Drawings by serial killer Dennis Rader may help police identify some of his victims. The killer, known as BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill), has created sketches of women in barns, bound in rope and with nooses around their necks. One drawing shows what appears to be a young blonde woman wearing a green dress and with a red gag in her mouth – Sheriff Eddie Virden believes this may be a woman who disappeared in Kansas in 1991.
Mr. Virden did not disclose any further details but said he received several tips on the woman’s identity following the publication of the drawings and would have a “very busy week” following these up.
Police are re-investigating cold cases in the Wichita area to see if they can connect missing persons to the 78-year-old serial killer’s murder spree. The Osage County Sheriff’s Office suspects one victim may be 16-year-old Cynthia Dawn Kinney, who vanished from a laundromat in Oklahoma in 1976. They received a tip at the time that Cynthia could be found in a barn on the Kansas-Oklahoma border, but they were unable to locate her.
The killer’s daughter has written that her father was obsessed with barns, leading law enforcement to appeal to anyone who may recognize the buildings featured in Rader’s sketches.
Police finally arrested Dennis Rader in 2005 for a series of murders between 1974 and 1991. He pleaded guilty to ten killings and was sentenced to at least 175 years in prison. Law enforcement officers have suspected him of several more crimes, and police in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Texas have all investigated possible links to offenses in their states.
Dr. Katherine Ramsland conducted a psychological analysis of Rader over several years and said he was driven by a need to dominate women and a quest for fame. He regularly taunted police and enjoyed the game of cat and mouse. He referred to his victims as his “projects.”
