Dennis Rader paper - Grade: A PDF

Preview

Summary

Write an essay about Dennis Radar...

Description

Substantive Criminal Law 12/07/17 Serial Killer: Dennis Rader Serial killers are individuals who commit a series of murder ultimately with no motive and following behind a predicted pattern. The mind in which they act upon is not what they was born with but it's made from their childhood experiences. On March 9th, 1945 BTK killer, Dennis Rader was born in Pittsburg, Kansas. He was a man who haunted and killed ten people in Sedgwick County, Kansas over a few decades. As a child , Dennis grew up in a loving family and was a quite the average boy in school. Dennis was a member of the Boys Scout and was involved in numerous youth group activities that took place at his church (Crawford, 2017). Growing up while attending grade school, he confessed to many of his classmates about having fantasies that involved bondage, crime and torture. As a result of his fantasies, he began killing cats and dogs then hanging them up in his yard. As he reached his puberty years, he began to have dreams about tying up girls and having his way with them. One of his favorite targets when he had these sexual dreams was Annette Funicello. She was one of his favorite television characters while growing up, she played a role in “Mouseketeer” (Dennis,2017). In the mid 1960’s, Dennis joined the U.S. Air Force and after serving 2 years he was fired from work due to misbehavior.When he returned back home to Wichita, he got married to his wife Paula and began working for several companies such as Coleman Company and ADT Security which he was then fired again for misbehavior and conduct. It all began in 1974, when Rader found himself unemployed and unhappy with a lot of time on his hands. He began to walk around neighborhoods observing women and dreaming about strangling them to death

(Crawford, 2017). His first killing began January 15, 1974 where he stalked his neighbor's for weeks. One night he snuck into their back door where he found the Otero Family hanging out. At first, he explained to them that he was a criminal on the run and insisted that he needed food, money and a vehicle to get by but instead he separated each of the four victims into separate rooms and began to torture them. Rader tied each of the victims and began to strangle them until they died. However, with the youngest daughter that was at the house at the time, Rader forced her down the steps leading to the basement where he unrobed her and hung her to the sewer pipe. As the fantasy he developed as a child was becoming a reality, he then began to masturbate over her body leaving semen and her body left behind. Later on that year, after the killing of six individuals Rader insisted of going public so he wrote a letter to the media and police stating "It's hard to control myself. You probably call me a psychotic with sexual perversion hang-up. I will strike again noting, "The code words for me will be bind them, torture them, kill them, B.T.K." (Dennis, 2017) After, the media received Rader letter he then went back out and committed two more crimes that resulted in the strangulation of two more women. In the years between 1975 and 1978 , while still on the killing spree, Rader and his wife had two children and he graduated from Wichita State University with a major Bachelor’s degree in Justice. Nothing changed about his mindset of murdering these women except for going M.I.A for about fifteen years leaving all the families in Wichita, Kansas terrified of their life. During 1985, Rader was more involved with his family and began to participate in activities with his children to show his appreciation to them. As being a Scout Leader of the Boy Scouts, he took his son who were also members on a camping trip. It was the same night of the

trip when Rader went out and hunted for another victim to add to his killing collection. Four months after the killing of his tenth victim, Rader began working as a Park City Animal Control Officer. This job gave him the ability to gain personal information about local residence and abuse some of his rights that consisted of mistreating women. Though Dennis Rader was a good citizen who served on two local County Boards, was Vice President of his church council and a member of the local law enforcement, the actions he portrayed connects him very well to the crimes but his personality and characteristics did not. There are a few reasons in which Radnor committed these crimes, they are identified as him having violence and sexual desires, being unemployment and seeking attention. His violence was show during his childhood years when he used to torture and kill animals. This demonstrated that Rader’s violence developed over time causing him to kill humans as he got older instead of animals. His fantasies and sexual desires he had as a young child led him to be sexually aroused while committing the murders. As a keepsake and form of remembrance, he left semen on each of his women victims, stealing their underwear as a souvenir and admitting to feeling pleasure from taking lives of others. Lastly, the need of attention was one of the major reasons as to why Dennis continued to commit these murders. The reason is because he had the feeling that no one was out looking for him so he insisted of communicating very often with the local media and police so they had their attention and eyes on him. Radar sent numerous letters and poems in the mail describing each and every murder he committed along with photography to show what he was cable of. His need for attention became so known, to the point that after sending a floppy disk that contained information about his crimes and personal information about himself to the police they were able to identify him as the BTK killer which resulted in his arrest.

Reference

Crawford, I.,M. (2017, March 08). Profile of a Serial Killer: Dennis Rader, the BTK Strangler. Retrieved December, 8 2017, from https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/Profile-of-a-SerialKiller-Part-5-Dennis-Rader-The-BTK-Killer (2017, November 16). Dennis Rader Biography.com. Retrieved December, 8 2017, from https://www.biography.com/people/dennis-rader-241487...