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Posted on Sat, Nov. 07, 2009

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TV program on capture of BTK to air Nov. 15

BY STAN FINGER

The Wichita Eagle

A Discovery Channel program will focus on the arrest of Dennis Rader, the BTK serial killer, in an episode later this month.

Rader was arrested near his Park City home in February 2005, nearly a year after BTK resurfaced by sending a letter to The Wichita Eagle.

The BTK episode of "Anatomy of a Takedown" will air at 6 p.m. on Nov. 15, police spokesman Gordon Bassham said.

Bassham worked with the London-based Wall to Wall television production company on the episode.

The production assistant Bassham worked with in London could not be reached for comment Friday.

"We provided them with photographs and archive material, and helped them with their research into the case," Bassham said.

The Sedgwick County District Attorney's Office also provided information and material for the program, which includes video of Rader driving a Jeep into the parking lot of the Home Depot on North Woodlawn in January 2005.

"It shows his Jeep pulling in and stopping very briefly and pulling back out again," Bassham said.

A package BTK left in a pickup at the north Wichita Home Depot on January 8, 2005, was labeled "BOMB" and included a note about his "lair" being wired to explode. BTK also indicated he wanted to communicate using a computer disk.

After being told in a classified ad placed by police in The Eagle that computer disks couldn't be traced, BTK mailed a purple disk to KSAS-TV in mid-February in a bubble-wrap envelope containing a gold chain and pendant and three index cards.

Detectives rushed to the station, picked up the disk and dashed back to the Epic Center, which served as the headquarters for the BTK Task Force.

Detective Randy Stone, a computer crimes expert, loaded the disk into his computer as detectives and officials from the District Attorney's Office watched.

Stone quickly called up "TestA.rtf," the message BTK had created for them.

It read: "This is a test. See 3 X 5 Card for details on communication with me in the Newspaper."

Stone then clicked onto the "properties" field of the file. And then, in plain letters, they read the name "Dennis."

The screen also told them the disk had been in a computer registered to Christ Lutheran Church and had last been used at the Park City Community Public Library.

A detective and an FBI agent sat down at computers nearby and searched the Internet for "Christ Lutheran Church."

They found it in seconds, called up the Web site and pointed to the name of the congregation president: Dennis Rader.

Moments later, they had Rader's address: 6220 Independence Street, Park City.

Detectives raced to Park City, where they found a dark-colored Jeep in Rader's driveway.

After linking Rader's DNA to BTK crime victims, law enforcement officers swooped in and arrested him on Feb. 25 as he was driving home for lunch from his job as animal control officer for Park City.

Rader pleaded guilty to 10 murders between 1974 and 1991, and was sentenced to 10 consecutive life sentences.

Bassham said he has not seen the "Anatomy of a Takedown" episode.

"I'll see it for the first time when everyone else does," he said.

Reach Stan Finger at 316-268-6437 or sfinger@wichitaeagle.com.