The BTK Killer's house

Serial Killer House in Wichita, Kansas, United States

This is the street where the BTK Killer, Dennis Rader, lived with his wife Paula and two children, Kerri and Brian.

The house was situated at 6220 Independence Street in Park City, Kansas.

Rader and his wife moved into the house in the fall of 1973.

Following his arrest, his wife, Paula, filed for an emergency divorce and then sold the family home to the City of Park City for just under $60,000.

A few months later, in March of 2007, the City Council demolished the little white bungalow that the family had lived in for over 30 years.

To this day, the lot remains empty.

Bind, Torture, Kill

BTK is one of America's most notorious serial killers. Between 1974 and 1991, he murdered ten people. One of his victims was only nine years old.

He also taunted the police and the local news media by sending them numerous letters.

While he was communicating with the Wichita Eagle newspaper, Rader gave himself the nickname "BTK," which stands for "Bind, Torture, and Kill."

The acronym described his modus operandi. In other words, he would tie his victims up, torture them for his own sexual gratification, and then murder them.

His crimes started in January of 1974, when he brutally murdered four members of the Otero family in Wichita.

Most of Rader's murders took place in central Wichita, which is about a 15-minute drive away from this empty lot on Independence Street.

By committing his crimes 10 miles away, he was able to put distance between himself and his murders.

However, in 1985, Rader deviated from his usual behavior by striking close to his own home.

Marine Hedge

On April 27th, 1985, he strangled his 53-year-old neighbor Marine Wallace Hedge to death. Hedge lived at 6254 Independence Street, which is only seven doors away.

In fact, the two houses were so close that Rader and Marine used to wave at each other while they were out doing gardening work in their yards.

At the time, Rader knew that it would be a risky crime. However, he wanted to see if he could murder someone close to his own house and still get away with it.

In his own words, pulling it off "would be a biggie."

In February of 1991, he murdered his last victim, Dolores Davis. He also stopped communicating with the media and the police.

As a result, the BTK killings became a cold case.

Rader resumes contact

Then, in 2004, after more than a decade of silence, Rader suddenly started to send letters again.

He did this after an article in the Wichita Eagle newspaper suggested that he was either dead or in prison.

In one of his letters, he naively asked the Wichita police department if they were able to trace floppy disks. He even told them to "be honest".

In response, the police took out a coded ad in the classified section of a local newspaper and told him that it would be OK.

Not long after, BTK sent in a floppy disk "as a test". Unfortunately for him, the police were able to recover a deleted file from it.

After examining the deleted file, they noticed that it was last edited by someone called Dennis. Furthermore, they could see that the disk had been used at the Christ Lutheran Church in Wichita.

Following a quick Google search, investigators finally had a suspect: 59-year-old Park City resident Dennis Rader.

Shockingly, they discovered that the chief suspect behind some of Wichita's most brutal murders was the president of a church congregation.

However, after cross-referencing a DNA sample from one of BTK's crime scenes with a pap smear belonging to his daughter, detectives were certain that they had the right man.

Arrest

On February 25th, 2005, police officers swooped in on Rader while he was driving home from work.

Originally, he denied the crimes. However, a month later, he changed his mind and entered a guilty plea. Following his guilty plea, Rader calmly and coldly recalled each of his murders in precise detail.

In August of 2005, District Judge Gregory Waller sentenced him to 10 consecutive life sentences.

Demolished

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

Further Details

In January of 2007, BTK's ex-wife Paula Dietz sold the house to the City of Park City for roughly $60,000. According to Mayor Dee Stuart, the city purchased the property in order to bulldoze it and provide another entry into Jardine Memorial Park. In March of 2007, the property was completely demolished.

BTK's house address

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

GPS coordinates

The latitude and longitude coordinates for the house are:

37.796593, -97.324936

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:

6220 Independence Street
Park City
Wichita
Kansas
KS 67219
United States

Directions

Independence Street is accessible via North Jacksonville Drive, which lies on the northern side of East 61st Street North.

Details about the general area

Park City is a suburb on the north side of Wichita, Kansas.

Photos

Photos of the house and other related images.

Kerri Rawson

This photograph shows BTK's daughter, Kerri Rawson, standing at the site of their former home.

Kerri said that while he displayed flashes of anger at times, he was a loving father for the most part. Two years before his arrest, he walked her down the aisle on her wedding day.

Following his arrest, his family was understandably shocked and overcome with grief. They had no idea that the man they had lived with their entire lives could be capable of such crimes.

Although Kerri broke off contact with him for several years, she eventually forgave him and started talking to him again.

However, she filed a no-contact order against Rader in 2021. During one interview, she revealed that her father's "followers" were helping him cyberstalk her by mailing him screenshots of her social media profiles.

Dennis Rader's arrest

Rader was arrested near his home in Park City on February 25th, 2005.

When officers asked him if he knew why he was being arrested, Rader responded, "Oh, I have suspicions why."

He then looked at a detective and said, "Will you let my wife know I won't be home for lunch? I assume you know where I live."

Shortly afterwards, the police arrived at Rader's house and asked his wife to leave.

The spot where Rader was arrested

This is the exact spot where Rader was pulled over by the police and arrested. Officers followed him from his workplace and then pulled him over about 300 feet east of the intersection between East Kechi Road and Independence Street.

At the time, he was only 270 yards away from his house.

Coordinates: 37.796061, -97.323924

Google Maps Link

Court confessions

In court, BTK calmly recalled his crimes in great detail.

Rader grew up in Wichita. It wasn't until 1973 that he moved to Park City, on the north side of the city.

He worked as an alarm technician for a home security company in Wichita until 1989. This job helped him to scope out victims, disable alarms, and cut phone lines.

His work colleagues at the company complained that he was a nitpicker who "lived by the rules of the book."

In 1991, he became a code-compliance officer and a dogcatcher.

Notably, he has an associate degree in electronics and a B.S. degree in "Administration of Justice".

Aerial photograph

This is an aerial photograph of Independence Street.

The circle marks the spot where Rader's house once stood. The arrow is pointing to the location where he was arrested.

BTK's neighbors painted a mixed picture of him.

Although he would often help elderly neighbors with their yard work, he was also a bully who liked to pick on single mothers and cite people for city code violations. One neighbor said that Rader would measure the grass on people's lawns and then threaten to fine them if they didn't mow it quickly enough.

He also reportedly liked to chase stray pets with a tranquilizer gun.

Rader's house

This photograph shows a police officer guarding BTK's house.

The interior of the house was pretty small. It had 3 bedrooms and was 960 square feet in size. Furthermore, there was no basement.

In January of 2007, an eBay seller attempted to auction off lath boards from the house. In response, Mayor Dee Stuart stated that the city would "gleefully" prosecute anyone who was caught stealing or trespassing on the property.

At the time, it was publicly known that the city had plans to demolish the house. However, Stuart refused to say when the demolition would begin. In her own words, she did not want it to become a "spectacle."

This would explain why there are no photographs of the house being torn down.

After it was demolished, debris from the house was buried at an undisclosed landfill.