Secrets Long Hidden: The Hunt for the BTK Strangler

by Robert Beattie, Robert Beattie

In 1974 a serial killer began a fourteen-year murder spree in Wichita, Kansas, counting among his victims men, women, and children. Longing to join the ranks of Ted Bundy, the elusive sex murderer taunted authorities with clues, puzzles, and obscene letters. Then in 1988, he vanished, the killings stopped, and one of the longest and most baffling manhunts in the annals of crime came to a dead end. But in 2004, a letter--and a grisly clue--arrived at a local Wichita paper. And with it, a terrifying implication: BTK was back. Now, criminal investigative journalist Robert Beattie delves for the first time into one of the most intriguing, horrifying--and ongoing--serial murder cases in American history.

320 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2005

About the author

Robert Beattie, a Wichita lawyer, is the author of the nonfiction book Nightmare in Wichita. It is about BTK, a serial killer in Wichita, Kansas who created the name BTK after his modus operandi, "Bind Them, Torture Them, Kill Them". Dennis Rader started sending out letters to media again after hearing about the book. Right before he was going to publish it, Dennis Rader was arrested then convicted as the BTK Killer, a.k.a. the BTK Strangler, and Beattie quickly wrote an epilogue. Rader murdered 10 people in the Wichita area between 1974 and 1991 but evaded law enforcement until 2005. Beattie is also known for interviewing serial killer Charles Manson for a class project as a professor at Friends University in Wichita, which stirred up a lot of controversy and brought international media attention to him. Beattie ran unsuccessfully for the office of Kansas Attorney General in 2006.