The daughter of the notorious BTK serial killer Dennis Rader reacted to the arrest of suspected Gilgo Beach assassin Rex Heuermann, Tuesday, detailing similarities between the 2 ugly circumstances.
Kerri Rawson mentioned she was “elated” when she heard about Heuermann’s arrest earlier this month throughout “America’s Newsroom,” whereas noting she was stunned in regards to the breakthrough given the truth that the case went chilly for many years.
“I used to be elated, actually, to listen to there had been an arrest as a result of I didn’t suppose there would ever be one on this case. And then immediately it was, ‘Does he have a household?’ Because I do know precisely what my household went by 18 years in the past, and after I heard that he did have a spouse and kids, I used to be devastated, and I actually was having a troublesome time on Friday, on that day, remembering what I had been by,” Rawson informed co-host Bill Hemmer Tuesday.
“The PTSD will come again, and… my coronary heart simply goes utterly out to them,” she continued. “We’re actually being informed they’re harmless, and so they want all protections right here.”
Rader beforehand informed Fox News Digital in a letter he noticed Heuermann as his “clone” saying, “I used to be arrested age 59. Married, two youngsters,” Rader wrote in a letter to Fox News Digital. “Husband, dad longtime a serial killer, stalker, used digital gadgets, lives in a neighborhood undetected.”
BTK and Heuermann have been taken down equally, Rader argued – “DNA and electronics his downfall very like me.” The convicted killer claims he predicted the similarities years in the past.
“I used to be appropriate,” he wrote.
Investigators have been going by Heuermann’s dwelling since his arrest, shortly earlier than he pleaded not responsible to 6 homicide expenses within the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, 24, Megan Waterman, 22, and Amber Costello, 27.
Rawson detailed how her household was in shock like Heuermann’s concerning her father’s arrest virtually 20 years in the past.
Rader was arrested again in 2005 after years of cat-and-mouse video games wherein he taunted investigators and the media with messages, finally main police to his doorstep with a path of digital proof. He had given himself the nickname “BTK” in reference to his most popular methodology of homicide – “bind, torture, kill.”
Rawson’s mom filed for divorce from Rader virtually instantly following the arrest, a transfer additionally made by Heuermann’s spouse, Asa Ellerup, who filed days after he was taken into custody.
“The first day after or that first night, even after my father was arrested, the FBI referred to as us and mentioned they’d discovered proof below our floorboards,” Rawson recalled. “So he had driver’s licenses of his a number of of his victims. He had jewellery that he had taken from their houses after he murdered them. Those have been his most prized possessions, and he had carved out beneath the floorboards the place by this proof in our hallway the place it was like we rode out tornadoes, and that had been happening for the reason that seventies.”
“And he had hit kits, and so we’re seeing with Rex Heuermann like handcuffs, my father had… fanny packs with like handcuffs and twine ties, like bondage gear, bandanas,” she continued. “Very just like what we’re seeing popping out of Rex’s home.”
Officials uncovered greater than 200 firearms, a big doll in a glass case, a big portrait of a girl with a bruised face and a submitting cupboard from Heuermann’s dwelling.
Investigators, some wearing “crime lab” T-shirts and protecting fits, have been seen earlier within the week carting away a desktop laptop, a big image body, a mirror and lots of different home items.
Heuermann was arrested after officers linked information from his cellphone, quite a few burner telephones and the victims’ telephones to the suspect car and cell towers close to his dwelling on Long Island and workplace in New York City.
“It’s simply trauma and shock,” Rawson mentioned. “So when it was dumped on me and my mother and my brother, FBI agent actually was standing in my kitchen simply he mentioned, ‘your dad is BTK’ I actually was shaking for 5 days mentally, bodily, medically, in shock.”
“I’m nonetheless anticipating 18 years later that knock on the door, the FBI, to point out up and utterly destroy my world,” she continued. “It’s rebuilding your complete life below the glare of the media.”
Fox News’ Michael Ruiz, Bradford Betz, Jennifer Johnson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
