As Beattie later realized, the word about another BTK arrest spread rapidly through the news media community on Friday, February 25, even as Dennis Rader was being questioned at the FBI’s Wichita offices. Officially, the police put out only a cursory statement:
Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams has announced that a briefing on the BTK investigation is slated for 10 AM Saturday, February 26, in the City Council Chambers.
Distinguished guests will include Mayor Carlos Mayans, City Council members, District Attorney Nola Foulston, Kansas Bureau of Director [sic] Larry Welch, Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge Kevin Stafford and Congressman Todd Tiahrt.
The fact that such an array of political luminaries was scheduled to appear could mean only one thing—the case had been solved.
Or had it?
The Eagle, for one, reacted cautiously. After all, there’d already been one arrest that had left everyone embarrassed.
On the other hand, they couldn’t very well downplay the news—not after the events of the last year.
The following day, the paper split the difference:
POLICE TO TALK ABOUT BTK TODAY, the paper headlined. NEWS CONFERENCE FOLLOWS MAN’S DETENTION IN PARK CITY RAID.
Eagle reporters Hurst Laviana and Dana Strongin carried the ball for the paper. They noted that “a flurry of police activity in Park City” had resulted “in the evacuation of a neighborhood and questioning of a man who lives there.”
The paper pointed out that the forthcoming press conference was to be attended by the area’s congressman—who had helped land a $1 million federal grant to finance the latest BTK investigation—and Nola Foulston, the Sedgwick County district attorney, as well as Wichita Mayor Carlos Mayans. The politicians’ proposed appearances clearly suggested that something momentous was about to happen—the reporters noted that this was the first time that Foulston had ever participated in a BTK press conference, to say nothing of the congressman, the city council members, or the mayor. The paper also said that family members of the victims had been invited to attend a pre–press conference briefing.
But the paper did not name Rader. It said that police had refused to release the arrestee’s name, or explain why he had been arrested. A comparison was made to the December fiasco: “The scene in Park City on Friday afternoon was similar to one in south Wichita after the Dec. 1 arrest of a man as the result of a tip made to BTK investigators,” Laviana and Strongin reported. “That man, formally arrested on misdemeanor charges, was later ruled out as a BTK suspect, but television crews did live shots outside his home on the day of his arrest and crowds of curious residents gathered.”
The Wichita bomb squad had appeared at the scene, the paper added, along with two SWAT teams. A helicopter overflew the area. The neighborhood soon was besieged by gawkers, and something of the atmosphere of a public event unfolded. “Dozens of onlookers gathered to take pictures, and motorists clogged the streets as they drove by the scene,” Laviana and Strongin reported. “One onlooker brought a lawn chair, and at least two brought their dogs.”
At 10 the next morning, at a nationally televised press conference in the Wichita City Council chambers, several hundred people gathered, including members of the Fox family and other survivors of victims, along with Landwehr, Otis and most of the rest of the detectives.
The killer, police said, was Dennis Rader, the Park City compliance officer. They refused to say what evidence they had that Rader was in fact the killer. But they noted that Rader had been talking freely since the arrest the day before. The implication was that he had not asked for a lawyer, and the further implication of that was that he was providing a confession. They did note that in addition to the seven official BTK murders—counting Kathy Bright—they’d now officially determined that three other cases were also connected: Vicki Wegerle, Marine Hedge and Dee Davis. The latter two, officials acknowledged, had happened well outside the city limits, in the jurisdiction of Sedgwick County.
“The bottom line: BTK is arrested,” said Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams, to the applause of many of the victims’ family members who attended the press conference.
Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline also made a somewhat theatrical appearance at the gathering, advising all present that, “in a few minutes, you will look face-to-face with pure evil . . .”
And with that, a photograph of the face of BTK, Dennis Rader, was publicly flashed on a screen. Kline was still talking: “Victims whose voices were brutally silenced by the evil of one man will now have their voices heard again.” Kline, who had recently been severely criticized as attorney general for attempting to obtain the medical records of women who’d had abortions in Kansas, was a born-again Christian. For him, “pure evil” was a real thing, a force of the supernatural abroad in the world—a palpable manifestation of Satan himself. It also played well in the rural areas of the state, Kline knew, where his abortion stance was usually applauded, and here was Exhibit A in support of Kline’s assertion that the Devil did exist: BTK, aka Dennis Rader.
Beattie sat in the rear of the council chambers while the politicians crowded the front of the room. Earlier that morning, he’d had breakfast at a south Wichita café with numerous members of the ReTIRED COPS Every one of them had shaken his hand. As far as they were concerned, the politicians might claim the credit, but if BTK was really in jail after thirty-one years, there was no doubt in their minds that it had been Beattie who’d smoked him out.
As they filed out of the council chambers, Wichita reporters knew that while the police had reached a logical climax with the arrest, their job was just starting. Because now the question was: who was this man, Dennis Rader?
What seemed clear, even in those moments of triumph declared by officialdom, was that until just before the arrest, none of the police had known who Dennis Rader was. He was not, despite all predictions, ever included on any of the voluminous lists of suspects compiled by detectives and haphazardly monitored by reporters over the years. He was, in fact, a suspect from so far out of left field as to be a complete, shocking surprise. And he certainly was no transient assailant on his way to New York or California, no person of “foreign extraction.” Nor was he particularly “swarthy” in his appearance. In fact, at least one thing was obvious—Dennis Rader was one of Wichita’s very own.
Some reporters—and legal experts—soon criticized Chief Williams for his unequivocal statement: “the bottom line is, BTK is arrested.” That certainly damaged the arrested man’s right to a fair trial, some thought.
But the prevailing opinion was that BTK had in fact been arrested. Why else would he apparently be blabbing away, somewhere in police custody? Didn’t that mean the police were getting a confession? In contrast to the December arrest—that man had howled in outrage and had hired a lawyer—this Dennis Rader seemed to be cooperating with the police.
Certainly no lawyer had as yet surfaced, complaining of police misconduct in the arrest, or even asserting his client’s innocence. In itself, that spoke volumes, the news media collectively concluded. So the question for the media now was: who was this face of “pure evil,” as Kline had described him? Who the hell was Dennis Rader?
Reporters from the newspaper and the city’s broadcast stations fanned out across the flatlands in search of anyone who could shed light on this new mystery. If for thirty years the media had cooperated with the police during all the killer’s depredations and communications, now all bets were off.
The first two places reporters went looking for information about Dennis Rader were his neighbors, and his job. They weren’t alone. In the aftermath of the nationally televised press conference, a caravan of motorized rubber-neckers was soon streaming by the Rader house in Park City, trying to get a glimpse at the place where the accused—make that notoriously accused—murderer had lived for thirty-odd years. Neighbors of the Rader family were in a state of disbelief—how could this man they’d known for so long be BTK? It was simply mind-boggling. Worse, some realized that as the city’s compliance officer, Rader had been in and out of their houses and legally authorized to poke around their yards for years. If it was true that Dennis Rader was BTK, the killer had had ample opportunity to case them for more than a decade. It gave virtually everyone the creeps.
Reporters quickly learned that the Raders were devout Christians, that they had attended church for years—Christ Lutheran Church. Soon the newspeople were at the church, pressing for more information about the Rader family. Mike Clark, the church’s pastor, told them that Dennis Rader had been a member of the parish for nearly twenty-five years. Not only that, he had just been elected the congregation’s president.
The church, Clark said, was giving support to Rader’s wife, son and daughter.
How are they doing? one reporter asked.
“How would they be doing?” Clark responded to the inane question. “They’re having trouble with it, feeling very confused.”
By that afternoon, the Eagle had sketched in the briefest of outlines of Dennis Rader’s life, and soon posted these cursory facts on its website: Rader was 59 years old, and had worked as a compliance officer, then as a compliance supervisor, for Park City for approximately fifteen years. That meant he was in charge of animal control, petty nuisances, vehicles junked in front yards, and general municipal code compliance, such as lawn length, or trash-can maintenance, which gave him the right of access to people’s private property.
The paper reported that Rader had served in the military during the Viet Nam War era, that he had worked for Coleman after getting out of the service—“as did two of BTK’s early victims,” the paper noted—and that he’d had a job in earlier years for a security alarm company in Wichita.
He’d also attended Wichita State—“long linked to the BTK case,” the paper noted—and had graduated in 1979 with a degree in Administration of Justice.
“He is married and has grown children,” the paper concluded.
The next day, Sunday, Pastor Clark gave a sermon to his congregation, which was still reeling from the news of the arrest of their president.
As Christians, he said, they were all now faced with a severe test—whether the devastating news would eviscerate their faith, or bring them together and even strengthen them.
It was normal for people to feel confused, he said, by such senseless acts that surpass understanding.
He’d written a sermon the prior week, Clark said, but everything changed on Friday, so he’d junked it. When the police had come to the church that day with a search warrant, when they’d told him they had reason to believe Dennis Rader was BTK, it was as if everything he’d thought was true had been turned upside down. But as he thought it through, he realized this was a true crucible for faith.
“I propose that we choose to let this be a time of strengthening, of renewing and healing,” he said. “As we continue to let Christ’s light shine in our world, let us become the stronger in faith, in love and in hope.”
He asked his congregation to pray for the BTK victims, and their still-grieving families, for the police who had spent so many years of their lives trying to solve the case, for Dennis Rader’s wife and his children, and for Dennis himself.
“As we continue on as a body of Christ, it is important that we show compassion and love towards Dennis,” he said. “If what is claimed is true, we should be about the business of asking for God’s help in healing of heart and soul.” He asked the congregation to pray to bring Rader’s family members peace as the uncertain future unfolded.
But each new day would bring forth more horrors for Pastor Clark, and the challenge of loving, and trying to heal a man who had profaned everything Clark believed in had to be one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do, however Christian the desire to do it.