OAN’s Roy Francis
2:25 PM – Saturday, July 22, 2023
Dennis Rader, also known as BTK, said that the Gilgo Beach murders suspect, Rex Heuermann, is “a clone of me” in a letter to Fox News Digital.
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Rader, who is known for “binding, torturing, and killing” at least 10 people, which included two children in Wichita, Kansas between 1974 and 1991, said that Heuermann is like him in that he appeared to be a regular family man until police showed up at his home, years after the killings.
“I was arrested age 59. Married, two kids,” Rader wrote. “Husband, dad longtime a serial killer, stalker, used electronic devices, lives in a neighborhood undetected.”
He pointed out that both of them had been caught due to DNA and electronic tracking, he had also said that he had predicted years ago that when the Gilgo Beach murderer is caught, they will have a lot of similarities with each other.
Another similarity was the shock that came to each family and the surrounding community.
The arrest came as a shock to both unsuspecting families, and Heuermann’s wife, Asa Ellerup, filed for divorce on Wednesday just as Rader’s wife had filed for divorce almost immediately after his arrest in 2005.
Police say that Heuermann’s wife, along with his daughter and stepson, were all “in the dark about his double life,” and neighbors of the family said that they were rarely ever seen together.
Rader’s daughter, Kerri Rawson, who’s own experience had driven her to become an advocate for victims, said that her father, Rader, had hid in “plain sight” for over 30 years while committing the brutal murders in the surrounding area. She went on to explain that her first thought when someone like this [Heuermann] is arrested is “does he have a family?”
“My first question when a long sought suspect in multiple murders is caught is, ‘does he have a family?’” she said. “My family’s life was upended 18 years ago, February 2005, when we got the noon day knock and simple notification from the FBI, ‘Your father is BTK.’”
She went to say that from her experience she asks the public to treat Heuermann’s family “with dignity and respect” and to grant them privacy while they come to terms with what has unfolded.
“From my own long experience and my own family’s, I ask [Heuermann’s wife and children] be treated with dignity and respect, granted privacy and time to begin to wrap their heads and hearts around what is unfolding,” she said.
Heuermann similarly lived quietly for years as he committed the murders and disposed of the remains within a 25-minute drive of where his residence is located. His neighbors told Fox News that he was quiet and kept to himself. They said that he was mostly “seen on his morning commute … often in a three-piece suit and carrying a briefcase.”
However, a few of his neighbors said that he “creeped them out” and they had decided to avoid him. Troy Weeks, who worked on Heuermann’s lawn weekly for the last three summers, said that he was told never to enter the house, which police believe is where Heuermann committed at least one of his murders, and he never did.
However, he told the Daily Mail that he had looked through one of the windows at one point and was shocked when he saw what he described as “four heads made out of coconuts with face carvings on them.”
“I saw these tiny head things – they were like these shrunken heads. And me and my friends always called it the shrunken head house because they were the weirdest coconut head things,” he explained. “It was really creepy.”
Rader, who named himself “BTK” in reference to his method of murder, which was “bind, torture, kill,” was arrested in 2005. He admitted to the 10 murders, and is currently serving 10 consecutive life sentences. However, authorities are now investigating him in an additional two cold cases.
The first cold case is the disappearance of Cynthia “Cyndi” Dawn Kinney, a 16-year-old who disappeared on June 23, 1976, and the other is the abduction, and murder of Shawna Garber on Halloween in 1990. Rader denied involvement in both cases.
In addition to the murder charges he is currently facing, Heuermann is also being investigated for the murders of six additional women whose remains were found around Gilgo Beach in 2011. He has pled not guilty to all charges.
He has a court date set for August 1st, and faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted.
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