Kansas authorities find ‘pantyhose ligature’ in new search of BTK killer’s former home
Dennis Rader may have buried ‘trophies’ in his former Park City home, law enforcement believe
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Authorities in Kansas say they have found “items of interest” in several cold case investigations during a search of “BTK killer” Dennis Rader’s former home.
Osage County Sheriff Eddie Virden told Fox News that investigators had dug up Rader’s former property in Park City over two days this week after linking him to unsolved missing person cases.
“Through the investigation, we developed information of some possible trophies of Dennis Rader’s, and we followed up on those leads and worked with Park City,” Mr Virden told the news site.
He said officers “did a dig in the area, and we did recover some items of interest”.
According to Fox News, one such item was a “pantyhose ligature”.
Osage County Sheriff Eddie Virden told Fox News Digital: “One of the items we recovered at that time was what appears to be a pantyhose ligature. You know, that item was collected, and it will be turned over to KBI [the Kansas Bureau of Investigation] at some point in time when they’re ready, along with anything else.”
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Rader, the so-called “bind torture kill” serial killer, is serving 10 consecutive life terms after his 2005 confession to the brutal murders of 10 women in the Wichita area between 1974 and 1991.
Investigators have reportedly linked Rader to the unsolved disappearance of Cythia “Cyndi” Dawn Kinney, a 16-year-old cheerleader who disappeared from a laundromat in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, in 1976.
Rader’s daughter Kerri Rawson said in a press release that she had been assisting law enforcement with an investigation into Kinney’s disappearance and several other unsolved murders.
Ms Rawson said she had recently learned of Kinney’s cold case, and the separate unsolved murder of Shawna Garber, whose remains were found near Pineville, Missouri, in 1990.
She said she contacted law enforcement in Missouri and after being put in touch with the Osage County Sheriff’s Office she was flown to Kansas to work as a volunteer in both cases.
As part of that work, she said she visited her father twice at the El Dorado Correctional Facility where he is incarcerated.
She had applied to lift a “do not contact order” banning all contact with her father in order to help the investigation, she said.
“Beyond these two cases that have been released publicly, I’m not at liberty to discuss other possible missing persons and unsolved murder cases that are being actively investigated as possibly committed by my father, nor can I comment on my direct assistance in the investigations,” Ms Rawson said.
“Multiple law enforcement agencies are seeking long-sought answers in decades-old missing persons and unsolved murder cases in the tri-state area of Kansa, Missouri and Oklahoma. And possibly locations that extend beyond the tri-state area,” she added.
Ms Rawson, a true crime author, also revealed that Rader had been offered immunity earlier this year to confess to any violent crimes he may have committed between the early 1960s and his arrest in 2005.
She called on local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to form a BTK killer special task force “to fund and power these vital ongoing tasks”.
Rader, 78, is one of the most notorious serial killers in US history. The married father-of-two and regular churchgoer told authorities how he would stalk and kill his victims, and claim “trophies” including Polaroid photos.
He would boast of his kills in cryptic messages sent to law enforcement and media.
Rader was eventually caught after investigators traced a floppy disk he had sent to a Kansas TV station to a computer at his church.
Ms Rawson spoke to The Independent in January after her father was linked to suspected killer Bryan Kohberger, who is awaiting trial for the murders of four college students in Moscow, Idaho.
Mr Kohberger gained a Master’s degree in criminology in 2022 from Pennsylvania’s DeSales University, where he was taught by Dr Katherine Ramsland, the leading academic authority on the BTK killings.
Ms Rawson said she believed it was possible that Mr Kohberger was in contact, and possibly influenced, by her father.