A Serial Killer’s Daughter

by Kerri Rawson

  For now, she was planning on staying with her sisters and my grandparents, moving every few weeks, till we could figure out what to do about the house and find her a new place to live.

  Dad had cost us our home. Thirty-four years. Gone like that.

  I was anxious while my uncle and cousin were gone, worried about what they would encounter. But when they returned Saturday evening, they reported it hadn’t been ransacked, which we’d been afraid of. It didn’t even look as if someone had been in there, let alone a team of investigators, crime scene techs, and who knows who else. Mom’s lunch plate that was left on the kitchen table when she was rushed out of the house was even sitting in the sink; someone had rinsed it for her.

  My family talked me into looking at return flights to Michigan. “You need to get back to Darian, to teaching,” my aunt said. “It will help—the kids will—having a routine.”

  I was worried about my mom, didn’t want to leave her, but she said, “I’ll be all right. I’ve got lots of help here; you should go on home.”

  Home. This was home—Kansas. Not Michigan.

  I wanted to stay another week in the quiet, peaceful place where I was safe. And I didn’t want to think about facing the coming months while I was sixteen hours away.

  Darian said it was getting quieter—the news trucks were gone—so we booked a flight for me on Sunday.

  I missed him—needed him. I had to go back sometime.

  “The LORD is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear?”5

  CHAPTER 28

  Maybe Love Is Enough

  MARCH 2005

  DETROIT

  Pastor Mike thinks we should write your father. Try to get through to him—why we think he should plead guilty.”

  Guilty.

  Let the truth be the truth.

  A few days after I got home, I was on the phone with my mom. I wholeheartedly agreed with her: Dad should plead guilty. But I had no idea how one convinced my dad to do anything, let alone something so immense.

  A guilty plea would spare all of us—this family and the seven families he’d devastated—months, if not years, of suffering through a long, drawn-out trial. We all knew what the inevitable outcome would be. Guilty.

  But the man I didn’t know wasn’t into sparing anyone anything. He was a murderer. Of children. Women: daughters, mothers, grandmothers. A father. The man I didn’t know, the narcissistic one, finally had the full spotlight on himself after thirty-one years. He wouldn’t likely give it up for anything, not even his family.

  Father God?

  Love never fails. Love. I loved the dad I knew. Maybe love would be enough. Maybe he would plead guilty for us.

  It was hard to think about writing to my dad; it hurt. I put it off that week.

  On Saturday, March 12, I sat down to my corner computer and wrote to my father, two weeks after I’d fallen apart in the same chair. It was three days after his sixtieth birthday.

  Happy birthday, Dad.

  As the years have gone on, I’ve continued to find writing him painful and continued to drag my feet, the weight of it too much. But on rare days, it is enough to know it’s the right thing to do—so I sit down to write. Tears fall every time. It guts me, but I do it for his sake and mine.

  In the midst of Dad’s arrest, arraignment, and plea, he and I wrote to each other monthly. My letters were typed, with colorful clip art added to cheer him up, then saved to my computer, printed, and mailed to the Sedgwick County Detention Facility in Wichita. His were handwritten and mailed in decorated envelopes to Michigan.1

  Saturday, March 12

  Dad,

  Hello, I am physically doing okay. I am safe and home in Michigan. I was able to fly back to Kansas and be with Mom after all this happened. Brian is doing okay. The Navy has been supportive and helpful; we’re glad he’s safe on base where he can’t be harassed.

  The media was reporting I turned you in. That’s not true. I didn’t know anything (like everyone else) until the FBI knocked on my door. I tried to tell them what a great man you are, what a wonderful dad you are, how they totally had screwed up and arrested the wrong guy. I tried, we all did, but they didn’t listen.

  Pastor Mike relayed your message to Mom and me, and we passed it on to Brian. We’re all so sorry you’ve been living with what you’ve been living with for so long. We still love you. We love the husband, father, and man we know with all our hearts. We don’t know who that other man is. We understand there is something seriously and deeply wrong with that part of you. We want you to get help if you can.

  We want you to be treated fairly, with compassion and respect. We’re hoping there will not be a long, drawn-out trial, but we understand it is your choice and your right to have one. We’ll stand by whatever you decide. We support you, the husband and father we know. I’m sorry you’re alone and we’re not able to be with you. I’m sorry I can’t give you a hug and tell you everything is going to be okay.

  No matter what you may have done or not done, you are my father and I love you. You raised me and Brian as well as any man could, you took care of us, protected us, taught us so much about life and the things in it. I am sorry I cannot be there to take care of you the way you took care of me the last 26 years.

  I’m not ready to talk on the phone yet, but we can talk someday and someday we will come visit you. But right now, it is just too hard. Please try to understand, we haven’t abandoned you, we haven’t turned our backs, we just need some time to try to make sense of everything and get some firm ground under our feet.

  I love you,

  Kerri

  MARCH

  Prayers and support from all over the country, especially from other churches named Christ Lutheran, poured into my mom’s church for our family and the whole church community. Several women at my mom’s church put together care packages for my mom, my grandmas, and me. There were individually wrapped gifts to open a few at a time: lovely, thoughtful items to let us know we were cared for, including a hand-knitted teal-blue throw.

  In the middle of madness, my family had been gifted humanity that shored up our spirits—reminding us we were not alone.

  “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”2

  Friends and distant family my mom hadn’t heard from in years called and wrote. Rita, my roommate from college, sent me a note in a brightly colored card; I hadn’t spoken to her in eight years. It meant an immense amount to me, tears of grace falling after years of separation.

  Two other friends of ours from college sent a gift card to pick up dinner from Boston Market—I still remember how thoughtful and astounding I found that, and I still remember eating that meal.

  Dad and my family continued to be an ongoing national news story, but a few trusted coworkers of Darian’s were the only ones in Michigan who knew who Darian and I actually were. I was so infrequently in any one school to sub that I didn’t bother telling anyone who I was. I wouldn’t even know where to start, and maybe they wouldn’t want me as a teacher if they knew.

  My dad is BTK—I’m BTK’s daughter.

  The news trucks were gone, but the media would still try to contact us. I came home one day to find an envelope duct-taped to my door, with the words National Enquirer scribbled on the outside—the note inside written on a local hotel’s stationery. A week before, standing in the checkout line at the grocery store, I’d been horrified to see on the cover of the Enquirer grainy pictures of Mom coming out of Snacks.

  Our apartment building door was supposed to be locked. Was this reporter sending me a message that I was next to be stalked, photographed, and published?

  Hearing our metal door knocker would send me jumping into the air. I’d answer the door, timidly, after looking through the peephole. Our mailman sheepishly handed me certified letters I didn’t want but still had to sign for.

  I received phone calls from area codes I didn’t know, sometimes instantly regretting answering them instead of letting them go t
o voice mail.

  Everyone from Oprah to Larry King was asking for an interview, and I told everyone no. So did Mom—a united front of solidarity.

  We will fly you to New York City; you can come sit on our hot seat.

  We will fly you to Chicago; you can come sit on our comfy couch.

  No thanks—nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

  March 26

  Dear Kerri,

  Happy Belated Easter Wish! Thank you so much for your letter. I was overjoyed with emotions and happiness. I was beginning to think no immediate family members was going to write to me. Your letter was very sincere and I can tell it came from a very loving and understanding daughter.

  I just finish lunch and played a quick game of Solitaire, old “Sol” won. Although I did beat it last night. One of PD, (Pod deputy) show me how to play. Nothing going on the weekends and PD’s and I are taking things easy. They don’t have their supervisors and tend to be better at being at ease and not so hard on you.

  Attorney visit every day, Pastor Mike visit. Doc had to visit to work on my in-grown toenails and I’m having problem with a right swollen foot, maybe my diet or poor shoe I have on. Also had another head doctor (Psychologist) visit me Friday. I have spent a lot of evenings working on past history good/dark for attorney.

  So now, to keep my mind busy, I have the Daily Routine: old Sol to play, letters to read, letters to write, Bible Study, exercise, books to read, also started receiving the Eagle.

  I also heard you turn me in, and I knew down deep, you did not. It was my own Follies playing Mouse and Cat with the FBI and Police, too long. They finally honed in on me like a missile. I do have some serious problems and I do need help on them. Need your prayers and thoughts on that.

  I have been trying to steer my attorneys towards the concept of less family exposure. And that is what I really want to do, down deep in my heart. Arraignment is April 19—16 working days ahead. We talked about a plea for Insanity, but I don’t know whether Larned (State Hospital) or El Dorado (Prison) will be the best in the long run.

  I know there a lot of ugly-ness that will come out either way to the public. I just don’t know what to do; I lost control of my life at this point and at the mercy of the Judicial System. Some people just think I can and at moments-notice, call the Judge and plea Guilty and everything will put in a box and locked away. Media exposure and possible ugly-ness brought to light before I’m sentenced. All the above is heavy on my mind and emotionally draining me downward into a pit.

  Hearing from another source may help me decide for the good of the family.

  I learn from the TV news I have been appointed a judge. My attorney said nothing about it, Friday AM, although they may have been a p.m. announcement to the media. I wonder if they have bit off more than they can chew!

  I received a letter from Mom. Again, I was overjoyed and so happy. I will return letter to her this weekend. It will [be] fourth letter out. Hers is always the hardest to write. I’m concern about my letters reaching you, Mom, and Brian. I have mail three out, each week.

  Tell Darian hi, for me. Be prepared as arraignment near, the media will be back, sorry for that.

  Love,

  Dad3

  CHAPTER 29

  Leave the Crime Solving to the Experts

  MARCH 2005

  Dad’s letters showed up randomly, and I learned to steady myself before opening my mailbox. I would walk slowly back to my apartment, setting them on my desk till I summoned the strength to open them. They always had a faint odor of a place I didn’t know: dank, musty, cigarette-like.

  When I finally steeled myself to read, I fluctuated through a roil of emotions: sadness, anger, disbelief, disconnection. Darian braced himself, knowing a storm was about to hit: my pacing, cursing, shaking the yellow legal-size sheets at him.

  Then the tears. Always the tears.

  I had questions, I needed answers, and Dad’s words were not nearly enough.

  Dad wasn’t telling us much, but answers were slowly coming out of Wichita. The police were releasing new revelations about Dad’s crimes; their massive, decades-long search for him; and his arrest. The Eagle was covering these releases in-depth and the national news was spreading them wide.

  Along with the rest of the world, I was learning the truth about my father. But unlike the rest of the world—who were merely following a story—I was also following my life. I struggled, trying to match what I was finding out with what I knew. Thought I’d known.

  We found out that along with the much larger deceptions, Dad deceived Mom and my family in many smaller ways. He called Mom at times in the last year to say he had to stay late for work. He actually was working after hours on “BTK projects” at his office in the city building, placing incriminating items in his locked cabinet.

  Dad normally left his office by six o’clock, and Mom almost always had supper ready by the time he was home—after she’d worked a full day. Thinking of him calling her and lying to her—and her sitting at the table, hungry, likely with a roll of Ritz crackers to tide herself over, waiting to eat with him—royally teed me off.

  She’d wait in her chair, the one next to the stove, so it would be easy for her to get up and keep whatever she had fixed warm till he was home.

  His chair was the one in front of the dryer so he could face the kitchen door and not have his back to it. You never sat in his chair if he was home—unless you wanted to push his buttons or find yourself in trouble.

  While on a family vacation in Saint Louis in June 1993, Dad became paranoid that the housekeeping staff was stealing his Ritz crackers, and he started counting how many were left in a roll before we left in the mornings. When he got ridiculous, there was nothing left for Mom and me to do but laugh and poke fun at him.

  On that trip, while eating at an “authentic” Italian place, Dad told me gangsters never liked to sit with their back to a door. He was big into mobster movies—The Godfather, Goodfellas, Road to Perdition.

  I watched them all with him, and now he was on his own self-paved road to hell.

  Dad also built his BTK projects while Mom was gone to church choir. But it hadn’t been unusual when I was home, back into the early 1990s, to see Dad fiddling with stamps. He often had large albums, index cards, tweezers, and rubber gloves scattered on our kitchen table. His BTK letters and envelopes would’ve blended right in. And he hadn’t started those back up till 2004.

  Dad didn’t just start back up as BTK in 2004 due to the thirtieth-anniversary documentary of the Otero murders being aired on TV. He likely partly did it because his kids were now grown, out of the house, out of state. We were safe, doing well; he had seen to raising us right.

  Our leaving could have led to him going through a late-life crisis: the kids were gone and retirement was looming. He wanted to retire as BTK too. He had more time, but more time led to boredom, which often led Dad to bad things.

  One of the letters my dad sent to a local Wichita TV station was mailed right before my family’s trip to Michigan in May 2004. Knowing Dad, he could’ve casually dropped it in the mailbox in front of Leeker’s, fueled up, and gotten ice for the cooler before heading out of town.

  Dad had wandered off for an hour while we were window-shopping in Frankenmuth. Had he been trying to find news about BTK’s latest mail drop, which had been discovered while he was conveniently on vacation? He came back with wine, saying he found a shop that offered tastings. It made sense at the time, but now I questioned his absence.

  Dad’s May 2004 communication, which contained a word search–type puzzle, was released after his arrest. I recognized it as something my dad might find fun. He preferred cryptograms—substitution codes—and my favorite kind of puzzles were logic problems. I printed it off, finding several familiar words, including names of our family, creatively scattered in it, as well as our address.

  What had Dad intended? If that puzzle had been released to the public in the summer of 2004, would I have seen it in the news and
tried to solve it?

  I looked up other BTK communications. I knew we still had a typewriter, which he had used to type addresses on envelopes. I even recognized the old-fashioned train stamp on one.

  In the fall of 2004, Dad didn’t come to Brian’s boot camp graduation. Was his odd “too busy to get away” excuse related to something criminal he was doing?

  Dad wandered off at the airport the night we went to get Brian at Christmas. Why? Was he looking for a TV with news?

  When Darian and I were home for Christmas, Dad set up the folding table in the living room and placed a stack of Eagles on it. While we all watched a movie, he methodically marked the top of each front page, tapping his house shoes as he did. Were the marks code for something?

  Code. Substitute one thing for another.

  Had I held the key to my dad—to who BTK was?

  If I had been living in Wichita in 2004, I likely would have been up to my neck in trying to solve it. I could have—my family could have—been in deep trouble if one of us had stumbled onto something of his that was BTK’s.

  I realized why the list with the false leads that Dad had given the police had bothered me last fall:

  Trains. Railroads.

  Dad was in the military in the 1960s.

  Did one of my great-grandpas play the fiddle?

  Grandpa was from Missouri and fought in World War II.

  Lung disease. Black lung was what coal miners died from, and there were strip pits around Columbus and Pittsburg where Dad lived as a young boy.

  When I was young, we went to Dad’s family reunions in Columbus and drove out to the rolling hills to visit Big Brutus, a massive, orange-and-black electric shovel that dug coal in the 1960s and ’70s. We kids posed with Dad in the shovel to have our picture taken, grins on our faces.

  Dad and I camped, fished, and canoed around the strip pits on spring break in 1994; my uncle Bill joined us. There was a fire ban because it was so dry, and it was terribly cold for March. Dad told me I was too old to sleep in a tent with him, so I got stuck freezing in an old leaky tent by myself. I’d stewed and cursed at Dad in the night but the next morning was thankful for his warm gear that he made me put on: his overalls, an extra coat, his gloves. I was also thankful that my dad and uncle were fine outdoor cooks, even with a limited fire.