawson a victim of her father as well?
A significant portion of My Father, The BTK Killer deals with how Dennis’ daughter, Kerri Rawson, has had to deal with the strange circumstances of her life, and particularly the dichotomy that it has brought along. On the one hand, the constant persecution and stigma that she still has to face for being the daughter of a serial killer has made her want to get away from all the drama and start a fresh life, under a new identity, just like the family members of most convicted criminals do. But on the other hand, Kerri also feels the need to tell the world her story and to build a career out of her unique and unfortunate identity, perhaps understandably so. Kerri did not have a hand in her father’s crimes, and neither did she, nor her mother or brother, ever defend or hide Dennis’ crimes.
They had been completely unaware of Dennis’ secret life, of his crimes and his perversions. What was even more shocking for Kerri was to find her name in one of Dennis’ notebooks, used to describe a certain sexual bondage game. This suggests that the man might have actually sexually assaulted his daughter at a very young age, meaning that Kerri was possibly directly one of his victims as well. She does remember having an inherent fear during her childhood that a bad man was inside the house and that he would come to get her at night when she would fall asleep. This fear could have very well been instilled in Kerri’s mind due to traumatic experiences at the hands of her father in her younger years. There is unfortunately no way to confirm these suspicions, though, and Kerri still has to live with the possibility of her having been directly victimized by her father.
Where are Dennis Rader and Kerri Rawson now?
Following Dennis’ incarceration, Kerri had initially written to her father, upon the advice of the FBI, who wanted to fish out more information from the man and see whether he had committed even more crimes than the 10 murders that are known. Kerri had found out about the possibility of her having been assaulted by her father by this time, but she had been asked to not mention this during her official visits in prison. However, when she could no longer control her frustration and anger during one such visit, Kerri confronted her father about the matter. Dennis denied it completely, stating that he had never done anything to any of his family members, but Kerri seemingly did not believe the claim. This was the last time that Kerri had contacted her father, and she has not been in touch with him ever since. She has been estranged from her mother for a long time as well, as the two fell out of touch because of their differences with regard to maintaining a distance from Dennis initially and then oversharing their woeful story with the world. While Kerri wants to be public about what she has had to go through, her mother and everyone else in the family want to keep their past a secret from the world. It is unclear whether Kerri’s marriage has also broken down in the process of her dealing with the consequences of her father’s crimes, but there are a few suggestions.
Even though Kerri continues to appear publicly to tell her story, she keeps her address a secret from the world, as there is no dearth of haters wanting to harm her. It can be assumed that Kerri Rawson continues to live somewhere in the state of Kansas, far from her childhood home in Wichita, along with her two children and possibly her husband. The house itself has been razed by the authorities in order to prevent vandalizers from doing the same, and only a vacant lot sits in the place at the moment. Meanwhile, Dennis Rader is 80 years old now and is still incarcerated at El Dorado Correctional Facility in Kansas, serving his sentence of 175 years in prison.
