Court Hears of Killer's Crimes

The families of the victims of the serial killer known as BTK - bind, torture, kill - yesterday heard and saw in graphic detail the depravity of the crimes he committed over more than 30 years.

Dennis Rader, 60, a former Boy Scout leader and church president, terrorised and taunted the residents of Wichita, Kansas, committing 10 murders and sending rambling messages and poems to news outlets and the police.

At the beginning of his sentencing hearing the court heard testimony from police officers and others involved in the hunt for the mass murderer and saw graphic crime scene pictures, some taken by Rader himself.

Raymond Lundin, a special agent with the Kansas bureau of investigation, said Rader had told authorities he targeted his first victims - four members of the same family - because he was attracted to Hispanics, and in particular to the 11-year-old daughter, Josephine Otero.

Josephine, her parents, Joseph and Julie, and her brother, who was nine, were strangled in their home in January 1974, the first in a series of murders committed by Rader that lasted until 1991.

The three remaining Otero children, who had come home from school that day to find their parents and siblings dead, were in the courtroom yesterday.

In June, Rader pleaded guilty to 10 counts of murder.