Friday, October 25

Proof inadequate to cost BTK killer in Oklahoma chilly case, prosecutor says

PAWNEE, Okla. — There isn’t sufficient proof to cost the BTK serial killer within the 1976 disappearance of a 16-year-old lady, an Oklahoma prosecutor stated Monday regardless of statements from legislation enforcement officers calling Dennis Rader a chief suspect.

District Attorney Mike Fisher stated at a information convention that he’s not at a degree the place he might file fees towards Rader within the disappearance of Cynthia Dawn Kinney, a cheerleader from the northern Oklahoma metropolis of Pawhuska who was final seen at a laundromat.

But Fisher requested the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to open a proper investigation into Kinney’s disappearance due to the general public curiosity within the revived chilly case, and he’ll file fees if he learns of proof that may warrant it, he stated.



Osage County sheriff’s officers, together with Undersheriff Gary Upton, have just lately known as Rader a “prime suspect” in Kinney’s disappearance and the demise of 22-year-old Shawna Beth Garber, whose physique was found in December 1990 in McDonald County, Missouri.

Rader, now 78, killed from 1974 to 1991, giving himself the nickname BTK — for “bind, torture and kill.” He performed a cat and mouse recreation with investigators and reporters for many years earlier than he was caught in 2005. He in the end confessed to 10 killings within the Wichita, Kansas, space, about 90 miles (144.84 kilometers) north of Pawhuska. He is imprisoned for 10 consecutive life phrases.

Rob Ridenour, Rader’s legal professional, stated he had no remark Monday.

A financial institution was putting in new alarms throughout the road from the laundromat the place Kinney was final seen, Osage County Sheriff Eddie Virden has stated. Rader was a regional installer for safety system firm ADT on the time, however Virden wasn’t capable of affirm that Rader put in the financial institution’s methods.

Virden advised KAKE-TV he determined to research when he discovered that Rader had included the phrase “bad laundry day” in his writings.

Fisher stated he sat in on interviews that Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma investigators performed with Rader about 90 days in the past, however the sheriff has not shared any bodily proof with the DA’s workplace.

He known as the data he has obtained thus far “rumors because they’ve not been substantiated yet.” And he stated he hadn’t seen something “that at this point arises to the level of even reasonable suspicion.”

But Fisher stated he had seen issues that gave him “pause and concern” concerning the sheriff’s division, together with the way in which they dealt with a dig for proof at Rader’s former property in Park City, Kansas, final month. And he known as his relationship with the sheriff “broken.”

“I’m not trying to create a conflict with the sheriff of Osage County,” he stated. “But, there are certain ways to investigate a case, and I’m concerned that those proper investigative techniques have not been used. That’s why I asked the OSBI to assist.”

Virden defended his dealing with of the investigation in an interview printed Sunday within the Tulsa World. He additionally stated Rader denied when he spoke to him in jail in January that he had killed anybody however his 10 victims in Kansas, however volunteered that one in all his favourite unfulfilled fantasies had been to kidnap a lady from a laundromat.

The prosecutor stated he was additionally involved for Kinney’s dad and mom, with whom he met for about two hours on Friday. He stated they’re each of their 80s, and the renewed hypothesis has taken a bodily toll on them.

“Cynthia went missing 47 years ago. They’ve got no answers,” Fisher stated. “We have reason to believe that it may have been a homicide. We can’t say that with any absolute certainty, but we’ve seen nothing to suggest otherwise as there’s been no contact with Cynthia Dawn since 1976, since her disappearance.”

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