All language subtitles for Invisible.Monsters.Serial.Killers.in.America.S01E06.End.of.an.Era.(1991-2005).1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-Cinefeel

[slow music]

- I walked into
the interview room

and I introduced
myself to Gary Ridgway

and I said, "Gary,
I'm Dr. O'Toole

"from the FBI's
behavioral analysis unit.

"And the task force
has asked me to stop by

"and see if you are worthy of
being in the FBI's research."

He was very eager.

He said, "Oh, yes, yes, I am.

"I'm very willing
to talk about it."

So he looked in the
camera and he said.

[dramatic music]

- [Man] Five of the most
prolific serial killers

in American history were all
operating at the same time.

- [Reporter 1] John Wayne Gacy.

- [Reporter 2] Ted Bundy
is still alive.

- [Reporter 3] BTK.

- [Reporter 4] Jeffrey Dahmer.

- [Reporter 5] The so-called
Green River Killer.

- [Mark] This was the golden
age of serial killers.

- [Reporter 6] For years,

the Green River task
force has chased the ghost

of a killer too diabolically
clever to catch.

- There were a
number of detectives

who truly believed Gary Ridgway
was the Green River Killer,

but certainly we did
not have the evidence

to move forward
with prosecution.

- Serial killer Theodore
Bundy is executed

after nearly a
decade on death row.

Bundy was convicted of
three brutal murders

and was linked to dozens more.

- I was glad when he was gone,

but unfortunately, killing a
serial killer doesn't stop them

from being a serial killer.

They did their damage.

- [Reporter 7] It took the
jury less than two hours

to find John Wayne Gacy guilty
of murdering 33 young men.

- When he was sentenced to
death, he didn't even blink.

He didn't bat an eye, nothing.

And that's a true sociopath.

The guy was scary.

- [Profiler] Serial killers,
they're very arrogant,

they think they're unstoppable.

And that's what
happened with Dahmer.

- This kid had had a small
hole drilled in his head

and acid poured in,

so he couldn't communicate
with law enforcement.

- They let Konerak go back
into Jeffrey's apartment.

And within an hour,
he killed him.

- Back in 1974, we
couldn't even spell DNA,

but at Josephine's
feet, there was a pool.

31 years later, the genetic
profile would be drawn

from one of those preserved
pieces of evidence.

- BTK goes through this period

where he does not
kill for years.

- And then in 1985, he kills
his neighbor Marine Hedge.

Well, they never
dreamed this was BTK

because BTK had disappeared.

[dramatic music]

- Dennis Rader was
a church-going,

well-respected member
of the community

that hid this incredibly
dark side.

Now there was a
long period of time

when Dennis wasn't active
physically in killing.

He was active mentally.

He fantasizes about it.

You can only fantasize so long
before you cross that line.

Once you cross that line,

that is not a line you
can come back from.

- After he kills his
neighbor, Marine Hedge,

and then Vicki Wegerle,
BTK disappears again.

He waits five more years,
until 1991,

to kill again.

And this is Dolores Davis.

- My mom, she had gone
out to eat, came back,

and I know Mom's habit.

She'd stay up till
about 10 or so

and then she'd lock everything
down and she'd go to bed.

- Rather than trying
to break quietly

into Dolores Davis's home,
he just throws a cement block

through her sliding glass door.

- I got a call from my
sister that next day saying

that her house had been
broken into and she was gone.

- Dolores starts off
as a missing person

but it's clear
from her residence

that something bad had happened.

- The one thing that
really stuck out to me,

there was a half-eaten bowl
of cereal on her countertop.

I said, "Something's
wrong about that."

She never went to bed with
a dirty kitchen, period.

He thinks he's a comedian,

so he ate a bowl of cereal
to let everybody know

that he was a serial killer.

Isn't he a charming fellow?

- [Anchor] Dolores D. Davis
was abducted from her home.

Her body was found 13 days later

under a bridge in
Northern Sedgwick County.

Davis had been strangled.

Her feet, hands, and knees
were bound with pantyhose.

- They told us that they
had found a white female.

He said, quote, "We're 99%
sure it's your mother."

And that's troubling because

if she wasn't recognizable,
then that's hard to swallow.

I came unglued.

I just completely lost it.

- His MO was bind,
torture, kill,

leave the body in the house.

But Dolores Davis's body
was found in a ditch.

It just didn't fit.

- From a police perspective,

they're still dealing
with homicides

on a case by case basis.

Something like a change in MO
could really trigger the idea

that this is not the same
killer, that this is a one-off.

So the police are
not looking at BTK.

He is not a suspect.

In 1991, Jeffrey
Dahmer's also flying

under the radar of police.

- Jeffrey Dahmer's
victim selection,

young gay men, racial minority,

allowed him to evade
law enforcement

for a longer period of time,

because he knew on some level

that this was a disenfranchised
element of society

that would go unnoticed
were they to disappear.

- Dahmer met Tracy Edwards
outside the Grand Avenue Mall

and then they went
to his apartment.

- Dahmer said, "Why don't
you come back to my place

"and I'll pay you some money
to take some pictures of you

"and we could
watch some movies."

- So I thought about it,
said, "Yeah, he's pretty cool.

"I guess it's all right
to go have a beer."

'Cause I thought he
was an average guy,

seemed normal to me, you know.

- Dahmer offers Tracy
a drink of rum and Coke

because Dahmer was out
of the sleeping pills.

- I had my head
turned like this,

looking at the fish
tank, you know.

And before I knew it, he
threw the handcuff on me.

- Tracy said,

"Okay, there must be
something wrong with this guy.

"I'm just going to appease him

"and talk to him for a minute."

Especially when Dahmer pulled
out this huge hunting knife.

And Dahmer puts on
"The Exorcist 3"

and they're watching
it and Dahmer's humming

and rocking back and forth,
almost going into a trance.

And saying things to
Tracy Edwards like,

"Oh, you wouldn't
believe what I've done

"and I'm going to do to you
and I want to eat your heart."

He actually put his head up
against Tracy Edwards' chest

just to listen to his heartbeat

because he wanted to hear
it before he murdered him.

- Like I knew that it was

a life and death
situation then, right?

Yeah, it was me against him.

- Eventually, Tracy
gets loose, punches him,

and he gets out
of the apartment,

half naked wearing
this one handcuff.

- Mr. Edwards is able
to run onto the street

and flag down a squad.

And those two officers first
just tried to use their key

that they had for
their police handcuffs.

That key didn't work.

And so they went back
to the apartment,

thinking that they're just
going to get the key from Dahmer

and take those handcuffs off

and that's going to
be the end of it.

- I'm in my house and
then I open up my door

and I'm looking out here
and I'm seeing the guy

who was at his door,

dangling this handcuff
thing like this.

And there's an
officer standing there

and I hear people
coming in the apartment.

I hear a little bit of
commotion over at his house.

- One of the police officers
goes in the bedroom.

and they see a
drawer that's open.

- They had no idea what
they would find there.

Didn't know there was a
skull in the refrigerator.

It was a death nest.

[intense music]

- [Reporter] Milwaukee police
were led to an apartment

in this building after
they were flagged down

by a handcuffed man who
claimed he had been attacked.

- The police went up and
they were talking to Dahmer.

Well, one of the officers
went in the bedroom

and saw the photos
in the drawer.

And that started everything.

- In this drawer are dozens
of Polaroids of young men,

dismembered, murdered,
in a bathtub,

their skin stripped off, you
know, just awful pictures.

So the cops arrest Dahmer,
who starts to fight with them.

- And then I heard an
awful horrible scream.

It sounded like
an animal's growl,

like a bear or
something like that.

It was Jeff.

He screamed like that
because he did not want them

to look in the refrigerator
and to see the head.

- Then they open
the refrigerator.

There's a fully enfleshed skull

of one of his earlier victims.

And he's telling them right
away what's happening.

Short order, he's giving
a full confession.

- They said, "Where's the
key for the handcuffs?"

He said, "I don't have it.

"I was going to
cut his hands off."

- That day after
he got arrested,

they started bringing out
boxes and big soup kettles,

and I'm going, "Well,
what's in there and what's?"

And they said, "Please,
ma'am, don't look in there."

They said, "Those are
body parts in those pots

"and in those boxes are skulls."

It was horrible.

It was absolutely horrible.

- After Dahmer's apprehended,

the news of what happened

with the Konerak
incident comes forward.

- [Man] The neighbors called
police when this 14 year old,

a brother of the
boy Dahmer molested,

was seen running naked
and bleeding

from Dahmer's apartment.

The police returned
the boy to Dahmer

after he said they were lovers.

- He got away with it
by telling the officers,

"This is my lover."

- I do think there was
some shoddy workmanship

on the police part that night.

They supposedly didn't
even check Dahmer's ID

to check if he had
any criminal history.

- That would have
been another person,

or if that boy be white,
could've been different.

- [Reporter] Outrage over Dahmer
has shifted to police.

There are charges of
racism, a belief that

many of the killings
could have been stopped.

- Because it was
in the inner city,

ghetto neighborhood,
poor black people.

They just mistreated
all of us down there.

They should be held responsible.

- You didn't say nothing about
this white boy over here,

killing us over here.

Somebody that's
gonna investigate

the police department.

- [Crowd] We want justice!
We want justice!

- Relationships
between law enforcement

and marginalized
communities were very tense.

Not much has changed.

And I think that's evident
considering, you know,

the summer of unrest
we had in 2020.

We still have a long way to
go with police relationships

and communities of color.

- [Woman] Jeffrey Dahmer
today changed his plea

from not guilty to
guilty but insane.

- And you're doing this
of your own free will?

- Yes, I'm doing this
of my own free will.

- He never denied
that he killed.

He pled guilty, gave full
confession and pled guilty,

so the focus was
insanity or not.

- [Man] The trial will be

to determine Dahmer's
state of mind

when the murders occurred.

- The defense was that Dahmer
lost control of himself.

This necrophilia, the desire
for sex with dead bodies,

the desire for sex with
unconscious bodies,

put him out of control.

He couldn't control it.

He ought not to be
held accountable.

That was the defense.

- So you have some of
these serial killers

who are engaging with the
victims after they die.

Guys like Bundy and Gacy
and even Ridgway

leaving and then coming back
a day or two later

to then engage with the victim.

That means that you have total
possession, total control.

They're yours.

Guys like Jeffrey Dahmer
are actually consuming

parts of their victims.

So why would you do that?

Because you can possess them
forever if you eat them.

So that's really the
ultimate possession.

- I was the district
attorney for 38 years

and so I've had a
lot of experience.

So the necrophilia
wasn't that shocking.

Cannibalism, I tell you,

I had not been
exposed to very often.

Would you state your name,
spell your last name?

- Dennis Murphy, M-U-R-P-H-Y.

I've interviewed Dahmer
for 66 to 68 hours,

which resulted in a
168 page confession.

And the first
thing he told me is

"You should kill
me for what I did."

He then purchased
a meat tenderizer

and used it on the bicep.

He stated he would use
salt, pepper,

and A1 steak sauce on it.

He stated that it tasted
like beef or filet mignon.

[intense music]

- [Reporter] Today at the
Jeffrey Dahmer insanity trial,

a detective testified

on how Dahmer told him he
would eat some of his victims.

- The reason that he
consumed the bicep,

because it was big and
he wanted to try it.

During the interrogation
with Dahmer,

once I got him to feel
more comfortable with me

like a buddy, he just kept
giving us information.

We asked him about his friends.

He said he'd never had any.

In fact, we checked
his phone records.

He never made a personal
call in five years.

He stated that he kept
the victim's skull,

which he boiled to
remove all the skin.

And he kept the scalp
with a small ponytail

because he liked it.

I asked him why he did this.

Several times, he told us
for his own selfish desire

for self-gratification.

- Nobody can deny Jeffrey
Dahmer is a sick person.

He's not psychotic and
he's not legally insane.

- Insanity is a
legal definition,

it isn't a medical definition.

The insanity defense is a very
difficult defense to employ.

It's rare that it's used

and it's even more rare
that it's successful.

- [Reporter] Over the
weekend, the jury ruled

that Dahmer was sane
when he murdered

and dismembered 15 young men.

- Dahmer got a life sentence
for each of his victims,

957 years, without
the chance of parole.

- [Judge] The sentence is
structured in such a way

that this defendant will
never again see freedom.

- When Gacy was executed,

there were hundreds of
people from all over.

- My mother said she
wanted to be the one

to push the button, but she
passed away before that.

And I do remember her saying,
"You better be there."

I said, "I will be there."

He deserved to die.

- There was no sympathy
anywhere, as far as I know,

in the world for Gacy.

- Here we are entering
the 21st century

and Bundy and Gacy
had been executed,

Dahmer was murdered in prison.

And so all we have left
are Rader and Ridgway.

By 2001, Gary Ridgway
is still married,

still has a stable job, still
living in the community.

And he's murdered 49 women

and evaded law
enforcement for 19 years.

- But the investigators
were pretty smart

because what they did do was
they took a saliva sample

from Gary in 1987.

They were hoping that DNA
technology would advance

to a point when they would
be able to analyze it.

- In 2001, there was a
grant for DNA testing

at the Washington
State Patrol crime lab.

They asked us for those cases
that are really big cases

that you want us to
look at DNA evidence.

- The Green River
task force had DNA

for four of the victims,

but they knew there
were a lot more.

- So it essentially
took 14 years

for our DNA technology
to get to the point

where we could then
analyze the sample

that Ridgway had provided
to the early samples

from his early
prostitute homicides.

- [Reporter] The sheriff
was in his office

when his lead detective
gave him the amazing news.

- The DNA came back
positive from four victims,

matching to Gary Ridgway
and from nobody else,

unless he had an identical twin.

And so that was really
the big break in the case.

- You know, we had
40,000 suspects.

Now we got the guy, see.

- It was pretty
amazing, you know,

when the hit came
out, it was like whoa.

Just tells you what
science can do.

Even though there
were only four cases

that could be
charged at that time,

you know, we knew what
we were dealing with,

which was somebody who had
killed upwards of 50 women.

On November 30th,
2001, Gary got up early,

went to work like
he normally did.

And then the
Sheriff's office served

search warrants at
multiple locations

and they take him into
custody at Kenworth Truck

as he's walking out after work.

- The investigators connected
to the Green River murder case

believe it may finally be solved

with the arrest of Gary Ridgway.

- Well, at that point,

you have him for four
of the homicides,

but we certainly
don't have anything

to connect him for the rest.

According to his
defense attorneys,

they did feel very comfortable
that they can beat DNA

because Gary Ridgway
had always said,

"I'm addicted to prostitutes.

"So yeah, my DNA could
have been in them."

But they had told him

if any other forensic evidence
comes to light, you're done.

- So the hunt was on
for law enforcement

to re-examine all of
the forensic evidence

that they didn't
have the technology

to process the first time.

And this time they had it

and in law enforcement
was not about

to let him slip away again.

[dark music]

- Gary Ridgway was
charged with four murders

when he was initially arrested.

And then began a process of
analyzing all of the other cases

we could apply modern day
forensic technology to evidence

that had been gathered
back in the 80s.

- We're now looking at
microscopic evidence

that in the past had
not been looked at.

- The first of Ridgway's victims
was found in July of 1982.

The ligature that was used on
Wendy Coffield was her pants.

And they had been
wrapped tightly

and kind of knotted
around her neck.

That pair of pants was examined

and they were able to find
microscopic paint spheres.

- Now, remember
where Ridgway worked.

He worked at Kenworth Painting
as a taper and a painter.

Micro trace comes back and
they're able to definitively say

that the microscopic paint
evidence found on the ligatures

associated with Gary Ridgway's
locker are the same paint.

- To be able to analyze
those little tiny spheres

and determine what
type of paint they were

and that they were such a
unique type of paint was really,

you know, a pretty
remarkable forensic finding.

- And so that physical evidence,

that would never have even
been possible back in the 80s.

Science has caught up.

- And as a result
of that process,

we were eventually
able to make a match

to three additional victims.

So he stood accused
of seven murders

and a potential for the
death penalty being sought.

What became very clear to us is

that while we clearly would
be able to convict Ridgway,

and in my estimation,

a jury was likely to
sentence him to death,

there were still many, many,
many unanswered questions.

We had more than 40
women still on the list

that we didn't have
definitive answers for.

- We were told that
the defense team wanted

to enter into a
plea negotiation.

Ridgway, in exchange
for his life,

would talk to us
about these homicides.

- Where the FBI was
instrumental for us was

loaning us Mary Ellen O'Toole.

She played a very important part

in kind of breaking through
the initial reluctance

of Ridgway to really
acknowledge who he was

and why he acted the way he did.

- Mr. Ridgway, I'm still
trying to get a sense

of just how effective a
serial killer that you were,

how good at what you were.

When an offender is identified,

what you want to do in
an interview is be able

to corroborate what happened.

How do you approach
a Gary Ridgway?

Not the same way that you would
approach maybe a Ted Bundy,

not the same way maybe that
you would approach a BTK.

- I want to be the best serial
killer out there and kill...

I want 100 this year.

- Gary Ridgway had
a competitive streak

when it came to comparing
himself to other serial killers.

Thought he was better
than Ted Bundy.

He wanted to be recognized

for his successes
as a serial killer.

So clearly, I
appealed to his ego.

- The one thing he
could tell us is

where he had left bodies.

We began taking him out on
what we called field trips.

- Okay, it would
have been back there.

- We spent hours and hours

with him out at
different locations

where he would try to pinpoint
as closely as he could

where he thought
he had left a body.

- That's where the guardrail,
at the end of the guardrail.

You want to, on
the left-hand side.

- And finally we recovered
four sets of remains

by doing that.

We had Gary Ridgway in our
office with us for 188 days,

living with him for 24-seven,

trying to get this accomplished

because our victims were real,
living, breathing young women

who had families.

And yes, many of them were
involved in prostitution,

but I think it's important
that people understand

that they were human beings
and that they were valued.

- [Judge] Mr. Ridgway, I'm
going to ask you at this time,

how do you plead to the charge?

- Guilty.

- In December of 2003,

in return for Ridgway
cooperating with investigators,

he was permitted to plead
guilty to 48 murders

and avoid facing
the death penalty.

- [Judge] The death
of Gisele Lovvorn.

- Guilty.

- [Judge] For the death
of Sandra Kay Gabbert.

- Guilty.

- I feel so bad for the
women that have passed away

and the families that
they left behind.

It broke my heart.

There never will be any justice.

The day he passes is
going to be justice.

- By 2004, Bundy, Gacy, Dahmer,

and Ridgway have all been held
accountable for their crimes.

And Rader might've been
able to get away with it

for the rest of his life

had he not let his massive
ego get in the way.

- From 1982 till 2004,

no one thought
of BTK at all.

He was just gone, gone.

And after he committed the
1991 Dolores Davis murder,

no one had connected
the murders and

he just disappeared.

- Dennis Rader was
president of his church.

He was a compliance officer
for the city of Park City.

- We've been tracking it down.

The dogs are somewhat
territorial, as well as vicious.

- He was living a normal life.

- [Announcer] This is KAKE News.

- [Reporter] 30 years ago today,

15 year old Charlie Otero
comes home from school

to find his entire
family murdered

in this house on North Edgemore.

And so begins

the most infamous unsolved
serial killing spree

in Wichita history.

- The media was doing stories

on the 30th anniversary
of BTK's first murder.

- [Reporter] The last
known correspondence

from the killer coming in 1979.

- And then in the
Wichita newspaper,

it came out that there was
an author doing a book,

writing a book.

BTK did not like that at all.

He did not like

that there was someone
else writing his story.

There was someone
else getting publicity

for the murders that
he wanted credit for.

- That was a turning point

for him to begin
communicating again.

- He sent a letter
to the Wichita Eagle.

"Hey, I'm still around.

"Here's pictures of one
of my last murders."

You can imagine how people
at the Wichita newspaper

were like "What the hell?

"This guy exists in
our community still?"

They didn't believe it.

[dark music]

- [Reporter] The serial killer
apparently has resurfaced.

- Called BTK, short for
bind, torture, kill.

- Breaking his silence
after 25 years.

- Wichita Police Department
on Friday received information

from Wichita Eagle, received
a letter in the mail.

We have been able to

verify this communique
most likely came from BTK.

- He loved catch me if you
can, catch me if you can.

I'm going to taunt you
till the day I die.

- In 2004, Dennis Rader begins

to leave these
elaborate packages.

In one instance,

he left a cereal box at Home
Depot in the bed of a truck.

And remember, when Dennis
Rader started killing in 1974,

there weren't video cameras
in every parking lot.

But by 2004, video surveillance
cameras became the norms.

And so they were actually able

to get his black Jeep
Cherokee on camera.

- Very grainy.

You wouldn't be able
to identify anybody,

but Relph took one look
at that film and said,

"That's a Jeep Cherokee."

- Now that's, trust
me, in Kansas,

that's not exactly
whittling things down,

but it's still something
about him that you know

that he doesn't.

That's very powerful in
the hands of investigators.

We knew far more about him
in just a couple of months

than we knew in the first 28
years of this investigation.

The technology had allowed us
to move quite a bit forward.

- In the package
left at Home Depot,

he asks about whether or not
a floppy disc can be traced.

- And he wrote it on a...

He even wrote it.

"Be honest."

This guy thought we
were enjoying things

as much as he was,

that we wouldn't lie to him

because God, we don't want
this fun [beep] to stop.

- Well, law enforcement
was not honest.

- They say, "No, it
cannot be traced."

Once he got that assurance, he
sends a disk to a TV station.

- A couple of days later,

Fox affiliate says, "We've
got a floppy disc from BTK."

Raced it down to
the police station.

- There's one file on that disc

and it's simply labeled,
"This is a test."

That's all it says.

But embedded in
there then is Dennis

and Christ Lutheran Church.

- And four or five people are
on different search engines,

just trying to put stuff
together as quick as we can.

Immediately, the
congregation leader,

Christ Lutheran Church,
is Dennis Rader.

- I still to this day,

when I talk about it
or think about it,

you still get goosebumps

because
that's him, that's BTK.

And after all of this time,

after 30 years of trying
to find this killer,

there he is in that picture.

- So we go flying
off toward Park City.

And as we go by the house,

we see that Jeep
Cherokee in the driveway.

We got him.

- But they still don't
have enough information

to link Rader to
the early homicides.

So what do they do?

- We did have, at that time,

a comparison of crime scenes
where DNA was collected.

You had semen that was at
the feet of Josephine Otero.

You had semen that was
in a bathrobe, Nancy Fox.

- We wanted to get Rader's
DNA without him knowing it.

- They found out BTK's
daughter had attended

Kansas State University.

Sure enough, health services
there had a pap smear from her.

They got a search warrant.

- Well, we got her
sample that was used

in reverse paternity to show

that this girl is a child
of this genetic profile

that is BTK.

So there was no one
else in the world

that could be BTK at that point.

- So it was when we
got those results back,

we felt that we had
sufficient probable cause

to make an arrest.

- I called the
mother of Nancy Fox

the night before
we went after him.

Very few people get to
make that phone call,

but I called her and I said,

"Tomorrow, we're going
to go get that guy

"that killed your little
girl 27 years ago."

[ominus music]

- We pulled up about a block
away from Dennis Rader's house.

Once he came down
the street, you know,

it was just this
avalanche of cars.

They had him on the
ground and handcuffed him.

We were in and out of there.

- [Announcer] This
is KAKE News at six.

- A quarter century search

for Wichita's worst
serial killer is over.

The BTK murder mystery
may be nearing an end.

- The man they call the BTK
strangler is in custody.

- Dennis Rader, 59
and a white male.

- When I saw a picture of Rader,

he just didn't seem to be
anything but a weakling.

I wanted revenge.

I wanted revenge for my family.

That's all I could think about.

- The interrogation
started with Kenny Landwehr

and a guy named Bob
Morton with the FBI.

- Lieutenant Landwehr will
take out a floppy disk.

And he says, "When
did you send us this?"

Dennis Rader says.

- Rader's coming to
terms with the fact

that law enforcement
lied to him.

It was a reality check
in where he realized,

well, maybe I didn't
outsmart than this time.

- The man accused of being
the BTK serial killer returns

to a Kansas courtroom
this morning.

Families torn apart by the
BTK killings will be able

to look someone in the eye
and possibly hear the evidence

linking 60 year old Dennis
Rader to the killing spree.

- Constitutions of
the United States

and the state of Kansas
provide that a person charged

with a criminal case is entitled

to have a jury of 12
persons, 12 of his peers.

- He wanted to see me.

He asked them if I could
come down and visit him.

I would see him at least twice
a week at the county jail.

Eventually, our conversation
came around the issue

of whether or not he should
plead guilty or go to trial.

I said to Dennis,

"You have already admitted the
crimes that you've committed.

"What good will it
do to go to trial?"

I says, "It will keep
this community uproar.

"The church will be in uproar.

"Your family will be just
totally in an uproar."

I says, "What good will
it serve to do that

"if you already
admitted your guilt?"

- [Judge] All right, Mr. Rader,

at this time, how do you
plead to these 10 counts?

- Guilty.

- Mr. Rader, do you
desire to say anything

on your own behalf in
mitigation of the punishment?

- Your honor, Sedgwick County,

the victims throughout
the community,

my family, the
victims, dishonor.

Dishonesty to my family.

- His wife, Paula,
definitely was the victim.

She had no idea what was
going on in all those years.

None whatsoever.

- Paula Rader never has talked

or communicated with
him ever, ever again.

And she got an
emergency divorce,

I think like three weeks
later or a month later.

- [Judge] We will now
proceed to sentencing you,

Dennis L. Rader, to
serve a term of life

for each one of these counts.

Those sentences that
are run consecutively

one after the other.

- I believe most women

in Wichita were very
emotional that day

because we really didn't believe
it would never happen again

until we saw those
prison doors close.

And you're like,
we're finally safe.

We're finally safe.

- I'm not going to
have my mom back.

And the hurt's going to
be with me till I die.

But the fact that he got
called out for what he was

and the whole world sees him

for the insignificant little
piece of garbage that he is,

makes me smile on a good day,
I think about that, you know.

- Very few people get to
slay their childhood dragons.

Back in the 70s,

he was a seven foot tall
fire-breathing dragon.

And then to grow up
and to get in this job,

and then for him
to poke his head up

and to think you're going
to get your chance to play,

to be a witness to history.

- For the people in Wichita,
it was a terrible time,

but we got through it.

I hope people can figure
out what caused him to kill.

'Cause we still don't know,
why did Dennis Rader kill?

What caused him to be
the monster he became?

- It may be impossible to
understand exactly why each

of these five men
became serial killers.

As we move forward

with advancements in
forensic psychology,

we may understand
the risk factors

for this type of
extreme violence

and may be able to intervene

before they turn into serial
killers like these five.

- Well, I think this is
really the interesting dynamic

about this golden age
of serial killers.

These five men were so
prolific for so long.

This is when law
enforcement really started

to make all kinds of strides.

It was because of
these individuals.

We really significantly improved

our communication capabilities,
developing task forces,

national crime
information databases,

automated fingerprint
systems, DNA databases.

All of that started to
catch up with these killers

who'd actually been
leaving lots of evidence,

we just hadn't been
able to analyze it.

They were really the catalyst

for so much that happened
in law enforcement

that allowed us to
actually apprehend them.

- Now in an age of 24 hour
news cycle and social media

and the access we have to
information as a society,

serial killing would be a
much more difficult endeavor.

- You know, everybody says
closure for the families.

There's no such
thing as closure.

Yes, they do have answers.

But to have someone that you
love taken from you violently,

there's no closure.

- Susan Elaine
Rancourt, 18 years old.

- Julia Maria Burgos Otero.

- Michael Moreno, 14 years old.

- Darrell Samson, 19.

- [Woman] Every one of
these victims mattered.

Everyone counted.

Everyone was loved.

Everyone was missed.

Everyone deserves
to be remembered.

[overlapping voices]