DNA role in BTK suspect's capture questioned
Members surprised at church president's arrest
WICHITA, Kansas (CNN) -- A source close to the investigation that led to the capture of a suspect in the BTK serial killings told CNN on Sunday that the suspect's daughter did not provide DNA to investigators and was not involved in her father's capture.
But the family's pastor said Sunday that the daughter did provide a DNA sample to federal agents, though it was not clear when the request was made or if the sample led to the arrest.
And CNN affiliate KAKE, which has investigated BTK for years, reported that the daughter's DNA played a role in the investigation.
Suspect Dennis Rader was arrested Friday afternoon in Park City, Kansas, just north of Wichita. Authorities accuse the 59-year-old city employee, the president of a local Lutheran congregation, of killing 10 people between 1974 and 1991.
Rader was being held at the Sedgwick County jail Sunday night, with bond set at $10 million, the district attorney's office said. He is expected to face a judge in an initial appearance early this week.
Michael Clark, the pastor of Christ Lutheran Church in Park City, said the suspect's wife told him the FBI "showed up at the daughter's door" seeking a DNA sample. But Clark said Rader's wife denied reports that their daughter -- one of two grown children -- had turned her father in to police.
KAKE anchor Larry Hatteberg told CNN that Rader's daughter -- whom the station identified as 26-year-old Kerri Rader -- did not turn her father in, but that her DNA was indirectly involved in Rader's arrest.
"What we do know is that the police and FBI obtained the daughter's DNA," Hatteberg said. Part of the DNA strand matched something the authorities had, "so that they knew someone in her family was BTK."
Police said Saturday they planned to file 10 counts against Rader in connection with killings between 1974 and 1991 -- eight counts of first-degree murder and two other homicide charges.
Over the years, the killer communicated with KAKE and other news agencies, sending packages to reporters and to authorities at times.
The search for the BTK killer was re-ignited nearly a year ago when the killer sent letters to the media after decades of silence.
Hatteberg told CNN that in the killer's last few communications, "he made some mistakes" that helped authorities.
Over the past four weeks, investigators "really narrowed it down," and in the past five days "it got very tight," Hatteberg said.
'Family man'
According to the Wichita Eagle newspaper, Rader had worked as a compliance supervisor for Park City, Kansas, in charge of animal control, nuisances, inoperable vehicles and general code compliance, since about 1990.
Some who know him expressed shock Sunday, saying they could not imagine that he was behind the crimes.
"I've known him for years," Clark said, adding he has seen nothing "that would even tend to lead to these accusations."
"To my knowledge he was very nice, he was friendly," Clark said. "What I know of him, definitely a family man."
Clark said Rader became president of the church congregation in January and under the church's rules, he will remain president.
"We do not know the outcome of the charges, but we are here not to judge him but to support him as a brother in Christ," Clark told reporters. The church supports the authorities "totally in what their energies and efforts are about," he said.
Congregants Paul and Freyja Carlsted said they have known Rader for 30 years.
"I think my mind is numb," Freyja Carlsted told CNN. "When we found out, all we could say was that it's impossible, it couldn't be."
"The person that we knew was kind, he was a hard worker, he was willing to help and do anything at this church," she said. "Obviously, we all respected him or he wouldn't have been president of our church."
The Carlsteds said Rader's wife, Paula, is "a wonderful lady" and praised "the whole family."
'Bind, torture and kill'
Police have not released details on the role DNA may have played in Rader's arrest.
But at a news conference Saturday, Lt. Ken Landwehr, commander of the task force investigating the case, seemed to be praising the previous police chief and other investigators for their careful handling of evidence over the years, which preserved crucial DNA, according to KAKE.
"They did such a good job that we were able to use evidence before anyone had any inkling of what technology would do -- that they did the job so well then that we could do our job now," Landwehr said.
Rader was arrested without incident during a routine traffic stop shortly after noon Friday in Park City, just north of Wichita, where he lived, Landwehr said.
Initially only eight killings were linked to BTK, but Sedgwick County Sheriff Gary Steed said police will file homicide charges for the previously unsolved killings of two Park City women: Marine Hedge in April 1985 and Delores Davis in January 1991.
The killer coined his own nickname, BTK, "bind, torture and kill," a pattern he has followed with most of his victims.
The pending first-degree murder charges are related to these killings :
January 1974: Julie and Joseph Otero are strangled in their home along with two of their children, Joseph Jr. and Josephine.
April 1974: Kathryn Bright, 21, is stabbed to death in her home.
March 1977: Shirley Vian, 24, is tied up and strangled in her home.
December 1977: Nancy Fox, 25, is tied up and strangled in her home. BTK's voice is captured on tape when he calls a police dispatcher to report the homicide.
September 1986: Vicki Wegerle, 28, was strangled in her home.
Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston said the death penalty will not apply in the BTK case because it was reinstated in 1994, three years after the last known killing attributed to BTK.
Victims' relatives react
Wichita police Chief Norman Williams announced the arrest Saturday during a news conference at City Hall.
"Today is a very historic day," he said. "The bottom line: BTK is arrested."
There was loud applause from the audience, which included members of the victims' families.
For Davis' son Jeff, Rader's arrest ended a long nightmare. His mother was killed in her home, and her body dumped in rural Sedgwick County.
Davis told KAKE, "Probably the lingering emotion is revulsion."
"It's going to take awhile to reconcile the fact that my mom spent her last few minutes on this Earth at the hands of the lowest form of social sewage on the ladder of evolution," he said.
Other victims' relatives had similar reactions.
"Now, my mom can rest in peace," Steve Relford, Vian's son, told KAKE. Relford was 5 when his mother was slain; he and his two siblings were locked in a bathroom at the time, but he said he witnessed her death by peeking through a hole.
"I would just like to thank everybody that helped catch him," Relford said.
Wichita Police today arrested Dennis Rader, who is suspected of being the BTK killer. BTK, an acronym for "Bind, torture, kill," was the name the serial killer gave himself after killing eight people between 1974 and 1986 in that manner. The killer was thought to have disappeared for 25 years before he resurfaced in March of 2004. He was later linked to two unsolved murders, which took place in 1985 and 1991. Police Chief Norman Williams publicly announced the guilt of Mr. Rader prior to any trial preparations when he said to reporters ''"The bottom line, BTK is arrested."''

The commander of the task force investigating the BTK killings, Lt. Ken Landwehr, said Rader had been arrested after being pulled over in a routine traffic stop. Authorities had questioned a ''"person of interest"'' Friday, which led them to a Park City home just outside Wichita and eventually to the identity of BTK.

BTK was notorious not only for his brutal way of killing people, but for taunting police and other investigators with letters throughout his 12-year killing spree. Investigators had run out of leads until police received a letter from BTK in March of last year.

Police have said they charge Rader with eight counts of first-degree murder and two other homicide charges. According to CNN, police were able to use Rader's daughter's DNA to find Rader. DNA of close family members has been used in a few previous cases to identify suspects, through a new technique known as  familial searching.