'My Father the BTK Killer' is a spine-chilling reminder that killers may walk among us
It’s spine-chilling and it’s scary as hell. Who would have thought that a documentary can feel like a horror custom made for Halloween? The Netflix docu-film, My Father, the BTK Killer is like an ice-cold slap in the face. Because it literally proves that killers can walk among us, sometimes for years, and none of us would be the wiser.
Now, imagine that that serial killer is your dad, your husband, your uncle or your friendly neighbour. This is what happened to Kerri Rawson, whose father, Dennis Rader, turned out to be the notorious serial killer BTK, his own acronym for bind, torture and kill. He was finally arrested in 2005, when Rawson was 26. Rader tied his victims up and hurt them. He slaughtered around 10 people between 1974 and 1991.
He remains the suspect in several other unsolved murders. He is now 80 years old.
Unlike the usual eventual-yawn of Netflix documentaries that rinse and repeat the same style of interview, B-roll and victim parades, My Father, the BTK Killer is different. It is engaging from the get-go and the use of actual footage of Rader, period overlay and a strong narrative sets it apart from the average documentary.
Rawson’s narration of her life with her dad, the shock of his true self and her personal trauma is riveting.
Two stories collide in killings
For years Rader was a typical suburban picture of bliss, along with his family. He was a cub scout volunteer, an avid gardener, a model dad that took his daughter on camping and fishing trips. There’s not a moment in the movie that Rawson could pinpoint as an opportunity to realise her dad is a cold-blooded killer. Yet..
Rader’s crimes remain among the most chilling serial killer sprees in the world. In fact, if you watch Dexter, Dahmer or any other serial killer show, there are elements of this man in almost every incarnation, real or fictional. For nearly 20 years, he played a game with police and the media. Rader sent taunting letters to the media, the police and created his own moniker. He wanted to be a legend, and he killed for the privilege of legacy.
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After his first killings, which ended in 1991, Rader went quiet. In the film, Rawson talks about the fact that he was probably too busy raising his kids and being a family man. But, as they say in the classics, you cannot keep a good man down, nor, it seems, the bloodlust of an attention-seeking psychopath. In 2004, Rader’s need for attention saw him resurface.
BTK got caught by stupidity
Stupidly, the killer sent a floppy disk to a local TV station containing information on a kill that he’d not been suspected of yet. But, even though technology was not where it is today, authorities were able to trace the metadata, or digital signature, of the contents. And the trail led directly to his computer at the Lutheran Church, where the murderer was spreading the gospel in his spare time. Later, DNA evidence obtained from Rawson was the final nail in his coffin.
My Father, the BTK Killer is a fascinating watch. It unravels Rader’s double life through his daughter’s lens. She travels back in time through memories that now take on a completely different meaning to her. She visits the demolished site of her childhood home in Wichita, Kansas. Also, she says to the audience that despite everything, she still loves Rader “because he will always be my dad”.
There are rare police interviews included in the film, footage of actual crime scenes and engagements with journalists and law enforcement who were there from his first kill to Rader’s final moments as a free man. It tells the story of a daughter’s resilience and her emotional torture.
Fantastic watch
My Father the BTK Killer is a fantastic watch. It was directed by Skye Borgman, whose other documentaries are American Murder: The Family Next Door and Abducted In Plain Sight. It’s no wonder that Borgman has been lauded and awarded, because her documentary style breaks the mould and keeps boredom at bay. That, along with the careful interplay she manages on-screen between tenderness, vulnerability and brutality.
If there is one documentary to watch on Halloween weekend, My Father the BTK Killer is it.
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