BTK killer named ‘prime suspect’ in two murders, daughter Kerri Rawson reports first meeting in 18 years

The Osage County Sheriff’s Office in Oklahoma on Wednesday confirmed They searched his former residence in Park City, Kansas to “gather evidentiary items based on specific leads” which they obtained (top right). The sheriff’s office said the search was “closely linked to the disappearance of Cynthia Dawn Kinney,” a 16-year-old cheerleader who went missing in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, in 1976.

Her case was reopened back in December, and according to Sheriff Eddie Virden, “the investigation continued from then on.”

“This ongoing investigation has uncovered potential links to other missing persons cases and unsolved homicides in the Kansas and Missouri areas that may be linked to Dennis Rader,” the sheriff’s office said in a release. “At this time, Dennis Rader is considered the prime suspect in these unsolved cases,” they added.

Although she was not named in the press release, Under Sheriff Gary Upton later recounted The Associated Press that Rader is also the prime suspect in the death of 22-year-old Shawna Beth Garber, whose body was found in 1990 but not identified until 2021. She had been raped and strangled.

Rader, now 78, is currently serving ten consecutive life sentences behind bars after confessing to ten brutal murders in the 1970s to 1990s. Nicknamed himself BTK, which stands for “bind, torture, kill,” he taunted police and media throughout his killing spree before finally being arrested in 2005. He has reportedly denied any involvement in Garber’s death. while Missouri officials have said There is “no direct evidence” linking Rader and her case.

Kerri Rawson, Rader’s daughter, posted this week on X that she knew authorities were at “the site where my childhood home originally stood” after learning about the Kinney and Garber cases earlier this year. She explained that after learning of the unsolved murders, she contacted authorities in Missouri and Oklahoma to offer their help and “immediately flew to Osage County, Oklahoma to assist in both cases.” .

That help included two visits to her father behind bars at El Dorado Correctional Facility after a “no-contact order” was finally lifted. In conversation with NewsNationRawson said it was the first time she had seen her father in 18 years.

“First we just had a reunion, I hadn’t seen him in 18 years, he hadn’t seen me. We were separated for two years, before that we just wrote letters all the time,” she explained. “It took him a minute to understand who I was.”

“He’s lost about 7 inches, he’s in a wheelchair and he’s rotting to the core,” she continued. “We had to have a family reunion and then I laid it out, I was there with Osage investigators… we were there to talk about serious stuff. It was the first time he dropped his mask and went BTK in front of my eyes.”

She couldn’t go into too much detail, but said he “led me down rabbit holes” during their conversations and claims he gave her various theories about the murders, as well as an alibi — an alibi she claims others in her team could prove it was fabricated. She also said he was offered an immunity deal whereby he could confess and not be charged to other violent crimes he may have committed, giving families “long-awaited answers”, but it seems he is not particularly keen was interested offer.

“My father doesn’t want to be put in a van and woken up in a holding cell in Oklahoma because of the kidnapping of Cynthia Kinney. He wants to spend his life in the prison he’s in,” she said. She added that maybe it’s time to take a hard look at a man she calls a “pathological liar.”

“So this is an urgent point: if he doesn’t cooperate, then we’re going to do it the hard way and he’s going to wake up one morning in a place he doesn’t want to be,” she concluded.