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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

BTK's Arrest

Aired February 28, 2005 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
As Larry said, we begin tonight a special edition of the program with a pair of simple facts. Most people, you and I, the guy down the block, aren't likely to be a murder victim or a killer, which is why most people don't spend a whole lot of time worrying or even wondering about either.

Shake those assumptions and the world gets a whole lot scarier though. For years, police in Wichita, Kansas say Dennis Rader lived and killed among his friends and neighbors. For just as long, his friends and neighbors wondered and worried how safe they were, how easy it is to kill.

Tomorrow, Mr. Rader goes before a judge. Tonight, how police came to catch the man they believe is the BTK serial killer, starting with the turning point in the case.

We begin in Wichita and CNN's David Mattingly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NORMAN WILLIAMS, WICHITA POLICE CHIEF: They're going to discover that it was a very complex case.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After eleven months of silence and manhunt that captured world attention, Police Chief Norman Williams told CNN the BTK case suddenly took a turn and began gaining momentum about two weeks ago.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The package sent to our news partners at FOX Kansas.

MATTINGLY: Two weeks ago coincides with when BTK's last known communication, a package, arrived at Wichita station KSAS. Operating under a strict code of silence, however, police said nothing.

But then on Wednesday, two days before the arrest of Dennis Rader, former Police Chief Richard Lamunyon was alerted a capture of the suspected killer was in the works. Lamunyon says the basic question who is BTK was answered by the killer himself.

RICHARD LAMUNYON, FMR. WICHITA POLICE CHIEF: It was a culmination of all the communications over all the years plus what he was giving to the police through the media much of the time that ultimately led to the ability of the police to identify him. MATTINGLY: But what evidence did he give police that led to the capture of a suspect? Authorities won't say but sources close to the Wichita Police following the inside workings of the case say BTK apparently made a mistake.

Charles Wiles is a former Wichita Police field commander and president of the Wichita Retired Police Officers Association. He says his current sources on the force point to a computer disk included in the last package mailed to KSAS.

CHARLES WILES, FMR. WICHITA POLICE FIELD COMMANDER: The disk had apparently been used before and electronically they peeled it back and found information that had not erased which led to the killer.

MATTINGLY: It is a common misunderstanding of computer users. Data from a file that is deleted doesn't always disappear and experts can retrieve information. A computer was seized at the Park City Public Library at the time of Rader's arrest, shortly after Noon on Friday.

WILLIAMS: The bottom line BTK is arrested.

MATTINGLY: But could a computer disk provide the kind of evidence that would provoke such a bold and confident statement? The head of the BTK task force thanked previous police investigators for their meticulous preservation of evidence gathered from back in the '70s, a suggestion to many that the final piece of the puzzle was DNA.

It sounded like he was talking about DNA, was he?

WILLIAMS: That I cannot discuss.

MATTINGLY: But the governor of Kansas reportedly told the Associated Press that DNA broke the case. BTK left semen at several of his early crime scenes and since the advent of DNA testing, more than 4,000 Wichita men have provided DNA material for comparison.

Dennis Rader's pastor told CNN that Rader's daughter was also asked by the FBI to provide a DNA sample in the final days of the manhunt. Sources high in the investigation, however, say the daughter did not play a role in leading police to Rader.

Chief Williams will only say that the case built against BTK is as complex as the killer himself and that prosecutors will ultimately reveal that no single piece of evidence made the difference.

But sources close to the investigation tell CNN that success came from one critical decision, a decision made by Chief Williams back in March when the BTK killer first reemerged after 25 years of silence.

WILLIAMS: We limit the amount of information flow. We script what we put out there and no more.

MATTINGLY: The purpose of the strategy was to keep BTK communicating, to clamp an information lockdown on the case while the killer sent a flurry of notes and packages most to local media. The more he sent, they believe, the more likely he was to make a mistake and the closer they could get.

WILLIAMS: That's who we were focusing on was establishing one- on-one contact with him.

MATTINGLY: And did you do that?

WILLIAMS: I would venture to say that I think we did.

MATTINGLY: Verbal communication with him?

WILLIAMS: Not verbal.

MATTINGLY: Written communication directly with him?

WILLIAMS: We're not going to go into the kind of communication we established with him.

MATTINGLY: But again sources close to the investigation say the communication stopped short of a personal dialogue. Meanwhile, a nervous public grew impatient for a dialogue of its own.

WILLIAMS: It almost became a question of the day seven days a week, even in church, you know. People come up to you in church, "Are you guys close to catching BTK? How soon do you think you're going to catch BTK?"

MATTINGLY: Important questions now apparently answered.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: But when it comes to the question of why there may never be any satisfactory answers -- Aaron.

BROWN: All right, David, let me run three by you quickly if I can. Is he talking?

MATTINGLY: We are told that he is talking but the content of his conversations is being strictly shut down in this code of silence that is now being shrouded around this portion of the investigation.

The officials here are saying that this is an ongoing investigation. They're getting very serious about it today, the chief, in fact, complaining about news coverage, about some of the inaccuracies that have been out there. So, what he might be saying we may not ever really find out until this case goes to court.

BROWN: OK, just to button that one up, there was a story floating around that he may have confessed to some or all and are the police shooting that down? That's a quickie.

MATTINGLY: Officials here say they will not comment on whether or not there are any confessions going on.

BROWN: OK.

MATTINGLY: They did shoot down the idea that he's confessed to other crimes beyond the ten.

BROWN: OK. Is there any evidence that he had been a suspect prior to this -- the last couple of weeks?

MATTINGLY: There is some discussion from people that are close to this case. They are telling us that it's possible they had narrowed the field and they had their eye on him for some time. How long though, the chief says, we will have to wait until the court case to find out exactly what they knew about him and when.

BROWN: David, thank you, David Mattingly out in Wichita, Kansas tonight.

In 1977, three years after BTK killed his first victims, Wichita was still the kind of place where people sometimes left their front doors unlocked. Then police announced they were looking for a serial killer and life in Wichita changed fundamentally and in some ways forever.

To live in that city meant living in terror. Sometimes the terror was as present as a new murder and sometimes it was more distant, the reality that the killer, whoever he was, was still out there. That's the city's terror.

Cindy Duckett's terror was different. Until tonight, Cindy has only granted interviews in silhouette without allowing her name to be used. Tonight, she talks freely for the first time and she did to CNN's Frank Buckley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nancy Fox was 25, Cindy Duckett, 21. In 1977 they worked together at the mall. Cindy, now a grandmother, showed us where they parked their cars the last time she saw her friend.

CINDY DUCKETT, FRIEND MURDERED BY BTK: I said goodbye. I went this way a little ways. She went that way a little ways and that was it. I never saw her again alive.

BUCKLEY: Fox was found murdered in her duplex the next morning.

DUCKETT: I just felt bombarded just overwhelmed. I almost went into an emotional shutdown. It was a very, very scary, scary time.

BUCKLEY: Cindy wondered why it was Nancy and not her, if the killer had plans to come back for her. Police wondered the same thing and for weeks they gave her an escort. Along the way they gave her a bit of advice.

DUCKETT: Most of them were telling me, "Look, get a gun. This isn't worth it. I have a wife. I have young children. This is what I'm telling her to do. This is what you need to do too" and I believed them.

BUCKLEY: You got a gun? DUCKETT: I did get a gun.

BUCKLEY: This gun that she still has. She no longer carries it in her purse but Duckett says in the late '70s she wasn't the only one.

DUCKETT: A lot of women were buying guns, having alarm systems put in, dead bolts, all kinds of activity like that was taking place all over town. That was the norm.

BUCKLEY: And so was this. People would check their phones as soon as they got home.

DUCKETT: To make sure that it hadn't been cut because that was one of the things that was common was the lines were cut and women all over town were doing that, checking their phone lines the minute they walked in the door.

BUCKLEY: That just seems...

DUCKETT: Unreal, I know.

BUCKLEY: Over time the fear that gripped Wichita and consumed Duckett slowly waned but she never forgot and even kept a recording of the killer's call to police.

911 CALLER: Yes, you will find a homicide at 843 South Pershing, Nancy Fox.

911 OPERATOR: I'm sorry, sir. I can't understand. What's the address? 843 South Pershing.

911 CALLER: That is correct.

DUCKETT: Trying, do I know him? Do I know him? Do I know him? It just seemed like somebody should know him.

BUCKLEY: And that fear of BTK that she had long ago conquered returned when BTK reappeared last year. Did it ignite any of the old fears?

DUCKETT: Yes. Yes. It took me back to that time and, yes, I regressed for a little while, almost paranoid for the first week or so.

BUCKLEY: She called police to check out her home. She instructed her family to be careful, then months of uncertainty again until Saturday when investigators announced they had made an arrest of this suspect who didn't have the face of the monster she was expecting.

DUCKETT: I don't know how to explain that. I can't tell you that there's a picture in my mind of what I thought. I just know that what I've seen isn't it. It doesn't match but I think they've got the right guy.

BUCKLEY: And with his arrest, Duckett believes, at last her fear may be gone forever.

Frank Buckley CNN, Wichita, Kansas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: In the abstract in our imaginations monsters rarely look like people we know, so imagine, if you can, what it must have been like in Wichita on Saturday morning to find the man suspected by police of ten murders was the guy next door, was the cub scout leader, was the guy you sat next to in church, cranky sometimes like the rest of us, ordinary if only on the outside.

Here's CNN's Jonathan Freed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If the allegations are true, then Dennis Rader has led a double life for 30 years, managing to hide in plain sight. Since police accused him of being Wichita's infamous serial killer, the BTK strangler, people who know him are struggling to figure out who he really is.

DEE STUART, FMR. PARK CITY COUNCIL: This is a man that we knew as our compliance officer, the man I would speak to at City Hall. I don't know that man.

FREED: Dee Stuart is a former city counselor in Rader's home of Park City, just north of Wichita. She used to see Rader around City Hall where they'd give each other a friendly wave. Rader worked as the compliance officer telling people to put their trash cans away and working as the dog catcher. Stuart is running for mayor and a few days before he was arrested, Rader stopped by her house to inform her some campaign signs were illegally placed.

When he rang your doorbell last week would you have let him in?

STUART: Yes, absolutely. He wasn't BTK. He was Dennis Rader. He was somebody I knew.

FREED: Rader is known for being a real stickler with rules, which was after all his job but some say he overdid it. One neighbor felt harassed by Rader and his rule book.

ERIC LOWRY, RADER'S NEIGHBOR: We've been doing it for 13 years. It's just like a normal thing, you know. I'm glad it's over. You know I don't care if he's BTK or what. He's gone. He's not going to bother me anymore so that's good for me.

FREED: We're trying to answer the question who is this guy? What's your impression of him?

DANNY SAVILLE, LAWYER: He didn't like to lose.

FREED: Danny Saville is a lawyer who challenged Dennis Rader in court a few years ago.

SAVILLE: He was very, very focused on winning.

FREED: So focused, Seville says, that Rader had prepared an inch thick document complete with photos for a couple of $25 dog fines.

SAVILLE: I could see him killing a dog in a heartbeat. I mean he was a dog catcher, you know, and he seemed very cold, very meticulous.

FREED: Rader was recently elected president of his church, a Lutheran congregation now stunned, unable to comprehend that the scout master, husband and father of two might be the murderer they've been praying for years would be caught.

PASTOR MICHAEL CLARK, CHRIST LUTHERAN CHURCH: He was kind of a soft-spoken person, a person who people respected and he was there. He responded to people. I saw him interact with people every Sunday morning in church in a very positive, healthy way.

FREED: Many here feel regardless of whether or not he's found guilty that the accusations have already taken away the man they knew.

STUART: This is black magic. It's there. He's there and then he's gone.

FREED: Jonathan Freed, CNN, Wichita, Kansas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The image of BTK that many people in Wichita carried in their minds for years was shaped in part by the opinions of criminal experts. The business of profiling serial killers is anything but exact but it is a business.

We're joined now by CNN's Nancy Grace, former prosecutor and host of "NANCY GRACE LIVE" and it's nice to see you. Was the profile close in this case?

NANCY GRACE, CNN HOST: Well, normally profiles are about 80 percent right. In this one, I think they were off, Aaron, and I got to tell you from prosecuting a lot of murder cases the defendant is never what you perceive him to be in your mind. I would get a murder file and look at it and then when I would see the defendant in court, I would be stunned. How could this ordinary guy do such a thing?

BROWN: Yes. Just reading a couple of things from the profile his mother was probably passive, perhaps well-educated. His father was probably less educated than his mother, dominant, possibly physical and threatening. Where does stuff like this come from?

GRACE: Truth.

BROWN: Yes.

GRACE: It sounds to me like somebody is justifying their own existence, OK, in the food chain of profiling because that is so -- it's so much overreaching. And the problem with some profiling, of course at the time this started profiling was in its inception and it's really just an art. But cops and law enforcement start buying into it and believing it and looking for that person and that's where you can get hurt.

BROWN: Do these, not all of them because John Muhammad is different from Ted Bundy.

GRACE: Yes.

BROWN: Is different from the kid in Atlanta who -- are there similar strains? Is there something that ties Son of Sam to Ted Bundy to the Boston Strangler?

GRACE: Very often, Aaron, you can put money on it. Serial killers are normally white. They are normally males. They very typically have a job. If I had put a profile on this guy, just being a prosecutor, I would have said a white male in his 20s or 30s that had freedom during the day to go commit murders. That doesn't mean he didn't have a job but that he could travel around during the day.

Now, beyond that, I think it was a lot of overreaching and overreaching is fine in some circumstances but when law enforcement starts believing it and looking for that person to the exclusion of all others it's wrong.

BROWN: Well, it's hard, I mean in a sense it's hard to -- it's hard to look for all men who have dominant or passive mothers. I mean you...

GRACE: Well, that could be just about any of us.

BROWN: Right, I mean it's hard to know sort of what to do with some of that. Is it -- how big an issue is control? Is it control, sex, violence? I mean does that tie these things together?

GRACE: Well, the fact that this guy masturbated on his victims, you know there was a sexual tinge to it so...

BROWN: Is there almost always a sexual tinge to these things?

GRACE: Yes, yes although we just had a serial killer, Coral Eugene Watts, that not only crossed racial lines...

BROWN: Where was that one?

GRACE: Texas, Michigan, he was all over the place, prolific.

BROWN: OK. Yes.

GRACE: Very often the defendant, the killer kills the same race, normally kills women. Very often there is a sexual tinge to it as we see here but he wouldn't actually have sex with many of the victims.

BROWN: Yes.

GRACE: But he would masturbate on the victims, so you know that there's a sexual component to it. Of course, here they thought he was Hispanic and they got -- because of his bad English in his letters. A lot of their ideas they got from his letters. It wasn't through typical profiling.

BROWN: What does that, the letters themselves and there's the one letter where he's upset that they're not, whoever did this, he's upset that they're not giving him enough attention.

GRACE: Put him in the paper.

BROWN: Yes, what is that about? What does that tell us?

GRACE: Well, it tells me this guy is an evil Barney Fife and I love Barney Fife, Aaron, but the reality is this guy was desperate to have authority, to have control over somebody.

BROWN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to control.

GRACE: And to be noticed for Pete's sake.

BROWN: Yes. Even noticed for doing something...

GRACE: Horrible.

BROWN: ...unbelievably despicable.

GRACE: You know what's scary to me in this case we know he's already claimed ten victims but the fact that he began writing again, began trying to get attention he so desperately craved, says to me that he was about to commit other murders.

BROWN: As opposed to I want to get caught?

GRACE: Exactly. Oh, please. This guy did not want to get caught. He loved this. This was his profession.

BROWN: I've waited a long time for you to look at me like that and go "Oh, please."

GRACE: Listen, if you look at serial killers, look at -- they always think of them as dysfunctional loners, no. Look at Ted Bundy. People loved him. Look at John Wayne Gacy, you know. They fit into our society beautifully.

BROWN: Nice to see you.

GRACE: Thank you.

BROWN: Congratulations on the launch of the program. It's been great.

GRACE: Thank you for having me.

BROWN: Thank you.

As we continue tonight more on the killer's mangled words and what they say about a twisted mind.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): "It's hard to control myself," he wrote in that first letter. "You probably call me psychotic with sexual perversion hang-up. Where this monster enter my brain I will never know. But, it here to stay."

BROWN (voice-over): Also tonight the killers who haven't been caught not even decades later.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are really good at identifying serial cases that they occur within a very short time period. It's when they become more spread out, both in time and space that we really stink.

BROWN: Later a different kind of obsession.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think what we're dealing with is the same reason why people get on roller coasters. It's a way of scaring ourselves while at the same time being safe.

BROWN: Explaining our obsession or at least fascination with monsters.

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Not all serial killers seek public attention but, as we were just talking about, BTK most certainly did sending his first letter to the local media more than 30 years ago.

That letter and those that followed provide a crude window into the mind of a killer. Different people may disagree on what the words say about him. What's certain though the words themselves are chilling.

Here's NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NISSEN (voice-over): From the first, the letters taunted police, described details from crime scenes that only the killer could know. The body of Julie Otero, one of four members of one family strangled in their home in early 1974, was "Laying on her back crosswise on the bed pointed in southwestern direction," wrote the presumed killer. All four were strangled with "window blind cord."

Eleven-year-old Josephine's glasses were in the southwest bedroom. Nine-year-old Joseph's radio was left blaring. The watch of the father, Joe Otero, was missing. "I needed on, so I took it," the author wrote "runs good."

The letter spelled out how the killer killed but not why, spelled it out with errors that made authorities think the writer was trying to fool them, trying to seem less educated than he really was.

"It hard to control myself," he wrote in that first letter. "You probably call me psychotic with sexual perversion hang-up. Where this monster enter my brain I will never know. But, it here to stay."

Profilers said the letter writer clearly wanted to be recognized, not only for his chilling crimes but for his intelligence, his poetry. When the "Wichita Eagle Beacon" didn't publish a poem he sent them about Shirley Vian, a 26-year-old mother of three murdered in March of '77, he wrote to a local TV station to complain.

"I find the newspaper not writing about the poem, on Vian unamusing," he wrote. "How many do I have to kill, before I get my name in the paper or some national attention?"

In the same letter he said it was time the media came up with a catchy name for him. "I like the following," he wrote. "How about you? The BTK Strangler, Wichita strangler, poetic strangler, the bondage stranger or psycho, the Wichita hangman, the Wichita executioner, the Garrote Phantom, the asphyxiator."

BTK's poems gave authorities some of their strongest early leaders. In a letter claiming responsibility for the December, '77 murder of Nancy Fox, BTK enclosed a poem "Oh! Death to Nancy," patterned after a poem titled "Oh, Death" that had been published in a Wichita state university textbook.

"What is this that I can see" read the author's version. "Cold icy hands taking hold of me for death has come you all can see."

Authorities started looking at class lists of students who had taken courses at the university that used that text. Suspect Dennis Rader was a student at Wichita State.

BTK wrote another poem to an intended victim, a woman who did not come home while the killer was lying in wait for her. The ending lines "Alone again I trod in pass memory of mirrors and ponder why number eight was not. Oh, Anna why didn't you appear?"

After years of silence, BTK resurfaced last March with another letter wrapped around photos of the body of Vicki Wegerle, a Wichita woman killed in 1986 and a copy of her driver's license.

The return address on the envelope ID'd the sender as Bill Thomas Killman, initials BTK. The contents were not made public but authorities said it was typical of BTK's writing over the years, full of teases, challenges, boasts. "Good luck with your hunting," wrote BTK at the end of that first letter, "yours truly guiltily."

Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The words of BTK possibly, also possibly the words of Dennis Rader, husband, father, friend. In a moment two friends of the family and their take on the man they've known for years. We'll take a break first.

This is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In case you're just joining us, we're devoting the hour to the BTK case in Wichita, Kansas.

Before we move on, a quick update of what we know at this moment. Investigators in Wichita say nothing for the moment about what they've found or haven't found at the home of Dennis Rader over the weekend, Although they've been searching long and hard. Mr. Rader faces a preliminary hearing tomorrow on 10 charges, eight of which are first- degree murder, relating to a string of killings that began in 1974.

Unclear so far precisely what evidence they may have against Mr. Rader, who's a husband, a father, a president of his church. His pastor says Mr. Rader's daughter provided a DNA sample. Other sources say investigators got a break from a computer disk that BTK sent to the media. Police, however, are saying very little for the record.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Since the arrest of BTK, speculations, inaccurate information, as well as irresponsible information, has been disseminated throughout the community by some local and national media organizations. This type of assumptions and speculations have and will continue to complicate an already complex investigation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: As for Mr. Rader, nothing from him yet, no statement either from him or from a lawyer representing him. In fact, it's not clear yet if he has representation.

We suspect that every friend Dennis Rader ever had, every parishioner in his church, every co-worker in his office, every neighbor on his block, all wondering what it was they didn't see. How could that guy in church or that guy at the little league game be the same guy that police say terrorized a community for three decades?

Joining us now, Ray and Jane Reiss, longtime friends of Dennis Rader and his wife, Paula. They join us from Wichita. We're glad to see them tonight.

Jane, you've known Paula almost literally your whole life. I think you were in the fifth grade together. Have you talked to her or had communication with her or her family?

JANE REISS, FRIEND OF PAULA RADER: No.

I did talk to her brother-in-law on Saturday and didn't ask any questions, just to tell him, you know, that we were concerned and we were supporting Paula.

BROWN: And just your general reaction when -- I guess to a lot of you in Wichita, this started to buzz that it might -- he might be the suspect on Friday, right?

J. REISS: Correct.

BROWN: And what was your reaction when you started to hear such a thing?

J. REISS: Disbelief, because it was somebody that we knew, but it really didn't sink in until hearing the press conference. And when they announced his name at the press conference, I just pretty much fell apart.

BROWN: Do you hope it's not him?

J. REISS: Well, you don't want it to be anybody you know. You don't want it to be anybody. You feel bad for the victims and for everybody. But I wish it wasn't him, you know.

BROWN: Ray, you hear these descriptions of him. He was a good guy. He was kind of a jerk. I mean, it kind of depends a bit on who you talk to. In the end, what you get is a picture of an ordinary guy, the guy next door.

RAY REISS, FORMER MAYOR OF PARK CITY: That's exactly what he was.

I've known him for 44 years. Not an indication of anything out of the ordinary. He's just an average person. That's what's scary.

BROWN: Did he seem to be -- does he seem to be someone who craved attention and wasn't getting it in life?

R. REISS: Not at all. He was very reserved, very quiet, attention-to-detail type of person. The mug shot they show on television does not look like the Dennis I know. He was very well dressed. He kept himself very -- you know, a sharp dresser. It's just not the person I know in the paper.

BROWN: As you -- I assume everybody who ever met the guy in Wichita, and I assume this is true of you, are sort of playing back every conversation you ever had, every interaction you ever had. Did you ever, as you play this all back, hindsight being what it is, was there ever a clue, ever a sign, ever any indication that there was something suspicious about him?

R. REISS: I really can't say that there is. I took my wife up to meet him. I didn't realize at the time that she'd known Paula all those years and I'd known Dennis all those years.

And I took Jane up to the city building to meet him and put their hands together. It's like, hi, Dennis, this is my wife. She knows your wife. It was amazing. I would never in 1,000 years think this.

BROWN: A thousand is probably...

(CROSSTALK)

R. REISS: It's kind of ironic.

BROWN: A thousand is probably conservative.

R. REISS: Probably.

BROWN: Jane, did Paula ever say anything to you that suggests that there was trouble in the house or that he was acting strangely?

J. REISS: No.

BROWN: Did you have those kind of conversations?

(CROSSTALK)

R. REISS: No. Whenever I saw her, she talked about her children and how proud of her children she was and still is.

BROWN: Did they seem to have, as best you knew, did they seem to have a good marriage?

J. REISS: As much as you would know about anyone, probably, you know, because people just don't tell a lot of things.

BROWN: Is that how -- so it's not so much that maybe clues were missed. It's just that people compartmentalize various parts of their lives?

J. REISS: I don't know. You know, it's hard. It's hard to say. And you really can't even look back and think, oh, this or, oh, that, because you just be second-guessing everything.

(CROSSTALK)

R. REISS: The best way to put this is everybody, you know, think of somebody they've known. I've known somebody 44 years. She's known Paula longer. And all of a sudden, somebody announces that they may be a serial killer. And that's what it's like.

Nobody asks to be in this position, and it's just -- it's very surreal. And, yes, it's not like it's three days later. And we don't want it to be. But, at the same time, if it is, we want it over.

BROWN: It is, when you think of it in the way that you just described it, just think of someone you've known your whole life. You've had a normal relationship, ups and downs. You've had good days and bad days. They have good sides and bad sides. And you wake up one morning and they describe him -- police describe him as a serial killer, that's just got to be a blow to the gut.

J. REISS: It's just unbelievable. Just unbelievable. And we care about the families. And if they're listening, we want them to know we support them.

BROWN: We...

R. REISS: There are a lot of victims. BROWN: There are a lot of victims in a lot of -- in a number of ways, including the most obvious ones.

J. REISS: Right.

BROWN: Thank you both. Not easy to do. We appreciate your time tonight. Thank you.

R. REISS: Thank you.

J. REISS: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you.

In a moment, what it takes to catch a killer and why it isn't always enough, an update on the killers still out there, the cold cases.

We'll take a break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: BTK, the serial killer, belongs to an exclusive group, a rogues gallery of criminals in a class of their own, their names notorious. Son of Sam, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, the child killer in Atlanta, the Green River Killer out west. There are certainly more whose names we do not know.

Here's CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He called himself the Zodiac and used a distinctive circle and cross insignia to identify himself. In the late 1960s, he killed at least five people in and around San Francisco.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that he's -- it appears to us that he is killing just for the thrill.

MESERVE: On October 11, 1969, the Zodiac shot cab driver Paul Stine at this intersection. Bob Kendrick lived nearby.

BOB KENDRICK, SAN FRANCISCO RESIDENT: It was nerve-wracking that night with all the sirens. I don't think anybody expected him to strike here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is Paul Stine's shirt.

MESERVE: The Zodiac later sent pieces of Stine's blood-stained shirt to the news media, part of an ongoing communication that was sometimes conducted in code. The last letter verified as authentic was sent in 1974, more than 30 years ago.

Communications from the Washington snipers and the Unabomber provided clues that led to their capture. The last thing an investigator wants is for communication to stop.

GREGG MCCRARY, FORMER FBI PROFILER: Perhaps they're in prison. They're locked up. One example, they could be dead, which is something that it's kind of the investigator's worst fear, that an offender has died, because it becomes very, very difficult then to solve -- solve the given case.

MESERVE: In fact, the lack of new leads was a factor when police decided to close the Zodiac case in 2004 without an arrest.

Many infamous serial murderers have been caught. Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, was convicted of committing 13 murders in Los Angeles in the 1980s. In 2003, Gary Ridgway, the Green River killer, pleaded guilty to murdering 48 women in the Pacific Northwest. However, McCrary believes there are others out there.

MCCRARY: I'm sure there are serial killers operating now that have not yet been identified as serial killers.

MESERVE: Not identified because investigators have not connected the dots.

JIM TRAINUM, HOMICIDE DETECTIVE: We are really good at identifying serial cases if they occur within a very short time period, such as weeks or months and in a very small geographic area. It's when they become more spread out, both in time and space, that we really stink.

MESERVE (on camera): The FBI has a database intended to help identify serial killers, but participation is voluntary. And local police have entered only a fraction of the violent crimes committed. Some investigators simply don't believe it will help solve their crimes, although, in some cases, only the big picture gives the whole picture, grisly as it may be.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on this special edition of NEWSNIGHT, truth or fiction. It doesn't really matter, why we're so captivated by Hannibal Lecter or Son of Sam, watching us watching them.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: More than 100 years ago, Bram Stoker wrote a gory tale of a serial killer who drank the blood of his victims. The story, "Dracula," was nothing new. People had been telling it in one form or another for centuries. We are in many ways the sum total of the stories we choose to tell ourselves, even if the stories sometimes keep us up at night.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): When it is just fantasy, it's an odd sort of fun.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS")

ANTHONY HOPKINS, ACTOR: I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So we can flock to see "Silence of the Lambs," make it a megahit, scream in the right parts, and call it entertainment. So, when it is fantasy, we enjoy the fright. And, sometimes, if we are far enough away from the killer, even the real ones are fascinating.

In "Natural Born Celebrities," a book out next month, David Schmid tries to understand why.

DAVID SCHMID, AUTHOR, "NATURAL BORN CELEBRITIES": Serial killers in a bizarre kind of way reflect our culture's obsession with fame and with celebrity.

BROWN: Oddly, Ted Bundy, when he escaped from a Colorado courtroom, became a celebrity of sorts, which lasted only as long as it took him to kill again, a child in Florida.

Here was this young and smart and handsome man, a killer again and again, and people couldn't read enough about him, right up to his execution and beyond.

SCHMID: I think that there's a dark side to our natures, and we want to understand what it is that can make people act without inhibition and to sort of break the prohibitions that we place on ourselves.

BROWN: Perhaps it's not all that deep. J.A. Jance, a best- selling crime author's last book, probed the mind of a serial killer.

J.A. JANCE, AUTHOR, "DAY OF THE DEAD": I think what we're dealing with is the same reason why people get on roller coasters. It's a way of scaring ourselves while at the same time being safe.

BROWN: When artwork by John Wayne Gacy, the Chicago serial killer who murdered 33 young men in the '70s, went up for auction, one man paid $20,000 to destroy as many as he could. But when serial killer trading cards went on the market, a million sets were sold.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "SUMMER OF SAM")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: What do you want?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: I want you to go out and kill.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: In the late '70s, when David Berkowitz, the infamous Son of Sam, had New York City gripped in fear, the tabloids made him seem horrible, larger than life. But when he was finally caught, like the man police allege is the BTK killer, he seemed more like the guy next door.

SCHMID: We prefer to think of serial killers as being completely different from us, as being the ultimate outsiders, as being these monstrous, supernatural figures.

BROWN: But, too often, they're not, not even in the movies.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Morning papers past and present after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers from around the country, around the world. We said past and present.

January the 6th. And we thank Wichita State University for a couple of these. January 16, 1974, it all began. "Four in Wichita Family Found Brutally Slain." That was the headline that day. We'll get up to the present in a moment. This is September 17, 1984. "The Wichita Eagle Beacon." "Wichita Woman Found Strangled. Still No Connection to the Earlier Crimes." Now fast-forward all the way to March of 2004, "Sunday Eagle" in Wichita. I just like the headline. "Do You Know BTK?" I wonder how many people in that city and around that city are asking themselves that tonight?

"The Sunday Eagle" this past Sunday, the 27th, pretty straightforward headline. "BTK Arrested. Park City Man Held in 17- Year Killing Spree. Police Have Booked Dennis Rader, 59, on 10 Counts of Suspicion of First-Degree Murder," two distinctly different pictures. Mug shot and what looked like it might be -- just a portrait, family portrait.

"Wichita Eagle" today, Monday. "Report: BTK Suspect Confesses to Killing." Other things now finally on the front page. They also have DNA as part of their investigative work here. And we'll find out someday whether DNA was part of it or not. Thank you.

Other news we should mention while we're here. "Stars and Stripes." "Suicide Bomb Kills at Least 115 in Iraq." This is the worst single incident since the insurgency began. "'Million Dollar Baby' Wins Big at Oscars. Foxx Takes Best Actor For 'Ray.'" Did he have the most adorable daughter or what?

Big story in the East. Snow. March.

Speaking of weather -- and I was, wasn't I? -- the weather in Chicago tomorrow, "belligerent."

We'll wrap it up in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Good friends at "AMERICAN MORNING" have a full program planned for tomorrow. Here's Bill Hemmer with a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Aaron, thanks.

Another big winter storm pounding the Eastern half of the U.S. The snow is still coming down this evening. And it's going to keep coming down in some parts of the country. Getting ready for dangerous roads and a rough morning commute. And when will it ever end? Our complete winter storm coverage starts at 7:00 a.m. Eastern time. Hope to see you then -- Aaron.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Makes me feel good for the ride home coming up.

Good to have you with us tonight. Lou Dobbs ahead for most of you. We're back here tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired February 28, 2005 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
As Larry said, we begin tonight a special edition of the program with a pair of simple facts. Most people, you and I, the guy down the block, aren't likely to be a murder victim or a killer, which is why most people don't spend a whole lot of time worrying or even wondering about either.

Shake those assumptions and the world gets a whole lot scarier though. For years, police in Wichita, Kansas say Dennis Rader lived and killed among his friends and neighbors. For just as long, his friends and neighbors wondered and worried how safe they were, how easy it is to kill.

Tomorrow, Mr. Rader goes before a judge. Tonight, how police came to catch the man they believe is the BTK serial killer, starting with the turning point in the case.

We begin in Wichita and CNN's David Mattingly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NORMAN WILLIAMS, WICHITA POLICE CHIEF: They're going to discover that it was a very complex case.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After eleven months of silence and manhunt that captured world attention, Police Chief Norman Williams told CNN the BTK case suddenly took a turn and began gaining momentum about two weeks ago.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The package sent to our news partners at FOX Kansas.

MATTINGLY: Two weeks ago coincides with when BTK's last known communication, a package, arrived at Wichita station KSAS. Operating under a strict code of silence, however, police said nothing.

But then on Wednesday, two days before the arrest of Dennis Rader, former Police Chief Richard Lamunyon was alerted a capture of the suspected killer was in the works. Lamunyon says the basic question who is BTK was answered by the killer himself.

RICHARD LAMUNYON, FMR. WICHITA POLICE CHIEF: It was a culmination of all the communications over all the years plus what he was giving to the police through the media much of the time that ultimately led to the ability of the police to identify him. MATTINGLY: But what evidence did he give police that led to the capture of a suspect? Authorities won't say but sources close to the Wichita Police following the inside workings of the case say BTK apparently made a mistake.

Charles Wiles is a former Wichita Police field commander and president of the Wichita Retired Police Officers Association. He says his current sources on the force point to a computer disk included in the last package mailed to KSAS.

CHARLES WILES, FMR. WICHITA POLICE FIELD COMMANDER: The disk had apparently been used before and electronically they peeled it back and found information that had not erased which led to the killer.

MATTINGLY: It is a common misunderstanding of computer users. Data from a file that is deleted doesn't always disappear and experts can retrieve information. A computer was seized at the Park City Public Library at the time of Rader's arrest, shortly after Noon on Friday.

WILLIAMS: The bottom line BTK is arrested.

MATTINGLY: But could a computer disk provide the kind of evidence that would provoke such a bold and confident statement? The head of the BTK task force thanked previous police investigators for their meticulous preservation of evidence gathered from back in the '70s, a suggestion to many that the final piece of the puzzle was DNA.

It sounded like he was talking about DNA, was he?

WILLIAMS: That I cannot discuss.

MATTINGLY: But the governor of Kansas reportedly told the Associated Press that DNA broke the case. BTK left semen at several of his early crime scenes and since the advent of DNA testing, more than 4,000 Wichita men have provided DNA material for comparison.

Dennis Rader's pastor told CNN that Rader's daughter was also asked by the FBI to provide a DNA sample in the final days of the manhunt. Sources high in the investigation, however, say the daughter did not play a role in leading police to Rader.

Chief Williams will only say that the case built against BTK is as complex as the killer himself and that prosecutors will ultimately reveal that no single piece of evidence made the difference.

But sources close to the investigation tell CNN that success came from one critical decision, a decision made by Chief Williams back in March when the BTK killer first reemerged after 25 years of silence.

WILLIAMS: We limit the amount of information flow. We script what we put out there and no more.

MATTINGLY: The purpose of the strategy was to keep BTK communicating, to clamp an information lockdown on the case while the killer sent a flurry of notes and packages most to local media. The more he sent, they believe, the more likely he was to make a mistake and the closer they could get.

WILLIAMS: That's who we were focusing on was establishing one- on-one contact with him.

MATTINGLY: And did you do that?

WILLIAMS: I would venture to say that I think we did.

MATTINGLY: Verbal communication with him?

WILLIAMS: Not verbal.

MATTINGLY: Written communication directly with him?

WILLIAMS: We're not going to go into the kind of communication we established with him.

MATTINGLY: But again sources close to the investigation say the communication stopped short of a personal dialogue. Meanwhile, a nervous public grew impatient for a dialogue of its own.

WILLIAMS: It almost became a question of the day seven days a week, even in church, you know. People come up to you in church, "Are you guys close to catching BTK? How soon do you think you're going to catch BTK?"

MATTINGLY: Important questions now apparently answered.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: But when it comes to the question of why there may never be any satisfactory answers -- Aaron.

BROWN: All right, David, let me run three by you quickly if I can. Is he talking?

MATTINGLY: We are told that he is talking but the content of his conversations is being strictly shut down in this code of silence that is now being shrouded around this portion of the investigation.

The officials here are saying that this is an ongoing investigation. They're getting very serious about it today, the chief, in fact, complaining about news coverage, about some of the inaccuracies that have been out there. So, what he might be saying we may not ever really find out until this case goes to court.

BROWN: OK, just to button that one up, there was a story floating around that he may have confessed to some or all and are the police shooting that down? That's a quickie.

MATTINGLY: Officials here say they will not comment on whether or not there are any confessions going on.

BROWN: OK.

MATTINGLY: They did shoot down the idea that he's confessed to other crimes beyond the ten.

BROWN: OK. Is there any evidence that he had been a suspect prior to this -- the last couple of weeks?

MATTINGLY: There is some discussion from people that are close to this case. They are telling us that it's possible they had narrowed the field and they had their eye on him for some time. How long though, the chief says, we will have to wait until the court case to find out exactly what they knew about him and when.

BROWN: David, thank you, David Mattingly out in Wichita, Kansas tonight.

In 1977, three years after BTK killed his first victims, Wichita was still the kind of place where people sometimes left their front doors unlocked. Then police announced they were looking for a serial killer and life in Wichita changed fundamentally and in some ways forever.

To live in that city meant living in terror. Sometimes the terror was as present as a new murder and sometimes it was more distant, the reality that the killer, whoever he was, was still out there. That's the city's terror.

Cindy Duckett's terror was different. Until tonight, Cindy has only granted interviews in silhouette without allowing her name to be used. Tonight, she talks freely for the first time and she did to CNN's Frank Buckley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nancy Fox was 25, Cindy Duckett, 21. In 1977 they worked together at the mall. Cindy, now a grandmother, showed us where they parked their cars the last time she saw her friend.

CINDY DUCKETT, FRIEND MURDERED BY BTK: I said goodbye. I went this way a little ways. She went that way a little ways and that was it. I never saw her again alive.

BUCKLEY: Fox was found murdered in her duplex the next morning.

DUCKETT: I just felt bombarded just overwhelmed. I almost went into an emotional shutdown. It was a very, very scary, scary time.

BUCKLEY: Cindy wondered why it was Nancy and not her, if the killer had plans to come back for her. Police wondered the same thing and for weeks they gave her an escort. Along the way they gave her a bit of advice.

DUCKETT: Most of them were telling me, "Look, get a gun. This isn't worth it. I have a wife. I have young children. This is what I'm telling her to do. This is what you need to do too" and I believed them.

BUCKLEY: You got a gun? DUCKETT: I did get a gun.

BUCKLEY: This gun that she still has. She no longer carries it in her purse but Duckett says in the late '70s she wasn't the only one.

DUCKETT: A lot of women were buying guns, having alarm systems put in, dead bolts, all kinds of activity like that was taking place all over town. That was the norm.

BUCKLEY: And so was this. People would check their phones as soon as they got home.

DUCKETT: To make sure that it hadn't been cut because that was one of the things that was common was the lines were cut and women all over town were doing that, checking their phone lines the minute they walked in the door.

BUCKLEY: That just seems...

DUCKETT: Unreal, I know.

BUCKLEY: Over time the fear that gripped Wichita and consumed Duckett slowly waned but she never forgot and even kept a recording of the killer's call to police.

911 CALLER: Yes, you will find a homicide at 843 South Pershing, Nancy Fox.

911 OPERATOR: I'm sorry, sir. I can't understand. What's the address? 843 South Pershing.

911 CALLER: That is correct.

DUCKETT: Trying, do I know him? Do I know him? Do I know him? It just seemed like somebody should know him.

BUCKLEY: And that fear of BTK that she had long ago conquered returned when BTK reappeared last year. Did it ignite any of the old fears?

DUCKETT: Yes. Yes. It took me back to that time and, yes, I regressed for a little while, almost paranoid for the first week or so.

BUCKLEY: She called police to check out her home. She instructed her family to be careful, then months of uncertainty again until Saturday when investigators announced they had made an arrest of this suspect who didn't have the face of the monster she was expecting.

DUCKETT: I don't know how to explain that. I can't tell you that there's a picture in my mind of what I thought. I just know that what I've seen isn't it. It doesn't match but I think they've got the right guy.

BUCKLEY: And with his arrest, Duckett believes, at last her fear may be gone forever.

Frank Buckley CNN, Wichita, Kansas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: In the abstract in our imaginations monsters rarely look like people we know, so imagine, if you can, what it must have been like in Wichita on Saturday morning to find the man suspected by police of ten murders was the guy next door, was the cub scout leader, was the guy you sat next to in church, cranky sometimes like the rest of us, ordinary if only on the outside.

Here's CNN's Jonathan Freed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If the allegations are true, then Dennis Rader has led a double life for 30 years, managing to hide in plain sight. Since police accused him of being Wichita's infamous serial killer, the BTK strangler, people who know him are struggling to figure out who he really is.

DEE STUART, FMR. PARK CITY COUNCIL: This is a man that we knew as our compliance officer, the man I would speak to at City Hall. I don't know that man.

FREED: Dee Stuart is a former city counselor in Rader's home of Park City, just north of Wichita. She used to see Rader around City Hall where they'd give each other a friendly wave. Rader worked as the compliance officer telling people to put their trash cans away and working as the dog catcher. Stuart is running for mayor and a few days before he was arrested, Rader stopped by her house to inform her some campaign signs were illegally placed.

When he rang your doorbell last week would you have let him in?

STUART: Yes, absolutely. He wasn't BTK. He was Dennis Rader. He was somebody I knew.

FREED: Rader is known for being a real stickler with rules, which was after all his job but some say he overdid it. One neighbor felt harassed by Rader and his rule book.

ERIC LOWRY, RADER'S NEIGHBOR: We've been doing it for 13 years. It's just like a normal thing, you know. I'm glad it's over. You know I don't care if he's BTK or what. He's gone. He's not going to bother me anymore so that's good for me.

FREED: We're trying to answer the question who is this guy? What's your impression of him?

DANNY SAVILLE, LAWYER: He didn't like to lose.

FREED: Danny Saville is a lawyer who challenged Dennis Rader in court a few years ago.

SAVILLE: He was very, very focused on winning.

FREED: So focused, Seville says, that Rader had prepared an inch thick document complete with photos for a couple of $25 dog fines.

SAVILLE: I could see him killing a dog in a heartbeat. I mean he was a dog catcher, you know, and he seemed very cold, very meticulous.

FREED: Rader was recently elected president of his church, a Lutheran congregation now stunned, unable to comprehend that the scout master, husband and father of two might be the murderer they've been praying for years would be caught.

PASTOR MICHAEL CLARK, CHRIST LUTHERAN CHURCH: He was kind of a soft-spoken person, a person who people respected and he was there. He responded to people. I saw him interact with people every Sunday morning in church in a very positive, healthy way.

FREED: Many here feel regardless of whether or not he's found guilty that the accusations have already taken away the man they knew.

STUART: This is black magic. It's there. He's there and then he's gone.

FREED: Jonathan Freed, CNN, Wichita, Kansas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The image of BTK that many people in Wichita carried in their minds for years was shaped in part by the opinions of criminal experts. The business of profiling serial killers is anything but exact but it is a business.

We're joined now by CNN's Nancy Grace, former prosecutor and host of "NANCY GRACE LIVE" and it's nice to see you. Was the profile close in this case?

NANCY GRACE, CNN HOST: Well, normally profiles are about 80 percent right. In this one, I think they were off, Aaron, and I got to tell you from prosecuting a lot of murder cases the defendant is never what you perceive him to be in your mind. I would get a murder file and look at it and then when I would see the defendant in court, I would be stunned. How could this ordinary guy do such a thing?

BROWN: Yes. Just reading a couple of things from the profile his mother was probably passive, perhaps well-educated. His father was probably less educated than his mother, dominant, possibly physical and threatening. Where does stuff like this come from?

GRACE: Truth.

BROWN: Yes.

GRACE: It sounds to me like somebody is justifying their own existence, OK, in the food chain of profiling because that is so -- it's so much overreaching. And the problem with some profiling, of course at the time this started profiling was in its inception and it's really just an art. But cops and law enforcement start buying into it and believing it and looking for that person and that's where you can get hurt.

BROWN: Do these, not all of them because John Muhammad is different from Ted Bundy.

GRACE: Yes.

BROWN: Is different from the kid in Atlanta who -- are there similar strains? Is there something that ties Son of Sam to Ted Bundy to the Boston Strangler?

GRACE: Very often, Aaron, you can put money on it. Serial killers are normally white. They are normally males. They very typically have a job. If I had put a profile on this guy, just being a prosecutor, I would have said a white male in his 20s or 30s that had freedom during the day to go commit murders. That doesn't mean he didn't have a job but that he could travel around during the day.

Now, beyond that, I think it was a lot of overreaching and overreaching is fine in some circumstances but when law enforcement starts believing it and looking for that person to the exclusion of all others it's wrong.

BROWN: Well, it's hard, I mean in a sense it's hard to -- it's hard to look for all men who have dominant or passive mothers. I mean you...

GRACE: Well, that could be just about any of us.

BROWN: Right, I mean it's hard to know sort of what to do with some of that. Is it -- how big an issue is control? Is it control, sex, violence? I mean does that tie these things together?

GRACE: Well, the fact that this guy masturbated on his victims, you know there was a sexual tinge to it so...

BROWN: Is there almost always a sexual tinge to these things?

GRACE: Yes, yes although we just had a serial killer, Coral Eugene Watts, that not only crossed racial lines...

BROWN: Where was that one?

GRACE: Texas, Michigan, he was all over the place, prolific.

BROWN: OK. Yes.

GRACE: Very often the defendant, the killer kills the same race, normally kills women. Very often there is a sexual tinge to it as we see here but he wouldn't actually have sex with many of the victims.

BROWN: Yes.

GRACE: But he would masturbate on the victims, so you know that there's a sexual component to it. Of course, here they thought he was Hispanic and they got -- because of his bad English in his letters. A lot of their ideas they got from his letters. It wasn't through typical profiling.

BROWN: What does that, the letters themselves and there's the one letter where he's upset that they're not, whoever did this, he's upset that they're not giving him enough attention.

GRACE: Put him in the paper.

BROWN: Yes, what is that about? What does that tell us?

GRACE: Well, it tells me this guy is an evil Barney Fife and I love Barney Fife, Aaron, but the reality is this guy was desperate to have authority, to have control over somebody.

BROWN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to control.

GRACE: And to be noticed for Pete's sake.

BROWN: Yes. Even noticed for doing something...

GRACE: Horrible.

BROWN: ...unbelievably despicable.

GRACE: You know what's scary to me in this case we know he's already claimed ten victims but the fact that he began writing again, began trying to get attention he so desperately craved, says to me that he was about to commit other murders.

BROWN: As opposed to I want to get caught?

GRACE: Exactly. Oh, please. This guy did not want to get caught. He loved this. This was his profession.

BROWN: I've waited a long time for you to look at me like that and go "Oh, please."

GRACE: Listen, if you look at serial killers, look at -- they always think of them as dysfunctional loners, no. Look at Ted Bundy. People loved him. Look at John Wayne Gacy, you know. They fit into our society beautifully.

BROWN: Nice to see you.

GRACE: Thank you.

BROWN: Congratulations on the launch of the program. It's been great.

GRACE: Thank you for having me.

BROWN: Thank you.

As we continue tonight more on the killer's mangled words and what they say about a twisted mind.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): "It's hard to control myself," he wrote in that first letter. "You probably call me psychotic with sexual perversion hang-up. Where this monster enter my brain I will never know. But, it here to stay."

BROWN (voice-over): Also tonight the killers who haven't been caught not even decades later.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are really good at identifying serial cases that they occur within a very short time period. It's when they become more spread out, both in time and space that we really stink.

BROWN: Later a different kind of obsession.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think what we're dealing with is the same reason why people get on roller coasters. It's a way of scaring ourselves while at the same time being safe.

BROWN: Explaining our obsession or at least fascination with monsters.

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Not all serial killers seek public attention but, as we were just talking about, BTK most certainly did sending his first letter to the local media more than 30 years ago.

That letter and those that followed provide a crude window into the mind of a killer. Different people may disagree on what the words say about him. What's certain though the words themselves are chilling.

Here's NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NISSEN (voice-over): From the first, the letters taunted police, described details from crime scenes that only the killer could know. The body of Julie Otero, one of four members of one family strangled in their home in early 1974, was "Laying on her back crosswise on the bed pointed in southwestern direction," wrote the presumed killer. All four were strangled with "window blind cord."

Eleven-year-old Josephine's glasses were in the southwest bedroom. Nine-year-old Joseph's radio was left blaring. The watch of the father, Joe Otero, was missing. "I needed on, so I took it," the author wrote "runs good."

The letter spelled out how the killer killed but not why, spelled it out with errors that made authorities think the writer was trying to fool them, trying to seem less educated than he really was.

"It hard to control myself," he wrote in that first letter. "You probably call me psychotic with sexual perversion hang-up. Where this monster enter my brain I will never know. But, it here to stay."

Profilers said the letter writer clearly wanted to be recognized, not only for his chilling crimes but for his intelligence, his poetry. When the "Wichita Eagle Beacon" didn't publish a poem he sent them about Shirley Vian, a 26-year-old mother of three murdered in March of '77, he wrote to a local TV station to complain.

"I find the newspaper not writing about the poem, on Vian unamusing," he wrote. "How many do I have to kill, before I get my name in the paper or some national attention?"

In the same letter he said it was time the media came up with a catchy name for him. "I like the following," he wrote. "How about you? The BTK Strangler, Wichita strangler, poetic strangler, the bondage stranger or psycho, the Wichita hangman, the Wichita executioner, the Garrote Phantom, the asphyxiator."

BTK's poems gave authorities some of their strongest early leaders. In a letter claiming responsibility for the December, '77 murder of Nancy Fox, BTK enclosed a poem "Oh! Death to Nancy," patterned after a poem titled "Oh, Death" that had been published in a Wichita state university textbook.

"What is this that I can see" read the author's version. "Cold icy hands taking hold of me for death has come you all can see."

Authorities started looking at class lists of students who had taken courses at the university that used that text. Suspect Dennis Rader was a student at Wichita State.

BTK wrote another poem to an intended victim, a woman who did not come home while the killer was lying in wait for her. The ending lines "Alone again I trod in pass memory of mirrors and ponder why number eight was not. Oh, Anna why didn't you appear?"

After years of silence, BTK resurfaced last March with another letter wrapped around photos of the body of Vicki Wegerle, a Wichita woman killed in 1986 and a copy of her driver's license.

The return address on the envelope ID'd the sender as Bill Thomas Killman, initials BTK. The contents were not made public but authorities said it was typical of BTK's writing over the years, full of teases, challenges, boasts. "Good luck with your hunting," wrote BTK at the end of that first letter, "yours truly guiltily."

Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The words of BTK possibly, also possibly the words of Dennis Rader, husband, father, friend. In a moment two friends of the family and their take on the man they've known for years. We'll take a break first.

This is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In case you're just joining us, we're devoting the hour to the BTK case in Wichita, Kansas.

Before we move on, a quick update of what we know at this moment. Investigators in Wichita say nothing for the moment about what they've found or haven't found at the home of Dennis Rader over the weekend, Although they've been searching long and hard. Mr. Rader faces a preliminary hearing tomorrow on 10 charges, eight of which are first- degree murder, relating to a string of killings that began in 1974.

Unclear so far precisely what evidence they may have against Mr. Rader, who's a husband, a father, a president of his church. His pastor says Mr. Rader's daughter provided a DNA sample. Other sources say investigators got a break from a computer disk that BTK sent to the media. Police, however, are saying very little for the record.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Since the arrest of BTK, speculations, inaccurate information, as well as irresponsible information, has been disseminated throughout the community by some local and national media organizations. This type of assumptions and speculations have and will continue to complicate an already complex investigation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: As for Mr. Rader, nothing from him yet, no statement either from him or from a lawyer representing him. In fact, it's not clear yet if he has representation.

We suspect that every friend Dennis Rader ever had, every parishioner in his church, every co-worker in his office, every neighbor on his block, all wondering what it was they didn't see. How could that guy in church or that guy at the little league game be the same guy that police say terrorized a community for three decades?

Joining us now, Ray and Jane Reiss, longtime friends of Dennis Rader and his wife, Paula. They join us from Wichita. We're glad to see them tonight.

Jane, you've known Paula almost literally your whole life. I think you were in the fifth grade together. Have you talked to her or had communication with her or her family?

JANE REISS, FRIEND OF PAULA RADER: No.

I did talk to her brother-in-law on Saturday and didn't ask any questions, just to tell him, you know, that we were concerned and we were supporting Paula.

BROWN: And just your general reaction when -- I guess to a lot of you in Wichita, this started to buzz that it might -- he might be the suspect on Friday, right?

J. REISS: Correct.

BROWN: And what was your reaction when you started to hear such a thing?

J. REISS: Disbelief, because it was somebody that we knew, but it really didn't sink in until hearing the press conference. And when they announced his name at the press conference, I just pretty much fell apart.

BROWN: Do you hope it's not him?

J. REISS: Well, you don't want it to be anybody you know. You don't want it to be anybody. You feel bad for the victims and for everybody. But I wish it wasn't him, you know.

BROWN: Ray, you hear these descriptions of him. He was a good guy. He was kind of a jerk. I mean, it kind of depends a bit on who you talk to. In the end, what you get is a picture of an ordinary guy, the guy next door.

RAY REISS, FORMER MAYOR OF PARK CITY: That's exactly what he was.

I've known him for 44 years. Not an indication of anything out of the ordinary. He's just an average person. That's what's scary.

BROWN: Did he seem to be -- does he seem to be someone who craved attention and wasn't getting it in life?

R. REISS: Not at all. He was very reserved, very quiet, attention-to-detail type of person. The mug shot they show on television does not look like the Dennis I know. He was very well dressed. He kept himself very -- you know, a sharp dresser. It's just not the person I know in the paper.

BROWN: As you -- I assume everybody who ever met the guy in Wichita, and I assume this is true of you, are sort of playing back every conversation you ever had, every interaction you ever had. Did you ever, as you play this all back, hindsight being what it is, was there ever a clue, ever a sign, ever any indication that there was something suspicious about him?

R. REISS: I really can't say that there is. I took my wife up to meet him. I didn't realize at the time that she'd known Paula all those years and I'd known Dennis all those years.

And I took Jane up to the city building to meet him and put their hands together. It's like, hi, Dennis, this is my wife. She knows your wife. It was amazing. I would never in 1,000 years think this.

BROWN: A thousand is probably...

(CROSSTALK)

R. REISS: It's kind of ironic.

BROWN: A thousand is probably conservative.

R. REISS: Probably.

BROWN: Jane, did Paula ever say anything to you that suggests that there was trouble in the house or that he was acting strangely?

J. REISS: No.

BROWN: Did you have those kind of conversations?

(CROSSTALK)

R. REISS: No. Whenever I saw her, she talked about her children and how proud of her children she was and still is.

BROWN: Did they seem to have, as best you knew, did they seem to have a good marriage?

J. REISS: As much as you would know about anyone, probably, you know, because people just don't tell a lot of things.

BROWN: Is that how -- so it's not so much that maybe clues were missed. It's just that people compartmentalize various parts of their lives?

J. REISS: I don't know. You know, it's hard. It's hard to say. And you really can't even look back and think, oh, this or, oh, that, because you just be second-guessing everything.

(CROSSTALK)

R. REISS: The best way to put this is everybody, you know, think of somebody they've known. I've known somebody 44 years. She's known Paula longer. And all of a sudden, somebody announces that they may be a serial killer. And that's what it's like.

Nobody asks to be in this position, and it's just -- it's very surreal. And, yes, it's not like it's three days later. And we don't want it to be. But, at the same time, if it is, we want it over.

BROWN: It is, when you think of it in the way that you just described it, just think of someone you've known your whole life. You've had a normal relationship, ups and downs. You've had good days and bad days. They have good sides and bad sides. And you wake up one morning and they describe him -- police describe him as a serial killer, that's just got to be a blow to the gut.

J. REISS: It's just unbelievable. Just unbelievable. And we care about the families. And if they're listening, we want them to know we support them.

BROWN: We...

R. REISS: There are a lot of victims. BROWN: There are a lot of victims in a lot of -- in a number of ways, including the most obvious ones.

J. REISS: Right.

BROWN: Thank you both. Not easy to do. We appreciate your time tonight. Thank you.

R. REISS: Thank you.

J. REISS: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you.

In a moment, what it takes to catch a killer and why it isn't always enough, an update on the killers still out there, the cold cases.

We'll take a break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: BTK, the serial killer, belongs to an exclusive group, a rogues gallery of criminals in a class of their own, their names notorious. Son of Sam, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, the child killer in Atlanta, the Green River Killer out west. There are certainly more whose names we do not know.

Here's CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He called himself the Zodiac and used a distinctive circle and cross insignia to identify himself. In the late 1960s, he killed at least five people in and around San Francisco.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that he's -- it appears to us that he is killing just for the thrill.

MESERVE: On October 11, 1969, the Zodiac shot cab driver Paul Stine at this intersection. Bob Kendrick lived nearby.

BOB KENDRICK, SAN FRANCISCO RESIDENT: It was nerve-wracking that night with all the sirens. I don't think anybody expected him to strike here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is Paul Stine's shirt.

MESERVE: The Zodiac later sent pieces of Stine's blood-stained shirt to the news media, part of an ongoing communication that was sometimes conducted in code. The last letter verified as authentic was sent in 1974, more than 30 years ago.

Communications from the Washington snipers and the Unabomber provided clues that led to their capture. The last thing an investigator wants is for communication to stop.

GREGG MCCRARY, FORMER FBI PROFILER: Perhaps they're in prison. They're locked up. One example, they could be dead, which is something that it's kind of the investigator's worst fear, that an offender has died, because it becomes very, very difficult then to solve -- solve the given case.

MESERVE: In fact, the lack of new leads was a factor when police decided to close the Zodiac case in 2004 without an arrest.

Many infamous serial murderers have been caught. Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, was convicted of committing 13 murders in Los Angeles in the 1980s. In 2003, Gary Ridgway, the Green River killer, pleaded guilty to murdering 48 women in the Pacific Northwest. However, McCrary believes there are others out there.

MCCRARY: I'm sure there are serial killers operating now that have not yet been identified as serial killers.

MESERVE: Not identified because investigators have not connected the dots.

JIM TRAINUM, HOMICIDE DETECTIVE: We are really good at identifying serial cases if they occur within a very short time period, such as weeks or months and in a very small geographic area. It's when they become more spread out, both in time and space, that we really stink.

MESERVE (on camera): The FBI has a database intended to help identify serial killers, but participation is voluntary. And local police have entered only a fraction of the violent crimes committed. Some investigators simply don't believe it will help solve their crimes, although, in some cases, only the big picture gives the whole picture, grisly as it may be.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on this special edition of NEWSNIGHT, truth or fiction. It doesn't really matter, why we're so captivated by Hannibal Lecter or Son of Sam, watching us watching them.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: More than 100 years ago, Bram Stoker wrote a gory tale of a serial killer who drank the blood of his victims. The story, "Dracula," was nothing new. People had been telling it in one form or another for centuries. We are in many ways the sum total of the stories we choose to tell ourselves, even if the stories sometimes keep us up at night.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): When it is just fantasy, it's an odd sort of fun.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS")

ANTHONY HOPKINS, ACTOR: I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So we can flock to see "Silence of the Lambs," make it a megahit, scream in the right parts, and call it entertainment. So, when it is fantasy, we enjoy the fright. And, sometimes, if we are far enough away from the killer, even the real ones are fascinating.

In "Natural Born Celebrities," a book out next month, David Schmid tries to understand why.

DAVID SCHMID, AUTHOR, "NATURAL BORN CELEBRITIES": Serial killers in a bizarre kind of way reflect our culture's obsession with fame and with celebrity.

BROWN: Oddly, Ted Bundy, when he escaped from a Colorado courtroom, became a celebrity of sorts, which lasted only as long as it took him to kill again, a child in Florida.

Here was this young and smart and handsome man, a killer again and again, and people couldn't read enough about him, right up to his execution and beyond.

SCHMID: I think that there's a dark side to our natures, and we want to understand what it is that can make people act without inhibition and to sort of break the prohibitions that we place on ourselves.

BROWN: Perhaps it's not all that deep. J.A. Jance, a best- selling crime author's last book, probed the mind of a serial killer.

J.A. JANCE, AUTHOR, "DAY OF THE DEAD": I think what we're dealing with is the same reason why people get on roller coasters. It's a way of scaring ourselves while at the same time being safe.

BROWN: When artwork by John Wayne Gacy, the Chicago serial killer who murdered 33 young men in the '70s, went up for auction, one man paid $20,000 to destroy as many as he could. But when serial killer trading cards went on the market, a million sets were sold.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "SUMMER OF SAM")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: What do you want?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: I want you to go out and kill.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: In the late '70s, when David Berkowitz, the infamous Son of Sam, had New York City gripped in fear, the tabloids made him seem horrible, larger than life. But when he was finally caught, like the man police allege is the BTK killer, he seemed more like the guy next door.

SCHMID: We prefer to think of serial killers as being completely different from us, as being the ultimate outsiders, as being these monstrous, supernatural figures.

BROWN: But, too often, they're not, not even in the movies.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Morning papers past and present after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers from around the country, around the world. We said past and present.

January the 6th. And we thank Wichita State University for a couple of these. January 16, 1974, it all began. "Four in Wichita Family Found Brutally Slain." That was the headline that day. We'll get up to the present in a moment. This is September 17, 1984. "The Wichita Eagle Beacon." "Wichita Woman Found Strangled. Still No Connection to the Earlier Crimes." Now fast-forward all the way to March of 2004, "Sunday Eagle" in Wichita. I just like the headline. "Do You Know BTK?" I wonder how many people in that city and around that city are asking themselves that tonight?

"The Sunday Eagle" this past Sunday, the 27th, pretty straightforward headline. "BTK Arrested. Park City Man Held in 17- Year Killing Spree. Police Have Booked Dennis Rader, 59, on 10 Counts of Suspicion of First-Degree Murder," two distinctly different pictures. Mug shot and what looked like it might be -- just a portrait, family portrait.

"Wichita Eagle" today, Monday. "Report: BTK Suspect Confesses to Killing." Other things now finally on the front page. They also have DNA as part of their investigative work here. And we'll find out someday whether DNA was part of it or not. Thank you.

Other news we should mention while we're here. "Stars and Stripes." "Suicide Bomb Kills at Least 115 in Iraq." This is the worst single incident since the insurgency began. "'Million Dollar Baby' Wins Big at Oscars. Foxx Takes Best Actor For 'Ray.'" Did he have the most adorable daughter or what?

Big story in the East. Snow. March.

Speaking of weather -- and I was, wasn't I? -- the weather in Chicago tomorrow, "belligerent."

We'll wrap it up in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Good friends at "AMERICAN MORNING" have a full program planned for tomorrow. Here's Bill Hemmer with a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Aaron, thanks.

Another big winter storm pounding the Eastern half of the U.S. The snow is still coming down this evening. And it's going to keep coming down in some parts of the country. Getting ready for dangerous roads and a rough morning commute. And when will it ever end? Our complete winter storm coverage starts at 7:00 a.m. Eastern time. Hope to see you then -- Aaron.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Makes me feel good for the ride home coming up.

Good to have you with us tonight. Lou Dobbs ahead for most of you. We're back here tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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