Family Man Arrested in 10 Slayings

Dennis Rader, 59, a church-going family man, a Cub Scout leader, a dog-catcher for the trim suburb of Park City, is in custody on suspicion of torturing and killing seven women, one man and two children from 1974 to 1991 -- including two victims linked only this week to BTK.

Authorities would not discuss the specifics of their investigation into BTK. (The "code word" the killer used to describe himself described his method: bind, torture, kill). But they have compared Rader's DNA with the semen that BTK left at several crime scenes.

They said they were confident that Rader was the man who terrorized this industrial city for decades, taunting detectives with poems, word puzzles and boastful letters -- including one in which he declared that there was "no help, no cure" for his sadism, "except death or being caught and put away."

"Bottom line: BTK is arrested," Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams said at a news conference Saturday morning. "Doggone it, we did it."

Williams was hailed with a standing ovation. Some members of the victims' families slumped in their chairs, sobbing.

"I can't think," said Dale Fox, the father of Nancy Fox, who was strangled in December 1977. "I've waited so long to hear the words, 'We have him.' "

Rader's name had surfaced on a list of possible suspects in the late 1970s when investigators cast a broad net, pulling up names of all white male students who attended Wichita State University at that time, said retired Det. Arlyn Smith, who worked on the case at the time.

Authorities suspected the killer might have connections to the university because one of his letters was reproduced on a copy machine students used -- and one of his poems appeared to be modeled after a verse in an obscure textbook from a folklore class. But Rader did not draw any particular scrutiny, Smith said. There were too many white male students to investigate them all, so detectives focused on those who gave them reasons to be suspicious.

"To the best of my recollection, [Rader] never matched any other list, so he was never specifically looked at," Smith said.

Rader graduated in the spring of 1979, with a bachelor's degree in criminal justice.