BTK /// Bind, Torture, Kill /// Part 1 | Forensic Files

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[Music] The following is a BT. BTK offender criminal profile. This profile was written several years after BTK's first
set of murders. It reads, "The attached analysis is only as good as the information that has been
provided. In addition, it may be necessary to totally change or modify this analysis if new information is
developed, such as additional victims, more forensic evidence, or more information obtained from research.
Multiple homicides, Witchah, Kansas. The murders of the offender known to the public only as the BTK are
the result of a fantasy acted out. A fantasy where for the first time in his life, he is in a position of dominance.
He is an inadequate type, a nobody who through his crimes has placed himself in a position of importance.
The BTK strangler is now a somebody who is receiving the recognition he feels is
long overdue. He is not even very original in his crimes. He has patterned himself
after other killers such as the son of Sam in New York City. Most of the verbiage used by the
offender in his letters probably comes out of recent publications in detective magazines.
The subject is alienated, lonely, and withdrawn. He would not be expected to have any lasting relationships with
others and would lead a solitary existence dominated by fantasy and magical thinking. His killing is an attempt on
his part to find affection and acceptance. He fears everyone, including himself.
He would not be expected to have had any normal relations with women and probably
has never had a normal heterosexual relationship with one. When he is not killing, he
experiences intense feelings that he is not normal and therefore he kills to cope with this disorder and attempt to
escape within his own fantasies. Thus, he can be expected to kill again and to do so in a compulsive repetition
pattern that he has already established. His victims can be either male or female who are both loved and
outgoing. His victims will be in a position of vulnerability where he can totally render them helpless. His
victims represent his own feeling of helplessness and hopelessness. His own life has been
disruptive. He probably comes from a background where his family was broken. He was raised by an overbearing mother
who was inconsistent in her discipline and his father was absent either because of marital separation or
death. This would have occurred when he was a youth. Your subject may have been raised by foster parents. Your subject
was an average student in the classroom. However, he was more adept to disrupting
the class by using profanity and pranks. His language and statements make us believe that he has some military
experience and or is a police buff. He probably has had run-ins with the police in the past, such as assault
and/or breaking and entering. During these break-ins, items taken will be items of insignificance.
These items would have been taken because of a fetish or to feed a strong urge to take an article of clothing or
an item that he is fond of or the satisfaction of committing a crime that will leave little evidence to
investigators. BTK may have a history of voyeristic activity and he may have an arrest record for these types of
offenses. He hunts his victims by selecting neighborhoods where he can peruse different houses without being
detected. Furthermore, his victims will live in an area where, if need be, he can have an easy escape route, such as a
neighborhood park where he can hide to elude police. His killings are impulsively motivated and without
elaborate planning. He seeks out targets of opportunity. Such individuals of this
type suffer from insomnia and thus find it difficult to hold steady employment. Control of himself and of
his environment is essential to such a person. Although he is gaining in confidence, he is still shy, withdrawn,
and isolated. As a counter strategy technique, your department must not make any statements concerning the killer's
mental condition. Do not allow the media to label him as some kind of psychotic killer.
If they have already done so, your best strategy will be to align yourself with the killer and not the psychiatric
experts. Any press releases should clearly state that he is a killer who must be apprehended and that he is not a
psychotic animal. This approach may reduce the killer's anxiety and reinforce his own
guilt feelings. this removing any psychiatric excuses for his acts and leaving him responsible
for his murders. Extended periods between his murders may be for reasons when he was absent from the area either
as a result of military service, schooling, incarceration, or mental treatment. It is not uncommon for
subjects such as yours to frequent police hangouts and an attempt to overhear officers discussing the case.
Such offenders may be at the crime scene observing detectives investigating the case. All of this allows the murderer to
fulfill his ego and gain a feeling of superiority. He may go so far as to telephonically contact your department
and provide details specific to his crimes. Your advantage in this case is his very strong self-centered attitude
will be his downfall. He will provide information to a friend or an acquaintance at a local tavern
concerning information he knows about the case. He may even pretend to be an officer working the case. He may carry a
fake badge on his person. If so, he may use this to gain entry into his victim's
homes. BTK will continue to kill until he is caught or killed. [Music] [Music] Dennis Raider born in March of 1945 in
Pittsburgh, Kansas. And he would be the oldest of four children born to William and Dorothia Rider. Dennis's father, who
went by Bill, was a member of the US Marine Corps. When he retired from the Marines, he went to work for the Kansas
Gas and Electricity in 1948. Dennis's mother, Dorothia, was a bookkeeper. Dennis had three younger
brothers, Jeff, Paul, and Bill. The family moved to Witchah, Kansas, when Dennis was young, and it was there that
he would spend most of his childhood. The Raiders lived in a workingclass neighborhood on North Senica Street.
Dennis's childhood friends describe his father, Bill, as strict, but never cruel. Bill's cousin, Lee Raider,
commented that he could not remember a time when Bill Raider's family had done anything that might attract attention,
much less cross the law. And from all accounts, Dennis was a normal average child. Yeah. And later in life, he would
describe his father as distant and his mother, well, she was the disciplinarian. Now, Dennis tried to be
the good kid. He was a member of the Boy Scouts and participated in church youth
group activities. Dennis attended Riverview Elementary School, and his teachers later stated that Dennis was an
average student, although some other reports indicate that he got poor grades. Kids who grew up with him say
that Dennis loved dime store novels and comic books. And like most kids, he played cops and robbers until it was
dark. As he got older, people who knew him from his school days report that Dennis
exhibited withdrawn tendencies. He was described to be a quiet and polite young man who preferred to keep to himself. He
was also described to be a person that would think before he spoke. He would always listen very carefully when spoken
to and would give you his full attention. What? One of Dennis's former friends described him as utterly lacking
in a sense of humor, but tending to be focused. In the eighth grade, the colonel. In the
eighth grade, Dennis was chosen to be a crossing guard. He carried a big red stop sign and told classmates and
drivers when to go and when not to go, but otherwise, Dennis appeared outwardly unremarkable and blended seamlessly into
the background. In 1963, Dennis graduated from Witchah Heights High School. He got a job working at a
grocery store, but in 1965, he decided to move away from Witchah to go to Kansas Wesleyan College. Dennis joined a
fraternity, but he was a poor student and he soon returned to Witchah and enrolled in a community college. By the
summer of 1966, at age 21, Dennis had decided to join the US Air Force. He did his basic training and technical
training in Texas. Yeah. I believe he spent four years in the Air Force. Yes. And he would achieve the rank of
sergeant. At 26 years old, Dennis returned to Witchah in 1970. And in May of 71, he married 23-year-old Paula
Deetsz, a bookkeeper. Paula had also grown up in Witchah and had gone to the same high school as Dennis. Mhm. They
settled in the Park City area just north of Witchah, not far from the home in North Witchah where Dennis had grown up.
And didn't Dennis Rder work in the meat department? Yeah, he did this at the IG Supertore while attending Butler County
Community College. There he earned an associate degree in electronics in 1973. But in 1972, Dennis actually left the IG
Superstore to go work for Witchah's largest employer at the time. This is the Coleman Company, a manufacturer of
camping supplies. Yeah. That make the grills. Yeah. Amongst a bazillion other things. He worked on an assembly line
there building heating and cooling units. Dennis left Coleman in 1973 to go work for Cessna, a manufacturer of small
aircrafts. But by late 1973, he was let go. And in 1973, Dennis started taking classes at Witchah State University,
taking criminal justice classes. Do we know why he was let go or was it just like a situation where they laid off a
bunch of people? Uh, I I honestly I don't know. Um, he had a he had a background in electronics and that's
what he was in the Air Force for. So, I'm a little surprised that he would be let go. I don't know if there were major
cuts back then or if if he just couldn't hack the work. You got to keep in mind Dennis Rder, while he will present
himself throughout the course of his life as being above average intelligence, trying to be superior to
the rest of us, he is very much a a very average guy in his intellect. So, by the
end of 1973, Dennis Rider, he's married, he's unemployed, but he's taken some college classes. But Dennis is also
hiding a secret. Mhm. So all of these mundane details paint the picture of a completely normal, even somewhat dull
life. But by his own admission, Dennis developed fantasies about bondage, control, and torture from a very early
age while still in grade school. In fact, when his mother would spank him, remember he said that she was the
disciplinarian. When his mother would spank him, Dennis would later say that he felt a mixture of pain and pleasure.
Once he reached puberty, Dennis dreamed of tying up girls and having his way with them. Dennis has admitted to
torturing and killing cats and dogs when he was young by hanging them in barns. He also had a fetish for women's
underwear. He realized that he realized that he could kind of keep his fantasies
and of torture and murder a secret from everyone else. And and one way that I think that he helped himself kind of
keep these things quiet to kind of quiet the beast, if you will, was by stealing
underwear from undergarments from women and from girls in the area. And he'd walk he'd put them in his pocket and
walk around and sniff them. No. No. But uh no one in his life ever imagined that
this average unremarkable boy was leading a depraved inner life that would become dramatically more pronounced when
he reached adulthood. Now according to the journals that Dennis kept from his time at Kansas Wesleyan State in Salina
in 1965. It was during this period that he first started trolling for victims to
act out his fantasies. Although it appears that he did not have any success in actually carrying anything out at
that time. His journals also indicate that it was around this time that Dennis was able to successfully break and enter
into homes and buildings, stealing small items of interest to him. He found this
sort of activity exhilarating. Dennis further admitted that while in the Air Force, he would
peep at women undressing. He would stalk women and he would burglarize their houses to steal their underwear. While
he was in the Air Force, he began to spend time with local sex workers. He was trying to get them to play along
with his fantasies, his bondage obsession, but he was unsuccessful at getting any of them to play along with
this. He would later say that he thought that they feared that he was going to take it too far. Right. I mean, this guy
that you don't know is paying you for sex, and then he's probably saying, "Um, I'll pay a little bit extra if you let
me tie you up." And they're probably going, "Yeah, I'm not not going to let that happen." And that's an interesting
thought because I tell you what, something that we will learn about Dennis as we go through his life and his
crimes, um, I'm of the suspicion that maybe he wasn't paying them for sex. I don't know that he had the confidence
to have sex with a professional. Um being so he was just hanging out with them. I No, I bet you he was paying them
to spend time with them, but I don't I think that he lacked the confidence to actually have sex with them.
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exercise. All right, we're back. Cheers, Madies. Cheers, Captain. Tuesday, January 15th, 1974 in Witchah, Kansas.
As expected, this was a cold day. And like most other days, 15-year-old Charlie Otero counted down until the
final school bell rang. 3:00. Charlie collected his things and he made his way outside. Charlie was 15 years old and in
the 10th grade. It was his duty as the oldest child to gather up his brother and sister and lead the charge home back
to their little white house with black shutters on North Edgemore Street. The family had only been in town for a
little more than 10 weeks. They were still figuring out the logistics of their new life together in Witchah. They
still had boxes of household items that were to be unpacked. Mhm. Charlie's brother Danny was just a tad younger at
14 years of age and their sister Carmen June, she was 13. Now, their home was not terribly far from their school, so
it was a short walk on a cold day. When they arrived at the little house, the door was locked as usual, and the family
dog, Lucky, was out in the fenced in backyard, pacing near the gate. Charlie used his key to unlock the door. When
they entered the home, they noticed the kitchen had been left in a strange manner. It was incredibly hot inside the
house. Charlie expected to see his father, Joseph. Their father, Joseph, was a hardworking man, but he had
practically been confined to the home after a recent car accident. In the kitchen, open food containers were
sitting on the countertops, and it looked like someone was making a sandwich. Charlie called for his father
several times, but got no answer. The three kids walked the house looking for their mom, dad, little brother, and
sister, anyone who may be home. Charlie opened the door to the master bedroom and walked into a horrific scene. His
mother lay dead on the bed, his father lifeless on the floor. Charlie called out to Danny and Carmen June. Both
parents were bound at the feet and wrist. One of the children grabbed a knife from the kitchen and the children
cut bindings from their parents. This was a hopeless effort as both had been dead for a couple of hours. Charlie ran
to the kitchen, grabbed the phone receiver hanging on the wall, and called zero for the
operator. Charlie listened but heard nothing as the phone was dead. He would not be able to call police or medics. He
shouted for Danny and Carmen to join him as he ran to the neighbor's house. They
pounded on the door and luckily their neighbor was home. They told him that they found their parents dead and their
parents' room and then they called the police. While they waited for police to arrive, the neighbor ventured to the
otto home to see if he could help in any way. He saw what the children had seen and he knew it was too late. Mhm. The
first to arrive on the scene were the medics. They arrived just 5 minutes after the call was placed. When they
arrived, the threeo teenage children were standing out front waiting for their arrival. The children were begging
for the medics to go inside and help their parents, but the EMTs explained that for now they would have to wait for
police to arrive on the scene to clear the house and give them the okay to go in. When the neighbor man was describing
to the first responders what he had saw in the bedroom, the medics began to think that they might be at the scene of
a murder suicide. That maybe somehow in a fit of rage, Joseph had killed his wife and then killed himself. All right,
let's get into the investigation a little bit to to get a better understanding of what may have happened
to these two people in that house that day while the children were at school. Well, I just want to point out something
that supposedly it's a murder suicide, but we have legs bound and arms bound, right? Well, that's where I think the
confusion comes in. So, and what we will see happen here is the children when they found their parents, the parents
were bound at the the hands and feet, right? Remember the children went to the to the kitchen, they got a knife and
they cut the bindings from their parents trying to revive them or save them or something. Mhm. So when the neighbor
goes in to see what had happened, all he sees is Joseph the father dead on the floor, the mother dead on the bed, and
there's a knife lying next to Joseph the father. Right. Right. So he tells this to the medics, and the medics are like,
"Crap, this is a these these kids just walked in to the result of a murder suicide of their parents." So, inside
the home, Captain, in that master bedroom, the two people that were found dead were Joseph Otto Jr., who is 38
years old, and his wife Julie, aged 34. The Otteros have five children, three of
which we have already introduced. These are the three oldest children, and again, they were Charles, who is 15,
Danny, who is 14, and Carmen, who was 13. They had walked home from school and found their parents dead in the home.
The other two children attended a different school. They were like their older brothers and sisters. They walked
to and from school as well, but they were younger, so they were in elementary school. Now, Charlie, the oldest of the
children, did not want his little sister, Josephine, who was only 11, and his little brother Joseph, aged nine, to
see the swollen, stiff bodies of their parents like he had. So Charlie stayed on the scene to help in any way that he
could, but he sent Dany and Carmen off to intercept the younger children before they could make it all the way home.
Around this same time, a police officer had arrived. This is officer Bola. He went into the home and made his way to
the master bedroom. He stepped into the room. He saw the bodies of Joseph and Julie. He touched their skin to gauge
temperature. Both bodies were cold and stiff as rigor had set in. They had both been dead for a few hours, and Joseph's
body would be lying on the floor on his back. Now, next to Joseph was a plastic bag and a knife. Julie was barefoot and
her body was on the bed. She had dried blood around her mouth and nose. She had some bruising around her neck as well.
There was some type of cloth lying next to her. Now, her feet were still bound by white cord. Strips of cord lay next
to each of the bodies. Someone had opened all of the drawers to the dresser and rummaged through them. Okay, so I
want to go over some information provided to the police by Charlie or the other children. And we kind of got into
this a little bit before, but just to kind of clear it up. So the knife next to Joseph's body was the knife from the
kitchen that the children had used to cut the bindings from around his wrist, right? So not from the perpetrator. So
that also explains the cord lying next to Joseph. The plastic bag had been on Joseph's head that was found next to
him. This was removed by the children as well. Mhm. The cloth that was lying next
to Julie was actually a gag that her daughter had removed when they found her. The cord lying next to her had been
tied around her hands. So they first thought maybe a murder suicide like we talked about, but be this because of
what the neighbor had described. However, the neighbor had not realized that he was seeing it. It was an altered
crime scene altered by the children trying to save their parents. was very brave of them to for the children to try
to save their parents. Mhm. Yeah. So now now the police know that both of the victims had actually been tied up and
left that way when the children had found them. Then the officer made his way to another bedroom inside this room.
To his shock and surprise, there was another body. This was little Joseph. He was found dead in his room lying on his
side next to the bunk bed. He and Danny shared that room, him and his older brother. In the room with him were a
phone book and a chair with a broken leg. The chair was from another room and had been moved into the boy's bedroom.
Why? The investigators did not know. The boy had been tied around his ankles and
the cord ran from his ankles up behind him and bound his hands together behind his back. The boy's hands were swollen
to about three times the size of their normal size. The boy's face and head were covered with multiple items. A
t-shirt and two plastic bags all hooded the boy's head. The officer then set off
to search the remainder of the home. Could the killer or killers have left something behind? Could there be some
trace as to who had committed these hor horrible murders? After searching the main level, Officer Bola ventured to the
basement. The basement was dark and he could not find a light switch, so he relied on the light of his flashlight.
Once at the bottom of the stairs, he moved the beam around to see what was in the room. He spotted, you know, normal
things, items you would expect to find in a basement, boots, extra clothing, old toys, things like that. He noticed
an opening. There was there was another room down there. So, still not having found a light switch, he walked slowly
toward the doorway, using his flashlight to guide his steps. Once in the room, he
first noticed that the room felt and appeared to be smaller than the room he had just been in. This smaller room
housed the family's uh washer and dryer, their washing machine and their dryer. Right. As Officer Bola backed up and
started to pivot back around to the exit. Yeah. To the stairs. Right. Yeah. his well his back and shoulder brushed
up against something at this point, something with some weight to it. He swung his arm around to reach out to the
object, but when he hit it with his forearm, it gave way and it moved. Now, this terrified the officer and he
started to back up, you know, shuffling his feet to maintain his balance as he pulled his other hand around to shine
the light on the object that he had just touched that had just moved. As he fell
back and spotlighted the object, he could feel the color run from his face as he realized that he was looking at
the dead body of a young, almost teenage girl. Her mouth was gagged, her hands tied behind her back, her head and
shoulders slumped in a lifeless position. A noose was around her neck, and she was hanging just a foot or two
of rope from a pipe that had run the length of the ceiling. Mhm. The body swayed from where he had bumped into it
and hit it with his arm. The officer had to Yeah. The officer had to announce to
the other officers responding to the call uh that there were four bodies at 803 North Edgemore Street. It's a
quadruple homicide. After a little bit of time to confirm the detectives suspicions, the officer
told the three teenaged Otto kids that they had walked home from school together, that their their parents and
their young sister and brother had all been killed that day before they arrived. Police scoured the home and
yard for clues. Detectives and officers set out on foot to canvas the area and interview neighbors. Over the course of
the evening, they spoke with three separate individuals that provided them with a similar clue. All three of these
people had seen the OTO's vehicle. This is a Plymouth station wagon. It was being driven by someone other than the
Otteros on that day. One said that he had saw a short, possibly Middle Eastern man driving the vehicle. One said he saw
some man, but not Joe Otero driving. and another said, "I I don't know who was driving the vehicle, but the vehicle
backed out of the driveway so fast that this eyewitness had to slam on his brakes to avoid crashing into the car."
Right. So, we got three very undetailed accounts. Yeah. Um I think I know I know
it was a man, right? Well, the and the thing is I don't it's one of those situations where
you don't know that you're seeing the Otto's car being driven by somebody else. You're just seeing a car that
matches that description, right? And then later realizing some [ __ ] has happened. Some stuff has gone down now.
Oh, I saw a car that looked just like theirs, but I didn't think it was theirs because it was a man that I didn't
recognize driving the vehicle. Now, later that night, Captain, they ended up finding the uh vehicle at Dylan's
grocery store. Somebody had left it in the parking lot at Dylan's grocery store. An eyewitness later told police
that they had seen a man park the vehicle, exit the vehicle, and walk away. The man was visibly nervous to the
point that he was shaking. And they're not the most detailed accounts, but at least we do have eyewitnesses in this
investigation. Yeah. And they're all similar. one man having been driving the family's vehicle. Yeah. So for as for
more details, Captain, so Joseph Ouro, he served in the Air Force for 20 years and he had recently retired at the rank
of master sergeant. The Otteras had been married for about 16 years. Julie, his wife, had worked at the Coleman Company
plant. Joseph had once been a champion boxer. Now, I don't know if this was while he was in the Air Force or a local
thing when he grew up in New York, but but he he was a boxer at one point in his life. And Julie and the children
studied and practice judo. So, the FBI would later tell investigators that the fact that we have four members of a
family that were all trained fighters attacked and killed in their home pointed to two possibilities. either
they were dealing with multiple offenders or in what they believe to be the most likely situation is that they
were dealing with a single killer that was able to gain entry to the home and used a gun to control the four
individuals. The other issue here is like you said before the the husband, the father, he was basically housebound
because of a car accident. Mhm. So, you know, he could have been in a lot of pain having difficulties moving and
stuff. So, he might not have been able to fight. Well, and I also think the reason the reason why they believed that
we're working with a single offender here is because they firmly believe that this was a sexually motivated home
invasion and murders. And the murderer appeared to have a fascination with bondage, strangulation, and suffocation.
Uh-huh. And one particular FBI agent believed that the likelihood that more than one offender would share the same
distinct sexual urges and murderous fantasies, well, he believed that to be very unlikely. Yeah. And there's some
evidence to support this. Yeah. Both female victims were found partially disroed. Uh Seaman was found present on
Josephine and on the floor of the basement. Um from the appearance of the kitchen. Mhm. Now, it looked like the
killer or killers gained access to the house and surprised the Otto family while the children were preparing their
school lunches before leaving for their school day. They were there were food products out on the counters and table.
The girls winter gloves were discovered just outside of the house and police had
a theory on this that they were making their lunches and Joseph told the little girl to take out the trash. She goes
outside and is grabbed up by the offender who then took her inside and was able to gain control because he
already had a hostage. Right. So you he used her like, "Hey, do what I say. I'm going to shoot her." Yeah. And also
there was no sign of a struggle anywhere in the house. No sign of breaking and entering, right? And because this was a
family of fighters. Again, we have the gun is the thought here to gain control. The things that the police found the
most alarming was that nothing appeared to have been taken from the home. So not
a robbery gone bad as most would think. And and secondly, the cords and bags and
ropes used in the murders didn't come from inside the home. leading to the terrifying thought that the killer
showed up prepared, that he intended to kill the family before he ever entered the home. The police theorized about the
chair with the broken leg as well. The chair was from another room. This was told to them by the children. Right. The
police theorized that the killer after using a gun to gain control of the family tied them up. Then he killed
Joseph, the father, first to get rid of the biggest threat to him. Mhm. Then he molested and killed the mother. The boy
who who suffocated due to the plastic bags. The killer placed the chair in the room. And their theory, this is just a
kind of a wild speculation theory here, but they wondered if maybe he had held the little girl that he sat with her in
the chair, forcing her to watch her brother die. And during this struggle, maybe the leg to the chair had broke.
And after the three were dead, then he takes the girl to the basement because it was actually her. They wondered if it
was actually the little girl that he had targeted that and that maybe he wanted to spend some time with her. Now, he
hung her with a rope over the top of a pipe in the basement. He m some sick [ __ ] man. Yeah, he he masturbated
either while she was being killed or just after. I say sick [ __ ] and then he just dropped that on us. Well, then he
collected everything that he brought to the home with him. Mhm. He cranked up the thermostat and then left in the
family's vehicle. Now, the two detectives that took the case, I mean, cranked up the thermostat. I don't know
how hot it was in the house, but but the children and police and medics all described the home to be extremely warm,
and they believe that the offender cranked up the thermostat to maybe speed up the the decomposition process. Okay.
That maybe they would decompose a little faster if it was 90 or 95 or I don't know how hot it was in the home. Yeah.
But the two detectives that took the case, Captain, I found this to be extremely interesting and dedicated on
their part, they had a suspicion, even though they thought it might be a small chance, they thought that there was a
small chance that the killer might return to the scene of the murders. So, the two detectives that caught the case,
they actually spent several nights staying overnight at the murder house. Uhhuh.
So going on with some more police thoughts here. Can you imagine that? That that that'd be us. We'd be on the
case. Chief would say, "Hey, you two knuckleheads. You guys like to talk to each other. You guys are going to stay
in the the house. Just wait till he comes back." Yeah. Well, and I I want to point out a few things as this is going
on. You got to understand the confusion here amongst just the officers involved in the investigation because this is not
a crime that they're used to seeing. Okay. This is not a crime that anybody is used to seeing where a whole family,
well, most of a family is wiped out in the course of a morning or afternoon. Yeah. And you have little to no evidence
left behind. The thing here though too is Captain when you have a situation like this, you know, in Witchah at the
time, you know, it was a big city, yes, but they didn't have a high murder rate.
And the murders that they had, they typically solved them fairly quickly back then because usually they were
committed by somebody. If if a family member was killed, good chance it was killed by another family member, right?
Um, you know, people on the inner circle were killing committing these types of crimes. They were solved very quickly.
this situation we have we have where police are not fully understanding what they are seeing. They're not fully
understanding the crime that took place that day. And so therefore, you have officers and investigators that are not
going to share the same theories about what took place that day. Yeah. Because it's not just it's not just a murder. We
we have a rape. Well, not rape. Okay. So, it's not actual rape because there there was no penetration. Right. Right.
Okay. Okay. So, sexual assault, correct? And he's basically masturbating to the torture that's going on. Um, you know,
these sick [ __ ] These wouldn't have been fast deaths. You know, they weren't It's not like putting a gun to
somebody's head and pulling the trigger. These this type of death, this type of killing takes some time. And he
jerked off to it, right? He he enjoyed witnessing it whether it was during or after. And that's why when we spoke
earlier about Dennis Rder spending time with sex workers, now he has said that he had sex
with these sex workers. I actually question if he would have been able to physically because when we see his
crimes, he doesn't show that he has that he's capable of that. That there's some
something in his makeup that does not allow him to do that. Now, we talked about the police and investigators
capable of jerking off, right? But that's mentally that's much different than um than actual
intercourse. Mhm. So, the we talked about some of the different police and investigator theories and thoughts as to
motive. Um there were three popular ones at the time of the early investigation.
And one was that this could be some type of revenge killing that somebody went out to kill one member of the family or
wipe out the entire family for some purposes of revenge. Mhm. The other theory as to motive number two was the
family had recently moved from Panama and Joseph was a pilot. So were there there were some people that wondered
could this be something that is tied to the drug trade or some type of gang hit?
Was Jose Joseph involved in anything moving drugs uh things of that nature and somebody had sought him out to put
an end to him and the other three were just collateral damage. The third theory, and this is probably
the most terrifying one when you think about the community, is that Mrs. Otero and the little girl were actually
targeted by the killer, and the killer was surprised to find the father at home that day. And there's some there's some
thoughts to support this theory, and that being that there were no cars in the driveway when the killer had entered
the home. And remember, Joseph was only home because just a couple of weeks earlier, he had been in a car accident.
So, the car that that he drove was in the shop because it was being fixed and Joseph was off of work nursing some
injuries, right? So, I'm assuming there was a way that, you know, the killer would have been able to see into the
garage to see if there was cars in the garage. Well, their their vehicle was home. the one that the otter mother
typically drove. Right. Um but the other one was gone. Correct. And so even if the killer had been watching the house,
if he wasn't watching the home cons, you know, consecutive days, right, he might
not have any clue that Joseph would have been in the home. You know, there was no
evidence to support or to suggest to him that Joseph was there, right? So the police had, like we said, little to no
leads. the case was going to go cold very quickly. This was until October of that
same year, till October of 1974. This is when police picked up a man for molesting a little girl behind the
public library. This man, his name is Gary Sebring. Now, this is a man with a lengthy criminal record that included
beastiality uh that he had committed in the local park there. Now, so he's picked up for
possibly molesting this little girl behind the library. Now, during the interrogation regarding that attack on
the little girl, he started talking about the Otto murders and saying some weird stuff. He said, you know, had had
he done the OTO murders, he would have committed them with his brother Ernest and their friend Thomas Meyer would have
helped them commit this crime. So, it' be three people. Yeah. So, and he would have raped their cat. Well, all three of
these men had a record of sex offenses. Uh, the brother Ernest was brought in for questioning. Mhm. Police were
looking for Thomas Meyers. Now, it took some time for them to find this Thomas Meyers character. He was eventually
located after he tried to take his own life. Now, all three men were found to be mentally unstable, and they were all
taken to a mental hospital for observation. They remained there for quite some time, but none of the three
would be charged with the quadruple homicides. Yeah, anybody that's raping an animal is obviously not mentally
stable. Well, yeah, you touched on some on something there, Captain, that the the FBI would say as well that they
found that the these three individuals, they didn't find any of them capable of getting away with these
murders, that it would have gotten out of hand. The the crime scene would have looked much differently. It just didn't
make any sense to them. Now, they're not just the police are not just going to go
off of the FBI's thoughts and theories on this. There was also no evidence to suggest that they had had anything to do
with these. They one of them probably read about it in the newspaper or overheard people talking about it. This
was a very very famous crime when this took place in 1974. Witchah had not witnessed or experienced something of
this level before. Like I said, none of them would be charged in the quadruple homicide, but there was plenty of news
coverage regarding the arrest of these three men. Uhhuh. And the real killer was watching and reading it all. And the
thought that someone else may take credit for his hard work was making him very, very
angry. Don't forget to check out the Stitcher app and Stitcher Premium. Yeah, check out our show, Off the Record, on
Stitcher Premium today. The first episode is out now. It's $4.99 a month. Not only do you get our show, but you
get all of our shows commercial free, and you get a bunch of other shows. It's all for $4.99. All right, we'll see you
back here in the garage tomorrow for part two of this four-part series on the BTK killer. Until then, be good, be
kind, and don't litter. [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music]

BTK /// Bind, Torture, Kill /// Part 1

Released: 5-1-2018

Part 1 of 4

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January 1974 - Wichita, Kansas - After years of fantasizing a killer emerges from the shadows and announces himself to the world. A dark haired man slipped into the home of the Otero's one morning as the children prepared for school. He murdered all four people inside the home. Later that same year he would attack and kill again before vanishing into hibernation. After many requests we have decided to take an in depth look into the dark, disturbing life and mind of Dennis Rader. Driven by what he called Factor X, Dennis was better known as the BTK. Beer of the Week - Demon Dweller by Green Man BreweryGarage Grade - 3 and 3 quarter bottle caps out of 5

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Brief Summary

The episode details the BTK killer's background and the Otero family murders in 1974, highlighting the investigation and key suspects.

Key points

The Rise of Southern New Hampshire University. From a two-room business school to one of the largest universities in the country.
Welcome to True Crime Garage. Join hosts Nick and the Captain as they dive into true crime stories.
Understanding the BTK Killer. A deep dive into the psyche of Dennis Rader, the BTK killer.
The Investigation Begins. Police arrive to investigate a potential murder-suicide but discover a more sinister scene.
A Family's Tragic Discovery. Three children return home from school to find their parents dead.
A Shocking Turn. Officer Bola discovers a fourth body in the basement, escalating the investigation.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

He fears everyone, including himself.

Profile of BTK offender

5:48WatchApr 30, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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BTK /// Bind, Torture, Kill /// Part 1 | Forensic Files