Marine Hedge's house

This is the house where the BTK killer, Dennis Rader, murdered Marine Wallace Hedge.

It is situated at 6254 Independence Street in Wichita, Kansas.

The property is just a few doors away from BTK's former address at 6220 Independence Street. In this case, Rader deliberately selected a neighbor just to see if he could get away with it.

In his own words, it would be a "biggie" if he could pull it off.

"So I thought, can I really pull this off? Can I really pull this off close to my house and get away with it? Ooh, this will be a biggie if I can."

In the days leading up to the murder, Rader stalked Hedge and figured out her routine. On one occasion, he even scoped out her workplace at a local coffee shop.

On April 27th, 1985, he feigned an illness and excused himself from a weekend Boy Scout meeting. He then drove his vehicle to a bowling alley near Woodlawn and 21st Street.

Once there, he went inside and had a beer, as he wanted to create the impression that he was drunk.

After he drank his beer and purposely spilled some of it on his clothes, he called a taxi and asked the driver to take him to Park City.

When the taxi was close to Independence Street, he pretended to be so drunk that he needed some fresh air. This gave him an excuse to get out of the vehicle at a random spot without raising any suspicions.

Rader wanted to arrive in the area unnoticed by his family or any of his neighbors. If someone had seen him exiting the cab, it would have ruined his alibi that he was away at a Boy Scout meeting.

After getting out of the vehicle, BTK crept through the park at the back of Hedge's home and cut her phone lines. He then quietly entered the house via the back door.

At the time, Hedge wasn't home. As a result, Rader decided to wait.

When she finally returned, she was with a male visitor, who stayed for roughly one hour.

Rader hid in a closet in a spare bedroom and remained there until the early hours of the morning.

Once he was confident that she was fast asleep, he exited the closet and attempted to sneak into her bedroom. To see where he was going, he switched on a light in the bathroom.

This startled Hedge, who immediately woke up and started screaming.

Realizing that he needed to act quickly, Rader jumped on top of the 53-year-old and strangled her to death with his bare hands.

Following the murder, he put her in the trunk of her own car and drove to Christ Lutheran Church.

Rader had keys to the property because he was a senior member of the church. After bringing her down into the basement, he took several photographs of her in various bondage poses. However, he lost track of time and became panicked when he realized that the sun was starting to come up.

At that point, he cleaned up the scene, put her body back into the trunk, and then drove east along East 53rd Street before finally stopping to dump her body in a ditch.

Following the crime, he drove Hedge's car to the bowling alley, parked it, and collected his own.

On May 3rd, 1985, the police discovered Hedge's vehicle in the southwest corner of the Brittany Center parking lot. At the time, she was still missing.

After finding her car, investigators quickly realized that they were dealing with a homicide. There was a blanket in the trunk, and mud on the tires suggested someone had driven it along dirt roads.

Two days later, Hedge's remains were found on 53rd Street. Rader had dumped her body in a drainage ditch and covered it with foliage.