BTK Serial Killer Pleads Guilty

Ex-Scout Leader Dennis Rader Admits To 10 Murders In Wichita Area

(CBS/AP)  The earliest crimes linked to the BTK strangler date to Jan. 15, 1974, when Joseph Otero, 38, and his 34-year-old wife, Julie, and their children Josephine, 11, and Joseph II, 9, were found dead in their home.

"The whole family just panicked on me. I worked pretty quick," he said.

When questioned by the judge about the motivation for the Otero slayings, Rader said: "That was part of what you call my fantasy."

Pressed further, Rader said, "Sexual fantasy, sir."

Rader has not been accused of sexually assaulting his victims, but he admitted masturbating over some of them.

BTK's next three known victims were young women found strangled in their homes between 1974 and 1977.

After years of silence, the killer resurfaced last year with a letter to The Wichita Eagle that included photos of the 1986 strangulation of one woman and a photocopy of her missing driver's license. The woman's case had not been linked to BTK until then.

That letter was followed by several other cryptic messages and packages. The break in the case came after a computer diskette the killer had sent was traced to Rader's church.

"Our gut feeling was that he was somebody that hid in plain sight, that he was not somebody that his neighbors would necessarily suspect," former Wichita detective Arlyn Smith, who worked on the case in the late 1970s, told CBS News.

"I'll bet you any amount of money he was in her home chit-chatting," said the victim's son, Jeff Davis.

Rader also was charged with the killings of two other women, one in 1985 and another in 1991. Those deaths were not linked to BTK until Rader's arrest.

He described to the court how he chose his victims.

"If you've read much about serial killers, they go through what they call different phases. In the trolling stage, basically, you're looking for a victim at that time," Rader said. "You can be trolling for months or years, but once you lock in on a certain person, you become a stalker."

Rader worked in suburban Park City as a compliance officer, handling code violations and stray dogs. He has been married for 34 years and has two grown children.

Steve Osburn, one of Rader's defense attorneys, said prosecutors' evidence against Rader included a confession, DNA and "personal trophies" Rader collected from his victims.

Rader did not apologize during the hearing, though Osburn suggested later that Rader may apologize at his sentencing.