Anyone who has watched Mindhunter on Netflix knows that the show's first season was sprinkled with a series of perplexing vignettes that seemingly had nothing to do with the plot of the show. He seems a little bit off, but why, we can't totally be sure. In the newly released Mindhunter season 2, those vignettes continue. This time, they're much more bone-chilling — and it becomes obvious that the man we're seeing in these short scenes is the infamous BTK Killer. Still, though, Mindhunter takes place in the late s and early s, when the BTK Killer was not in prison, but very much in the midst of his violent crime spree. Which begs the question: How does BTK's story end? To help answer that, we took a look back at BTK's crimes, and everything Mindhunter 's mysterious vignettes haven't told you about Dennis Rader, the real BTK killer — yet. In all facets of his public-facing life, Dennis Rader appeared to be just a "regular" guy. Born in , Dennis spent his childhood in the Wichita, Kansas area, and after a brief stint in the U.


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BTK stands for 'bind them, torture them, kill them'
Born in in Pittsburg, Kansas, Dennis Rader went on to live a double life: Devoted family and company man by day, he also terrorized the Wichita, Kansas, area as the "BTK killer" — for "bind, torture, kill" — with 10 murders and brazen correspondence with authorities between and Rader's alter ego resurfaced in , but his penchant for leaving clues led to his arrest and life imprisonment the following year. Rader was born on March 9, , in Pittsburg, Kansas, and grew up in Wichita. The oldest of four sons, he enjoyed a seemingly normal childhood, reportedly masking such disturbing behavior as hanging stray animals. Rader dropped out of college and joined the U. Air Force in the mids.
Thirty years after the Otero murders, Rader began dropping hints again
He called himself BTK because he bound, tortured, and killed his victims. Rader was raised in Wichita , Kansas. He later claimed that as a youth he had killed animals and developed violent sexual fantasies that involved bondage. In the s he served in the U. Air Force, and in he returned to Wichita, where he married and had two children. He held various jobs, including a brief stint as a factory worker for the Coleman Company, a maker of camping equipment.
Rader gave himself the name "BTK" for "bind, torture, kill". Between and , Rader killed ten people, all in Wichita, Kansas except for one in nearby Park City, Kansas , and sent taunting letters to police and newspapers describing the details of his crimes. His brothers are Paul, Bill, and Jeff Rader. His parents both worked long hours and paid little attention to their children at home; he would later describe feeling ignored by his mother in particular, and resenting her for it.