Dennis Lynn Rader The BTK Strangler

BTK Gets 10 Life Sentences

August 19, 2005

BTK serial killer Dennis Rader was ordered to serve 10 consecutive life terms Thursday during a tear-filled hearing in which his victims called him a monster and said he should be "thrown in a deep, dark hole and left to rot."

The sentence - a minimum of 175 years without a chance of parole - was the longest possible that Judge Gregory Waller could deliver. Kansas had no death penalty at the time the killings were committed.

The two-day hearing featured testimony from detectives who graphically detailed the 10 killings and tearful relatives of the victims. It culminated with rambling testimony from Rader, who said he had been dishonest to his family and victims and at times wiped his eyes.

"Nancy's death is a like a deep wound that will never, ever heal," Beverly Plapp, sister of victim Nancy Fox, testified. "As far as I'm concerned, Dennis Rader does not deserve to live. I want him to suffer as much as he made his victims suffer."

"This man needs to be thrown in a deep, dark hole and left to rot," she said. "He should never, ever see the light of day."

Rader offered Biblical quotes, thanks to police and an apology to victims' relatives before Waller sentenced him.

"A dark side is there, but now I think light is beginning to shine," Rader said. "Hopefully someday God will accept me."

Rader, 60, a former church congregation president and Boy Scout leader, led a double life, calling himself BTK for "bind, torture and kill." He was arrested in February and pleaded guilty in June to the 10 murders from 1974 to 1991.

The family members who spoke called him a coward, and they quietly sobbed.

"No remorse, no compassion - he had no mercy," said Kevin Bright, the brother of victim Kathryn Bright, who himself was shot but managed to flee. "I think that's what he ought to receive."

Rader's voice choked as he made a rambling, half-hour address to the courtroom, saying he had been dishonest to his family and victims and selfish.

"I know the victim's families will never be able to forgive me. I hope somewhere deep down, eventually that will happen," he said.

He also admitted he tracked his victims "like a predator."

Nola Foulston, Sedgwick County District Attorney, asked the judge that Rader be refused anything in prison, such as markers or crayons, that could be used to draw or write about human or animal forms, or anything that might be used to further his sexual fantasies.

Prosecutors earlier flashed a photograph of Rader wearing the mask, tied to a chair and donning a woman's blond wig. They also showed other pictures the killer took in which he had bound himself and was wearing a dress he had taken from a victim's house - apparently reliving the ecstasy of the murder.