100 Murder Cases

"I Knew Right Away It Was My Dad"

Late one February evening in 2005, Kerri Rawson went online and listened to a recording of the BTK killer from 1977. It was a 911 call, a chilling dispatch in which the caller casually reported a homicide he had just committed to the police. Seized by fear and disgust, Rawson realized she recognized the voice. "I knew right away it was my dad," she says.

Earlier that day, when an FBI agent had knocked on her door and informed her that her father had been identified as the BTK killer and arrested for murder, Rawson insisted it was all a mistake. She knew her father, Dennis Rader, as normal, law-abiding, kind: a 59-year-old compliance officer in Park City, Kansas. He had even risen to become president of his church council.

It was not a mistake. In his secret life as "BTK"—short for "bind, torture, kill," the sick nickname summarizing his methods—Rader had murdered 10 people in the Wichita area between 1974 and 1991. By the time Rawson was born in 1978, her father had already committed seven murders, including a family of four. (The Otero family, with two young children, became his first victims in 1974.) Between attacks, Rader courted infamy by mailing rambling letters to local media and police. It was his habit of taunting the police that , 14 years after his last murder. (He is now serving 10 life sentences in prison.)

For Rawson, there is life before Feb. 25, 2005, and life after. Her harrowing memoir, , chronicles her struggle to reconcile the father she grew up with—supportive, kind, devoted to his family despite occasional frightening flashes of temper—with the man who murdered women and indulged in sadistic sexual fantasies. Rawson, now 40, has battled post-traumatic stress disorder and found solace in Christian faith since her father's arrest. For years, she hid from the intense media interest in her family. Her book is the culmination of a growing comfort with speaking out publicly and part of her desire to help other victims of trauma. In a recent Skype conversation, Rawson talked about grappling with her father's crimes. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Kerri Rawson, her mother .

Zach Schonfeld: Has writing this memoir helped you heal from the trauma of learning who your father was?

Kerri Rawson: Yeah. I've said it's like pulling out shards of glass. I would come up to these things and not want to write them, and I would have to force myself to do it. It felt like I was pulling something out inside of me. I did that probably a thousand times.

I sort of equate it to, like, hell. Like going to Mordor, if you've seen Lord of the Rings.

My understanding is that you haven't been in touch with your father while writing the book.

I haven't talked to him in a year. The last time I talked to him was October 2017. We were writing pretty regularly after I forgave him in '12. Personally, I was falling apart last fall with PTSD, and then my son got ill. I just shut down.

When you say you talked to him, you mean through letters?

I have only ever written him. He could potentially talk to me on the phone. But then he would have my phone number, and I haven't ever wanted him to have it. I've never been comfortable enough to talk to him on the phone or see him at the prison.

Do you think you will reach a point where you'll want to see him?

I don't know. It's hard, because I know he's 73 and he's having some health issues. He's my father, and I still love him. It's hard to know I might not ever see him again. But it also would be so difficult that I haven't been able to do it. It's not like I would ever get to hug him or anything. If you go visit my father, you're in one room, he's in another, and he's chained to a table.