Speaker 1: Welcome to another special bonus episode of Monster BTK. My
Speaker 1: name is Nomes Griffin. I'm one of the writers and
Speaker 1: producers for this season of Monster. While we were in
Speaker 1: production for the show, I flew to Wichita to meet
Speaker 1: up with another writer and producer, Jesse Funk, and our
Speaker 1: host Susan Peters. Over the course of three days in Wichita, Jesse, Susan,
Speaker 1: and I sat down to interview Steve Ralford, Charlie Otero,
Speaker 1: Bob Smeiser, and Larry Hatteberg. And Susan also acted as
Speaker 1: our Wichita tour guide, showing us the city she's called
Speaker 1: home for decades. We took time each day we were
Speaker 1: there to visit the important locations in this story. Susan
Speaker 1: told us that when she first met Steve Ralford, she
Speaker 1: was able to accompany him to the home where his
Speaker 1: mother was killed. It was an emotional experience for both
Speaker 1: of them. She shared that for her the visit was
Speaker 1: a chance to support a grieving Steve and pay her
Speaker 1: respects to his late mother, Shirley Vayanne. But she didn't
Speaker 1: have that for every victim, and in particular, she wanted
Speaker 1: a chance to do that for the Otto family.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, perfect, So you went to I'm so sorry, honey. Well, okay,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna call you later on today to see how
Speaker 2: you're feeling.
Speaker 1: As we pulled into the Otaro's former neighborhood, Susan called
Speaker 1: up Charlie Otero, the eldest of the Otaro siblings, and
Speaker 1: they chatted briefly.
Speaker 3: All right, honey, I love you.
Speaker 1: When they hung up, we walked up the sidewalk to
Speaker 1: the front of the house. It was a warm sunny
Speaker 1: day and a rooster was crowing from the backyard. The
Speaker 1: house faces a major street, so cars passed by rather frequently.
Speaker 2: So I'll just be honest. I had never been to
Speaker 2: this house before. I've reported on it one and a
Speaker 2: half million times, seen it in video over and over
Speaker 2: and over again. But coming to this property, I have
Speaker 2: a pit in the middle.
Speaker 3: Of my stomach.
Speaker 2: It is so so haunting because you look at the
Speaker 2: front door, everything's the same. It's a small white home
Speaker 2: where a wonderful family lived in an average part of
Speaker 2: town in Wichita, Kansas. It's a tree lined street with sidewalks.
Speaker 2: This is a family neighborhood. In the seventies, this was
Speaker 2: a total family neighborhood. The kids walked to school. Charley
Speaker 2: O'tero walked to Southeast High School from this neighborhood. It's
Speaker 2: on a busy street, and it was on a busy
Speaker 2: street in the seventies. This was a neighborhood where you
Speaker 2: thought you were safe. In the nineteen seventies in Wichita, Kansas,
Speaker 2: every place was safe, and that evil, evil, horrible man
Speaker 2: killed two children in this home. Dennis Raider's famous thing
Speaker 2: that he was known for is cutting the telephone cord.
Speaker 2: There's a home what ten feet away, but he had
Speaker 2: the illness, the sickness to come to the middle of
Speaker 2: these two homes, cut the court the telephone line, and
Speaker 2: then go to the front door with a gun. The
Speaker 2: Otero family home here on Edgemore Street is the beginning
Speaker 2: of the changing of the Wichital community. This is where
Speaker 2: the Witchitalk community began to change from a sleepy, safe
Speaker 2: town where no one locked their doors, to.
Speaker 3: A town of.
Speaker 2: Well, for years, horror, a town of horror, very very
Speaker 2: haunting and unbelievable. Honestly, I am ripped apart being here
Speaker 2: because it's the first time I've been here.
Speaker 3: Knowing what Charlie.
Speaker 2: Went through, my heart is broken seeing this house.
Speaker 1: The house is occupied by another family, so he didn't
Speaker 1: stay long. Next, Susan wanted to visit the house where
Speaker 1: Steve Ralford grew up again.
Speaker 2: I've been to this house before, just a small white
Speaker 2: house on a busy street in the middle of Wichita, Kansas.
Speaker 2: And it looks exactly the same as when I brought
Speaker 2: Steve Ralford here in two thousand and five. And I'm
Speaker 2: sure it looks exactly the same as it did when
Speaker 2: Steve lived here in nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 3: It just doesn't look like it's changed much at home.
Speaker 2: And after BTK was captured and we flew Steve Ralford
Speaker 2: back to Wichita, I said, is there anything I can
Speaker 2: do for you?
Speaker 3: And he said, take me to the house.
Speaker 2: So we picked him up and at the hotel and.
Speaker 3: We brought him here.
Speaker 2: I had already knocked on the door of the house
Speaker 2: and said, I'm Susan Peters, can would come in Steve.
Speaker 2: They were very nice and said yes. We walked Steve
Speaker 2: and I walked into this house at thirteen eleven South
Speaker 2: Hydraulic and he said, it looks exactly the same. It
Speaker 2: looks exactly the same. The living room's there. He walked
Speaker 2: directly into the bedroom back here of this house, knelt
Speaker 2: down in his mom's bedroom and started saying a prayer
Speaker 2: and cried his eyes out. It was the first time
Speaker 2: he had been back since the day of the murder,
Speaker 2: since the day he witnessed his mother being brutally killed
Speaker 2: by BTK, and so for him to be inside the house,
Speaker 2: I think it provided some sort of I don't want to.
Speaker 3: Say closure, but it helped a little bit.
Speaker 2: Seeing that it still exists and that it's with a
Speaker 2: new family who's making new memories here.
Speaker 3: The feeling that I get in front.
Speaker 2: Of this house, I see Steve Ralford at this house,
Speaker 2: but I don't see him as a six year old.
Speaker 2: I see him as he is now, still a broken man,
Speaker 2: and he'll even admit.
Speaker 3: That day broke him.
Speaker 2: My thought is of frustration, because a horrible parasite changed
Speaker 2: a whole family's life forever inside this home by a
Speaker 2: matter of chance. So my only other feeling besides complete sadness,
Speaker 2: is very very much anger.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: About five minutes down the road from the Otto House
Speaker 1: is where Catherine Bright lived in nineteen seventy four. The
Speaker 1: houses that were once there have since been demolished.
Speaker 2: So this is Hillside and thirteen and which Test states
Speaker 2: at seventeen. Okay, here we are at the site where
Speaker 2: BTK killed his fifth victim and changed the life of
Speaker 2: her brother forever. On this corner, that's an empty lot
Speaker 2: right now. There were several houses. It was close to
Speaker 2: which Test State University, so students would rent. And that's
Speaker 2: who is here on this busy corner.
Speaker 1: On the lot where Catherine Bright's house once stood. You
Speaker 1: can still see where the foundations were laid and where
Speaker 1: the mailbox was. Today there's a neighborhood a block behind
Speaker 1: the lot. It faces out to one of the busiest
Speaker 1: intersections in East Wichita.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: They described it back then as her house being on
Speaker 2: a hill.
Speaker 3: This is much of a hill as you get and
Speaker 3: which you talked to ANSAs. The most shocking thing about this.
Speaker 2: Is how many people were around that day. There had
Speaker 2: to have been so many. There were businesses on this corner.
Speaker 2: That's all that was on this corner were businesses.
Speaker 3: In fact, Kevin.
Speaker 2: Bright, after he was shot, ran from this corner down
Speaker 2: to a business down the street and said, call the police,
Speaker 2: Call the police.
Speaker 1: As we visited the second sight of a BTK murder.
Speaker 1: Something sunk in for Susan.
Speaker 2: I never registered. I'm gonna bend to some of the sites,
Speaker 2: but it never registered.
Speaker 3: They're all busy streets, right.
Speaker 4: Why do you think that is?
Speaker 3: I think Dennis Raider had such an ego.
Speaker 2: That he never thought he was going to be caught,
Speaker 2: and he almost did in the back of his mind
Speaker 2: did busy streets to say, I just dare you.
Speaker 3: I don't care if it's a busy street.
Speaker 2: He was a brazen evil person.
Speaker 1: From the Hillside intersection, we continued east on Thirteenth Street
Speaker 1: to stop by a place Susan calls home, the Cake
Speaker 1: TV Station.
Speaker 2: Okay, here we are in the Cake studios where we
Speaker 2: did the newscast.
Speaker 1: How does it feel to be in the newsroom were he's.
Speaker 2: Been twenty five years? It feels wonderful. It still feels
Speaker 2: like home to me. This studio still feels like home
Speaker 2: to me. And the reason, I think one of the
Speaker 2: reasons it does is because we went through so many
Speaker 2: stories together and tragedies together, of course, the biggest one
Speaker 2: being BTK.
Speaker 3: We went through that together.
Speaker 2: For a whole year and a half and it was
Speaker 2: gut wrenching.
Speaker 3: It took all of our emotions out.
Speaker 2: Of us because we knew when we were sitting at
Speaker 2: this set that I'm standing at right now, when we
Speaker 2: were communicating BTK stories, we were communicating to BTK, we
Speaker 2: were saying things that would get BTK to react and
Speaker 2: send another clue. So we were sitting here at this set,
Speaker 2: not only doing a newscast in this set, but we
Speaker 2: were trying to catch a killer from the set.
Speaker 4: He knew he was listening.
Speaker 3: We knew he was watching every night.
Speaker 2: We knew BTK was watching us from this news set
Speaker 2: every night. He said it in his letters to us.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 1: Susan told us about her memories in the Cake studio
Speaker 1: during the BTK era. The new generation of KKTV anchors
Speaker 1: listened in.
Speaker 2: And then another memory I have of the studio in
Speaker 2: relation to BTK.
Speaker 3: He pleaded guilty.
Speaker 2: Okay, So the preliminary hearing, Okay, So my call anchor
Speaker 2: and I Jeff, we set up a special BTK set
Speaker 2: for the preliminary hearing and the sentenzene hearing and all that.
Speaker 2: It was in that corner of the studio was a
Speaker 2: special BTK set, And we go on the air that
Speaker 2: morning and Jeff and I are talking in this corner. Well,
Speaker 2: the preliminary hearing starts at nine o'clock. Okay, oh, we'll
Speaker 2: be out of the studio by nine fifteen, nine thirty,
Speaker 2: because it's just a preliminary hearing, please agreement. We sat
Speaker 2: in that corner with our mouths dropped open for four
Speaker 2: hours as Dennis Rader described in detail every single murder,
Speaker 2: in detail, horrifying detail, like he was being interviewed on
Speaker 2: an entertainment show, like he was accepting an Academy award.
Speaker 2: I'll never forget. We sat in that corner, stunned, our
Speaker 2: stomachs in knots, and of course, as an anchor person,
Speaker 2: you're taking notes as to what he said.
Speaker 3: I still have all those notes.
Speaker 2: I can't even believe what I was writing down because
Speaker 2: we couldn't believe what he was saying. And that's the
Speaker 2: other spooky memory I have of this set is in
Speaker 2: that corner, us just sitting there as all of Wichita was.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding me? This is evil? Over and over
Speaker 3: and over again.
Speaker 2: I did not know about this, Oh he said, Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: that says David. I'll never forget that morning. It was
Speaker 2: my daughter's first day at school. They were in grade
Speaker 2: school still.
Speaker 3: I had one.
Speaker 2: In kindergarten and one four years older, so that would
Speaker 2: be fourth grade. And I took him to school in
Speaker 2: the morning. Was you know how emotional first day of
Speaker 2: school is for parents. So I cried, dropped him off.
Speaker 2: First day of school came right in the preliminary hearing
Speaker 2: was starting at nine o'clock and I go, we can
Speaker 2: get out of here because I just want to go
Speaker 2: home and cry.
Speaker 3: And we go. You know it's going to be fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2: It was so weird going from dropping them off at
Speaker 2: school and crying and then coming right to the studio,
Speaker 2: never thinking in a million years you were going to
Speaker 2: sit through four hours of pure vile evil. And I
Speaker 2: wasn't crying for me. I was crying for the victims'
Speaker 2: families who were in the courtroom that day. And we're
Speaker 2: watching them on camera in the courtroom, and I said
Speaker 2: to myself, I just got to drop my kids off
Speaker 2: at school, and here they Charlie was a school kid himself.
Speaker 2: Steve Ralford was five years old. He never got the
Speaker 2: chance to go to a normal school life again after
Speaker 2: he watched just Mom being killed. Not to get too philosophical,
Speaker 2: but how does God choose. I mean, I know it's
Speaker 2: not God that chooses, but I don't know. I'm sorry, day, I.
Speaker 3: Guess the studio has more in motion than it. I mean,
Speaker 3: so much evil was talked about in this studio.
Speaker 2: Okay, I think I'm done.
Speaker 1: We left the studio so the anchors could prepare for
Speaker 1: the afternoon newscast, and Susan took us downstairs to the newsroom.
Speaker 1: Here she explained to us what would happen after the
Speaker 1: station received a BTK letter.
Speaker 2: So what would happen is the receptionist would get the
Speaker 2: mail and she would get the feeling. The receptionists would
Speaker 2: get the feeling that this is from BTK. She'd immediately
Speaker 2: put on rubber gloves the news director and walk the
Speaker 2: clue postcard back to the newsroom. Here, the news director,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I'm taking it through a maze.
Speaker 3: This is the way I.
Speaker 2: Used to get to the newsroom. So the receptionist would
Speaker 2: call the news director. The news director would immediately get
Speaker 2: his rubber gloves on and walk out and get the
Speaker 2: letter and bring it up to the newsroom. And as
Speaker 2: soon as the news director walked in the newsroom with
Speaker 2: a clue or a letter from BTK. He'd call the
Speaker 2: police first. Right after that, he'd call a photographer and say,
Speaker 2: come shoot this video.
Speaker 3: Yeah, got to get a video. So he'd go in
Speaker 3: his office here.
Speaker 2: The police would come right in this office. The news
Speaker 2: director would put his rubber gloves on in case there
Speaker 2: were fingerprints or anything. A photographer would come in and
Speaker 2: the police would come in, confiscate the.
Speaker 3: Clue or the letter. We did that four times.
Speaker 2: The first letter BTK sent to us after he reappeared
Speaker 2: was simply a piece of paper that said the BTK
Speaker 2: story one through thirteen.
Speaker 3: We made copies of that copy copy.
Speaker 2: We went out into the newsroom and every single reporter here,
Speaker 2: at every single desk you see a couple dozen desks here,
Speaker 2: got a copy of that letter, and we just analyzed
Speaker 2: and analyzed and analyzed. We were trying to figure out
Speaker 2: what this was, who this guy was, and if this
Speaker 2: could have given us any sort of clue. All of
Speaker 2: us sat here in the newsroom and said we were scared.
Speaker 1: Our final style was in Park City.
Speaker 2: The city of Park City bought this house from Denis
Speaker 2: Raider's ex wife and then tore it down because there
Speaker 2: were so many gawkers and sightseers who would drive by.
Speaker 2: I'm sure there still are, especially with what has happened lately.
Speaker 2: You can see remnants.
Speaker 1: The week before our trip to Wichita, the news broke
Speaker 1: that BTK was a suspect in the nineteen seventy six
Speaker 1: disappearance a Missouri woman, Cynthia don Kenney. The month prior,
Speaker 1: the Osage County Sheriff's Department in Oklahoma obtained apertmit to
Speaker 1: search the lot for evidence.
Speaker 2: You see the sidewalk that's newly ripped up, newly excavated,
Speaker 2: because they found mementos from one of Denis Raiders killed
Speaker 2: buried underground here just last month, and so I'm sure
Speaker 2: other people are coming here to sightsee. But this is really, really,
Speaker 2: really after all these years, it's been twenty almost twenty
Speaker 2: years since he reappeared, almost twenty years since he reappeared,
Speaker 2: and this is the first time, really in twenty years,
Speaker 2: that Denis Raiders' home is the site of another crime scene,
Speaker 2: if you will, freshly dug up dirt and sidewalk that
Speaker 2: housed some of Denis Raiders mementos from past crimes, past killings.
Speaker 2: And it's really weird to see it because you never
Speaker 2: thought you'd see it again.
Speaker 1: The sidewalk that Osage County tore up leads from independent
Speaker 1: through the lot and behind neighbors' houses to a public park.
Speaker 2: So the city built a walkway here that welcomes you
Speaker 2: to this park down the street and behind his property.
Speaker 2: So it's almost like we're turning this place where an
Speaker 2: evil parasite used to live into something nice for children,
Speaker 2: into something that will help children grow and play and thrive.
Speaker 2: Carrie Rosson and I came here to her former residence
Speaker 2: where Dennis Raider lived when she first came out with
Speaker 2: her book a couple of years ago, and we walked
Speaker 2: along the property. She pointed out, see those tulips over there,
Speaker 2: My dad and I planted them. My dad taught me
Speaker 2: how to plant tulips. See this over here, She pointed
Speaker 2: to that tree and said, see that tree. My dad
Speaker 2: built the neatest treehouse for us in that tree, and
Speaker 2: we used to climb up in the treehouse all the time.
Speaker 2: And she's walking through this lot reminiscing about her normal childhood.
Speaker 4: What could you say? You know, I've noticed as we
Speaker 4: were sitting, you know, walking through this property, well it
Speaker 4: used to be his property. I've noticed two cars that
Speaker 4: come pass, and you see they slow down.
Speaker 2: That's why the city of Park City wanted to tear
Speaker 2: the house down in the first place, because it used
Speaker 2: to be a steady stream, just a steady stream of
Speaker 2: gawker down this quiet little street. And now even though
Speaker 2: the house is torn down and we're standing in the
Speaker 2: middle of an empty lot, we still see cars driving
Speaker 2: by pointing to the.
Speaker 3: Lot that this is where BTK lived.
Speaker 2: These neighbors here now, I'm sure they're very tired of
Speaker 2: people coming down the street and gawking at the house.
Speaker 2: But it'll happen that way forever and ever. There's no
Speaker 2: stopping it.
Speaker 4: As we sit here, also outside of Raider's house, you know,
Speaker 4: when everything's done with the new investigations, and what do
Speaker 4: you think should be done to this property? Should you
Speaker 4: just leave it as land or should they do you
Speaker 4: have you know, no.
Speaker 3: That's a very good question.
Speaker 4: What do you think should be put here that can
Speaker 4: make it maybe that being such a landmark.
Speaker 3: That is a very very good question.
Speaker 2: I feel if it was a place that people had
Speaker 2: access to, you wouldn't have people driving by. It would
Speaker 2: just be another another thing on the street, and it
Speaker 2: would cease to be be tk's property. If they built
Speaker 2: something here that people could name, for instance, a food pantry,
Speaker 2: maybe a mini park here the city of Parks city
Speaker 2: could build. Maybe if they built a mini park here,
Speaker 2: I don't think people would look at this area the same.
Speaker 2: I think they'd look at it, look at it as
Speaker 2: a park where kids could play and recreate. I don't
Speaker 2: think they'd drive down the street and say that was
Speaker 2: btk's house.
Speaker 4: I agree, and as I'm sitting here and looking, you know,
Speaker 4: a dog park.
Speaker 1: I've spent the last two years working on this project,
Speaker 1: and our trip to Wichita was one of the most
Speaker 1: difficult parts. Not only were the interviews emotionally heavy, but
Speaker 1: so were these site visits. The demolition of Dennis Raider's
Speaker 1: home should have signaled the finality of this case, but
Speaker 1: walking past the torn up sidewalk, it just goes to
Speaker 1: show you that closure is fickle. I don't know if
Speaker 1: Dennis Raider actually committed this nineteen seventy six murder, but
Speaker 1: after this trip, I do know that the city of
Speaker 1: Wichita is incredibly resilient,