Brian Rader- What happened to Dennis Rader’s son?

Brian Rader is the son of Dennis Rader. Brian Rader’s father is an American serial killer known as BTK, the BTK Strangler, or the BTK Killer. Between 1974 and 1991, the vicious killer ended the lives of ten people in Wichita and Park City, Kansas, and sent taunting letters to police and newspapers describing the details of his crimes.

Dennis Rader’s son, Brian Rader; Where is he Now?

Does Dennis Rader the BTK killer have a son? Yes, BTK killer had a son. Brian Rader is not the only child of his parents, he has an elder sister, Kerri Rawson. Although Brian Rader’s father himself has not spoken publicly, his sister, Rawson called him bright. According to the Wichita Eagle, Brian was an Eagle Scout when his dad was arrested. During his father’s 2005 arrest, Brian Rader was reportedly stationed at a sub base in Connecticut. From 2004 to 2009, Brian Rader served on Navy submarines. As of 2016, he was enrolled in college.

Despite his obvious accomplishments, Rawson expressed worry about her brother.

“He doesn’t have the kids and the family that I have,” she told the paper. “And that’s really all I should say about him.”

Rawson said, despite it the killings, Rader was a good father. Rader did once allegedly put his hands around Brian’s neck when he was a child, choking him after he “spoiled dinner.”

The family has not given any information related to Brian Rader’s age, place of birth, or where he is currently. Brian Rader has been staying away from the limelight and away from the media.

Brian Rader’s sister, Rawson has been harassed by their serial killer father from behind bars to the point that she got a no-contact order against him, she says.

“He’s been cyberstalking me,” Kerri Rawson told the audience at CrimeCon 2021, presented by Oxygen, in Austin on Sunday. “He has letters and he has phone access so he has his fan club that […]  like to print off screenshots of my social media and photos of me and what I’m doing.”

Brian Rader’s father, Dennis Rader, known as the BTK killer (short for bind, torture, kill), killed 10 people in Kansas between 1974 and 1991 while maintaining the guise of a family man and respected member of the community. He became notorious by taunting the media about his crimes, and that tendency to want credit for those crimes ultimately led to his capture. In 2004, he mailed a floppy disk to police that authorities were able to get a DNA sample from. In fact, it was through his daughter’s DNA that investigators were able to confirm his identity.

Brian Rader’s sister, Rawson wrote about the struggles she endured coming to terms with who her father is in the 2019 book “A Serial Killer’s Daughter: My Story Of Faith, Love and Overcoming.” She spoke candidly about that journey during a Sunday CrimeCon panel, noting her anguish after her dad referred to his family as “pawns in his game” during his rambling sentencing statement in 2005.

While her book details how she and her father kept in touch for a while following his conviction, she noted that’s over now. Even though she told her father that she loved and forgave him, Rawson explained that he is a “narcissist” with whom she has legally ceased contact.

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Brian Rader’s sister detailed to the horrified CrimeCon crowd some of the more disturbing alleged interactions between her and her father in recent years. 

“He likes to send me drawings of animals with gaping mouths with teeth,” she said.

Brian Rader’s father further insulted his sister by, at some point, writing a letter to the Wichita Eagle newspaper to tell them “she reminds me of me” and “she uses the media.”

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Furthermore, Brian Rader’s sister said her father’s “fans” not only screenshot what she’s up to online but often message her to tell her that her dad’s a “great guy.”

“Dealing with that [the cyberstalking] the last few years, this murder memorabilia market, and finding out that he was signing crime scene photos I said that’s it, I’m done,” she explained. “So I signed up for victim services through the Kansas Department of Corrections and […] I signed a legal cease contact order and it was delivered to him the day before his birthday this year.” That statement prompted applause from the audience.

How was Dennis Rader’s father, the BTK Killer Killer Arrested?

On January 15, 1974, four members of the Otero family were murdered in Wichita, Kansas. The victims were Joseph Otero, age 38; Julie Otero, age 33; Joseph Otero Jr., age 9; and Josephine Otero, age 11. Their bodies were discovered by the family’s three older children, Charlie, Danny, and Carmen, who had been at school at the time of the killings. After his 2005 arrest, Brian Rader’s father confessed to killing the Otero family. Dennis Rader wrote a letter that had been stashed inside an engineering book in the Wichita Public Library in October 1974, which described in detail the killing of the Otero family in January of that year.

Between the spring of 1974 and winter 1977, Rader killed three more women: Kathryn Bright (April 4, 1974), Shirley Vian Relford (March 17, 1977), and Nancy Fox (December 8, 1977).

By 2004, the investigation of the BTK Killer was considered a cold case. Then, Brian Rader’s father initiated a series of 11 communications to the local media. This activity led directly to his arrest in February 2005.

In January 2005, Rader attempted to leave a cereal box in the bed of a pickup truck at a Home Depot in Wichita, but the box was discarded by the truck’s owner. It was later retrieved from the trash after Rader asked what had become of it in a later message. Surveillance tape of the parking lot from that date revealed a distant figure driving a black Jeep Cherokee leaving the box in the pickup.

In one of his letters to police, Rader asked if his writings, if put on a floppy disk, could be traced or not. The police answered his question in a newspaper ad posted in the Wichita Eagle saying it would be safe to use the disk. On February 16, 2005, Brian Rader’s father sent a purple 1.44-Megabyte Memorex floppy disk to Fox affiliate KSAS-TV in Wichita. Also enclosed were a letter, a gold-colored necklace with a large medallion, and a photocopy of the cover of Rules of Prey, a 1989 novel by John Sandford about a serial killer.

Police found metadata embedded in a deleted Microsoft Word document that was, unknown to Rader, still stored on the floppy disk. The metadata contained the words “Christ Lutheran Church”, and the document was marked as last modified by “Dennis”. An Internet search determined that a “Dennis Rader” was president of the church council. When investigators drove by Rader’s house, a black Jeep Cherokee—the type of vehicle seen in the Home Depot surveillance footage—was parked outside. This was strong circumstantial evidence against Rader, but they needed more direct evidence to detain him.

Police obtained a warrant to test a pap smear taken from Rader’s daughter at the Kansas State University medical clinic. DNA tests showed a “familial match” between the pap smear and the sample from Wegerle’s fingernails; this indicated that the killer was closely related to Rader’s daughter, and combined with the other evidence was enough for police to arrest Rader.

Brian Rader’s father Dennis Rader was arrested while driving near his home in Park City shortly after noon on February 25, 2005. An officer asked, “Mr. Rader, do you know why you’re going downtown?” Rader replied, “Oh, I have suspicions why.”

Wichita Police, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, the FBI, and ATF agents searched Rader’s home and vehicle, seizing evidence including computer equipment, a pair of black pantyhose retrieved from a shed, and a cylindrical container.

The church he attended, his office at City Hall, and the main branch of the Park City library were also searched. At a press conference the next morning, Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams announced, “the bottom line: BTK is arrested.”