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- [00:01]
Narrator
You're listening to Monster BTK, a production of iHeart podcasts and Tenderfoot TV. Listener discretion is advised.
- [00:15]
Charlie Otero
I remember that day like it was yesterday. I was walking home. The snow was knee deep and the wind was blowing pretty hard. And I walked into the backyard. We had a wood fence with a gate, so I went through the yard. And my dog, Lucky, he was outside in the snow, and he was never outside. I'm like, what are you doing out here, boy? He looked at me and wagged his tail, and I opened up a kitchen door and went into the back. When I walked in the house, I looked at the stove. It had my mom's purse on it. All the stuff was stowed out. And that's not how my mom kept the house. She was very adamant about keeping our house super clean. I yelled out, anybody home? And I heard a voice yell, charlie, come quick. Mom and dad are playing a bad trick on us. I ran down the hall, and I could just sense something was wrong already. I could just feel it. And I opened up the door and saw my mom and my dad, and I saw my mom on the bed, and my heart broke. It felt like somebody had actually ripped my chest open and pulled my heart out. It was a physical pain. I tried to undo the ropes that were on them. My dad's tongue was half bit off hanging. The ropes were so tight, there was no way to untie them. This day, I can smell fear and death. I can smell fear on a person because when you walked in the house, you could smell it. You could smell the death in the house.
- [01:52]
Susan Peters
My name is Susan Peters. I'm a journalist and former news anchor for KAKE tv, also known as Cake tv, in Wichita, Kansas. I started out as a reporter in Illinois and then anchored the news in San Diego. When I moved to Kansas in 1983, people would ask me if I knew about the serial killer btk. At the time, I didn't know much. But my co workers told me about the seven people he killed in the 1970s. His first victims were the Otero family.
- [02:29]
Charlie Otero
We moved to Puerto Rico to stay with my grandparents while my dad looked for his future. He just spent 20 years of his life in the Air Force since he was 17, and he was searching for the best opportunity. My name is Charlie Otero. I am a surviving son of Joseph and Julie Otero. One day he got ahold of us and said, you're coming to Wichita. You'd found a job here at a small airfield, Cook Airfield. We hopped on a plane and flew to Wichita. I left the beautiful tropical island of Puerto Rico and landed in the wheat fields of Kansas in the middle of a snowstorm. And we were just getting used to the neighborhood. It was totally different from what I was used to.
- [03:16]
Susan Peters
It was January of 1974. The Otero family had recently moved into a small home at 803 North Edgemoor on the east side of Wichita. In some ways it was the picture perfect American dream. With a fenced in backyard for the children and the dog to play in. The parents were Julie and Joseph Sr. And they had five children from oldest to youngest. There was Charlie, Danny, Carmen, Josephine, nicknamed Josie, and Joseph Jr. Who they also called Joey. They were a close knit family supported by two hardworking parents from Spanish Harlem in New York.
- [04:01]
Charlie Otero
We really hadn't got a chance to meet other people in the neighborhood yet. And it was winter, so we were pretty homebound and we just spent a lot of time together. Don't get me wrong, we had our moments. But there was always love in the house.
- [04:17]
Larry Hatteberg
Always.
- [04:18]
Charlie Otero
My mom didn't cuss, she was in the church. I mean, she was the kind of woman that would bring orphans home for Christmas to our house.
- [04:27]
Susan Peters
Over the years, I've developed a deep relationship with Charlie. He's told me all about his mother and how she kept the family together when they were new to Wichita. Wichita was a quiet and calm town for the family to settle into. It was a stable community, or so it seemed. As the Oteros made their home, evil was brewing and it was about to boil over. A monster was watching them, stalking them and learning their daily routine. He knew when the mother, Julie, took the kids to school each day. And he knew the exact time that the father, Joseph Sr. Usually left for work. But on the morning of January 15, 1974, the family routine was different.
- [05:23]
Charlie Otero
I remember asking my father to take me to school early that day. My mom used to usually give me a ride because it was like two miles away, Southeast High from where we lived. That day my dad stayed home because he had an appointment with somebody or something. And so he gave me a ride. He also took me to school early because I asked him to because it was finals day for the nine week period. And I wanted an extra study hall to bone up a little bit more on some of the classes I was taking tests in. And that's probably what saved me and Danny and Carmen's lives because they had to go with me.
- [06:03]
Susan Peters
Joseph Otero Sr. Dropped his three eldest children off and returned home in his wife's car. No matter how many times I walk through this story. It's very hard to talk about what happened next. As Julie and Joe Otero got their youngest, Josie and Joey ready for school that day. It was 20 degrees in Wichita and snow coated the frozen ground. Around 8:20am as planned, the stalker unlatched the door on the family's wooden gate and let himself into the backyard of the Otero's home on Edgemoor Street. In the pockets of his jacket he carried rope, venetian blind, cord, gags, white adhesive tape, plastic bags and a knife. The man inched slowly toward the back door. He jiggled the doorknob, but it was locked. So instead he found a telephone line tacked to the outside wall and cut it with a hunting knife. Just then, the man heard the back door open and he was surprised to find a small boy looking directly at him. This was 9 year old Joey Otero. By the boy's side was a large dog. As the man stood there, he felt his plan start to unravel. Not only did the family have a dog he hadn't planned for, but the young boy was home. And as he soon learned, the father was home as well. He panicked and pulled out his gun. Inside he found the mother and daughter. The young girl began to cry. The man dealt with the dog first, telling Joey to put him in the yard. Then, still holding the family at gunpoint, he backed them into the main bedroom and began to tie each of them up. One by one, he killed each of them. He strangled Joseph with a rolled up T shirt, followed by Julie with a rope. The man struggled. He had never done this before. The man then took Joseph Jr. Into a different bedroom and strangled him as well. Finally, he took 11 year old Josephine downstairs to the basement and hung her from a sewage pipe. The man tried to cover his tracks. He drove the Otero's Vista Cruiser to Dylan's grocery store. Before he got out, he adjusted the seat forward to disguise his height. Then he walked to his own car down the street. He took inventory and realized he had forgotten his knife. He drove back to the house in his own car and picked up the knife. Quickly he sped off. And just like that, he was gone. To have a murder as gruesome as Jade Beasley's doesn't happen very often down.
- [09:28]
Lauren Bright
Here in Marion, Illinois. An 11 year old girl brutally stabbed to death. Her father's longtime live in girlfriend maintaining innocence but charged with her murder.
- [09:38]
Susan Peters
I am confident that Julie Begley is guilty.
- [09:42]
Charlie Otero
This case, the more I learned about it, the more I'm scratching my head. Something's not right.
- [09:48]
Lauren Bright
I'm Lauren Bright. Pacheco Murder on Songbird Road dives into the conviction of a mother of four who remains behind bars and the investigation that put her there.
- [09:58]
Susan Peters
I have not seen this level of corruption anywhere. It's sickening.
- [10:03]
Charlie Otero
If you stabbed somebody that many times, you'd have blood splatter. Where's the change of clothes?
- [10:08]
Susan Peters
She found out she was pregnant in jail. She wasn't treated like she was an innocent human being at all, which is just horrific.
- [10:15]
Unnamed Female Witness
Nobody has gotten justice yet, and that's what I wish people would understand.
- [10:20]
Lauren Bright
Listen to Murder on Songbird road on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [10:28]
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart is back in the host chair at the Daily show, which means he's also back in our ears on the Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. The Daily show podcast has everything you need to stay on top of today's news and pop culture. You get hilarious satirical takes on entertainment, politics, sports, and more from John and the team of correspondents and contributors. The podcast also has content you can't get anywhere else, like extended interviews and a roundup of the weekly headlines. Listen to the Daily Show Ears edition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [11:07]
Unnamed Male Speaker
It was big news.
- [11:08]
Susan Peters
I mean, white girl gets murdered, found in a cemetery.
- [11:12]
Unnamed Male Speaker
Big, big news.
- [11:13]
When a young woman is murdered, a desperate search for answers takes investigators to some unexpected places. He believed it could be part of a satanic cult.
- [11:23]
Charlie Otero
I think there were many individuals present. I don't know who pulled the trigger.
- [11:27]
Unnamed Male Speaker
A long investigation stalls until someone changes their story.
- [11:32]
Susan Peters
I like saw whole thing that happened.
- [11:34]
Unnamed Male Speaker
An arrest, trial and conviction soon follow.
- [11:38]
Susan Peters
He just saw his body just kind of collapsing.
- [11:42]
Unnamed Male Speaker
Two decades later, a new team of lawyers says their client is innocent.
- [11:47]
Susan Peters
He did not kill her.
- [11:49]
Unnamed Male Speaker
There's no way is the real killer rightly behind bars or still walking free. Are you capable of murder?
- [11:55]
Susan Peters
I definitely am not.
- [11:57]
Unnamed Male Speaker
Did you kill her? Listen to the real Killer Season 3 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [12:12]
Susan Peters
That afternoon, Charlie Otero was finishing up his finals two miles away at Southeast High School. The school bell rang and he walked home with his two younger siblings, Danny and Carmen. They were expecting to reunite with the rest of their family as they had always done. They had no idea what was waiting for them at home.
- [12:36]
Charlie Otero
I took all my tests, aced all of them, and then I was walking home. I remember walking through the snow thinking, this really sucks. Kansas sucks. I get across the street from my house. The garage door was up and the car was gone. So I'm like, here's my chance to rag my mom. Because I never get to rag my mom. You didn't get to say anything bad to her. And this is my chance to say, why'd you leave the garage door open? Now I gotta clean the snow out. So I'm already practicing my spiel.
- [13:07]
Susan Peters
This is when Charlie and his siblings entered the home to the gruesome scene you heard about at the top of the episode. I can imagine the horror as they pieced together that their parents were not in fact playing a cruel trick on them. The fear as they figured out what to do next.
- [13:30]
Charlie Otero
We tried to use the phone. It was dead. Me and Danny and Carmen went outside and I told Danny to go next door to the neighbor's house and use their phone to call the police. And we waited outside together in the snow, huddled up. And a police officer came and he goes, what's going on here? I said, go inside. You'll see.
- [13:52]
Susan Peters
Officers Robert Bulla and Jim Lindeberg of the Wichita Police Department arrived at the otero household at 3:42pm the police report describes what the officers initially found, read here by a voice actor.
- [14:09]
Narrator
Officers checked the bedrooms. The door to the southwest bedroom stood halfway open. The officers pushed the door open and saw a man on the floor. A cut white rope and a butcher's knife were on the floor next to the man. A woman was on the bed. The woman's legs were bent and hanging over the edge of the bed. The officers noticed blood on her nose and mouth. Officer Bulla found no pulse. The woman's hands appeared to be tied behind her back. A white cloth gag covered with blood was found next to her head.
- [14:41]
Susan Peters
Officers Bulla and Lindeberg found Joseph and Julie in the main bedroom. They radio dispatch two possible homicide victims. Then Officer Lindeberg left the house to check back in with the children.
- [14:57]
Charlie Otero
He came back out and looked at me and said, could your father have done this? I knew what he was insinuating right away. He was insinuating that my dad had come home and found my mom with another man. Because my dad was dark, dark, dark, almost Negro. And my mom was white, white, white. As white as you can be without being see through. My dad's in there with his hands tied and he's dead. How could he have killed himself and tied himself up? I knew what he was insinuating. I had that knife in my hand when he said that, and I almost stuck it in him. And at that instant, I lost all respect for authority. I hated police. I hated the world. At that moment when I first saw my mother, I lost my religion instantly. I hated God. We were in a state of shock. And I kept telling the police officer, I said, I gotta stop Joey and Josie from coming home. He called the station and had a bunch of cops coming. And I told myself, I do not want Joey and Josie to get here and see all these cops. And I want them here with me now. I knew it was my job to take over and take care of my siblings. And I didn't know Joey and Josie were in the house. So I kept telling him, I need Joey and Josie with me. Over and over again.
- [16:09]
Susan Peters
Seemingly all of Wichita's police force made their way to the Otero household on North Edgemoor, in what was generally a quiet neighborhood, to begin solving a quadruple homicide. The children told the officers that when they arrived home to find their parents, they attempted to cut the ropes and desperately tried to perform cpr. As Officer Bulla interviewed the Otero children, Lieutenant Jack Watkins arrived at the house. It was he and Officer Bulla who discovered little Joey in the upstairs bedroom and Josie in the basement. Here again is an excerpt from the police report.
- [16:53]
Narrator
While Officer Bulla was outside of the home, Lieutenant Jack Watkins discovered the body of Joseph Otero Jr. In another upstairs bedroom. Lieutenant Watkins and Officer Bulla searched the rest of the home. Josephine Otero was found in the northwest storage area of the basement. Josephine Otero was hanging by a rope that had been tied to a sewer pipe. A white cloth was tied around her mouth. Josephine Otero was wearing a blue short sleeved knit sweater and was naked from the waist down.
- [17:27]
Susan Peters
As the eldest, Charlie pleaded for answers about his little sister and brother, Josie and Joey. It's Charlie's nature to protect his family and he wanted to protect the two youngest from what the three of them had already seen.
- [17:44]
Charlie Otero
I kept telling him when we got to the police station, I kept saying, where's Joey and Josie? I need him here now. I need him here now. I can't even tell you how long we were there. It could have been an hour. It could have been 10 hours. It could have been 10 seconds. At that point, the world is upside down, inside out for me. Finally, a police chaplain pulled me over and says, charlie, we gotta tell you, Joey and Josie were in the house. They're dead, too. After that, I pretty much went blank.
- [18:13]
Susan Peters
Back in East Wichita, local police officers, detectives and other officials were gathered en masse at the Otero household. They immediately set up a headquarters in the school across the street from the Otero home. The police report states that chief of Police Floyd Hannon assigned 10 teams of detectives to investigate the murders and search for the family's missing car. Again, here's an excerpt from the police report.
- [18:44]
Narrator
At 5:46pm Detective Lewis Brown located the Otero car in the parking lot of the Dillon's grocery store at Central and Oliver. The keys to the beige 1966 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser were missing. Steve Christian, the brother of the former owner of the Otero home, reported seeing the car backing out of the driveway at approximately 10:30am at the Otero home.
- [19:11]
Susan Peters
Officer Bulla assisted lab director Ron Eggleston in processing the scene. Notably, Eggleston found stains on the concrete floor directly in front of young Josephine in the basement. He collected samples of those stains. The local newspapers and television stations caught wind of the killings and also set up shop by the Otero home. They had very little to go on.
- [19:43]
Larry Hatteberg
Back in that day. And to this day, we monitor the police frequencies, the fire frequencies and that type of thing. We didn't know what had happened, but we knew that they had sent a lot of detectives to this one particular address in East Wichita. Nobody was talking about it on the frequencies that we were monitoring, so we didn't know what was going on. But we thought, you know, there's something going on there. And I was sent out to see what was happening.
- [20:12]
Susan Peters
This is my longtime colleague and friend Larry Hatteberg, who was on the scene reporting for K TV on the day the Oteros were murdered.
- [20:23]
Larry Hatteberg
None of the detectives, no one would talk to me. They just say, you know, we'll have information later. But no one would talk to me. And it wasn't till hours and hours and hours after I arrived that we found out that there were four dead bodies inside the house. And it wasn't until later that we found out that two of those bodies were children. And it was shocking. All we knew is that some crazy person had gone in and killed an entire family. That was the shocking part. That just didn't happen in Wichita, Kansas. Even the police department, I think, were shocked by the murder. They had never had really a murder of that size happen before.
- [21:08]
Susan Peters
Detectives went to work studying the crime scene. For 10 days, 75 officers and detectives worked 18 hours a day. At the end of the first week, sleep deprived, out of energy and out of ideas, the police and all of Wichita were left with the same questions.
- [21:32]
Larry Hatteberg
We wondered, what kind of crazy person do we have? Is it somebody on drugs. That did it. Somebody who had a vendetta against this people.
- [21:43]
Susan Peters
During the investigation, Police Chief Floyd Hannon held press conferences at least twice a day where he would disclose specifics, speculate about motives and possible suspects. Newspapers like the Wichita Eagle and the Beacon covered every development. The police began with a handful of different possibilities. The first was that the killer could be someone within the family, as Officer Bulla suggested to Charlie. Upon initially securing the scene, investigators quickly ruled that theory out. The second was that there was a possible drug connection. Chief Hannon himself flew to Panama and to Puerto Rico to follow this idea. The third was that someone was out to get Julie.
- [22:33]
Unnamed Male Speaker
Usually there's a connection of something, and in this particular case, there was no connection. We didn't know anything. What caused this? What's the background of the Oteros? Who would do this? What was it? The investigators. Their immediate reaction was this was a revenge killing of some kind. Whether it be drug related, whether it be a business thing. We didn't know what it was. My name is Richard Lamunion. I'm currently the city manager for the city of Mays. At the time of the Otero murders, I was a member of the Wichita Police Department. I joined the department in 1963. I was the police chief from 1976 through 1989.
- [23:20]
Susan Peters
Lamunion says they didn't have very much to go on at the start of the investigation, but that from the get go, police could tell this had not been a random killing.
- [23:31]
Unnamed Male Speaker
It was a planned scenario. There was a script, at least, if not written in this individual's mind. Our individuals, we didn't know if it was 1, 2 or 22, but there was definitely a plan, premeditated. And that's why it threw us back to this has to be a revenge. The chief authorized some of the detectives to make some trips. One of them was even made to Mexico. So there were some special efforts made. It's not unusual to send off detectives and things to other places, but when you send them out of the country or something, that's. That's unusual.
- [24:13]
Susan Peters
A week had passed since the Otero murders, and the investigators assigned to the case weren't getting any answers. Chief Hannon pulled out all the stops, signing off on any and all ideas detectives came up with for solving the murders. One night, detectives Gary Caldwell and Bernie Drawski hired a psychic to stay in the house with police. The detectives were desperate, and the psychic had claimed she helped solve a crime by leading police to a body in a trunk. One overnight stay with the psychic later And Caldwell and Drawski still had nothing to bring back to Chief Hannon. With each lead running into a dead end, pressure was mounting on the department as the community feared what would come next. The officers themselves struggled to come to terms with the tragedy. Lamunion describes the department's turmoil as they worked the case.
- [25:13]
Unnamed Male Speaker
You know police officers, even though you deal with tragedy every day and everything, you're still a human being. When you see a situation like this, you see the victims laying there with plastic bags over their head, strangled. And then you see children in your mind, you think back, well, I have children, I have sisters, I have brothers, I have other things. So it does impact you, but you can't let that influence you. At the time, the first week of.
- [25:43]
Susan Peters
The investigation was difficult. In hindsight, we can say that the Wichita Police Department was not equipped to deal with this kind of murder in 1974. In fact, they made multiple mistakes. Someone in the department lost several crime scene photos and most of the autopsy photos. Through crime scene photographs, they discovered that a responding officer opened the Otero freezer and left the ice tray on the counter. This mistake set the department back as they worked to piece together the timeline of the crime. Yet there was one big thing that the investigators did correctly on the first.
- [26:28]
Unnamed Male Speaker
Day when it came to preserving evidence. You know, we had preserved evidence before. In this particular case, there was semen found on the little girl in the basement where he had literally brushed up against her and there was a little bit in her leg. Now how do you preserve that? And this is 1974. We didn't have computers, we didn't have DNA, we didn't have any of that stuff. However, our crime investigation unit, what they ended up doing was they did three things. Number one, they dried part of it, they kept part of it in fluid, and then they froze part of it. All three of them.
- [27:09]
Susan Peters
As the investigation unfolded, tensions were understandably high in the city. The close knit community of Witchita was starting to fall apart. People were becoming suspicious of their neighbors, fearing that the killer could live next door. To have a murder as gruesome as.
- [27:35]
Jon Stewart
Jay Beasley's doesn't happen very often down.
- [27:38]
Lauren Bright
Here in Marion, Illinois. An 11 year old girl brutally stabbed to death. Her father's longtime live in girlfriend maintaining innocence but charged with her murder.
- [27:48]
Susan Peters
I am confident that Julie Begley is guilty.
- [27:52]
Charlie Otero
This case, the more I learned about it, the more I'm scratching my head. Something's not wrong, right?
- [27:58]
Lauren Bright
I'm Lauren Bright. Pacheco Murder on Songbird Road. Dives into the conviction of a mother of four who remains behind bars and the investigation that put her there.
- [28:09]
Susan Peters
I have not seen this level of corruption anywhere. It's sickening.
- [28:13]
Charlie Otero
If you step me that many times, you have blood splatter. Where's the change clothes?
- [28:18]
Susan Peters
She found out she was pregnant in jail. She wasn't treated like she was an innocent human being at all, which is just horrific.
- [28:26]
Unnamed Female Witness
Nobody has gotten justice yet, and that's what I wish people would understand.
- [28:31]
Lauren Bright
Listen to Murder on Songbird road on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [28:38]
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart is back in the host chair at the Daily show, which means he's also back in our ears on the Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. The Daily show podcast has everything you need to stay on top of today's news and pop culture. You get hilarious satirical takes on entertainment, politics, sports and more from John and the team of correspondents and contributors. The podcast also has content you can't get anywhere else, like extended interviews and a roundup of the weekly headlines. Listen to the Daily Show Ears edition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [29:17]
Unnamed Male Speaker
It was big news.
- [29:18]
Susan Peters
I mean, white girl gets murdered, found in a cemetery.
- [29:22]
Unnamed Male Speaker
Big, big news.
- [29:23]
When a young woman is murdered, a desperate search for answers takes investigators to some unexpected places. He believed it could be part of a satanic cult.
- [29:33]
Charlie Otero
I think there were many individuals present.
- [29:36]
Susan Peters
I don't know who pulled the trigger.
- [29:38]
Unnamed Male Speaker
A long investigation stalls until someone changes their story.
- [29:43]
Susan Peters
I, like, saw something that happened.
- [29:44]
Unnamed Male Speaker
An arrest, trial and conviction soon follow.
- [29:48]
Susan Peters
He just saw his body just kind of collapsing.
- [29:52]
Unnamed Male Speaker
Two decades later, a new team of lawyers says their client is innocent.
- [29:58]
Susan Peters
He did not kill her.
- [29:59]
Unnamed Male Speaker
There's no way is the real killer rightly behind bars or still walking free. Are you capable of murder?
- [30:06]
Susan Peters
I. I definitely am not.
- [30:08]
Unnamed Male Speaker
Did you kill her? Listen to the real Killer, Season 3 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [30:22]
Susan Peters
Following the murder, the Otero children were once again swept off to a new location, leaving a city in which they had not spent long enough to consider home. One that would remind them only of darkness for decades to come.
- [30:39]
Charlie Otero
We had known a family in Panama that was stationed at McConnell, Sergeant Jocquiz. So we called them up and they said, yeah, get your butts over here. So police took us to McConnell. I remember being in the Jacquez house with armed guards all around, and I remember getting a phone call. It was Senator Kennedy's office. He was the chairman of the armed forces committee at that time. And they called and said, well, what can we do for you? I told him, I said, I have four bodies to bury, and I don't want them in Wichita. I'll be damned if I'm going to bury my family here in Wichita. So he said, what do you want to do? I said, I want my family buried in Puerto Rico. And he said, done. And they buried my family in a national military cemetery in Puerto Rico in my dad's hometown of Santurce.
- [31:27]
Susan Peters
At just 15 years old, Charlie took on this responsibility, shouldering the immense weight of this tragedy out of love for his siblings.
- [31:38]
Charlie Otero
I kept telling myself, you know, if I came unglued, what would Danny and Carmen do? I had to be that pillar of strength for them to hold onto, because we didn't have anything at that point. You got to remember, we had just spent our whole lives as a family unit, traveling all over, and now there wasn't one. We had no mom. One minute my mom is bringing orphans and giving them my bedroom for Christmas, and the next minute, I'm the orphan. So I got on the phone, I called my uncle John. He became my guardian, our guardian. To this day, I'm still very close to them and the family. He was there. The next day. I called them. They got in the car and drove straight to Wichita from New Mexico, from Albuquerque. And that's when our life turned around again.
- [32:25]
Susan Peters
After the funeral, the surviving Otero children tried to settle into life in New Mexico. With their parents and siblings gone, it was understandably difficult to adjust.
- [32:37]
Charlie Otero
We had a hard time. PTSD was kicking in. Danny was acting up. I started racing motorcycles to release my aggression. I was very aggressive, very careless with my life, with my body. I got in a bike wreck right after I graduated from high school and had a handlebar go through my helmet and down my throat. Saw my whole life pass before me, and my life kind of changed. At that point, it's like, who cares? Why build a future if somebody's just going to come take it from you? We just maintained an existence.
- [33:13]
Susan Peters
While Charlie and his siblings carried on, the city of Wichita was still in shock. As cake anchor Larry hatteberg says, this was a level of violence that seemed inconceivable in a small town like Wichita, Kansas.
- [33:29]
Larry Hatteberg
And that in itself, I think, turned this quiet town that never had anything happen into a town that for a period of time was really on edge because they didn't know what was going to happen next. They didn't know who was going to Be next. And it was a terrifying time for an awful lot of people. Someone killed four members of a family, Two children and two adults. And that had really never happened before in Wichita, particularly the children. I mean, they've had double murders. But to include the children in that, that was shocking to a kansas town. It just didn't happen here. And yet it did.
- [34:17]
Susan Peters
But this was just the beginning. Over the next five years, the killer would continue to terrorize Wichita. He targeted dozens of women and stalked them at night. He watched them come and go from work. And for many of them, he broke into their homes and murdered them. In the 70s alone, he killed seven people. But even that wasn't enough for him. He also started writing taunting letters to the media. Larry hatteberg talks about one letter that arrived to cake. In February of 1978, Cape TV received.
- [35:00]
Larry Hatteberg
A postcard from someone who indicated that they had information about the killings. I will never forget this. It was a Saturday morning, and the postcard had come into our mail room.
- [35:14]
BTK Killer
How many people do I have to kill before I get my name in the paper or some national attention? I am compelled to kill by factor x. The same factor that motivated son of sam in new York, Jack the ripper in London, and the hillside strangler in Los angeles. It seems senseless, but we cannot help it. There is no help, no cure except death or being caught and put away. A little paragraph in the newspaper would have been enough.
- [35:49]
Susan Peters
In one of these letters, he even named himself btk, which stands for bind, torture, kill. Then, In April of 1979, BTK seemingly disappeared. He committed his last murder and cut off all communication, or so we thought.
- [36:14]
Larry Hatteberg
For a period of time, everything just shut down. We heard nothing from btk, Not a word. And so all of the rumors started to fly. What has happened to btk? Is he dead? Is he incarcerated? What's the deal with btk?
- [36:30]
Susan Peters
As suddenly as he appeared, he was simply gone. To outsiders, it may have seemed as though Wichita had finally been freed of its boogeyman. But the presence of BTK was always felt. I initially moved here in the 80s. People no longer left their doors unlocked, and there were always nervous whispers. No one felt safe in Wichita anymore.
- [36:58]
Larry Hatteberg
This was not a community that locked its doors so much after btk. This was a community that locked its doors. This is a community where young women were terrified. They didn't go out alone at night. If they were going out, they let everybody know where they were going and what time they would be arriving.
- [37:17]
Susan Peters
It turns out that feeling was justified because BTK hadn't gone anywhere. He was just laying dormant, waiting for his time to rise again. In this case, it would be decades later. Fast forward to 2004 when this story culminated in one of the most dramatic turn of events in Kansas history.
- [37:50]
Jon Stewart
Eight minutes pass now, and decades after.
- [37:52]
Charlie Otero
A serial killer terrorized Wichita, Kansas.
- [37:55]
Jon Stewart
Cops say the case that was once cold may be warm yet again today.
- [38:00]
Charlie Otero
A Wichita paper says it received another.
- [38:03]
Jon Stewart
Letter claiming responsibility for an eighth victim who was killed in 1986.
- [38:09]
Susan Peters
It was spring of 2004. No one had heard from BTK in 25 years. Most of us had moved on with our lives, assuming he was gone. But on March 19, 2004, the Wichita Eagle received a letter from someone claiming to be Bill Thomas Kilman, initials btk. In it, he claimed to have killed a new victim. Investigators believe the letter is from BTK because it has information about a two.
- [38:42]
Unnamed Male Speaker
Decade old homicide linked to BTK that.
- [38:45]
Susan Peters
Only the killer would know. At ktv, of course, this became our top story and for a whole year it remained our top story. Because the letters didn't stop there. A few months after this first correspondence, a letter arrived at our TV station.
- [39:04]
Jon Stewart
A letter received by Cake TV was.
- [39:06]
Charlie Otero
Turned over to us last Wednesday and.
- [39:09]
Jon Stewart
We are treated as possibly being sent by btk.
- [39:12]
Larry Hatteberg
He started writing to us. He wrote to Cake tv, my employer. We knew that he was watching us every night, which was a little terrifying. And for the female anchors at our television station, it was getting pretty close because we were concerned that he could strike them, that he could kill them, make them a target.
- [39:37]
Susan Peters
One of those people was me. As the most visible female anchor at Cake, I knew I was at high risk. In fact, in one of his letters, BTK even mentioned my name. This is from the BTK letter received on February 3, 2005.
- [39:57]
BTK Killer
Thanks to the news team for their efforts. Sorry about Susan and Jeff's colds.
- [40:04]
Susan Peters
During a newscast, I had mentioned on the air that my co anchor and I were feeling un. Just two days later, this letter arrived. It hit me like a punch to the gut because that meant he was watching me.
- [40:22]
Larry Hatteberg
So we had extra security on all our on air females. It was a terrifying time. I know I would walk a co anchor out to the station, out to the parking lot every night and get her in her car just to make sure that that there wasn't anybody waiting around there. It was a scary time, particularly for the women in our television station.
- [40:44]
Susan Peters
Throughout 2004 and early 2005, BTK continued to send letters threatening to kill again, presumably at Random. His letters made it very clear he was once again targeting women across Wichita. Here's his letter from July 17, 2004. A poem titled O death to Nancy.
- [41:10]
BTK Killer
I'll stuff your jaws till you can't talk. I'll bind your legs till you can't walk. I'll tie your hands till you can't make a stand. And finally, I'll close your eyes so you can't see. I'll bring sexual death unto you.
- [41:30]
Susan Peters
For me, I mean it when I tell you every woman in Wichita was scared to death. You can imagine how terrified everybody was, looking behind themselves, wondering if they were going to be next. Afraid to walk out of the grocery store at night, Afraid to be alone in their own homes.
- [41:55]
Unnamed Female Witness
February 25, 2005. I was home. It's snowy and icy that day. So I'm home in these mint green fuzzy pajamas. It's like getting close to noon, and I see this strange car parked out underneath this window. It was marooned four door, like a old Cadillac or something. You know, it seemed out of place. It was parked there for a long time. I'm getting scared because, like, my dad had instilled such a stranger danger fare into me. You know, be wary of strangers. Don't let strange people into your house. Make them show you their badge, you know, question their uniform if you're not expecting them. I literally called my husband, like once or twice. I said, there's a strange car with a man sitting in it. He's not moving. I don't know what he's doing. I said, should I call the police? It almost felt like he was there for me. I hear a knock on my door, and it was like something in me knew that the man in the car was now on the other side of the door. And then he said, on the other side of the door, I'm with the FBI and I need to question you. And so I said, can I see your badge? And so he like, flashes his badge. It looks like he didn't have a gun, which I thought was weird. All he had was, like, a yellow legal pad and, like, a pencil. It was a very small apartment, very narrow hallway. And I remember I was comfortable enough that I turned my back to him to walk the few steps into the kitchen. And he just drops it. He's like, do you know about BTK? And now I'm thinking, like, what? I knew BTK had been active in, like, the 70s, but I knew that BTK murdered women that lived alone. So instantly I thought my dad's mom, Dorothea, had been murdered because she was a widow and living alone. So I instantly went there thinking, grandma Dorothea's been murdered by this btk. So I said, is my grandma okay? He's perplexed. He's like, why is she talking to me about Grandma? He's like, your grandma, she's fine. And then he drops it. Your dad is btk.
- [44:14]
Larry Hatteberg
Someone killed four members of a family.
- [44:17]
Unnamed Female Witness
Hedge vanished from her home suddenly last weekend. Her phone lines had been cut, her door left open.
- [44:22]
Unnamed Male Speaker
You see the victims laying there with plastic bags over their heads, strangled. You could tell it was a planned scenario.
- [44:30]
Unnamed Female Witness
While police have said no more about the contents of the letter, it does.
- [44:34]
Susan Peters
Contain some sort of threat and implies the killer may strike again.
- [44:38]
Larry Hatteberg
He's going to play with these victims. He'd get them to the point of.
- [44:42]
Susan Peters
Death and then bring him back.
- [44:44]
Larry Hatteberg
And then brings him back to the point of death.
- [44:48]
Susan Peters
From My Heart podcasts and Tenderfoot TV Susan I'm Susan Peters and this is Monster BTK.
- [45:05]
Narrator
Monster BTK is a production of Tenderfoot TV and iHeart podcasts. The show is written by Gnomes Griffin, Trevor Young and Jesse Funk. Our host is Susan Peters. Executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV include Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay alongside Supervising producer Tracy Kaplan. Executive producers on behalf of iHeart podcasts include Matt Frederick and Trevor Young, alongside producers Gnomes Griffin and Jesse Funk and supervising producer Rima Il Keali. Marketing support by David Wassermet and Alison Wright at iHeart Podcasts and Caroline Orajema at Tenderfoot TV. Additional research by Claudia Dafrico original artwork by Kevin Mr. Soul Harp, original music by Makeup and Vanity set. Special thanks to Oren Rosenbaum and the team at UTA and the Nord Group. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks for listening.
- [46:22]
Susan Peters
Enjoying Monster BTK but can't wait for the next episodes. Subscribe to I Heart True Crime plus only on Apple Podcasts. You'll get instant access to the first six episodes weeks before anyone else, plus receive exclusive bonus content throughout the season, all 100% ad free. Plus you'll get exclusive ad free access to tons of other true crime shows as well like Fallen Angels, who Killed JFK and more. To learn more and subscribe today, open the Apple Podcasts app and search I Heart True Crime plus.
- [47:10]
Charlie Otero
To have a.
- [47:11]
Susan Peters
Murder as gruesome as Jade Beasley's doesn't.
- [47:13]
Lauren Bright
Happen very often down here in Marion, Illinois. An 11 year old girl brutally stabbed to death. Her father's longtime live in girlfriend maintaining innocence but charged with her murder.
- [47:24]
Susan Peters
I am confident that Julie Beverly is guilty. Guilty.
- [47:27]
Charlie Otero
They've never found a weapon. Never made sense. Still doesn't make sense.
- [47:31]
Susan Peters
She found out she was pregnant in jail. The person who did it is still out there.
- [47:36]
Lauren Bright
Listen to Murder on Songbird road on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [47:44]
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart is back in the host chair at the Daily show, which means he's also back in our ears on the Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. Join late night leg legend Jon Stewart and the best news team for today's biggest headlines, exclusive extended interviews and more. Now this is the second term we can all get behind. Listen to the Daily Show Ears edition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.