The daughter of “BTK Killer” Dennis Rader told an audience at CrimeCon 2024 in Nashville Friday that her infamous father likely abused her when she a child and too young to remember.
“I sat feet across from you; you crumbled up, rotting away in a wheelchair, me standing tall and brave, and confronted you with the hard bare truth you had kept hidden from me for over four decades,” Kerri Rawson said on stage, FOX News Digital reports.
“You denied it, gas lit me, emotionally and verbally abused me, asked me what PTSD is; and then when I explained, told me, I had brought this all on myself.”
Therapists, criminologists, and other experts had previously suggested Rawson was sexually abused. However, Rawson said a journal entry found by the Osage County Sheriff’s Office in Oklahoma confirmed it.
“My stomach twisted into white hot lightning,” she said. “There it was, after four decades, hard proof that you, my father, had sexually abused me when I was a toddler.”
Rawson added that when confronted with the information, her father became irate, calling it a “fantasy,” while denying it ever happened.
“I thought for a minute I was sixteen again, fleeing your angry fists — I did get up and flee for a bit at the prison,” she said. “But I came back, sat down, and confronted you harder.”
Prior to her speaking session, Rawson expliained to NewsNation’s Brian Entin how she confronted her father with the information.
“We found in my dad’s journal entries a notation hat’s marked 1981 in all caps, ‘Kerri/V/game,’ and we know B and D is bondage…And so when I went in to see the Osage County Sheriff’s Office the first night in June, they let me look at the journals. They had found it and they wanted me to find it.”
“We knew right away that it pretty much symbolizes that my father committed sexual abuse against me when I was 2, 2 1/2.”
As CrimeOnline previously reported, police arrested Rader in 2005, years after he eluded and taunted investigators and the media. His trail of digital evidence is what eventually helped police capture him. He then nicknamed himself “BTK.” which stands for “bind, torture, kill.”
Rader is serving 10 consecutive life sentences for the deaths of 10 people between 1974 to 1991, in and around the Wichita area, including the deaths of an entire family: Joseph Otero Sr., 38; Julie Otero, 33; Joey Otero II, 9; and Josie Otero, 11.
Rawson added that her father, who’s serving his sentences at the El Dorado Correctional Facility in Kansas, is rotting away in prison while confined to a wheelchair.
“Soon you will meet your maker,” she said from the stage.
“You’re going to have a few things to discuss. You will be gone soon. It is my last request of you, to give up the ghosts, if any remain.”
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[Feature Photo: In this image made from video and provided by Court TV, Dennis Rader , 60, of Park City, Kan., speaks in court in Wichita, Kan., Monday, June 27, 2005. Rader, who admitted killing 10 people in the Wichita area between 1974 and 1991, taunted media and police with cryptic messages calling himself “BTK,” for “Bind, Torture, Kill.” (AP Photo/Court TV, Pool)]
