Episode 01 — “The Boy in the Barn”
A quiet man in a quiet town killed ten people over thirty-one years — and nobody around him ever suspected a thing. BTK: Bind. Torture. Kill. traces the double life of Dennis Rader, a Kansas husband, father, Cub Scout leader, church council president, and compliance officer who secretly stalked, bound, and murdered his neighbours while installing their home alarm systems for a living. Told entirely through narration across twenty episodes, this micro-drama series follows Rader from his disturbed childhood fantasies through his methodical first kills, his decades of hiding in plain sight, his fatal need for public recognition, and the two words buried in a floppy disk's metadata that ended everything. No dramatised dialogue. No sensationalism. Just the facts of how an ordinary-looking man became one of the most chilling serial killers in American history — and how his own ego delivered him to justice.
Episode 04 — “The Otero House”
January 15, 1974. Rader cuts the phone line at 803 North Edgemoor Street and walks into the home of the Otero family — recently arrived from Panama. Armed with a pistol and his pre-assembled 'hit kit,' he ties up Joseph, Julie, nine-year-old Joseph Jr., and eleven-year-old Josephine, then kills them one by one. He photographs the youngest victim before leaving through the back door into a quiet Wichita morning.
Episode 05 — “Bind. Torture. Kill.”
A clinical breakdown of what happened inside the Otero house. Joseph fights through a plastic bag and nearly breaks free. Julie begs for her children. The two youngest are bound and killed in separate rooms. Rader poses Josephine's body in the basement and takes photographs. He walks out with a wristwatch and a radio. The older Otero brothers come home from school and find everything. Wichita police have no leads.
Episode 06 — “The Brother Who Lived”
Three months later, Rader breaks into the apartment of twenty-one-year-old Kathryn Bright — but her nineteen-year-old brother Kevin is unexpectedly home. Kevin fights back and is shot twice in the head but survives, becoming the only living eyewitness to BTK during a kill. Rader stabs and strangles Kathryn before fleeing. Kevin's description — 'psychotic eyes' — becomes the first physical profile of the killer.
Episode 07 — “He Named Himself”
Nine months after the Otero murders, Rader hides a letter inside a library textbook and calls the Wichita Eagle to tell them where to find it. The letter describes the killings in detail only the murderer could know and introduces the name he has chosen for himself: Bind. Torture. Kill. — B.T.K. He has branded his own identity as a serial killer, then goes home to his wife and Cub Scout meetings.
Episode 08 — “The Kids in the Bathroom”
March 1977. Rader breaks into the home of twenty-six-year-old Shirley Vian Relford while her three young children — ages five, six, and eight — are present. He locks the children in the bathroom with toys and snacks, then slowly strangles their mother in the next room. When the phone rings he panics and runs. The eight-year-old breaks the bathroom door open and finds his mother's body.
Episode 09 — “The Phone Call”
December 1977. Rader breaks into the home of twenty-five-year-old Nancy Fox while she is at work and waits for her inside. He strangles her with her own belt, takes her driver's licence, then walks to a payphone and dials 911 to report his own crime. The flat, calm recording of his voice is played on local news. His own mother hears it and tells him it sounds like him. He laughs it off.
Episode 10 — “The One Who Wasn't Home”
April 1979. Rader breaks into the home of sixty-three-year-old Anna Williams and waits in the dark for hours with his bondage kit. She never arrives — her car has broken down and she stays with a friend. Weeks later, she receives a letter from BTK describing exactly what he had planned for her, with a piece of her own jewellery enclosed as proof. Anna Williams moves away from Wichita and lives another thirty years.
Episode 11 — “The Family Years”
Between 1979 and 1985, Rader raises two children, coaches Cub Scouts, installs home alarm systems for ADT Security, and rises to president of his church council — all while maintaining secret 'projects' with code names like 'Cookie,' 'Doll,' and 'Light,' each representing a woman in Wichita he is planning to kill. By April 1985, Project Cookie — a fifty-three-year-old neighbour seven doors down — is ready.
Episode 12 — “His Neighbour”
April 1985. Rader leaves a Cub Scout campout with his ten-year-old son, faking a migraine, and drives home to kill Marine Hedge — a woman who has lived seven houses away from his family for years. After strangling her, he loads her body into his car, drives to Christ Lutheran Church in the middle of the night, carries her into the sanctuary, and photographs her in bondage poses. He is back at the campout before his son wakes up.
Episode 13 — “The Toddler in the Room”
September 1986. Rader arrives at the door of twenty-eight-year-old Vicki Wegerle wearing a fake phone-company uniform. She lets him in. Her two-year-old son is playing on the floor. Rader strangles her in the bedroom, photographs her body, takes her driver's licence, and walks past the toddler on his way out. He will keep that licence for eighteen years — and it will eventually help convict him.
Episode 14 — “The Last Kill”
January 1991. Rader breaks into the home of sixty-two-year-old Dolores Davis, a recently widowed woman on his compliance officer route in Park City. He strangles her with pantyhose, drives her body to a rural drainage area, then returns two weeks later to move and photograph her wearing a handmade mask. After Dolores Davis, Rader does not kill again. He could have lived out his life uncaught. He chooses not to stay silent.
Episode 15 — “Thirteen Years of Silence”
From 1991 to 2004, BTK goes completely dark. Rader serves as a model citizen — compliance officer, church president, devoted father. His son joins the Navy. His daughter grows up. The trophies from ten victims remain hidden inside the walls of his house. Wichita police assume BTK is dead. Then in March 2004, the Wichita Eagle publishes a thirtieth-anniversary article on the Otero murders — and doesn't give him enough credit.
Episode 16 — “He Couldn't Stay Quiet”
The newspaper article breaks Rader's silence. He mails the Wichita Eagle a letter along with Vicki Wegerle's driver's licence and crime-scene photographs no one outside the police had ever seen. Over the next eleven months he floods the city with packages, puzzles, bound dolls, autobiography chapters, and postcards — enjoying the attention and leaving evidence with every envelope. Then he asks the police a fatal question.
Episode 17 — “The Question”
January 2005. Rader places a coded classified ad asking Wichita police whether a floppy disk can be traced to a specific computer. Lieutenant Ken Landwehr, head of the BTK task force, lies — telling him through the newspaper that a disk is completely safe. Rader believes him. On February 16, he types a document on his church computer, saves it to a purple floppy disk, wipes the file, and mails the disk to a local TV station.
Episode 19 — “The Family Finds Out”
Paula Rader learns what her husband is at the same moment as the rest of the world. She files for emergency divorce. Their son is serving in the Navy when his father's face appears on every news channel. Their daughter Kerri — whose DNA was used without her consent to catch him — later writes a memoir titled 'A Serial Killer's Daughter,' struggling to reconcile the father who raised her with the man who killed ten people.
