Dennis Rader is pure evil.

I feel confident saying that, though I’ve never met him.  He’s currently eighty years old and in prison, serving several life sentences for a series of murders he committed in the 1970s, the 80s, and the 90s.  Because he committed the murders at a time when Kansas did not have the death penalty, he escaped being executed.  That said, he won’t be eligible for parole until the next century so we can rest assured that Dennis Rader will die in prison.

Dennis Rader was a serial killer who decided to give himself a nickname.  He wrote letter to the local media in Wichita, Kansas and demanded to be known as The BTK Killer — for Bind Them, Torture Them, and Kill Them.  It was a dumbass nickname but it stuck.  Everything about the BTK case is disturbing but one that always gets me is that nearly got away with it.  His last known victim was an elderly woman who he killed in 1991.  By the time the current century rolled around, The BTK Case had gone cold and was being forgotten about.  Rader couldn’t handle that so he started writing the local media and eventually the police again in 2004.  Rader, being a moron, didn’t consider that he was mailing a DNA sample with every letter.  Eventually, he sent the cops as floppy disk of his “writings.”  What he didn’t realize is that the metadata from a deleted Word Document was still stored on the disk.

Dennis Rader was a deacon in his local church.  He was also an dog catcher and compliance officer for Park City, Kansas.  You know the self-important jerks who send you a letter threatening to fine you if you don’t mow your grass?  Dennis Rader was one of those guys.  When Rader was finally arrested, he was described as being a trusted member of his local community but let’s be honest.  Everyone hates their local compliance officers.  Most serial killers are driven by a need to control and dominate.  Perhaps one reason why Rader had stopped killing was because he was able to channel his sadism into his job.

After he was arrested in 2005, he was on television constantly and he was such a continual presence that he even worked his way into a few of my nightmares.  Rader confessed to his crimes in court, giving a monologue in which he dryly discussed each murder.  Later, one of the primetime news shows interviewed Rader in prison and again, Rader discussed each murder in a flat tone and only showed emotion when he talked about the prospect of never leaving prison.  It was disturbing to watch and listen to and sadly, the media made sure that we heard and listened to it a lot.

The Hunt For The BTK Killer was a made-for-television movie about Dennis Rader (played by Gregg Henry) and the detective (Robert Forster) who eventually arrested him.  It aired in 2005, the same year that Rader was captured and eventually sentenced for his crimes.  It’s a movie that was obviously shot very quickly to capitalize on the media attention that the case was receiving.  As is often the case with the movies like this, it was filmed up in Canada.  (Canadian film mainstay Maury Chaykin appears as a true crime writer.)  All that said, it’s still an effective film.  Gregg Henry, under a ton of makeup, plays Dennis Rader as being the type of busybody who gets off on telling people what to do and who believes that being a deacon at his church will absolve him from the murders that he committed.  It’s a good performance and Henry is well-matched with Robert Forster.  Forster’s naturally world-weary vibe made him the ideal choice for playing detectives who have seen the worst that humanity had to offer.  Most importantly, the film shows how fear can change a community.  When BTK is on the loose and sending taunting letters to the newspapers and the local television station, the people of Wichita soon start to suspect their neighbors and what was one a friendly town becomes a place where even Forster is at risk of getting accidentally stabbed by his terrified wife.

Dennis Rader was someone who obviously enjoyed the fear that he generated.  He cried when he went to prison and hopefully, he’s still crying now.