Mindhunter Season 2: Who is The BTK Strangler?

After a long two-year wait, Mindhunter returns for a second series on Netflix.

Ford and Tench return, interviewing serial killers to get into their minds, with the intention of finding murderers who have not yet been caught by criminal profiling.

Last season, we saw Ed Camper, Monty Russell, Jerry Broodos and Richard Speck. This time, more real-life monsters will emerge as the couple tries to understand the killer's thought process.

One of the most interesting but disturbing figures in the second season is BTK Stranger, whose story will be solved in real time by the FBI.

Here's the painful story behind BTK's killer, Dennis Rader. Before reading further, we would like to include a content warning as this story is horrifying and can cause suffering.

Spoiler alert: You won't actually recognize him as BTK's killer in Mindhunter and instead see him as the dreaded ADT serviceman who lurks around, acting weird.

The element of it, which lies in sight, is extremely apt, since in fact the reign of Dennis Rader's terror lasted from 1974 to 1991, during which time he killed ten people.

He was only caught in 2005, when he began sending letters to the police (something he had previously done during his active murder time) and was captured.

BTK means "bondage, torture, murder", so Dennis Rader signs his letters to the police and how he eventually gets nicknamed.

His first killings were the Otero family in 1974. Rader killed his mother and father, Joseph and Julie, as well as their 9 and 11-year-old Joseph Jr. and Josephine. Their bodies were discovered by Charlie's eldest son when he got home from school.

Rader then sent letters to a local television station in Kansas acknowledging the killings and those of Catherine Bright, Shirley Vian and Nancy Fox.

His next victim was a 53-year-old marine hedge in 1985. He not only killed her, but took pictures of her body in the church where she volunteered.

Over the years, he has watched many more women (and later admits to killing Vicky Vegerle in 1986, before his two-year-old daughter), but kills his tenth and last victim in 1991; Dolores E. Davis.

All of his murders were premeditated, and he will pre-empt his victims in order to prepare for the crimes and figure out how to enter and subdue their homes. His crimes were also sexually motivated, and he often took souvenirs, such as underwear from his wife's victims, driver's licenses, and personal effects.

Rader's family (he had a wife and two children) had no idea of ​​his crimes, and he escaped capture by appearing as a "normal" suburban dad, volunteering as a Cub Scout leader and church council.

It was not until 2004 that he restarted the police investigation through a series of letters that became suspected. After sending the file floppy to a BTK killer station, police were able to trace his identity and then use DNA evidence to find out who he was.