BTK /// Bind, Torture, Kill /// Part 1

Summary

True Crime Garage Episode Summary: "BTK /// Bind, Torture, Kill /// Part 1"

Release Date: April 30, 2025

Hosts: Nic and The Captain
Podcast: True Crime Garage
Episode Title: BTK /// Bind, Torture, Kill /// Part 1

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Introduction

The episode begins with Nic and The Captain setting a convivial atmosphere, inviting listeners to "grab a chair, grab a beer" and delve into a true crime discussion. They toast to their listeners and supporters, creating a sense of community and camaraderie essential to the podcast's engaging style.

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BTK Offender Criminal Profile

At [03:28], Nic introduces a detailed criminal profile of the BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill) offender, emphasizing its speculative nature and the need for updates as new information emerges. The profile paints BTK as an individual driven by fantasies of dominance and control, seeking recognition to compensate for feelings of inadequacy.

Key Points from the Profile:

• Psychological Makeup: BTK is described as alienated, lonely, and withdrawn, with no lasting relationships. His violent actions are attempts to find affection and acceptance.

• Behavioral Patterns: Prefers targeting vulnerable individuals, both male and female, who can be easily overpowered. His crimes are impulsive, lacking elaborate planning, and follow a compulsive repetition pattern.

• Background: Likely comes from a broken family with an overbearing mother and absent father. Exhibits signs of voyeuristic behavior and has a history of minor offenses like breaking and entering.

• Modus Operandi: Gains access to victims' homes, often using fake credentials or premeditated strategies to ensure an easy escape route. Leaves minimal evidence behind, indicating meticulous planning.

Notable Quote:

"His killing is an attempt on his part to find affection and acceptance. He fears everyone, including himself." — Criminal Profile [03:28]

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Dennis Rader: Early Life and Background

Transitioning from the general profile, Nic and The Captain delve into the life of Dennis Rader, the man behind the BTK moniker.

Key Details:

• Early Life: Dennis Rader was born in March 1945 in Pittsburgh, Kansas, as the eldest of four children. Described as an average child, he participated in typical childhood activities like Boy Scouts and church youth groups.

• Education and Career:

  • High School: Graduated from Wichita Heights High School in 1963.
  • Military Service: Joined the US Air Force in 1966, achieving the rank of sergeant before retiring in 1970.
  • Post-Military: Brief employment stints at various companies, including Kansas Gas and Electric and Cessna, before pursuing higher education in criminal justice.

• Personal Life: Married Paula Dietz in May 1971, settling in Wichita, Kansas. Despite outward appearances of normalcy, Dennis harbored dark fantasies from an early age, involving bondage, control, and torture.

Notable Quote:

"He was a very average guy in his intellect... he was very much a very average guy in his intellect." — Nic [15:45]

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Emergence of Violent Fantasies

Despite a seemingly mundane life, Dennis Rader's inner world was tumultuous.

Key Insights:

• Childhood Behaviors: Exhibited disturbing tendencies such as torturing animals and stealing women's underwear to satisfy his fetish.

• Adolescence: Kept detailed journals revealing early interests in stalking and breaking into homes. His interactions with sex workers were attempts to fulfill his violent fantasies, though he lacked the confidence to engage sexually.

• Criminal Activities: Engaged in voyeurism and burglary, targeting specific items that catered to his fetishes. These actions were isolated early indicators of his future as BTK.

Notable Quote:

"He masturbated either while she was being killed or just after. He jerked off to it." — Nic [41:50]

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The Otero Family Murders: A Detailed Case Study

At [23:30], the hosts transition to discussing a specific quadruple homicide case involving the Otero family in Wichita, drawing parallels and distinctions from BTK's modus operandi.

Case Overview:

• Date & Location: January 15, 1974, Wichita, Kansas.

• Victims:

  • Joseph Otero Jr., 38 (father)
  • Julie Otero, 34 (mother)
  • Josephine, 11 (daughter)
  • Joseph, 9 (son)

• Circumstances:

  • The three older children, Charlie (15), Danny (14), and Carmen June (13), returned home from school to find their parents dead, bound at the feet and wrists.
  • Discovery of their younger siblings' bodies led to the realization of a quadruple homicide.
  • The crime scene was altered by the children's attempts to free their parents, confusing initial assessments.

Investigation Highlights:

• Initial Theories:

  • Murder-Suicide: Based on the bound parents and the presence of a knife.
  • Alternative Theories: Suggesting multiple or single offender with sexual motivations.

• Evidence:

  • No signs of struggle or forced entry, indicating premeditation.
  • Presence of foreign cords and ropes suggested the killer brought equipment, hinting at planned violence.

• Eyewitness Accounts:

  • Three separate individuals reported seeing the Otero family's Plymouth station wagon driven by an unfamiliar man.
  • The vehicle was later found abandoned at a local grocery store, with a witness noting nervous behavior from the unidentified driver.

Police Theories:

1. Revenge Killing: Targeting the family for personal vendetta.
2. Gang-Related Hit: Given Joseph's background as a pilot and recent move from Panama.
3. Sexually Motivated Home Invasion: Focusing on Mrs. Otero and the young girl, possibly targeting them specifically.

Notable Insights:

• The brutal and methodical nature of the crime suggested a serial offender with specific motives rather than random violence.
• The alteration of the crime scene by the children complicated the investigation, clouding initial theories.

Notable Quote:

"The killer showed up prepared, that he intended to kill the family before he ever entered the home." — Nic [40:08]

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Linking the Otero Case to BTK

Throughout the discussion, Nic and The Captain draw subtle connections between the Otero family murders and Dennis Rader's known behaviors as BTK.

Key Points:

• Sexual Motivations: Both cases exhibit sexual undertones, with BTK's sadistic pleasures mirroring potential motives in the Otero case.

• Control and Dominance: The methodical binding and torture in the Otero murders resonate with BTK's desire for control and recognition.

• Investigative Challenges: Both cases involve meticulous planning, minimal evidence, and complex crime scenes that hinder swift resolutions.

Notable Quote:

"The thing here though too is, Captain, when you have a situation like this... you have like, in Wichita at the time, you know, it was a big city. But they didn't have a high murder rate... This was not a crime that anybody is used to seeing." — Nic [44:38]

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Conclusion and Teasers for Part 2

As the episode draws to a close, Nic and The Captain reflect on the complexities of the Otero case and its potential links to broader patterns observed in serial offenders like BTK. They hint at deeper investigations and connections to be explored in subsequent episodes.

Notable Quote:

"The real killer was watching and reading it all. And the thought that someone else may take credit for his hard work was making him very very angry." — Nic [50:00]

Listeners are left anticipating part two of this four-part series, promising to unravel more layers of the BTK killer's psyche and potentially related cases.

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Takeaways

• True Crime Garage offers an intricate analysis of the BTK killer, weaving in detailed criminal profiling with real-life case studies to provide a comprehensive understanding of serial murderers.

• The episode underscores the challenges faced by law enforcement in unsolvable cases, emphasizing the importance of psychological insights in criminal investigations.

• By intertwining Dennis Rader's background with the Otero family murders, the hosts highlight the pervasive impact and reach of BTK's criminal influence.

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For more details and to support the podcast, visit truecrimegarage.com. Stay tuned for Part 2 of the BTK series, where Nic and The Captain delve deeper into the dark corridors of serial criminal behavior.

Transcript

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[Nick]

Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host, Nick and with me, as always, is a guy that knows that April showers bring May flowers and May flowers bring pilgrims. Ladies and gentlemen, the Captain.

[The Captain]

It's gonna be me. It's good to be seen and it's good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend.

[Nick]

Today we are drinking Demon Dweller by the Green man brewery garage. Grade 3 and 3. Four bottle caps out of five. Demon dweller is an imperial style aged in oak barrels and buried deep in the cellar. They reluctantly released this creepy deviant for your reckoning and Demon Dweller was brought to us by these good keepers of the piece. First up today. What day is it today, Captain? Oh yeah, it's True Crime Garage Day. A shout out to Adam in Cheshire.

[The Captain]

UK And a big we like you jib to Ashley in Franklin, Tennessee.

[Nick]

Next, a toast to Andrew and April at the Null Winery in California.

[The Captain]

And a big cheers to a cheese head, Katie in Madison, Wisconsin.

[Nick]

And a shout to Patty in Salem and her sister Laura in Dunstable, Massachusetts. And last but not least, longtime friend of the show, Paul in Germantown, Wisconsin. Thanks everybody for the beers, thanks for the wine, thanks for the kind words. If you want to help us out, go to true crimegarage.com and click on the donate button.

[The Captain]

And we have a pre order going on for Team Nick Tanks. Team Captain Tanks. Nice jib tanks, skull logo tanks and a very special douche canoe tank top. So if you would like to get one of those, the order ends May 9th.

[Nick]

Well, thank you very much.

[The Captain]

Thank you very much.

[Nick]

Everybody gather round. Grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime. The following is a BTK Offender Criminal Profile. This profile was written several years after BTK's first set of murders. It reads, the attached analysis is only as good as the information that has been provided. In addition, it may be necessary to totally change or modify this analysis if new information is developed, such as additional victims, more forensic evidence, or more information obtained from research. Multiple Homicides Wichita, Kansas the murders of the offender, known to the public only as the btk, are the result of a fantasy acted out. A fantasy where for the first time in his life he is in a position of dominance. He is an inadequate type, a nobody who through his crimes, has placed himself in a position of importance. The BTK strangler is now a somebody who is receiving the recognition he feels is long overdue. He is not even very original in his crimes. He has patterned himself after other killers, such as the Son of Sam in New York City. Most of the verbiage used by the offender in his letters probably comes out of recent publications in detective magazines. The subject is alienated, lonely, and withdrawn. He would not be expected to have any lasting relationships with others and would lead a solitary existence dominated by fantasy and magical thinking. His killing is an attempt on his part to find affection and acceptance. He fears everyone, including himself. He would not be expected to have had any normal relations with women and probably has never had a normal heterosexual relationship with one. When he is not killing, he experiences intense feelings that he is not normal and therefore he kills to cope with this disorder, an attempt to escape within his own fantasies. Thus, he can be expected to kill again and to do so in a compulsive repetition pattern that he has already established. His victims can be either male or female, who are both loved and outgoing. His victims will be in a position of vulnerability where he can totally render them helpless. His victims represent his own feeling of helplessness and hopelessness. His own life has been disruptive. He probably comes from a background where his family was broken. He was raised by an overbearing mother who was inconsistent in her discipline, and his father was absent either because of marital separation or death. This would have occurred when he was a youth. Your subject may have been raised by foster parents. Your subject was an average student in the classroom, however, he was more adept to disrupting the class by using profanity and pranks. His language and statements make us believe that he has some military experience and and or is a police buff. He probably has had run ins with the police in the past, such as assault and or breaking and entering. During these break ins, items taken will be items of insignificance. These items would have been taken because of a fetish or to feed a strong urge to take an article of clothing or an item that he is fond of or the satisfaction of committing a crime that will leave little evidence to investigators. BTK may have a history of voyeuristic activity and he may have an arrest record for these types of offenses. He hunts his victims by selecting neighborhoods where he can peruse different houses without being detected. Furthermore, his victims will live in an area where, if need be, he can have an easy escape route such as a neighborhood park or where he can hide to elude police. His killings are impulsively motivated and without elaborate planning, he seeks out targets of opportunity. Such individuals of this type suffer from insomnia and thus find it difficult to hold steady employment. Control of himself and of his environment is essential to such a person. Although he is gaining in confidence, he is still shy, withdrawn and and isolated. As a counter strategy technique, your department must not make any statements concerning the killer's mental condition. Do not allow the media to label him as some kind of psychotic killer if they have already done so. Your best strategy will be to align yourself with the killer and not the psychiatric experts. Any press releases should clearly state that he is a killer who must be apprehended and that he is not a psychotic animal. This approach may reduce the killer's anxiety and reinforce his own guilt feelings. This removing any psychiatric excuses for his acts and leaving him responsible for his murders. Extended periods between his murders may be for reasons when he was absent from the area, either as a result of military service, schooling, incarceration or or mental treatment. It is not uncommon for subjects such as yours to frequent police hangouts in an attempt to overhear officers discussing the case. Such offenders may be at the crime scene observing detectives investigating the case. All of this allows the murderer to fulfill his ego and gain a feeling of superiority. He may go so far as to telephonically contact your department and provide details specific to his crimes. Your advantage in this case is his very strong self centered attitude will be his downfall. He will provide information to a friend or an acquaintance at a local tavern concerning information he knows about the case. He may even pretend to be an officer working the case. He may carry a fake badge on his person. If so, he may use this to gain entry into his victim's homes. BTK will continue to kill until he is caught or killed.

[The Captain]

Dennis Rader, born In March of 1945 in Pittsburgh, Kansas, and he would be.

[Nick]

The oldest of four children born to William and Dorothea Raider. Dennis's father, who went by Bill, was.

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[Nick]

When he retired from the Marines, he went to work for the Kansas Gas and electricity in 1948. Dennis's mother, Dorothea, was a bookkeeper. Dennis had three younger brothers, Jeff, Paul and Bill. The family moved to Wichita, Kansas when Dennis was young, and it was there that he would spend most of his childhood. The Raiders lived in a working class neighborhood on North Seneca Street. Dennis's childhood friends describe his father, Bill, as strict, but never cruel. Bill's cousin Lee Raider commented that he could not remember a time when Bill Raider's family had done anything that might attract attention, much less cross the law.

[The Captain]

And from all accounts, Dennis was a normal, average child.

[Nick]

Yeah. And later in life he would describe his father as distant and his mother, well, she was the disciplinarian. Now, Dennis tried to be the good kid. He was a member of the Boy Scouts and participated in church youth group activities. Dennis attended Riverview Elementary School, and his teachers later stated that Dennis was an average student, although some other reports indicate that he got poor grades. Kids who grew up with him say that Dennis loved dime store novels and comic books. And like most kids, he played cops and robbers until it was dark. As he got older, people who knew him from his school days report that Dennis exhibited withdrawn tendencies. He was described to be a quiet and polite young man who preferred to keep to himself. He was also described to be a person that would think before he spoke. He would always listen very carefully when spoken to and would give you his full attention.

[The Captain]

What?

[Nick]

One of Dennis's former friends describe him as utterly lacking in a sense of humor, but tending to be focused.

[The Captain]

In the eighth grade, Colonel.

[Nick]

In the eighth grade, Dennis was chosen to be a crossing guard. He carried a big red stop sign and told classmates and drivers when to go and when not to go. But otherwise, Dennis appeared outwardly unremarkable and blended seamlessly into the background. In 1963, Dennis graduated from Wichita Heights High School. He got a job working at a grocery store. But in 1965, he decided to move away from Wichita to go to Kansas Wesleyan College. Dennis joined a fraternity, but he was a poor student and he soon returned to Wichita and enrolled in a community college. By the summer of 1966, at age 21, Dennis had decided to join the US Air Force. He did his basic training and technical training in Texas.

[The Captain]

Yeah, I Believe he spent four years in the Air Force?

[Nick]

Yes, and he would achieve the rank of sergeant at 26 years old. Dennis returned to Wichita in 1970, and in May of 71, he married 23 year old Paula Dietz, a bookkeeper. Paula had also grown up in Wichita and had gone to the same high school as Dennis. They settled in the Park City area just north of Witchita, not far from the home in North Witchita where Dennis had grown up.

[The Captain]

And didn't Dennis Raider work in the meat department?

[Nick]

Yeah, he did this at the IGA Superstore while attending Butler County Community College There he earned an associate degree in electronics in 1973. But in 1972, Dennis actually left the IGA superstore to go work for Wichita's largest, largest employer at the time. This is the Coleman company, a manufacturer of camping supplies.

[The Captain]

Yeah, they make the grills.

[Nick]

Yeah, amongst a bazillion other things. He worked on an assembly line there, building heating and cooling units. Dennis left Coleman in 1973 to go work for Cessna, a manufacturer of small aircrafts. But by late 1973, he was let go. And in 1973, Dennis started taking classes at Wichita State University, taking criminal justice classes.

[The Captain]

Do we know why he was let go? Or was it just like a situation where they laid off a bunch of people?

[Nick]

I honestly, I don't know. He had a. He had a background in electronics and that's what he was in the air Force for. So I'm a little surprised that he would be let go. I don't know if there were major cuts back then or if, if he just couldn't hack the work. You got to keep in mind Dennis Raider, while he will present himself throughout the course of his life as being above average intelligence, trying to be superior to the rest of us, he is very much a very average guy in his intellect.

[The Captain]

So by the end of 1973, Dennis Raider, he's married, he's unemployed, but he's taken some college classes.

[Nick]

But Dennis is also hiding a secret. So all of these mundane details paint the picture of a completely normal, even somewhat dull life. But by his own admission, Dennis developed fantasies about bondage control and torture from a very early age while still in grade school. In fact, when his mother would spank him, remember he said that she was the disciplinarian. When his mother would spank him, Dennis would later say that he felt a mixture of pain and pleasure. Once he reached puberty, Dennis dreamed of tying up girls and having his way with them. Dennis has admitted to torturing and killing Cats and dogs when he was young by hanging them in barns. He also had a fetish for women's underwear. He realized that. He realized that he could kind of keep his fantasies and of torture and murder a secret from everyone else. And one way that I think that he helped himself kind of keep these things quiet to kind of quiet the beast, if you will, was by stealing underwear from undergarments, from women and from girls in the area.

[The Captain]

He'd walker. He put them in his pocket and walk around and sniff him.

[Nick]

No, no. But no one in his life ever imagined that this average, unremarkable boy was leading a depraved inner life that would become dramatically more pronounced when he reached adulthood. Now, according to the journals that Dennis kept from his time at Kansas Wesleyan state in Salina in 1965, it was during this period that he first started trolling for victims to act out his fantasies. Although it appears that he did not have any success in actually carrying anything out at that time, his journals also indicate that it was around this time that Dennis was able to successfully break and enter into homes and buildings, stealing small items of interest to him. He found this sort of activity exhilarating. Dennis further admitted that while in the air force, he would peep at women undressing, he would stalk women, and he would burglarize their houses to steal their underwear. While he was in the air force, he began to spend time with local sex workers. He was trying to get them to play along with his fantasies, his bondage obsession. But he was unsuccessful at getting any of them to play along with this. He would later say that he thought that they feared that he was going to take it too far.

[The Captain]

Right. I mean, this guy that you don't know is paying you for sex, and then he's probably saying, I'll pay a little bit extra if you let me tie up. They're probably going, yeah, I'm not. Not going to let that happen.

[Nick]

And that's an interesting thought, because I'll tell you what, something that we will learn about Dennis as we go through his life and his crimes. I'm of the suspicion that maybe he wasn't paying them for sex. I don't know that he had the confidence to have sex with a professional being.

[The Captain]

So he was just hanging out with them.

[Nick]

I know. I bet you he was paying them to spend time with them, But I don't. I think that he lacked the confidence to actually have sex with them.

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[The Captain]

All right, we're back. Cheers me mateys.

[Nick]

Cheers Captain. Tuesday, January 15, 1974 in Wichita, Kansas. As expected, this was a cold day and like Most other days, 15 year old Charlie Otero counted down until the final school bell rang 3:00. Charlie collected his things and he made his way outside. Charlie was 15 years old and in the 10th grade. It was his duty as the oldest child to gather up his brother and sister and lead the charge home back to their little white house with black shutters on North Edgemoor Street. The family had only been in town for a little more than 10 weeks. They were still figuring out the logistics of their new life together in Wichita. They still had boxes of household items that were to be unpacked. Charlie's brother Danny was just a tad younger at 14 years of age and their sister Carmen June, she was 13. Now their home was not terribly far from their school, so it was a short walk on a cold day. When they arrived at the little house, the door was locked as usual and the family dog, Lucky was out in the fenced in backyard pacing near the gate. Charlie used his key to unlock the door. When they entered the home, they noticed the kitchen had been left in a strange manner. It was incredibly hot inside the house. Charlie expected to see his father, Joseph. Their father Joseph was a hard working man, but he had practically been confined to the home after a recent car accident. In the kitchen, open food containers were sitting on the countertops and it looked like someone was making a sandwich. Charlie called for his father several times but got no answer. The three kids walked the house looking for their mom, dad, little brother and sister, anyone who may be home. Charlie opened the door to the master bedroom and walked into a horrific scene. His mother lay dead on the bed, his father lifeless on the floor. Charlie called out to Danny and Carmen June. Both parents were bound at the feet and wrist. One of the children grabbed a knife from the kitchen and the children cut bindings from their parents. This was a hopeless effort as both had been dead for a couple of hours. Charlie ran to the kitchen, grabbed the phone receiver hanging on the wall, and called 0 for the operator. Charlie listened but heard nothing as the phone was dead. He would not be able to call police or medics. He shouted for Danny and Carmen to join him as he ran to the neighbor's house. They pounded on the door and luckily.

[The Captain]

Their neighbor was home. They told him that they found their parents dead in their parents room and then they called the police.

[Nick]

While they waited for police to arrive, the neighbor ventured to the Otoro home to see if he could help in any way. He saw what the children had seen and he knew it was too late. The first to arrive on the scene were the medics. They arrived just five minutes after the call was placed. When they arrived, the three Otero teenage children were standing out front waiting for their arrival. The children were begging for the medics to go inside and help their parents. But the EMTs explained that for now they would have to wait for police to arrive on the scene to clear the house and give them the okay to go in. When the neighbor man was describing to the first responders what he had saw in the bedroom, the medics began to think that they might be at the scene of a murder suicide. That maybe somehow, in a fit of rage, Joseph had killed his wife and then killed himself. All right, let's get into the investigation a little bit to. To get a better understanding of what may have happened to these two people in that house that day while the children were at school.

[The Captain]

Well, I just want to point out something that supposedly it's a murder suicide, but we have legs bound and arms bound, right?

[Nick]

Well, that's where I think the confusion comes in. So. And what we will see happen here is the children, when they found their parents, the parents were bound at the hands and feet, right? Remember, the children went to the, to the kitchen, they got a knife and they cut the bindings from their parents, trying to revive them or save them or something. So when the neighbor goes in to see what had happened, all he sees is Joseph, the father, dead on the floor. The mother dead on the bed. And there's a knife lying next to Joseph, the father.

[The Captain]

Right, Right.

[Nick]

So he tells this to the medics, and the medics are like, crap. This is a. These. These kids just walked in to the result of a murder suicide of their parents. So inside the home, Captain, in that master bedroom, the two people that were found dead were Joseph Otero Jr. Who is 38 years old, and his wife Julie, age 34. The Oteros have five children, three of which we have already introduced. These are the three oldest children. And again, they were Charles, who is 15, Danny, who is 14, and Carmen, who was 13. They had walked home from school and found their parents dead in the home. The other two children attended a different school. They were like their older brothers and sisters. They walked to and from school as well, but they were younger, so they were in elementary school. Charlie, the oldest of the children, did not want his little sister Josephine, who was only 11, and his little brother Joseph, age 9, to see the swollen, stiff bodies of their parents like he had. So Charlie stayed on the scene to help in any way that he could. But he sent Danny and Carmen off to intercept the younger children before they could make it all the way home. Around this same time, a police officer had arrived. This is Officer Bulla. He went into the home and made his way to the master bedroom. He stepped into the room. He saw the bodies of Joseph and Julie. He touched their skin to gauge temperature. Both bodies were cold and stiff as rigor had set in. They had both been dead for a.

[The Captain]

Few hours, and Joseph's body would be lying on the floor on his back.

[Nick]

Now, next to Joseph was a plastic bag and a knife. Julie was barefoot and her body was on the bed. She had dried blood around her mouth and nose. She had some bruising around her neck as well. There was some type of cloth lying next to her. Now, her feet were still bound by white cord. Strips of cord lay next to each of the bodies. Someone had opened all of the drawers to the dresser and rummaged through them. Okay, so I want to go over some information provided to the police by Charlie or the other children. And we kind of got into this a little bit before, but just to kind of clear it up. So the knife next to Joseph's body was the knife from the kitchen that the children had used to cut the bindings from around his wrist.

[The Captain]

Right. So not from the perpetrator.

[Nick]

So that also explains the cord lying next to Joseph. The plastic bag had been on Joseph's head that was found next to Him. This was removed by the children as well. The cloth that was lying next to Julie was actually a gag that her daughter had removed when they found her. The cord lying next to her had been tied around her hands. So they first thought maybe a murder suicide, like we talked about. But this because of what the neighbor had described. However, the neighbor had not realized that he was seeing. It was an altered crime scene. Altered by the children trying to save their parents.

[The Captain]

Very brave of them to. For the children to try to save their parents.

[Nick]

Yeah. So now. Now the police know that both of the victims had actually been tied up and left that way when the children had found them. Then the officer made his way to another bedroom. Inside this room, to his shock and surprise, there was another body. This was little Joseph. He was found dead in his room, lying on his side next to the bunk bed. He and Danny shared that room, him and his older brother. In the room with him were a phone book and a chair with a broken leg. The chair was from another room and had been moved into the boy's bedroom. Why? The investigators did not know. The boy had been tied around his ankles, and the cord ran from his ankles up behind him and bound his hands together behind his back. The boy's hands were swollen to about three times the size of their normal size. The boy's face and head were covered with multiple items. A T shirt and two plastic bags, all hooded. The boy's head. The officer then set off to search the remainder of the home. Could the killer or killers have left something behind? Could there be some trace as to who had committed these horrible murders? After searching the main level, Officer Bola ventured to the basement. The basement was dark, and he could not find a light switch, so he relied on the light of his flashlight. Once at the bottom of the stairs, he moved the beam around to see what was in the room. He spotted, you know, normal things, items you would expect to find in a basement. Boots, extra clothing, old toys, things like that. He noticed an opening. There was. There was another room down there. So. Still not having found a light switch, he walks slowly toward the doorway, using his flashlight to guide his steps. Once in the room, he first noticed that the room felt and appeared to be smaller than the room he had just been in. This smaller room housed the family's washer and dryer, their washing machine and their dryer.

[The Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

As Officer Bola backed up and started to pivot back around to the exit.

[The Captain]

Yeah. To the stairs, Right.

[Nick]

Yeah. His. Well, his back and shoulder brushed up against something. At this point, Something with some weight to it. He swung his arm around to reach out to the object, but when he hit it with his forearm, it gave way and it moved. Now this terrified the officer and he started to back up, you know, shuffling his feet to maintain his balance as he pulled his other hand around to shine the light on the object that he had just touched, that it just moved. As he fell back and spotlighted the object, he could feel the color run from his face as he realized that he was looking at the dead body of a young, almost teenage girl. Her mouth was gagged, her hands tied behind her back, her head and shoulders slumped in a lifeless position. A noose was around her neck and she was hanging just a foot or two of rope from a pipe that had run the length of the ceiling. The body swayed from where he had bumped into it and hit it with his arm. The officer had to her. Yeah. The officer had to announce to the other officers responding to the call that there were four bodies at 803 N. Edgemoor St. It's a quadruple homicide. After a little bit of time to confirm the detectives suspicions, the officer told the three teenaged Otero kids that they had walked home from school together. That their, their parents and their young sister and brother had all been killed that day. Before they arrived, police scoured the home and yard for clues. Detectives and officers set out on foot to canvas the area and interview neighbors. Over the course of the evening, they spoke with three separate individuals that provided them with a similar clue. All three of these people had seen the Oteros vehicle. This is a Plymouth station wagon. It was being driven by someone other than the Oteros on that day. One said that he had saw a short, possibly Middle Eastern man driving the vehicle. One said he saw some man, but not Joe Otero driving. And another said, I don't know who was driving the vehicle, but the vehicle backed out of the driveway so fast that this eyewitness had to slam on his brakes to avoid crashing into the car.

[The Captain]

Right, so we got three very undetailed accounts.

[Nick]

Yeah, I think.

[The Captain]

I know, I know it was a man.

[Nick]

Right. Well, and the thing is, I don't. It's one of those situations where you don't know that you're seeing the Otero's car being driven by somebody else. You're just seeing a car that matches that description, right. And then later realizing some shit has happened, some stuff has gone down. Now, oh, I saw a car that looked just like theirs, but I didn't think it was theirs because it was A man that I didn't recognize driving the vehicle. Now, later that night, Captain, they ended up finding the vehicle at Dylan's grocery store. Somebody had left it in the parking lot at Dylan's grocery store. An eyewitness later told police that they had seen a man park the vehicle, exit the vehicle, and walk away. The man was visibly nervous to the point that he was shaking.

[The Captain]

And they're not the most detailed accounts, but at least we do have eyewitnesses in this investigation.

[Nick]

Yeah. And they're all similar. One man having been driving the family's vehicle.

[The Captain]

Yeah.

[Nick]

So for. As for more details, Captain. So Joseph Otoro, he served in the air force for 20 years, and he had recently retired at the rank of master sergeant. The Oteros had been married for about 16 years. Julie, his wife, had worked at the Coleman Co. Plant. Joseph had once been a champion boxer. Now, I don't know if this was while he was in the Air Force or a local thing when he grew up in New York, but. But he. He was a boxer at one point in his life. And Julie and the children studied in practice judo. So the FBI would later tell investigators that the fact that we have four members of a family that were all trained fighters attacked and killed in their home pointed to two possibilities. Either they were dealing with multiple offenders or in what they believe to be the most likely situation, is that they were dealing with a single killer that was able to gain entry to the home and used a gun to control the four individuals.

[The Captain]

The other issue here is, like you said before, the. The husband, the father, he was basically housebound because of a car accident. So, you know, he could have been in a lot of pain, having difficulties moving and stuff, so he might not have been able to fight well.

[Nick]

And I also think the reason. The reason why they believed that we're working with a single offender here is because they firmly believe that this was a sexually motivated home invasion and murders. And the murderer appeared to have a fascination with bondage, strangulation, and suffocation. And one particular FBI agent believed that the likelihood that more than one offender would share the same distinct sexual urges and murderous fantasies. Well, he believed that to be very unlikely.

[The Captain]

Yeah. And there's some evidence to support this.

[Nick]

Yeah. Both female victims were found partially disrobed. Semen was found present on Josephine and on the floor of the basement. From the appearance of the kitchen now, it looked like the killer or killers gained access to the house and surprised the Otero family while the children were preparing their school lunches before leaving for Their school day, they were. There were food products out on the counters and table. The girls winter gloves were discovered just outside of the house. And police had a theory on this, that they were making their lunches. And Joseph told the little girl to take out the trash. She goes outside and is grabbed up by the offender, who then took her inside and was able to gain control because he already had a hostage.

[The Captain]

Right. So you. He used her like a. Do what I say, I'm going to shoot her.

[Nick]

Yeah. And also, there was no sign of a struggle anywhere in the house.

[The Captain]

No sign of breaking and entering.

[Nick]

Right. And because this was a family of fighters, again, we have the gun. Is the thought here to gain control. The things that the police found, the most alarming was that nothing appeared to have been taken from the home. So not a robbery gone bad, as most would think. And secondly, the cords and bags and ropes used in the murders didn't come from inside the home, leading to the terrifying thought that the killer showed up prepared, that he intended to kill the family before he ever entered the home. The police theorized about the chair with the broken leg as well. The chair was from another room. This was told to them by the children.

[The Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

The police theorized that the killer, after using a gun to gain control of the family, tied them up. Then he killed Joseph, the father, first, to get rid of the biggest threat to him. Then he molested and killed the mother, the boy who. Who suffocated due to the plastic bags. The killer placed the chair in the room. And their theory. This is just a kind of a wild speculation theory here, but they wondered if maybe he had held the little girl, that he sat with her in the chair, forcing her to watch her brother die. And during this struggle, maybe the leg to the chair had broke. And after the three were dead, then he takes the girl to the basement because it was actually her. They wondered if it was actually the little girl that he had targeted and that maybe he wanted to spend some time with her. Now, he hung her with a rope over the top of a pipe in the basement.

[The Captain]

He messed some sick.

[Nick]

Yeah, he. He masturbated either while she was being.

[The Captain]

Killed or just after I say sick, and then he just dropped that on us.

[Nick]

Well, then he collected everything that he brought to the home with him. He cranked up the thermostat and then left in the family's vehicle. Now, the two detectives that took the.

[The Captain]

Case, I mean, cranked up the thermostat.

[Nick]

I don't know how hot it was in the house, but but the children and police and medics all described the home to be extremely warm. And they believe that the offender cranked up the thermostat to maybe speed up the, the decomposition process, that maybe they would decompose a little faster if it was 90 or 95 or. I don't know how hot it was in the home.

[The Captain]

Yeah.

[Nick]

But the two detectives that took the case, Captain, I found this to be extremely interesting and dedicated on their part. They had a suspicion, even though they thought it might be a small chance, they thought that there was a small chance that the killer might return to the scene of the murders. So the two detectives that caught the case, they actually spent several nights staying over night at the murder house.

[The Captain]

Huh.

[Nick]

So, going on with some more police thoughts here.

[The Captain]

Imagine that, that, that'd be us would be on the case. Chief would say, hey, you two knuckleheads, you guys like to talk to each other. You guys are going to stay in the, the house. Just wait till he comes back.

[Nick]

Yeah, well, and I, I want to point out a few things as this is going on. You got to understand the confusion here amongst just the officers involved in the investigation, because this is not a crime that they're used to seeing. Okay. This is not a crime that anybody is used to seeing, where a whole family. Well, most of a family is wiped out in the course of a morning or afternoon.

[The Captain]

Yeah.

[Nick]

And you have little to no evidence left behind. The thing here though too is, Captain, when you have a situation like this, you know, in Wichita at the time, you know, it was a big city.

[Advertiser 1]

Yes.

[Nick]

But they didn't have a high murder rate. And the murders that they had, they typically solved them fairly quickly back then because usually they were committed by somebody. If family member was killed, good chance it was killed by another family member.

[The Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

You know, people on the inner circle were killing, committing these types of crimes. They were solved very quickly. This situation we have, we have where police are not fully understanding what they are seeing. They're not fully understanding the crime that took place that day. And so therefore, you have officers and investigators that are not going to share the same theories about what took place that day.

[The Captain]

Yeah. Because it's not just. It's not just a murder.

[Nick]

Right.

[The Captain]

We have a rape.

[Nick]

Well, not rape. Okay, so it's not actual rape because there, there was no penetration.

[The Captain]

Right, Right. Okay.

[Nick]

Okay.

[The Captain]

So sexual assault.

[Nick]

Correct. And he's basically masturbating to the torture that's going on. You know, these, these wouldn't have been fast deaths. You know, they weren't it's not like putting a gun to somebody's head and pulling the trigger. These. This type of death, this type of killing takes some time.

[The Captain]

And he jerked off to it.

[Nick]

Right. He. He enjoyed witnessing it, whether it was during or after. And that's why when we spoke earlier about Dennis Raider spending time with sex workers, now he has said that he had sex with these sex workers. I actually question if he would have been able to physically, because when we see his crimes, he doesn't show that he has. That he's capable of that. That there's some. Something in his makeup that does not allow him to do that. Now, we talked about the police and.

[The Captain]

Investigators capable of jerking off.

[Nick]

Right. But that's mentally. That's much different than. Than actual intercourse. So we talked about some of the different police and investigator theories and thoughts as to motive. There were three popular ones at the time of the early investigation. And one was that this could be some type of revenge killing, that somebody went out to kill one member of the family or wipe out the entire family for some purposes of revenge. The other theory as to motive number two was the family had recently moved from Panama and Joseph was a pilot. So there were some people that wondered, could this be something that is tied to the drug trade or some type of gang hit? Was Joseph. Joseph involved in anything moving, drugs, things of that nature? And somebody had sought him out to put an end to him, and the other three were just collateral damage. The third theory, and this is probably the most terrifying one when you think about the community, is that Mrs. Otero and the little girl were actually targeted by the killer. And the killer was surprised to find the father at home that day. And there's some. There's some thoughts to support this theory, and that being that there were no cars in the driveway when the killer had entered the home. And remember, Joseph was only home because just a couple of weeks earlier, he had been in a car accident. So the car that. That he drove was in the shop because it was being fixed, and Joseph was off of work, nursing some injuries.

[The Captain]

Right. So I'm assuming there was a way that, you know, the killer would have been able to see into the garage to see if there was cars in the garage.

[Nick]

Well, their. Their vehicle was home, the one that the Otero mother typically drove.

[The Captain]

Right. But the other one was gone.

[Nick]

Correct. And so even if the killer had been watching the house, if he wasn't watching the home cons, you know, consecutive days.

[The Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

He might not have any clue that Joseph would have been in the Home. You know, there was no evidence to support or to suggest to him that Joseph was there.

[The Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

So the police had, like we said, little to no leads. The case was going to go cold very quickly. This was until October of that same year, till October of 1974. This is when police picked up a man for molesting a little girl behind the public library. This man, his name is Gary Sebring. Now, this is a man with a lengthy criminal record that included bestiality that he had committed in the local park there. Now, so he's picked up for possibly molesting this little girl behind the library. Now, during the interrogation regarding that attack on the little girl, he started talking about the Otero murders and saying some weird stuff. He said, you know, had, had he done the Otero murders, he would have committed them with his brother Ernest and their friend Thomas Meyer would have helped them commit this crime.

[The Captain]

So it'd be three people. Yeah, so he would have raped their cat.

[Nick]

Well, all three of these men had a record of sex offenses. The brother Ernest was brought in for questioning. Police were looking for Thomas Myers. Now, it took some time for them to find this Thomas Myers character. He was eventually located after he tried to take his own life. Now, all three men were found to be mentally unstable, and they were all taken to a mental hospital for observation. They remained there for quite some time. But none of the three would be charged with the quadruple homicides.

[The Captain]

Yeah, anybody that's raping an animal is obviously not mentally stable.

[Nick]

Well, yeah, you touched on some, on something there, Captain, that the, the FBI would say as well that they found that these three individuals, they didn't find any of them capable of getting away with these murders. That it would have gotten out of hand. The, the crime scene would have looked much differently. It just didn't make any sense to them. Now, they're not just. The police are not just going to go off of the FBI's thoughts and theories on this. There was also no evidence to suggest that they had had anything to do with these. They. One of them probably read about it in the newspaper or overheard people talking about it. This was a very, very famous crime. When this took place in 1974, Wichita had not witnessed or experience something of this level before. Like I said, none of them would be charged in the quadruple homicide. But there was plenty of news coverage regarding the arrest of these three men. And the real killer was watching and reading it all. And the thought that someone else may take credit for his hard work was making him very very angry. Don't forget to check out the Stitcher app and Stitcher Premium.

[The Captain]

Yeah, check out our show off the record on Stitcher Premium today. The first episode is out. Now. It's $4.99 a month. Not only do you get our show, but you get all of our shows commercial free. And you get a bunch of other shows. It's all for $4.99.

[Nick]

All right, we'll see you back here in the garage tomorrow for part two of this four part series on the BTK Killer. Until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter.