Serial killer Dennis Rader has been named the “prime suspect” in two unsolved killings — one in Oklahoma and another in Missouri — leading authorities to dig this week near his former home in Park City, authorities said Wednesday.
Osage County, Oklahoma, Undersheriff Gary Upton said that the investigation into whether Rader was responsible for additional crimes started with the re-examination last year of the 1976 disappearance of Cynthia Kinney, a 16-year-old cheerleader in Pawhuska. The case, which was investigated on and off over the years, was reopened in December.
Sheriff Eddie Virden said that a bank was having new alarms installed across the street from the laundromat where Kinney was last seen. Radar was a regional installer for a security company at the time, although the sheriff wasn’t able to confirm that Rader installed the systems. He also was involved in Boy Scouts in the area.
“We sit just on the other side of the state line from Kansas and Wichita, which is his stomping grounds,” said Upton, the undersheriff. “And so … we were following leads based off of our investigations and just unpacked other missing persons and murders, unsolved homicides that possibly point towards BTK.”
Upton said Rader is also the prime suspect in the death of 22-year-old Shawna Beth Garber, whose body was discovered in December 1990 in McDonald County, Missouri. An autopsy revealed she had been raped, strangled and restrained with different bindings about two months before her body was found. Her remains weren’t identified until 2021.
Rader’s killing spree started in 1974 and ended in 1991.
A city code inspector, Rader was arrested in February 2005 — a year after resuming communications with police and the media after going silent years earlier. In earlier communications, he gave himself the nickname BTK — for “bind, torture and kill.”
BTK resurfaced in 2004 with a letter to The Wichita Eagle that included photos of a 1986 strangling victim and a photocopy of her missing driver’s license. That letter was followed by several other cryptic messages and packages.
The break in the case came after a computer diskette the killer sent was traced to Rader’s church, where he once served as president.
Rader, now 78, ultimately confessed to 10 killings in the Wichita area. He was sentenced in August 2005 to 10 consecutive life prison terms. Kansas had no death penalty at the time of the murders. His earliest possible release date is listed for 2180.
An Associated Press phone message seeking comment from the McDonald County Sheriff’s Office was not immediately returned Wednesday.
Upton declined to say how many other missing person and homicide cases are being re-examined, but told the AP that Rader could be a suspect in more cases.
No information has been released yet about what the search in Park City uncovered. Upton described the discoveries only as “items of interest,” in a news release. The release said the items would undergo a thorough examination to determine their potential relevance.
Upton said his department is working with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
Phil Bostian, the police chief in Park City, said that Osage County called them as a courtesy and said they asked public works to move some cement and do a little digging.
Rader’s daughter, Kerri Rawson, said that she worked with investigators this summer by meeting with her father in person and communicating with him for the first time in years. Rawson told Fox News that she thinks investigators were looking for items related to the unsolved cases that Rader may have kept and buried on his property under a metal shed he built.
The shed and Rader’s former home have been leveled.
Rawson said she also told investigators to check where Rader buried the family dog. She said she hopes investigators can determine whether her father is linked to any of these other cases.
“I’m still not 100% sure my dad did commit any more at this point,” she said. “If my dad has harmed somebody else, we need answers.”
