Evil by another name.

Every childhood had a boogyman; a beast in the closet who kept you hidden under the covers frozen with fear at night. During the 1970s in Wichita, that moster was all too real. He called himself BTK. And his victims, seven over the course of three years, found out why.


He taunted police with letters, mocking their inadequacies. He bragged about his handywork, reveling in the terror he brought to middle America's doorstep. He even used the self-prescribed moniker BTK for Bind, Torture and Kill. That's what he did, and how he signed several letters sent to the police and media. But just as the cold grip of fear tightened on the city in the late '70s, the killings and letters stopped.

And just like that, BTK vanished.

No one knew why. Was he dead? Was he in prison? Did he move? His sudden disappearance, although welcomed, vaulted this little-known serial killer into the region's boogyman. Over the next 30 years, he eventually faded from public consciousness and was rarely, if ever, whispered about again.

Until he wrote a letter to the local paper last year.

From the Wichita Eagle, March 25, 2004: "A serial killer who terrorized Wichita during the 1970s by committing a series of seven murders has claimed responsibility for an eighth slaying and is probably now living in Wichita, police said Wednesday.

A letter The Wichita Eagle received Friday suggests that the BTK Strangler was responsible for the Sept. 16, 1986 strangulation death of Vicki Wegerle, who was found dead in her home at 2404 W. 13th street. The crime was never solved.

The letter contained a single sheet of paper with a photocopy of Wegerle's driver's license and three pictures that apparently were taken of her body. Each picture shows the victim in a slightly different pose and with her clothing arranged in a slightly different manner."

Police said there was no crime scene photographs of Wegerle's body because it was removed by EMS workers before police arrived. At the time, EMS policy was to transport injured people to the hospital as quickly as possible. That means BTK was there at the scene, snapping pictures and smiling at a job well done.

The return addres on the envelope indicated the letter was from Bill Thomas Killman. A fake name, but one whose initials were obviously used to identify the author.

January 15, 1974
Charlie Otero returned home from school to find his father, mother and two sisters murdered. Each was strangled with the type of cord used in venetian blinds. One sister was found hanging from a sewer pipe in the basement wearing only socks and a sweater. None of the victims had been raped.

April 5, 1974
Kathryn Bright and her brother Kevin were confronted in Kathryn's home by a man with a gun. He forced Kevin to tie his sister to a chair, then forced Kevin into another room. When the man wrapped a cord around Kevin's neck and began to pull, Kevin fought back and was shot twice in the head with a .22-caliber pistol. He managed to escape and call for help. By the time police arrived, Kathryn had been stabbed three times and died hours later.

October 1974
An anonymous tip leads police to a mechanical engineering textbook at the Wichita Public Library. In it, a man who calls himself the BTK Strangler confesses to several recent killings and pleads for help in "stopping the monster inside". On October 24, police quiety run a classified ad in the Wichita Eagle:

"BTK
Help is available.
Call 684-xxxx before 10 p.m."

The ad ran for four days without results.

March 17, 1977
Shirley Vian, 26 and mother of three, answered a knock at her door around noon. The man at the door had a gun in one hand and a bowling bag in the other. He came inside, barricaded the children in the bathroom and killed their mother. Emergency crews later found Vian's nude body face-down on her bed. She was bound hand and foot. There was a plastic bag over her head and a cord looped around her neck.

December 9, 1977
Police dispatch received a call from a pay phone at the corner of Central and St. Francis.

"Yes, you will find a homicide at 843 South Pershing. Nancy Fox."

The dispatcher double-checked the address.

"Yes, that's correct." Police later found Fox's partially nude body in the bedroom of her duplext. A nylon stocking was wrapped tightly around her neck. Her hands and feet were bound with other stockings. A window in the back of the duplext had been smashed and the phone line had been cut.

"How man more must I kill?"
After having several notes withheld from the public by the police, the killer turned to KAKE-TV for exposure by writing a two-page, single-spaced letter.

"How many people do I have to kill before I get my name in the paper or some national attention?" he asked. He also indicated he planned to kill again.

In excerpts released by police and the television station, the killer said he was compelled to kill by the "factor-X", the same factor that motivated Son of Sam in New York, Jack the Ripper in London and the Hillside Strangler in Los Angeles.

"It seems senseless but we cannot help it," the killer wrote. "There is no help, no cure except death or being caught and put away."

BTK also complained about the lack of publicity: "A little paragraph in the newspaper would have been enough. And he suggested that he might be living a normal life in Wichita: "After a thing like Fox, I come home and go about life like everyone else."

"Sorry I missed you."
But here's where an already twisted story takes an even more deviant turn. On June 14, 1979, Anna Williams received a 19-line, typewritten letter in the mail. Inside was a poem written by the killer entitled "Oh, Anna Why Didn't You Appear". Laden with sexual overtones, the poem indicated that Williams was meant to be BTK's eighth victim. He patiently waited hours for her to return home, where he was waiitng. Growing frustrated, he eventually left when she failed to come home. Six weeks later, he sent her a letter indicated he was sorry he missed her and looked forward to meeting her soon.

And the cat and mouse game continues...
Just last week (Thursday, January 27, 2005) police found a clue possibly linked to BTK. A package was found between 69th and 77th streets north near Valley Center that focuses speculation on two unsolved homicides in areas north of Wichita. The sign pictured here marks the dirt stretch of Seneca where the package was found. Police have yet to disclose its contents. How did police know to look here? The location was noted on a postcard recently received that appears to be from the killer. The card from "S Killet" bore the return address of the Otero family - BTK's first four victims in 1974.

To date, thousands of tips have poured in. Hundreds of suspects have been inverviews. Local, state and federal agencies are working around the clock and yet, through it all, one lone man seems able to walk between the raindrops and avoid capture. The killer would be in his mid-60s now and, if you look at the increased number of notes, letters and clues he's given police, almost seems to be begging for capture. God willing his wish will come true soon enough.

To see where most of the information contained in this post came from, and to learn more about BTK's connection to Ralph Stanley's haunting bluegrass rendition of "O Death", walk over to the Wichita Eagle's impressive archive. But be warned: once you start reading, you won't stop.

Because you know this serial killer is out there.
Because you know this boogyman is real.