Kathryn Bright's house

Crime Scene Location in Wichita, Kansas, United States

This is the location where the BTK killer, Dennis Rader, murdered Kathryn Bright.

It is situated at 3217 East 13th Street North in Wichita, Kansas.

Nowadays, the house that Kathryn lived in no longer exists. However, a mailbox and an outline of the driveway are still present.

Rader was stalking Bright

Rader saw the 21-year-old college student while he was driving across East 13th Street North.

After deciding that Bright was a potential target, he began to stalk her and figure out her routine.

Rader broke into her house and waited for her to return

On April 4th, 1974, Rader broke into Bright's house and waited for her to arrive home. However, he was taken by surprise when she returned with her brother, Kevin Bright.

When the pair entered the property, BTK held the two of them at gunpoint and told them that he needed to steal their car and some money.

This was a tactic that he had previously used on the Otero family. By claiming that he was only there to steal something, he was able to trick them into submission. This ruse made his victims believe that everything would be OK if they simply complied with his demands.

Once Rader had settled their nerves and convinced them that it was just a robbery, he forced Kevin to tie his sister up in one of the bedrooms. He then proceeded to tie Kevin up in the other bedroom.

The attack

At that point, Rader rummaged through the house for a bit before trying to strangle Kevin with a nylon stocking. However, Kevin managed to break free and put up a fight.

During the struggle, BTK shot Kevin in the face. Amazingly, Kevin survived the gunshot wound and was clever enough to play dead. Due to the amount of blood involved, Rader believed that he was "down and out."

After "taking care" of Kevin, Rader walked into the other bedroom and attempted to strangle Kathryn. However, she also put up a fight.

As they were fighting, Rader heard a noise coming from the room where he had shot Kevin. Upon hearing the noise, he immediately let go of Kathryn and stormed back into the other bedroom to finish him off.

Kevin Bright did not go down easily

Once again, he attempted to strangle Kevin—and once again, Kevin climbed to his feet and fought back.

During the second struggle, Kevin managed to grab Rader's .357 Magnum and pull the trigger. However, the gun jammed and failed to go off. At that point, Rader pulled out a second pistol and shot him again:

"And I think he thought that was the only gun I had because once I either bit his finger or hit him or something and got away, then I used the .22 and shot him one more time. And I thought he was down for good at that time."

The murder of Kathryn Bright

After shooting Kevin for the second time, Rader returned to the other room to resume his attack on Kathryn. However, by that stage, he was panicking and feeling like he had lost control of the situation. Furthermore, Kathryn was still resisting him and fighting back.

Consequently, he decided to take out a knife and stab her multiple times.

Following the stabbing, Rader heard someone opening the front door of the house. Initially, he believed that the police had arrived and that his luck had finally run out. However, once he walked out of the bedroom, he saw that no one was there.

When he exited the front door and looked around, he was surprised to see Kevin sprinting down the street.

Realizing that he had little time before the alarm was raised, BTK cleaned up what he could and then ran back to his car, which was parked three blocks north of Kathryn's house.

Following this murder, Rader stopped for nearly three years. It wasn't until March of 1977 that he murdered his next victim, Shirley Relford.

Demolished

The house no longer exists. However, you can still visit the location.

Further Details

The property was torn down at some point before Rader's arrest in 2005.

Where did Kathryn Bright live?

Below, you will find the address and the GPS coordinates for this location.

GPS coordinates

The latitude and longitude coordinates for the house are:

37.707901, -97.298067

Map

To view directions on how to get there, you can use the Google Maps shortcut below:

Google Maps Link

Address

The full address for this location is:

3217 E 13th St N
Wichita
Kansas
KS 67208
United States

Directions

The lot is situated in the Fairmount neighborhood of Wichita. It is just a short drive away from the WSU campus.

Photos

Photos of the house and other related images.

An aerial photograph of Kathryn Bright's house

This aerial photograph of Kathryn Bright's house was taken in 1975. We have circled the property in red.

Fairmount Park

During his court confession, Dennis Rader claimed that he had parked his car about one block south of the Wichita State University campus.

"I parked at... what was it... 13th? Let's see... they were on 13th. What is it, 17th? Yea. I was just about one block south of 17th where the car was. There's a park there. I parked at the park and then I walked to 13th, to the Bright's residence. So I basically ran back."

In this case, it is likely that he parked his car at Fairmount Park before walking to Bright's house on 13th Street. The route in question is about half a mile long. It would have taken him roughly 8–10 minutes to walk it by foot.