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Dennis Rader BTK Killer Essay

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Dennis Rader, or the BTK Killer, was responsible for the murder of ten people between 1974 and 1991. He was known for writing letters to police after a murder that offered information that nobody knew. Eventually the murders and letters stopped, then in 2004 Rader sent another letter to police claiming responsibility for a murder that was not connected to him before. Thanks to advancements in DNA technology police were able to collect evidence from underneath the victim’s fingernails. Rader soon then sent a computer disk to a TV station and police were able to analyze the data from a document found on it and learned that the authors name was Dennis. There was also a link to a Lutheran Church that Rader was a part of. After police did a search including Dennis and Lutheran Church, they found that the church has a deacon named Dennis Rader. After police get a DNA sample from Raders daughter, they …show more content…

Dennis Rader was known to write letters that were sent to police and news agencies about the murders. These letters would include how the crime scene was set up, what the people were tied up with, and how they were killed. Some of these letters and packages also had clues in them in different forms. He did this because he was seeking the fame that other killers such as Ted Bundy had received from the media. He sent one letter to a local news station that had hidden words in it that spelled out “D. Rader” and “6220”, which was his street address. However, the clues in his numerous letters would not give him away. Some of his clues were overlooked, some could not be deciphered, and some did not make sense with the investigation. What did give him away was a floppy disk that was sent to a local news agency. This document had data on it that named the author and brought them to the Lutheran church that Rader was a part of. Computer technology had advanced in the decade since his last murder that led them to this embedded

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