Kerri Rawson will never forget getting a knock on her apartment door more than 18 years ago.
It was on that day, Feb. 25, 2005, when everything changed.
On the other side of the door was a man who said he was with the FBI. He asked her if she knew who BTK was – a strange question, considering they were in Michigan, but she said “Yes.” As a child, she grew up afraid of the man who terrorized Kansas for decades – after all, he took the lives of ten people, including one of her neighbors. Yet, little did Kerri know that the person whom she was so afraid of was also the man who raised her.
Her father, Dennis Rader, was arrested as BTK, the FBI agent told her he had admitted to the crimes.
The news was purely overwhelming. As she mourned the loss of the ten people who died, she also mourned the loss of everything she knew. Rader mislead her, her mom and brother. The man who was a Boy Scout troop leader, Air Force veteran and president of his church had a deep, dark secret. He haunted the Wichita community for more than 30 years. The abbreviation “BTK” stands for “Bind, Torture, Kill,” a moniker Rader had given himself years earlier indicating what he had done to his victims.
When Kerri learned about her father’s identity, she was 26 years old. She was married but felt very isolated. She’s since moved to another state and has embraced the tragedies before her. She tries to shine light in the dark, helping spread awareness to cold case investigations and being an advocate for families and survivors of crime.
THE NEW INVESTIGATION
Most recently, a sheriff from Osage County, Oklahoma, started diving into the cold case of Cindi Kinney, who vanished from a laundromat in Pawhuska on June 23, 1976. Rader had been installing security systems at a bank across the street from where Cindi was last seen. In a journal entry, also around that time, Rader wrote about looking for targets. He has a “project,” which is what he calls his victims, called “Bad Wash Day.” In the entry, he wrote, “Brunette was the target. I would watch the near by Laundry Mat for possible victim.”
Rader had already started his violent path by then. Just two years before, in January 1974, he ambushed the Otero family in Wichita. He killed Joseph and Julie Otero and two of their five children. He continued to kill until the 1990’s.
The Osage County Sheriff Eddie Virden firmly believes Rader is responsible for Kinney’s disappearance and that of other cold cases in the Midwest. This year, the sheriff’s office conducted digs at the former Rader family home in Park City, Kan.
“We had tried to keep this quiet and just keep working investigations because we didn’t want to upset families when they get until we absolutely have an answer of like finding a body or finding evidence,” Rawson said. “The reality is like everything blew up when they dug up the yard. And so the thing is, now we have all these law enforcement partners all over the Midwest coming forward to help and we have a ton of leads to chase.”
In September 2023, Mike Fisher, the Osage and Pawnee Counties District Attorney, in Oklahoma, said there was not sufficient evidence to file criminal charges against Rader. He also declined to comment about other potential suspects in Cindi’s disappearance.
A CHILLING MOMENT
Throughout 2023, Kerri’s been brought back to Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma, where Virden believes he may be tied to various old cases. When riding with law enforcement in Missouri, she said there was a moment that convinced her that perhaps there was a connection of a case to her dad. The thought continues to give her chills.
“We were driving. We came upon this like small creek, and it was flowing pretty good,” she described. “It has like white shell rock all around it. I go, ‘Wait, stop.’ I said, ‘We fished here.’ I think I literally have a photo of me fishing there…And I said, ‘Wait, I know I have fished this stream.’ And I said, ‘That’s not good.’
Kerri said, then, they took her about a half-mile down from where they were, down a country road in McDonald County in southwest Missouri.
“I go, ‘I know this road,’ and then, that’s where I got real sick again, Kerri described. “I shouldn’t know that road. Right, doesn’t make any sense? And then we drive just up a little bit and like they’re like this is where Shawna was dumped.”
They ended where a murdered Grace was found in December 1990. The woman’s boy was sent to a lab to extract her DNA, and with the help of Orthram, she was identified as Shawna Beth Garber in 2021. An autopsy shows Shawna, then 22, was raped, strangled and restrained. She died a couple months before, believed to be around Halloween 1990. There is no photo of Shawna as an adult, but she did grow up in the Kansas foster care system and has siblings in Kansas. Renderings show what Shawna may look like as an adult.
When that creek was familiar to Kerri, she said it was eerie.
“I was like not well, but I also was like, ‘We have a dad problem.’ That’s what I’ve been calling him internally,” Kerri said. “I’m like, ‘We have a dad problem.’ And they’re like, ‘What do you mean,’ and I go, ‘We have a bad dad fact:’ Like, like when these things are adding up like you’re looking at the bondage; or you’re looking at the drawings or matching these things; or you’re like seeing a creek that you fished at that’s around the corner from where a body was dumped. You’re like, Okay, that’s a bad dad that so those are adding up.”
Family created a Justice for Shawna Beth Garber Facebook page seeking justice in her murder. A niece, Aarika Mai Ramsay, also organized an online fundraiser to help with the case.
Some believe Shawna’s death is similar to other murders Rader committed.
SEEING HER DAD AGAIN
So, Virden recruited Kerri to help with the investigations. She’s gone to speak to her dad at the El Dorado Correctional Facility – something she’s never done before. Though Rader has not admitted to any other crimes, Kerri continues to visit him to see if he has information he’s hiding.
“He’s not the one asking us to come in,” she said. “He’s not the one saying, ‘Hey, I did all of this.’ He’s saying he didn’t. I mean, that could be it, but it feels way more serious than that. Like it feels legit.”
Seeing her father has been a contrast to everything she’s known. When she last saw him, at her parents old home, he was on his way to work as a compliance officer. He was a tall man with a commanding presence, serving with Boy Scouts and as a leader at church. Now, she describes her dad as small. He has health issues and is in a wheelchair. He’s aged significantly, she said.
“Going in to see my dad…it’s insane, but it’s also really empowering,” she said. “Because I get time with him. We’re working on these investigations. You know, at times, he’s very difficult and I have to get him to focus. Other times, he’s cooperative. And then, it’s like, I get to leave. Like I hug him. He kisses me on the cheek. I say, ‘Goodbye.’ He’s in shackles. He’s in a wheelchair. Like he’s tiny. He’s like lost like nine inches. It’s really hard to see him, but I get to leave.”
“I’ve now taken control over that man that was in my house,” she later continued. “You know, like I’m the person that’s tall. Now, I’m the person that can walk. I’m the person that’s literally like in charge.”
FINDING A NEW PURPOSE
Regardless of what becomes of these investigations, Kerri said she may have found her life’s purpose. She’s compassionate for people who are victims of her father’s crimes and others too. She’s determined to find the truth for any cold case, whether Rader is responsible or not, because it’s the right thing.
“Osage did a massive gift and gave me really my life back by letting me come in and notify me of everything. Notify me of these massive like, personal components,” she said. “And it was like all of a sudden that PTSD started getting calmer and then my anxiety started getting calmer and it was like my core was stitching back up. And so like when I went to see my dad like it was like everything got integrated for the first time it was like, Dad and BTK and Kerri and BTK’s daughter and we were like what like together and now we’re just like, just dad and Kerri.”
Her life hasn’t been easy due to her father’s decisions. She continues to navigate this unique situation every day, she said.
“Maybe that does need to be my life’s work,” she said. “Some people are like, ‘Well, are you trying to just redeem, like carry your dad’s crimes on his back and try to redeem that,’ and I’m like, ‘I’m not trying to redeem…my dad’s unredeemable.’ I’m like, maybe some of that is that family guilt that we all deal with? Like that shame and stuff that was heaped on us? But like I said, it’s not really that anymore. It’s just the right thing. Like it’s the right thing to help. Like, why wouldn’t I help if I have the ability to help.”
In a followup story, KAKE News anchor and Missing in Kansas investigator Annette Lawless shares Kerri’s concern about Rader allegedly making money from his crimes. See our in-depth look at the allegations with Crime Pays, including how others are profiting from true crime. Read more and watch here.