Kerri Rawson: Who is the BTK Killer's daughter, and where is she now?

Publish date: 2024-05-09

Who is the BTK Killer’s daughter

Kerri Rawson is the daughter of Dennis Rader, better known to the world as the serial killer BTK. Since her father’s arrest, Kerri has been an advocate for victims of abuse, crime, and trauma. Rawson’s father, Rader is an American serial killer known as BTK, the BTK Strangler, or the BTK Killer. Between 1974 and 1991, Rader killed ten people in Wichita and Park City, Kansas, and sent taunting letters to police and newspapers describing the details of his crimes.

In 2004, he mailed a floppy disk to police that authorities that contained encrypted metadata. That pointed investigators to Rader and it was then through his daughter, Kerri Rawson’s DNA that they were able to confirm his identity.

Where is the BTK Killers’ daughter Kerri Rawson now?

Kerri Rawson is happily married to her husband Darian Rawson. They got married in 2003. She is now a writer and has been an advocate for victims of abuse, crime, and trauma. Along with her memoir A Serial Killer’s Daughter: My Story of Faith, Love, and Overcoming, Kerri Rawson released a statement that she has been in an “extended period of trying to recover.”

“I’m in an ongoing period of trying to rest and get peace and space,” she said. “Our family has moved, embracing a new start for all of us. I still have ongoing battles with PTSD but am hopeful that I can continue to heal with time and peace.”

In 2005, 26-year-old Kerri Rawson found out from an FBI agent that her father Dennis Rader was the BTK Killer who murdered 10 people, many of whom were young women just like her. Kerri was not the only child of her parents, she has one other sibling, Brian Raider. According to the Wichita Eagle, Brian was an Eagle Scout when his dad was arrested. During his father’s 2005 arrest, Brian Rader was reportedly stationed at a sub-base in Connecticut.

Kerri Rawson was born in Wichita, Kansas in 1978. Rawson is 44 years old as of 2022. She and her brother were raised by loving parents and had a beautiful childhood. Kerri Rawson’s parents met in church, with her mother Paula Dietz happily agreeing to marry Rader soon after in 1971. Her father regularly took her fishing, hiking, and helped her decorate the Christmas tree. But in 2005, when Rawson was 26, she found out her father was not who she thought he was. Her father was the BTK Killer who is responsible for the binding, torturing, and killing of people for years.

Rowson Got to Know Her Father Was The BTK Killer

When the FBI finally arrested their suspect, her father, and charged him with 10 counts of first-degree murder, that was when Rawson was forced to reassess her entire life. For the daughter of a man who counted two children and young ladies about her age among his victims, it’s been a long journey to cope with the horrific revelation.

“It was a normal day. I had slept in,” Kerri Rawson revealed. “I was substitute teaching and I took the day off. I’m already… uptight, thinking, ‘Who is this person in my apartment building?’ And then… he said he was the FBI.”

“He asked, ‘Do you know who BTK is?’” BTK Killer’s daughter, Kerri Rawson continued. “I was like, ‘You mean the person that’s wanted for murders back in Kansas?’ And then he says, ‘Your dad has been arrested as BTK.’”

Rawson vividly remembers standing in her kitchen in 2005 and staring at a chocolate bundt cake as the FBI agent told her who her father really was.

“You’re going into shock and you don’t know what’s wrong with you, and the room gets literally brighter; it gets dark, it kind of spins,” Kerri Rawson revealed. “So you’re focusing on things like cookbooks, or a purse because you’re going through trauma and you don’t know it and you’re trying to ground yourself.”

She recalls asking the agent for his ID. After all, her father had always told her to make people prove who they were before trusting them because anybody can pretend to be somebody else.

As news of the BTK killer’s capture spread, Wichita celebrated the end of a thirty-one-year nightmare but for Kerri Rawson, another was just beginning. The BTK killer‘s daughter was plunged into a black hole of horror and disbelief. The same man who had been a loving father, a devoted husband, church president, Boy Scout leader, and a public servant had been using their family as a cover for his heinous crimes since before she was born. Everything she had believed about her life had been a lie.

“If we had had an inkling that my father had harmed anyone, let anyone murdered anyone, let alone 10, we would’ve gone screaming out that door to the police station,” said the BTK killer’s daughter, Kerri Rawson. “We were living our normal life. We looked like a normal American family because we were a normal family. And then everything upended on us.”

The BTK killer’s daughter, Kerri Rawson revealed to a CrimeCon 2021 crowd that she filed a no-contact order against her serial killer father, Dennis Rader, because of his creepy behavior toward her. The daughter of the infamous BTK Killer has been harassed by her serial killer father from behind bars to the point that she got a no-contact order against him, she says.

“He’s been cyberstalking me,” Kerri Rawson told the audience at CrimeCon 2021, “He has letters and he has phone access so he has his fan club that […]  like to print off screenshots of my social media and photos of me and what I’m doing.”

Does Kerri Rawson talk to her Dad?

In Rawson’s book, she details how she and her father kept in touch for a while following his conviction, she noted that’s over now. Even though she told her father that she loved and forgave him, Kerri Rawson explained that he is a “narcissist” who she has legally ceased contact with.

Rawson detailed to the horrified CrimeCon crowd some of the more disturbing alleged interactions between her and her father in recent years.  “He likes to send me drawings of animals with gaping mouths with teeth,” she said.

“Someone had sent him a page from my book where I had signed it and he did his BTK signature on it,” she said at the panel, prompting horrified gasps within the CrimeCon crowd. “It never ends.”

Rader further insulted his daughter by, at some point, writing a letter to the Wichita Eagle newspaper to tell them “she reminds me of me” and “she uses the media.”

Furthermore, Kerri Rawson said her father’s “fans” not only screenshot what she’s up to online but often message her to tell her that her dad’s a “great guy.”

Disturbing Facts About Kerri Rawson’s father, The BTK Killer

1. He Killed 10 People Over A Period Of Nearly 20 Years: Kerri Rawson and her family lived in Wichita, KS, a city of less than 400,000 people. Between 1974 and 1991, her father killed 10 people ranging from age nine to 62. He reportedly used to stalk the people around his neighborhood. Some people suspect he tried to kill others but was unsuccessful.

One woman, Anna Williams, believes she was stalked by the BTK Killer. Williams said Rader lived two doors down from her. Rader later said he found sexual gratification from murdering other people

“When I was in grade school, I sort of had some problems,” Kerri Rawson’s father would later admit. “Sexual, sexual fantasies. Probably more than normal. All males probably go through some kind of, uh, sexual fantasy. Mine was just probably a bit weirder than other people.”

After getting away with murder for more than three decades, Kerri Rawson’s father finally got caught because he got sloppy. Why? Because he loved bragging to the media through letters and graphic photographs, taunting police and others that they would never find him.

2. He Was Church Council President And A Boy Scout Leader: While Kerri Rawson’s father terrorized the people of Wichita by committing shocking and brutal murders, he lived a double life as a husband and father to a son and daughter. For years, Rader regularly attended church services with his family at the Christ Lutheran Church: while his wife sang in the choir, he served as president of the congregation.

The BTK killer’s son, Brian Rader was a member of the Cub Scouts, so the serial killer – who had murdered two children – filled the role of troop leader, teaching boys how to tie knots similar to the ones he used to bind his victims. In one instance, Rader even left a Cub Scout camping trip in the middle of the night to break into the home of Marine Hedge and strangle her to death.

3. He Murdered An Entire Family: The first of Rader’s victims were four members of the Otero family, a Wichita family that included Joseph, 38; Julie, 34; Josephine, 11; and Joseph Jr., 9. Fifteen-year-old Charlie Otero – the only surviving member of the family – discovered the victims’ bodies when he arrived home from school that afternoon. 

4. He Named Himself The BTK Killer: In his early communications with the media, Rader suggested a number of different monikers the press could use to refer to him and his murders. One of these suggestions included the “BTK Strangler,” with BTK standing for “Bind, Torture, Kill.” Initially, the media referred to the unidentified murderer as the BTK Strangler, but eventually, Rader was called the “BTK Killer” or simply “BTK.” After a series of letters in the 1970s, Rader didn’t communicate with the press again until 1988 – praising an unidentified perpetrator who had murdered three people.

5. He Installed Security Systems For A Living – Some Of Which He Installed Because People Were Afraid Of The BTK Killer: Starting in 1974 – the same year he committed his first murders – Kerri Rawson worked for ADT, a home security company. While he was employed by ADT for 14 years, Rader installed alarm systems in houses all over Wichita, often speaking with worried families who were seeking increased protection from the BTK Killer.

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