After creating a storm with the fictionalised tale of Ed Gein in Monster season 3, streaming giant Netflix is back with yet another bone-chilling true-crime documentary. Only this time, there’s no fiction, just the horrifying true story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer, with My Father, the BTK Killer. As the docuseries revisits his crimes through his daughter, Kerri Rawson, it also shines a haunting light on Rader’s wife, Paula Dietz, who unknowingly shared his home and last name for more than 30 years.
To the world, Rader was the ideal suburban husband. His wife and neighbours knew him as a church council president, a Cub Scout leader, and a devoted father. Paula had no idea that behind closed doors, she was spending her life with one of America’s most sadistic serial killers.
Meet Dennis Rader’s wife, Paula Dietz – the woman who lived with the BTK Killer for 34 years without a clue about his gruesome murders
Paula Dietz, born in 1948 in Park City, Kansas, was raised by an engineer father and a librarian mother. A soft-spoken and religious woman, Paula lived a modest life that centred around family and faith. In 1970, after graduating from the National American University in Wichita with a degree in accounting, she met Air Force veteran Dennis Rader at church.
Through Paula and her family’s lens, Rader seemed every bit the perfect gentleman; he was polite, kind, and led a disciplined life. In 1971, within a year of dating, Dennis and Paula tied the knot and welcomed their first child, a son, Brian Rader, in 1974. Their daughter, Kerri Rawson, was born four years later, in 1978.
To friends and neighbours, Paula and Rader’s family was how one would imagine a perfectly happy suburban family. Both led simple lives; Dennis worked as an electric technician and later as a city compliance officer, while Paula volunteered at church and managed the family finances. However, while Paula saw and loved a dutiful husband who tucked their children into bed each night, Dennis was slipping out in the dark to stalk and murder his victims.
A glimpse into Dennis Rader’s monstrous secret, which he meticulously hid from his family for years
When Paula Dietz found out she was expecting her first child, Brian, in 1973, she was overjoyed, unaware her world was about to shatter. Just six weeks after Brian’s birth, her husband, Dennis Rader, began his killing spree. On January 15, 1974, he broke into the Otero family’s home, murdering Joseph and Julie Otero and their two children in cold blood. Over the next 17 years, he would kill six more victims while maintaining a facade of being a faithful Christian husband.
Image Courtesy: The Guardian
In her 34 years of married life with Dennis, Paula never suspected a thing. She continued attending church with him every Sunday, occasionally joking about Rader’s horrid spelling mistakes. After tales of the notorious BTK Killer spread everywhere, she once even joked about his spelling mistakes, saying:
“You spell just like BTK”.
Rader’s shocking arrest, which changed Paula’s life forever
17 years later, Paula’s illusion of a normal life was shattered forever. On February 25, 2005, authorities arrested Dennis Rader at his workplace after tracing a computer disc he had sent to a TV station back to his church office.
When the FBI raided their home, Paula watched in horror as investigators unearthed her husband’s hidden stash. To her utter shock, there were photographs of the BTK Killer’s victims in the house, along with women’s underwear, IDs of women he had killed, and disturbing letters – proof of her loving husband’s decades of unimaginable cruelty.
According to The Independent, Paula had been in disbelief at the macabre discovery, insisting her husband was a ‘good man’ and a ‘great father’ who would ‘never hurt anyone’. However, all her illusions broke when Rader himself confessed to the crimes, detailing every gruesome act in court.
Police have long maintained that Paula Dietz had no clue she was married to the BTK Killer. Detective Tim Relph, who helped bring Dennis Rader to justice, described her as a ‘good and decent person’ whose only mistake was loving one of America’s most disturbing serial killers. Relph said:
“Paula is a good and decent person… She’s been downplayed by some people as some sort of ignorant Christian person. But her only mistake in life was to care for Dennis Rader.”
What happened to Paula Dietz after Dennis Rader’s arrest?
On June 27, 2005, Dennis Rader confessed to his crimes and pleaded guilty to ten gruesome murders. The betrayal was unbearable. Just a month after her husband’s confession, Paula filed for an emergency divorce on July 26, 2005. The judge granted it the same day, citing the ‘extreme emotional distress’ she suffered after the discovery. After the divorce, Paula cut off all contact with Rader, refusing to visit him in prison or even attend his hearings. To her, the husband she had known all her life had died the day he was arrested.
In 2019, Paula and Dennis’s daughter, Kerri Rawson, published a memoir titled A Serial Killer’s Daughter: My Story of Faith, Love, and Overcoming. In an interview about the book with Slate, Rawson explained:
“[My mother]’s sort of dealt with my dad like he died on the day he was arrested… As far as I understand, she has PTSD from the events around his arrest.”
In interviews, Kerri described her mother as a ‘strong but broken’ woman who never saw a single sign of her father’s crimes. After the incident, Paula sold their family home for USD 90,000, changed her name, and disappeared from the public eye. She currently lives a private life far from Kansas, reportedly struggling with PTSD from the trauma of discovering her husband’s secret double life.
Who Was Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer?
Dennis Rader had coined his own moniker, BTK, short for ‘Bind, Torture, Kill’. Between 1974 and 1991, he terrorised Wichita with his killing spree, sending disturbing letters to the police and media as he challenged them to catch him. In his double life, he was a church leader by day and a sadistic murderer by night.
The authorities were unable to trace him until years later, when a floppy disc he mailed to a TV station in 2004 revealed metadata linking back to his church computer. After his arrest in 2005, Rader pleaded guilty to all ten murders and is currently serving ten consecutive life sentences at El Dorado Correctional Facility in Kansas.
Even today, investigators are probing possible connections between Rader and other unsolved murders. Meanwhile, her devastated wife continues to live a life trying to heal from the trauma of spending half her life loving a lie.
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