A Serial Killer's Daughter: My Story of Faith, Love, and Overcoming

By Kerri Rawson

What is it like to learn that your ordinary, loving father is a serial killer?

In 2005, Kerri Rawson opened the door of her apartment to greet an FBI agent who shared the shocking news that her father had been arrested for murdering ten people, including two children.

That's also when she first learned that her father was the notorious serial killer known as BTK, a name he'd given himself that described the horrific way he committed his crimes: bind, torture, kill. As news of his capture spread, the city of Wichita celebrated the end of a thirty-one-year nightmare. For Kerri Rawson, another was just beginning.

In the weeks and years that followed, Kerri was plunged into a black hole of horror and disbelief. The same man who had been a loving father, a devoted husband, church president, Boy Scout leader, and a public servant had been using their family as a cover for his heinous crimes since before she was born. Everything she had believed about her life had been a lie.

Written with candor and extraordinary courage, A Serial Killer's Daughter is an unflinching exploration of life with one of America's most infamous killers and an astonishing tale of personal and spiritual transformation.

A Serial Killer's Daughter will give you the encouragement you need to learn how to:

• Pick up the pieces of your life when everything falls apart
• Begin to heal from the long-lasting effects of violence
• Trust that light will overcome the darkness

Kerri Rawson's story offers the hope of reclaiming sanity in the midst of madness, rebuilding a life in the shadow of death, and learning to forgive the unforgivable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Jan 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9781400201761

Kerri Rawson

Rawson is the New York Times bestselling author of A Serial Killer's Daughter. She is the daughter of Dennis Rader, also known as the serial killer "BTK," and is a passionate advocate for victims of abuse, crime, and trauma. She has turned her experiences into opportunities to write and speak about her journey of hope, healing, faith, and forgiveness. She resides in Florida with her two children.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Stubbornness Might Be Enough

On February 25, 2005, my father, Dennis Lynn Rader, was arrested for murder. In the weeks that followed, I learned he was the serial killer known as BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill), who had terrorized my hometown of Wichita, Kansas, for three decades. As he confessed on national television to the brutal killings of eight adults and two children, I struggled to comprehend the fact that the first twenty-six years of my life had been a lie. My father was not the man I’d known him to be.

Since his arrest, I’ve fought hard to come to terms with the truth about my dad. I’ve wrestled with shame, guilt, anger, and hatred. I’ve accepted the fact that I am a crime victim, dating back to the days my mom carried me in her womb.

I no longer fight the past nor try to hide it. It just is. It happened and it’s terrible. Terrible to dream about, terrible to think about, terrible to talk about. Incalculable loss, trauma, emotional abuse, depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress—these things leave scars.

I’ve struggled with forgiveness, fought for understanding, tried to put the ruptured pieces of my life and my family’s life back together. It’s an ongoing battle. But hope, truth, and love—the things that are good and right in this world—continue to fight through the darkness and overcome the nightmares. I am a survivor who has found resilience and resistance in faith, courage, and my sure stubbornness to never give up.

—KERRI RAWSON

PART I

Hold On to Your Foundations

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.

—PSALM 46:2

CHAPTER 1

What Doesn’t Kill You . . .

NOON

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2005

DETROIT, MICHIGAN

On the day the world dropped out on me, I woke up late. I had pulled my dark brown hair back in a loose scrunchie, and at noon, I was still in my mint-green fleece pajamas. They’d been a gift from my parents on Christmas morning two months earlier, when I was home in Kansas with my husband, Darian. This was our second winter living in Michigan, and I’d taken the day off from substitute teaching. I’d been staying home a lot because driving on snow and ice set me on edge.

Friday, February 25, 2005, had begun as just another cold day, with snow on the ground and in the air. About 12:30 p.m., I glanced out our picture window to see how much snow had fallen the night before. Not that anyone could tell by late February—it was just a heap of white upon white.

I noticed a maroon car, slightly rusted and beat up, parked next to the green dumpster behind our apartment building. A man sat behind the steering wheel and seemed to be glancing up at our window on the second floor.

My internal alarms buzzed. Stranger danger.

I wasn’t expecting Darian to be home until later for lunch, if at all.

As it neared one o’clock, I looked again.

The man was still there.

All right, that does it. I’m calling Darian.

Hey, when are you coming home for lunch? My voice was calm enough to fool him.

Not sure. Want me to bring you something? Taco Bell?

Nah. I paused. I’m calling because a strange old beat-up car is parked by the dumpster. A man is sitting in the car, and I swear he’s looking into our window. I was beginning to sound a little panicky, but Darian was unfazed.

Hmm, our window? Upstairs?

Yeah, looking right in it.

Um, that’s really not possible. But if he’s giving you the creeps or something, call the cops.

Nah. Well, maybe. Yeah. If he doesn’t leave soon.

Okay. I’ll be home in a while to eat if I can get away. Swamped here today.

We said goodbye, and I looked again, this time peering through the corner of the blinds, like my dad might do.

My dad repeatedly taught us to be fearful of strangers, not to open doors to people we didn’t know, to be extremely cautious. When I was younger, he’d worked as a security alarm installer, and I’d always figured that’s where he picked up this bit of paranoia. Still, nothing wrong with being smart. Being safe. Better than sorry.

I peeked again.

The car was still there. The man was not.

Clank, clank, clank.

What happened to the intercom, a visitor buzzing to be let in? Someone must have propped the front door open again.

Now my alarms were sounding full force. My heart was speeding up; my skin was growing hot.

I was sure the man in the car was now on the other side of the door, which only had a simple lock on it, no deadbolt. The house I grew up in had deadbolts, which were always kept locked. No matter the time of day.

I’ll pretend I’m not home.

Clank, clank, clank.

Okay. Be brave. It’s nothing.

I propped my wire-rim glasses on my head and squinted through the peephole to see a man in his fifties wearing a dress shirt. Tie. Glasses.

I twisted my glasses in my hands and placed them back on my face.

Hello? Can I help you? I called from my side of the subpar door.

Yes. I’m with the FBI. I need to speak with you.

Me? The FBI?

What about?

I need to speak to you. Can you let me in?

I’m still in my pajamas, in my bare feet.

Dad always said, Make them show you a badge. Make them prove to you who they are. Not that anyone, ever, had approached my door with a badge, but I guess there was a first time for everything.

I opened the door a bit, putting my foot next to it. If he was FBI, he might or might not push his way in. Hard to say, based on what I’d seen in movies.

He didn’t look like FBI. He looked like someone who might do my taxes.

So, uh, can I see your ID?

Yes. He flipped opened his badge and let me study it for a bit, then asked more softly, Can I come in? I need to talk to you.

Okay . . . but what the heck?

Sure. My husband will be home soon. He’s on his way. You know, for lunch?

That’s another trick Dad taught me long ago: tell the stranger in your house someone is on the way, even if it’s not true.

Okay, good. I need to talk to him too.

Standing with this guy in my apartment’s foyer, I decided he seemed all right. He wasn’t even carrying a gun, just a yellow legal pad and a pencil.

So much for the movies.

What do you need to talk to me about? You’ve got the right person, right?

He glanced down at his notepad and then back up at me.

Yeah, think so. Are you Kerri Rawson? Maiden name Rader? Twenty-six years old?

I nodded.

Originally from Wichita, Kansas? Your father is Dennis Rader?

Uh, yeah. That’s me. My mind was scrambling. Why is this man here? What does he want?

I turned to walk toward the kitchen, but the hallway was so narrow only one person could walk through at a time. I didn’t like him behind me, so I stopped and stepped back, allowing him to go in front. My mind tried to find some reason for this man’s visit and came up with nothing but sharp white noise. And fear.

I focused instead on tiny details: the cornflower-blue dish towels with bright sunflowers hanging in my white-on-white kitchen, color brought from Kansas to Michigan eighteen months before when Dad had helped us move after the wedding. A chocolate Bundt cake with powdered sugar icing sat on the counter; I’d made it the night before.

My keys and navy-blue purse were next to my cookbooks. A red spiral-bound Betty Crocker was propped up by a box of handwritten recipe cards, favorites from friends and family back home.

The man from the FBI was now facing me, his back to the microwave.

Have you heard of BTK?

Wha—?

The room brightened then narrowed, intensified.

Um, you mean that guy they are looking for in Wichita? In Kansas?

Yes.

I hit the panic button. Has something happened to my grandma? Has my grandma been murdered?

Your grandma? No. She’s fine.

Grandma is frail, I said. Keeps falling. My folks have to help a lot. She’s been to the hospital this week. BTK murders women.

No. It’s your dad.

What is my dad?

He’s been arrested.

My dad has been what?

Arrested. Your dad is wanted as BTK. Wanted for murders in Kansas.

My dad is wha—?

BTK. Wanted. Arrested. Can we sit down? I need to ask you some questions.

My mom? Is my mom, Paula, okay? Has my mom been murdered? By my dad?

No. She’s all right. Safe. She’s being picked up right now for questioning.

Who? Who is picking her up?

The police. They’re questioning her. She’s okay.

My brother, Brian? Is my brother okay? He’s stationed at Groton, Connecticut, with the United States Navy.

Yes. We are notifying him right now.

Who is?

The FBI. The man lifted a page on his notepad. I need to question you. It’s important. When did you say your husband will be home?

The room was spinning.

I grabbed at the wall jutting out near the stove. My hand brushed against the smooth stained-glass picture hanging there—it was made of vivid purples, pinks, greens, an etched butterfly, and the words Love Never Fails.

I’d heard: Your dad is BTK.

I was shaking all over. I think I’d better sit down. I’m not feeling well.

The room turned red. Dark splotches came into view.

I was falling into a black hole, with no idea of how I was ever going to get out.

CHAPTER 2

Believe in Good Beginnings

JUNE 1981

WICHITA, KANSAS

People who knew my parents before February 25, 2005, would have told you this: Dennis cherished Paula. My dad would tell you the same—still to this day. But he should have known it wasn’t going to be forever.

Some of my earliest memories are of music filling the house, spun out from the turntable Dad shipped home from an overseas air force deployment years before. As the Carpenters harmonized on We’ve Only Just Begun, Dad would pull Mom close and she’d laugh, and they would spin together for a minute or two in the living room, lost, remembering the good times spun early around their song. As a toddler, I’d twirl and clap and wait my turn. When Dad and I danced to (They Long to Be) Close to You with my little feet on top of his white socks, I was certain my dad’s love for me knew no bounds.

Those hit singles came out in 1970, shortly before my folks met. Dad, the oldest of four brothers, was the last of them to meet Mom, the oldest of three sisters. At Christ Lutheran Church, my grandma, Dorothea, would say to my mom, Paula, I’ve got one more son. You haven’t met Dennis yet. Just wait, he will be back home soon.

In the summer of 1966, Dad enlisted in the military on his own terms before the draft got him. He traveled happily for four years as an air force communication linesman to assignments that kept him out of Vietnam: Greece, Turkey, South Korea, and Okinawa, Japan.

Dad could shimmy up a power pole effortlessly, installing antennae, wires, and whatever else he needed to rig up with a few flicks of the wrist, a bit of tinkering, and patience. He came home with stories and a box full of photos and souvenirs, his time abroad spent more like a tourist than a sergeant serving in wartime.

Two of Dad’s brothers fought in the jungles of Vietnam: Paul as a sailor on a navy PT boat, Bill as a marine walking the bush. My uncles didn’t talk much about their tours of duty, but it was clear: they sure didn’t feel like vacations. Dad’s youngest brother, Jeff, was spared from having to go to Vietnam.

My dad’s father, William Rader, grew up in Rader, Missouri, a town founded by my ancestors in the 1800s. His family later settled in Pittsburg, Kansas, where he and his siblings worked the family farm. In February 1943, my twenty-year-old grandpa joined the Marine Corps. Two months later, my seventeen-year-old grandma, who lived in Columbus, Kansas, rode trains out to San Diego, California, to marry her high school sweetheart on his day off from aircraft mechanic training.

I always imagined my grandparents dancing to Moonlight Serenade by the Glenn Miller Orchestra, a favorite of Grandma Dorothea’s and mine, although the timeless swing tune In the Mood might have been more their speed. They had one night together; then it was back to the realities of World War II.

Grandpa soon ended up in the Pacific, repairing B-25 bombers that survived enemy fire and somehow made it back to Midway Island. He came home full of stories about crash landings, airplanes full of bullet holes, and life on a two-square-mile atoll in the middle of the ocean.

A shore leave rendezvous netted the birth of my dad nine months later in March 1945. Grandma and my infant father stayed with family in Columbus for a year until Grandpa made it back home in March 1946. Grandpa cooked in the mess on the ship as they crossed the Pacific, peeling mountains of potatoes, saying later, It sure beat swabbin’ decks.

When Dad was little, my grandparents moved to the Riverview area of north Wichita for Grandpa’s new job working the graveyard shift at the Ripley plant for Kansas Gas & Electric (KG&E). The red brick smokestacks, standing tall across the Little Arkansas River, could be seen from the street where Dad’s family settled in a sharp white bungalow with black trim.

Dad and his three younger brothers slept in bunk beds in one room, where Dad spun stories of cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers as the younger ones drifted off to sleep. The boys walked to Riverview Elementary down a street lined with arching trees, and every autumn they each got a new pair of jeans Grandma patched again and again before she turned them into shorts for summer break. Growing up, the boys spent a lot of time outdoors, roughhousing, fishing, and shooting around the river.

In 1960, Grandma took on a calmer day job as a bookkeeper for Leeker’s Family Foods. My fifteen-year-old dad soon joined her as a grocery bagger and stocker.

Later, when we all gathered in the fall for Rader family campouts, my dad and uncles would spin story after story from their own boyhood while my cousins and I drifted toward sleep next to a blazing orange campfire. There were war stories and ghost stories, tall tales and humdingers.

My mom’s mother, Eileen, graduated from Plainview High School in south Wichita in 1944 and went to work at Boeing. She drove a Cushman cart on the factory floor, delivering parts as B-29 bombers churned out overhead.

My mom’s father, Palmer, grew up in WaKeeney, Kansas, and served two years in the Pacific as a radioman and Morse code operator with the army air forces. He told us, Eggs never go bad—we ate two-year-old eggs on those troop ships and we were happy to have them.

After the war, Grandma had her eye on a checker at the Safeway grocery store. Granddad had his eye on her, too, declaring, That’s the girl I’m going to marry the first time he saw her in his checkout lane. It still seems up for debate who was chasing whom, but after a few dates, it was all settled. They married three months later in 1946.

Mom was born in 1948, lived in Plainview her first few years, then moved to Park City, a northern suburb of Wichita, growing up three miles from Dad. As teenagers, Mom and her sisters, Sharon and Donna, helped out at my grandparents’ bakery in Wichita and ran the Park City Pool with Grandma.

In August 1970, Dad, twenty-five, was just back from the air force. He was handsome and sleek in his dress blues, his dark hazel-green eyes crinkling when he smiled. Mom, twenty-two, was a long-legged looker in a go-go dress with dark brown eyes and cropped dark brown hair. They caught each other’s eye while standing in the fellowship hall after church let out.

Mom would tell me, When you know, you know.

Dad would say, It was love at first sight, plus she drove a hot car.

Dad lived with his folks the next several months, attended Butler Community College, and worked part-time at Leeker’s. Mom lived with her folks and worked as a secretary at the Veterans Administration.

My parents got engaged shortly after Christmas 1970, out in the middle of the frozen Arkansas River in downtown Wichita. Two months later, Mom’s red ’66 Chevelle, nicknamed Big Red, slid on an icy bridge a block from church and slammed into another vehicle. Mom broke her back, and Dad rushed to her side at Wesley Hospital, helping her through the recovery.

In May 1971, friends and family gathered for my parents’ wedding. Mom’s sisters stood up with her, wearing sky-blue dresses and matching pillbox hats, holding white daisies. Dad’s brothers stood up with him, wearing ties and suit coats.

Standing before the altar in the church where they met, my mom’s aunt sang We’ve Only Just Begun. Dad wore a white suit coat and flubbed the traditional vow of faithfulness, saying, I plight me your troth. After hearing the story so many times, I still don’t know the right way to say it. Mom recited her vows perfectly, standing ramrod straight, her high-collared white lace dress hiding a back brace.

On the evening my parents wed, the sky grew dark and their wedding cake with blue and yellow flowers almost toppled over in the parking lot. The cake was saved from disaster and during the reception, Dad, with a mischievous glint in his eye, fed Mom too big of a bite. Mom, with bright, smiling eyes, politely covered her mouth with her hand and then returned the favor.

Standing in the doorway of the church, Dad and Mom bid farewell to their friends and family with a wave. Then, hand in hand, they ran laughing through a shower of rice and rain out to Big Red, decorated with flowing streamers, trailing cans, and handwritten signs in white shoe polish, wishing love, luck, and happily ever after.

CHAPTER 3

Hope for Happily Ever After

JUNE 1971

After their honeymoon, my folks bought a nine-hundred-squarefoot, three-bedroom ranch—white with yellow trim—that was a block away from Mom’s parents. A mid-1950s brick home, it had an identical floor plan to the house Mom grew up in.

Well on their way to the American dream, my parents tucked away their bone-white wedding china in paper-lined cabinets and bought kitchen appliances in the shade of avocado. Mom hung brown-and-cream wallpaper in their kitchen and sewed light-blue curtains out of durable fabric for their big picture window in the living room. Blue pitchers, handed down from Dad’s grandmother, Carrie, decorated end tables; records were stacked together next to Dad’s turntable. Mom was glad to have her parents so close and wistfully hoped to have children toddling around on her hardwood floors.

While finishing college, Dad took a second-shift plant job at the Coleman Company. He quit after graduating with an associate’s degree in electronics from Butler in the summer of 1972. He started at the Cessna Aircraft Company in early 1973, working in the electrical tool-and-die section, a job he enjoyed and that fit his growing skill set. Mom kept working at the VA as a secretary, her nimble hands flying over her typewriter and taking dictation in precise shorthand that would require an expert code breaker to crack.

After work, Angelo’s became a favorite place to split a pizza, followed by a movie at the Crest. The first and last scary movie Mom saw with Dad was a rescreening of the 1967 film Wait Until Dark. I can imagine Mom, holding tight on to Dad’s arm, saying firmly, From now on, I pick the movie.

Dad also learned Mom wasn’t into camping after a night trying to weather a thunderstorm at Wilson Lake. Mom tells the story of huddling together in an army-green canvas tent that smelled like a mangy ol’ mutt, when a park ranger shone a flashlight on them, warning of an approaching tornado. She still says about that night, I told your dad that was it. He was on his own to camp from then on.

I grew up on these stories: how my parents met, married, and spent their early, happy life together. These stories became canon in my life—solid ground I would anchor my own beliefs of the world on. I wish I could continue telling just these stories, right up to the ever-after. It’s what I was expecting, depending on.

Dad desired his good side, white hat life, but he also wanted his dark side, black hat life.¹ He went to great lengths over the next three decades to maintain these two lives next to each other, hiding his second life from everyone. Eventually, though, his second life caught up with his first, exposing its own terrible truths.

Dad didn’t just decide one day to commit murder. The decision would build in him, growing over the course of his first twenty-nine years of life. After he was arrested, Dad spoke of hidden deviant behavior dating back to his early years: spying, stalking, breaking and entering, theft, animal torture. He told of an immense fantasy world built around violence, bondage, and sadism. He read about notorious criminals and idolized them—adding their narcissistic, murderous actions to his own evil ideals. He twisted all this together in his head: fact, fiction, half truths, downright lies. And out of it came his Factor-X.²

He thought he could control it, stop it at any time, but he couldn’t have been more wrong.

NOVEMBER 1973

In the fall of 1973, Dad was laid off from the Cessna Aircraft Company. He liked his job. It paid well and losing it started a downward spiral within him that would lead to immense outward devastation. Angry, idle, and antsy, he escalated, breaking into area homes and attempting to kidnap a woman at the Twin Lakes Mall.³

In January 1974, Dad murdered Joseph and Julie Otero and their two youngest children, Josie, age eleven, and Joey, age nine. The three older Otero children found their family’s bodies after walking home from school. Dad then became a wanted man who lived every day of the next thirty-one years as a betrayal—as a lie.

After the Otero murders Dad started classes at Wichita State University (WSU), pursuing a bachelor’s degree in administration of justice. Studying law enforcement, Dad kept his own ironic, nefarious agenda hidden. Attending college became a cover story for Dad at times. He’d tell Mom he was headed to the campus library to study—while he was actually out trolling for victims.

In April 1974, Dad murdered Kathryn Bright, a twenty-one-year-old, who lived near the WSU campus, and he fought with her nineteen-year-old brother, Kevin, shooting and almost killing him.

That fall, Dad, seeking notoriety, contacted the Wichita Eagle, claiming responsibility for the Otero murders and calling himself BTK, for bind, torture, and kill. He also started working at ADT installing security systems, capitalizing on the fear and opportunity he created, and giving himself access and cover because no one pays attention to utility vans and work uniforms. Working days and attending evening classes, Dad was gone long hours and late nights. To get him through college, Mom often typed and sometimes even helped write his thesis papers.

As my father studied justice and worked in security, he stole those very things from the Otero and Bright families. He also grew overprotective of his own family. Dad’s self-induced twisted insanity of overcaution and suspicion permeated my home for the next decades. We never had a security system, but we did have ADT stickers on the doors and thin metallic tape outlining our back door’s window—which Dad told me was enough to fool the bad guys. After his arrest, Dad said about this time, I became overly defensive. I watched the road outside and had a loaded gun ready. I made sure our locked windows were secure, probably like everyone else in Wichita.⁴

My green-eyed, blond-haired brother, Brian, arrived on a July evening in 1975. After struggling for three years to conceive, my folks were thrilled to be parents. Mom named Brian after the pro football player Brian Piccolo, who fought a cancer diagnosis in the 1960s and who James Caan played in the 1971 tearjerker Brian’s Song. A few weeks later, my brother was baptized at the wooden baptismal font that stood in the same place my parents had wed four years before. My parents settled into family life as Mom left the VA to stay home with him.

Decades later, Dad commented about the gap in murders that began after my brother’s birth, saying, We were now a family. With a job and a baby, I got busy.⁵ Dad continued to stalk potential victims, though, and in March 1977, Dad murdered Shirley Vian Relford, a mom to three young children. In December 1977, when Mom was three months pregnant with me, Dad murdered twenty-five-year-old Nancy Fox. My dad was raising children, yet he chose to take another mother away from her own children. He was about to have a daughter yet took two more daughters away from their families.

I was born early in the morning in June 1978 and baptized not long after. My name came from Dad’s grandma, Carrie, and I shared his middle name, Lynn.

Dad continued to play games with the police and media as BTK—leaving my hometown and my mom fearful. Then he went silent, ceasing communication the day after my first birthday. He graduated from WSU and said after his arrest, I got busy, being a family man, raising kids.⁶

But his Factor-X wasn’t ever that far from him.

NEWS BULLETIN

JUNE 1979

Today, the man who calls himself BTK—for Bind, Torture, Kill—dropped off a letter at a post office in downtown Wichita.

At 4:00 a.m., a man approached a clerk who was arriving to work. He handed her a letter and told her to put it

Reviews for A Serial Killer's Daughter

[Danielle McCabe · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I was born and raised in wichita, I'm now 28 and I remember being terrified as a kid to go anywhere especially at night. This book was outstanding! I ordered it as a paperback too I've always been old school. Kerri, truly is an inspiration. I read the book in 2 days with a toddler, I was hooked! She talks about a ton of memories she had with her family, a lot in wichita which was nice to literally have a picture image of what she was explaining. Her experience with depression, anxiety, and PTSD made me feel not so alone and I feel like a lot of us can agree on that.

[Amanda West Stalcup · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the best books I've read in a long time. I wanted to see if faith could hold strong under the most difficult if circumstances. It can.

[Tess · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The reminder that there are families behind killers that suffer, and sometime heal. Healing from trauma of any kind takes courage and transparency...but most, it takes God. She tells her story and lovingly protects the stories of her family. Nicely done!

[pivic-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is the introduction to the book:

On February 25, 2005, my father, Dennis Lynn Rader, was arrested for murder. In the weeks that followed, I learned he was the serial killer known as BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill), who had terrorized my hometown of Wichita, Kansas, for three decades. As he confessed on national television to the brutal killings of eight adults and two children, I struggled to comprehend the fact that the first twenty-six years of my life had been a lie. My father was not the man I’d known him to be. Since his arrest, I’ve fought hard to come to terms with the truth about my dad. I’ve wrestled with shame, guilt, anger, and hatred. I’ve accepted the fact that I am a crime victim, dating back to the days my mom carried me in her womb. I no longer fight the past nor try to hide it. It just is. It happened and it’s terrible. Terrible to dream about, terrible to think about, terrible to talk about. Incalculable loss, trauma, emotional abuse, depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress—these things leave scars. I’ve struggled with forgiveness, fought for understanding, tried to put the ruptured pieces of my life and my family’s life back together. It’s an ongoing battle. But hope, truth, and love—the things that are good and right in this world—continue to fight through the darkness and overcome the nightmares. I am a survivor who has found resilience and resistance in faith, courage, and my sure stubbornness to never give up.

That quite sums the book up in a quite full-rounded way. It's obvious to me that the author has suffered—and suffers—immensely at the hands of her normal father, who is also the serial-killer Dennis Rader, known as BTK.

One of the absolutely best things about this book, is the author's ordinariness, or rather, her being who she is; this book does not suffer from the sensationalism (in spite of the book's title) that usually marrs autobiographies that have been spruced up to gallant or even evade the truth, in service of tabloid fodder. She writes about her usual days before knowing her father's BTK, as in this paragraph:

In January 1974, Dad murdered Joseph and Julie Otero and their two youngest children, Josie, age eleven, and Joey, age nine. The three older Otero children found their family’s bodies after walking home from school.

Another powerful stylistic trait throughout the book, is the author's jumps through time, even in the same paragraph at times, giving way to a kind of stream-of-consciousness feel. Still, most of the book is very coherently written:

Mom found comfort in the chime that went off in the hospital right after Grandpa died. It meant a baby had been born at almost the exact moment my grandpa passed. Mom told me later that Dad had wept over his father’s body. Wrecked with grief, he had walked hunched over down the hospital hallway. She said, “I don’t think your dad had ever sat beside someone who died before.” When I heard these words, I was filled with sorrow, picturing Dad next to Grandpa’s frail body. Dad was grieved over the loss of his father—he had loved him, very much. It’s impossible for me to reckon that with Dad taking the lives of ten innocent people.

There are a lot of Bible references throughout the book, and still, it's obvious to see that the author has accepted help from other sources, e.g. therapy and family members.

There are several mind-boggling episodes in this book, unlike most serial-killer books that I've read (and I have read quite a few), especially when the author reveals herself as human in all kinds of facets, as here:

Mom said, “Did you know I was teasing him this fall that he spelled like that guy—BTK?” I grinned a bit at this, trying to stifle a laugh, as I checked Mom’s face.

She was trying to hide a smirk, too, and when our eyes met, we both started giggling. It felt good to laugh.

People died. I’m not supposed to be laughing ever again.

“I asked your dad once why would BTK use a cereal box to communicate with the police—like it was reported in the news. He said, ‘Cereal—like a serial killer.’”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at that one.

“Where did he get those boxes? We don’t eat that type of cereal.” And that’s what my poor mom is wondering.

Mom continued: “When I got interviewed, they asked what was behind our hidden door. I asked, ‘What door?’ They said the one in the kitchen behind the table. I said, ‘You mean the door the dryer is behind?’” I snorted, tried to contain it, and gave up, laughing out loud.

Mom and Grandma followed. “The police asked me about safety-deposit boxes—I don’t know why.”

Later, we learned that Dad used secret ones to store BTK items. Mom’s face turned serious, her voice lower.

“Early last year, there was a special about the thirtieth anniversary of the first murders, what happened to the Oteros. It was on TV. Your dad watched it.” Oh. I didn’t know he had watched it.

The letters from and to Dennis Rader are also quite mind-boggling. This one from the author to her father:

We weren’t very thrilled to see your written interview with the local TV station. We also didn’t like seeing your poems and letters on TV. We know you can and will do what you want to do, but we would really appreciate it if you could control that stuff better. Any publicity is bad for the family, especially for the ones that live in Kansas.

Brian and I have the grace of living in areas where we’re not known; and that’s been a blessing these last three months. Mom and everyone else doesn’t have that grace. We’re asking you to stop this type of communication on behalf of us. I have shared this view with your lawyers, and they were going to talk to you about it.

Mom is having the hardest time with everything that has happened. Brian and I share a different kind of bond with you than she does. It is easier for children to love their parents unconditionally (and vice versa) than it is for spouses. For her own sake, she might need to start distancing herself from you, and you’re going to have to try to understand that. She’s stronger than we all thought and she’s going to get through this, just as the rest of us are. We refuse to let the bad stuff win. Mom shared 34 good years with you, Brian 29 years, and me 26 years. We’re trying to hold on to that—not let the other things define you or us. You should not let that define you either. You’re stronger and better than that.

I love you and I know you’re trying to do the right things. I’m truly sorry your life has turned out this way. I want you to know you’re loved and cared for. You’re loved by your children, family, and most importantly God, whose love and forgiveness is much more powerful and greater than any on earth could be. I’ll write again soon.

Their correspondence changes over time, as the author comes to terms with what's happening while being severely affected with PTSD due to her father's legal crimes.

All in all, I feel the book should have been shortened, but on the other hand, its length does serve a purpose. All in all, this is a very human feel of how it can be to be closely related to a person who's committed crimes that were highly publicised for a while and most likely, due to sensationalistic "true-crime tv series", always be current to serial-killer boffins.

[amybooklover45 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This memoir by the daughter of the notorious BTK serial killer Dennis Rader provides an interesting perspective about the family behind the scenes. While some details about the case are discussed, the main focus is on Rader’s family, left completely in the dark about his double life and left reeling in the aftermath. Respect is paid to the victims and there are no excuses made. Insight into the mind of Rader is provided without getting overly graphic.

This is not my usual genre of book. I like murder mysteries but have never been a big fan of true crime. What caught my eye for this one was that my husband grew up in the Wichita are during the era of the killings. He remembers waiting up nights being on guard in case he and his Dad needed to protect his Mom and sister. So I was intrigued to know more.

I’m not sure if I’d recommend this unless you have some sort of connection to the case or are a real true crime fan. It’s not particularly sensational but it feel like picking around in someone’s private thoughts if you don’t have a connection to the community affected.

[eadieb-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This review was written for NetGalley and Nelson Book. I received a free copy for an honest review. What is it like to learn that your ordinary, loving father is a serial killer? Kerri Rawson writes an insightful and honest perspective of another side of her father, the BTK killer. She relates her growing up years with her father and shows a couple of traits that could have been clues but also shows a man of master deception. I was happy to see how supportive her husband was and how he helped her to overcome her PTSD and gave her the courage to go on with her life. I found the book hard to put down and I would recommend it to those who love true crime stories.

[janarose1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When an FBI agent showed up at her door, Kerri Rawson immediately thought that they had the wrong apartment. Instead, she was stunned to learn that her father was the BTK serial killer. Looking back at her life, Kerri tries to piece together what she and her family were doing when her father was out killing. After the arrest, Kerri and her family are thrown into a different sort of nightmare. With the press hounding them at every opportunity, Kerri and her family are trying to reconcile the man they thought they knew, with the horrible crimes that he committed. This was an intriguing book. Kerri told her story in a poignant manner, without glossing over the horror and brutality of what actually happened. I found the passage about the Grand Canyon trip particularly interesting, as it gave a glimpse into the father-daughter relationship. Kerri relied on her faith heavily at times, which tended to come across as preachy. Despite this criticism, I would recommend this book to people of all faiths and beliefs. Overall, 4 out of 5 stars.

[write5review · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

What It’s Like Being the BTK Killer’s Child

Crimes committed to children by their parents strike us as particularly heinous. These are the very people we expect to nurture, raise, and guide the young into responsible adulthood. As bad as beating or outright murdering your own child, betraying that child in the most horrendous and public way can be as abusive, a psychological nightmare for the child, and sometimes for society itself. Therein in lies the crux of Kerri Rawson’s story, the betrayal of her, her brother, mother, and the entire family by Dennis Rader, the self-named BTK serial killer who stalked and terrorized Wichita, Kansas, killing 10 men, women, and children between 1974 and 1991, and who was about to start up again until arrested on February 25, 2005.

Imagine the shock, the disillusionment, the anger, and the sense of shattering disloyalty felt by Kerri and her family. This almost too dramatic to comprehend and difficult to relate, even in the hands of a highly skilled writer, which, unfortunately, Kerri Rawson isn’t. Hers is a heartfelt story but not a particularly compelling one on the page for the reader. Nonetheless, for those interested in serial killers, BTK especially, and the impact they have on the lives of those close to them, it will prove to be a satisfying and helpful reading experience.

Kerri spends half the book telling about her father, the good side of Dennis Rader. For her and her brother Brian, he’s a loving father, and of special note a father who seems to have always made time for them. But he had a dark side, even in those times when he was doing nice things for the family. She relates moments when Rader’s personality would shift instantly, and then as quickly revert back to his equanimous self. A couple of times with Brian, however, he did act out dangerously before regaining control of himself. Probably, Kerri’s intent in spending so much of the book on the good father and the various activities they enjoyed together was to prepare readers for the shock of discovering Rader’s monstrous deeds, committed almost in the neighborhood and while he was playing the good father.

Too, especially with her extended and detailed discussion of their camping and hiking excursion in the Grand Canyon, she seems to have wanted to show how he was perfectly willing to put his own daughter and son in danger to the point of death in order to satisfy a desire of his own. In short, to illustrate one of his psychological features, his extreme narcissism, probably the most obvious symptom of his psychopathic disorder. Unfortunately, the rendering proves too much to the point of tedious. It’s both a weakness of the book but also necessary to understanding the utter disillusioning shock of the truth.

The better part of the book comes in the second half, after Rader’s arrest. It’s here that Kerri relates the torment this caused her. She imagines, then, all the times he spent with her and the family, wondering if things he gave them might have come from his victims. If while they were together, he was thinking about his murders, or planning murders. Then there is her disbelief, her reconciling herself to the fact her dad was a serial killer, of turning to her faith, which in normal times she had nearly abandoned, for solace, and the ongoing depression the whole thing had and continues to inflict upon her. It becomes clear that while Rader physically murdered 10 people, he hurt many more, and all of them were the closest to him.

[toobusyreading · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This memoir written by the daughter of the BTK serial murderer is an interesting story, but I'm afraid it didn't resonate with me like I expected. The writing was clear but felt a bit amateurish to me. It was repetitive in places, and unnecessarily detailed in others. I do feel sorry for the position the author was put in through no fault of her own. But for me, there was too much giving up on her faith vs. embracing her faith. I just wasn't expected a book that had a good deal about God and her religion in it.There were warnings about her father's behavior, but not big warnings. Who would take their kids on a Grand Canyon multi-night hike, but when one of them was throwing up for 24 hours ahead of time, would leave him at the trailhead and tell him to catch up the next day? And there were anger management issues. Of course, these were after he already tortured and killed people, but his daughter did not know that. Because murders were committed before she was born, she muses, “He should have been in jail the past thirty-one years.People should still be alive.But my brother and I wouldn't be.I was okay with that – I'd trade my life for theirs.”And the killer, I don't want to give him the respect of mentioning his name, had no remorse. At one point, after a lien was put on his house, he whined, “And then they screw me with a lien. It's out of my hand. I'm still very upset.” Yeah, a lien is so much important that torturing and murdering people. His position is prison was very important to him, bragging in letters about the respect he got from other inmates and his hierarchy in the pecking order. Of course, later he found God. I really don't care, do u?Too much about the daughter's PTSD, too much about visits with therapists, but it was her story. I was glad that she didn't go into graphic descriptions of the murders. But this memoir, while telling an interesting story, was just so-so.

[lvstrongpuff · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Her faith in God is what I think helps her make it through the day. Her father is a monster, but to her he was her father.