The Floppy Disk That Caught BTK After 31 Years | The Dennis Rader Case

For 31 years, a killer who called himself BTK terrorized Wichita, Kansas — and taunted police and the press with letters. In 2005, he asked detectives one question: could a floppy disk be traced? They told him no. This is the story of how a purple floppy disk, a church website and years of patient police work finally ended the case — and of the ten people whose lives he took. We remember: Joseph Otero, Julie Otero, Josephine Otero, Joseph Otero Jr., Kathryn Bright, Shirley Vian, Nancy Fox, Marine Hedge, Vicki Wegerle and Dolores Davis. This video contains no graphic images. Rader's family members are not named or shown. CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 0:37 Wichita, 1974 1:05 The Otero family 1:45 Kathryn Bright 2:10 The letter in the library 2:36 Three more years 3:19 How many do I have to kill 4:02 The man next door 4:50 The quiet years 5:28 He came back 6:23 The floppy disk 7:24 The arrest 7:52 In court 8:47 What it changed 9:31 Remember them SOURCES FBI Records: The Vault — Dennis Rader: https://vault.fbi.gov/dennis-rader Wikipedia — Dennis Rader: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_... CBS News (Aug 18, 2005): https://www.cbsnews.com/news/btk-gets... NBC News / AP (Aug 2005): https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9005119 Washington Post (Aug 19, 2005): https://www.washingtonpost.com/archiv... ABA Journal — How the cops caught BTK: https://www.abajournal.com/magazine/a... The Atlantic — "The Floppy Did Me In" (2014): https://www.theatlantic.com/technolog... New York Times (Mar 2, 2005): https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/02/us... Lawrence Journal-World / AP (Jul 10, 2005): https://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/ju... Wichita Eagle — Ken Landwehr obituary: https://www.kansas.com/news/article11... New York Times — Ken Landwehr obituary (2014): https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/16/us... CREDITS Photos (Wikimedia Commons): "Wichita, Kansas skyline" and "Wichita, Kansas skyline aerial view" by Quintin Soloviev (CC BY 4.0); "Downtown Wichita From Lincoln" by StarksWinter (CC BY-SA 4.0); "Sedgwick County Courthouse, SE corner" by Xnatedawgx (CC BY-SA 4.0); "Wichita Central Library 05" by amyrhopper (CC BY 2.0); "Park City, Kansas" and "Christ Lutheran Church in Sedgwick County, Kansas" by Staryu (CC0); "Sedgwick County Courthouse" by FUBAR007 (CC0); "Wichita pan 1" (public domain). Licences: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... · https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... · https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Public-domain records: FBI Records: The Vault (pages shown blurred); Dennis Rader yearbook photo, 1963 (Wichita Heights High School); U.S. Air Force portrait. Stock video: Pexels (Pexels licence). Narration: synthetic voice reading an original script. Music: original.