Why Are Cops Still Investigating BTK Cases Twenty Years After His Arrest?

In 2023, an Oklahoma sheriff named Eddie Virden announced a multi-state task force to investigate cold cases potentially connected to Dennis Rader during the years Rader was officially considered inactive. In August of that year, deputies excavated a property near Rader's former Park City, Kansas, home using cadaver dogs and ground-penetrating radar. In March of 2024, Missouri authorities officially ruled out one case, Shawna Beth Garber, and attributed it to a different man, Talfey Reeves, who had died in 2021.

Twenty years after his arrest, the BTK case is still being worked.

In the fourth chapter of host Tony Brueski's five-part Hidden Killers investigation, the thirteen-year period between Rader's last confirmed killing and his 2004 resurfacing gets walked through honestly. The standard story is that he stopped. Got it under control. Aged out. The actual answer is more complicated, and several investigative offices around the country still believe parts of his record are incomplete.

The episode covers what Dr. Katherine Ramsland concluded about Rader's "powering down" cycles after more than a decade of correspondence with him. It covers the Cynthia Dawn Kinney disappearance from Pawhuska, Oklahoma, in June of 1976, and the 2023 release of a Rader journal entry titled "Bad Wash Day" describing a fantasy of taking a young woman from a laundromat. It covers the divergence between the Osage County Sheriff's Office, which still considers Rader a prime suspect in the Kinney case, and the Osage County District Attorney's office, which has publicly stated the evidence does not support charges.

This is the fourth uncomfortable truth of the series. The BTK case is closed for the ten murders in Kansas. It is not closed for the rest.

END LINKS

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

DISCLAIMER

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.


HASHTAGS

#BTK #DennisRader #ColdCase #CynthiaKinney #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime #BTKCase #SerialKillers #Pawhuska #UncomfortableTruths