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Who is the BTK killer’s daughter? The story of a girl who thought she knew her father

KANIKA SINGH RATHORE, 11/10/202511/10/2025

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Kerri Rawson was in high school when her father handed her the keys to the family station wagon. She had no idea what dark secret the car held.

Years later, she would learn that the very same car was once used to transport the body of a woman who was strangled and stashed in the trunk. And she would learn that her own father – the churchgoing family man who built her a treehouse, taught her to fish, and handed her the keys to the family car – was actually one of America’s most notorious serial killers.

Dennis Rader, also known as BTK, bound, tortured, and killed 10 people in Kansas between 1974 and 1991. But for 31 years, he went undetected, free to carry out sadistic killings.

The last of his known victims was Dolores Davis, murdered in 1991 — her body hidden in the trunk of the very car Rawson would drive just a few years later.

It’s just one of many unsettling memories Rawson reveals on My Father, the BTK Killer, the new Netflix documentary premiering October 10.

Kerri Rawson talks about how she found who her father was in Netflix’s new doc My Father, the BTK Killer

Kerri Rawson talks about how she found who her father was in Netflix’s new doc My Father, the BTK Killer (Netflix)

The documentary is inspired by Rawson’s 2019 book, A Serial Killer’s Daughter: My Story of Faith, Love and Overcoming. Told from her perspective as a daughter, victim, survivor, and witness, she attempts to make sense of a nightmare she never saw coming.

“I don’t know who my father is, what he was hiding,” Rawson says in the documentary. “Was he using my family to hide? Was he using us that whole time? It’s hard to know who I am if every moment in my life was a lie.”

‘I don’t know who my father is, what he was hiding,’ Kerri Rawson says in the documentary

‘I don’t know who my father is, what he was hiding,’ Kerri Rawson says in the documentary (Netflix)

Interweaving archival footage, interrogation tapes, and Rawson’s present-day reflections, the documentary takes viewers not only through Rader’s horrific crimes, but reveals the quiet devastation left behind.

One journalist featured in the documentary poses the question: “Can you imagine finding out that your father is one of the most evil people on Earth?”

It’s something Rawson admits she still wrestles with. She had no awareness of her father’s other life – until years later, when everything changed.

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From loving father to living nightmare

Rawson remembers a typical, loving childhood.

Growing up in Wichita, she and her brother played in a treehouse their father built, spent hours fishing, and went to church where Rader served as congregation president.

“My dad never treated me like a girl,” Rawson said. “He treated me like a tomboy and let me do whatever he was doing. So as soon as I was walking, I was right there by him.”

Rawson described her father as appearing from the outside as a “mild-mannered” man but also recalled “moments of dad” when something would trigger him and he would “flip on a dime.”

But none of it hinted at what would later unfold.

Between 1974 and 1991, Dennis Rader was secretly terrorizing Wichita, Kansas, under the self-styled moniker ‘BTK’

Between 1974 and 1991, Dennis Rader was secretly terrorizing Wichita, Kansas, under the self-styled moniker ‘BTK’ (Wichita Police Department)

Between 1974 and 1991, Rader was secretly terrorizing Wichita, Kansas, under the self-styled moniker “BTK” – which stood for “Bind, Torture, Kill.”

He murdered at least 10 people in a series of sadistic killings, taunting law enforcement and local media with cryptic letters that detailed his crimes. By the early 1990s, BTK’s messages stopped. The trail went cold.

Then in 2004, the unknown killer resurfaced through taunting communications.

The next year, when the FBI was able to trace a floppy disk back to a computer at Christ Lutheran Church in Park City, the mask finally fell. At the center of the storm was Rader — the man Rawson had always called Dad.

Outwardly, Rader had lived a normal life as the respected president of Christ Lutheran Church in Wichita and a Cub Scout leader. But he was a killer who evaded capture for 31 years

Outwardly, Rader had lived a normal life as the respected president of Christ Lutheran Church in Wichita and a Cub Scout leader. But he was a killer who evaded capture for 31 years (Netflix)

On February 25, 2005, Rader was arrested and Rawson’s world imploded. She was only 26 years old at the time.

“I will never forget that day,” she said.

Rawson got the news from an FBI agent who knocked on her door hours after the arrest. “And then he goes, ‘your dad is BTK,’” she recalled.

In June 2005, Rader pleaded guilty to 10 counts of first-degree murder and was sentenced to 10 consecutive life terms – a minimum of 175 years behind bars.

For Rawson, the years that followed were a different kind of sentence.

Rawson got the news from an FBI agent who knocked on her door hours her father was arrested: ‘Your father is BTK,’ they said

Rawson got the news from an FBI agent who knocked on her door hours her father was arrested: ‘Your father is BTK,’ they said (Netflix)

A newlywed of about 18 months who was starting her own family in Michigan, Rawson tried to move on and live a normal life. But she found herself, unwillingly, at the heart of a gruesome national story.

So after years of silence, she spoke up. And then began her own long investigation — into her identity and the trauma that destroyed their family.

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BTK’s killing spree

Rader’s killing spree began in January 1974, when he committed his first known murders, of Joseph Otero, 38, Julie Otero, 33, and two of their five children.

In April 1974, Rader killed 21-year-old Kathryn Bright, in the same way he did the Otero family, binding her, then strangling her to death.

His next two victims, Shirley Vian and Nancy Fox, were killed in 1977. He claimed responsibility for the crimes in a letter sent to Wichita television station KAKE.

The letters continued with Rader demanding to be called BTK as he boasted of his kills.

Rader’s murders appeared to slow down after his children were born in the late 1970s.

“Dad said he got busy raising kids,” Rawson said in the documentary.

Then in 1985, he killed Marine Hedge and, in 1988, Vicki Wegerle. His 10th victim was 63-year-old Dolores E. Davis in January 1991.

Rader sent taunting letters to the police and the media demanding to be called BTK and boasting about his kills

Rader sent taunting letters to the police and the media demanding to be called BTK and boasting about his kills (Netflix)

In an interrogation video featured on the Netflix documentary, Rader tells investigators how he carried out his final murder.

“Well I proceeded to tie her up and I think she realized that was going to go bad,” he said, recalling that she had pleaded with him, “Don’t kill me, don’t kill me.”

“I slipped the panty hose over her head and strangled her,” he continued, adding that he then put her body in the station wagon and dumped her body under a bridge where she would be found 13 days later.

Rawson remembers January of 1991. Her mother was sick with pneumonia and spent about 10 or 12 days in the hospital.

“Not long after that, he killed Mrs. Davis,” she said in the documentary. “Put her body in the back of our station wagon. He then gave me that station wagon to drive in high school.”

Rawson shook her head as she remembered the old car that had “‘96 Grad” painted on the back window.

“I was like no that’s not ok,” she said about being given the car. “Thinking that Mrs Davis had been in that vehicle.”

Over the years, Rawson corresponded with her father by letters, but she avoided in person contact – until 2023 when she faced him for the first time in years

Over the years, Rawson corresponded with her father by letters, but she avoided in person contact – until 2023 when she faced him for the first time in years (Netflix)

Confronting a monster

Over the years, Rawson corresponded with her father by letters, but she avoided face-to-face contact.

That changed in 2023, when she visited Rader at the El Dorado Correctional Facility. It was the first time she had seen her father in 18 years.

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“It was the first time he ever dropped his mask and became BTK in front of me,” Rawson said in an exclusive interview with NewsNation at the time.

During that visit, Rawson confronted Rader about unsolved disappearances and the possibility of additional victims, as well as her own repressed memories of alleged abuse. He reportedly told her that he never touched the family.

In January 2023, the Osage County Sheriff’s Office launched a new investigation into hundreds of Rader’s drawings and writings that were recovered after his 2005 arrest

In January 2023, the Osage County Sheriff’s Office launched a new investigation into hundreds of Rader’s drawings and writings that were recovered after his 2005 arrest (Osage County Sheriff’s Office)

In January 2023, the Osage County Sheriff’s Office launched a new investigation into hundreds of Rader’s drawings and writings that were recovered after his 2005 arrest.

New information led investigators to search Rader’s former home in Park City in connection with a 1976 case of Cynthia Dawn Kinney.

Kinney had disappeared from an Osage County laundromat at 16 years old.

During the search, investigators unearthed a crossword puzzle with chilling clues. Back in 2004, Rader had sent local news outlets a crossword puzzle containing the details about the women he killed.

Cynthia Dawn Kinney vanished from a laundromat in Oklahoma in 1976

Cynthia Dawn Kinney vanished from a laundromat in Oklahoma in 1976 (National Missing and Unidentified Person System)

In May 2024, Osage County, Oklahoma Sheriff Eddie Virden said that the puzzle found at Rader’s former property connects the killer to Kinney’s disappearance.

Investigators also said in 2024 they have evidence indicating Rader may have buried Kinney in a barn near the Kansas-Oklahoma border. Her body has never been found.

Sheriff Virden explained officers received an anonymous call months after Kinney disappeared from a man claiming her body could be found in an old barn along the Oklahoma-Kansas border. Then law enforcement recently intercepted communications from Rader in prison that revealed there may be some hidden items in old barns, according to the sheriff. Rader has denied killing Kinney.

Meanwhile, Rawson continues to assists the Osage County Sheriff’s Department in their effort to potentially link him to additional victims. At the time of the documentary’s release, no new victims have been announced.

Rader’s former Kansas property was searched in 2023 for clues pertaining to two new potential cases

Rader’s former Kansas property was searched in 2023 for clues pertaining to two new potential cases (Osage County Sheriff’s Office via AP)

‘I’m more than just BTK’s daughter’

Rawson has since tried to reclaim her story – and transform her pain into advocacy with the hope of helping others.

But her path to healing has not been easy.

In a 2025 GoFundMe post, Rawson, who has two children, revealed she had been hospitalized for months, possibly from long COVID, and feared losing her home.

But she continues to speak out. Through her voice, the new Netflix doc reframes the familiar narrative of the BTK murders as it attempts to focus less on the man who committed the crimes and more about the family he destroyed, the community he terrorized, and the woman who refuses to let his story define hers.

Through Kerri Rawson’s voice, the new Netflix doc reframes the familiar narrative of the BTK murders as it attempts to focus less on the man who committed the crimes and more about the devastation he left behind

Through Kerri Rawson’s voice, the new Netflix doc reframes the familiar narrative of the BTK murders as it attempts to focus less on the man who committed the crimes and more about the devastation he left behind (Netflix)

While many news headlines identify Rawson simply as BTK’s daughter, she says in the doc that she is “so much more than that.”

“I’m a mom … I’m a normal person. And most days I don’t even really think about who my dad is,” she adds. “I’m just me.”

My Father, the BTK Killer streams on Netflix beginning Friday, October 10.

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