In a chilling revelation, a woman featured in the drawings of the self-proclaimed ‘BTK’ serial killer, Dennis Rader, may have been identified, as revealed by an Oklahoma sheriff. The sheriff of Osage County, Eddie Virden, refrained from offering further details on the woman’s identification, including her depiction in green and her captivity in a barn.
Virden, along with his team, are meticulously sifting through a plethora of compelling tips from the public on potential victims, triggered by CNN’s exclusive exposé on Rader’s intricate color drawings of barns housing female victims. These sketches were first seized by authorities following Rader’s 2005 arrest. Virden intimated that the incoming tips have provided valuable information that has enhanced the ongoing investigation.
Aided by experts, Virden and his team conjecture that some of the rare colored images, discovered scattered among countless of Rader’s sketches, could depict additional crimes that he had perpetrated in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri. The team has many investigative tasks ahead, including numerous interviews and inspections of the potential sites of interest, as highlighted by Virden.
Rader is on record for openly admitting to ten murders that took place between the 1970s and the 1990s in Wichita, Kansas. Rader is currently serving ten consecutive life sentences in a state prison. Rader, notorious for the abbreviation ‘BTK’, standing for ‘bind, torture, kill’, has denied any involvement in other murders during prison interviews.
The release of Rader’s morbid sketches is intended to stimulate recognition of potential crime venues such as barns, or possibly unexplained items that might be linked to the case. Recent law enforcement intelligence suggests that Rader, still in prison, may have covertly divulged that there are still concealed items in old barns.
Rader’s daughter, Kerri Rawson, recently disclosed to authorities that the ‘young woman in the green shirt’ featured in her father’s drawings had been identified but offered no additional information due to the ongoing active nature of the case. Rawson has been assisting in the investigation and visited Rader in prison for the first time in 18 years.
Law enforcement initiated an investigation into the potential connection between Rader’s sketches, writings, and other known evidence with unsolved cases in the surrounding area in January. One theory is the possible involvement of Rader in the disappearance of 16-year-old Cynthia Dawn Kinney who was last seen in a laundromat in Oklahoma in 1976.
Rader is notoriously known for his cat-and-mouse games, spewing his cryptic hints about his heinous crimes to investigators prior to his arrest. The team believes that Rader may have favored barns situated closely to silos.
Rader’s eerie drawings illustrate the horrifying image of three bound women in locations authorities believe to be barns. The sketches connect to missing women cases and seem to have been drawn from actual crime locations, according to Sheriff Virden.
Recently, Virden’s team discovered what Rader referred to as a ‘hidey hole’, unearthed on the property of his former family home. The hole held new evidence untouched by previous law enforcement probes, including bondage materials.
Osage County investigators currently hope for intervention from state and federal agencies to process the newly unearthed evidence potentially containing DNA that may link Rader to the unsolved crimes or rule him out as a suspect. The investigation also plans to examine ‘trophies’ seized in 2005, which match descriptions of items last seen with victims in the unsolved cases. Proposals to involve external agencies like the FBI and the Kansas Bureau of Investigations have been floated, though their active involvement is yet to happen.
