The prospect that a 47-year-old cold case could be connected to the “BTK” serial murderer, who was given a life sentence after confessing to killing 10 people in a brutal spree from the 1970s to the 1990s, has caused a rift between an Oklahoma district attorney’s office and sheriff’s office.
At a press conference on Monday, Osage County District Attorney Mike Fisher stated that there is not sufficient evidence to implicate Dennis Rader, a.k.a. the BTK murderer, with the 1976 disappearance of Cynthia Dawn Kinney, whose corpse has never been located. Rader gave himself the moniker BTK, which stands for “bind, torture, kill.”
Fisher lacked sufficient information to draw that conclusion, according to the sheriff’s office, which identified Rader as a “prime suspect” in the investigation.
When Kinney disappeared in Pawhuska, Oklahoma on June 23, 1976, she was 16 years old. The National Missing & Unidentified Persons System claims that she was last seen leaving a laundromat to get into a car with two ladies.
Rader’s previous residence in Park City, Kansas was the subject of a search in August, according to the Osage County Sheriff’s Office, which claimed it was “closely tied” to Kinney’s case.
According to a news release from the agency, “items of interest” were discovered at the residence and will be thoroughly investigated to see if they are connected to Kinney’s case or any other unsolved homicides.
The source of the information that prompted authorities to name Rader as a suspect in Kinney’s case is still unknown. But in August, the office made a passage from his notebook public in which he made mention of a scheme called “Bad Wash Day.” Authorities claim that Rader called his victims “projects.”
He said that the laundry mat was “a good place to watch victims and dream.” The Brunette was the intended victim.
According to The Associated Press, Rader is also a suspect in the killing of Shawna Beth Garber, whose body was discovered in McDonald County, Missouri, in 1990.
However, the district attorney stated on Monday that additional details are required to establish a link to Kinney’s disappearance.
“Information that suggests Dennis Rader, dubbed the BTK killer, is a suspect in Cynthia Dawn Kinney’s 1976 disappearance from Pawhuska has been shared with the media during the past 30 days. No matter the background of the accused, our legal justice system cannot infer someone’s involvement in a crime, despite the possibility that the information could spark gossip and speculation, Fisher said.
The district attorney claimed to have spoken with Kinney’s parents last week and said that the family has experienced “pain, heartache, sleepless nights, and emotional distress” as a result of rumors about Rader’s participation.
He told reporters, “As at this time, the information that has been presented is not sufficient to bring criminal charges against Dennis Rader.
The National BTK Task Force, which has been established by the Oklahoma and Kansas sheriff’s offices to leverage the knowledge and resources of local and federal law enforcement organizations to solve Rader-related cases, refutes that claim.
The sheriff’s office stated: “It is critical to note that District Attorney Fisher has not contacted the OCSO to discuss the specifics or developments of this investigation. His remarks about the case are therefore based on insufficient information and do not adequately reflect the efforts of the OCSO or the advancements made.
Fisher was charged with trying to “derail the investigation” by trying to prevent detectives from speaking with Rader in jail, according to the sheriff’s office. Fisher’s office has been contacted by NBC News for comment.
Fisher declared that he has requested that a formal investigation into Kinney’s case be launched by the OSBI in Oklahoma.
Although Ms. Kinney’s disappearance has already been the subject of investigations, the district attorney felt obligated to “do everything possible” to determine whether Dennis Rader or anybody else was responsible for it.
The OSBI, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, and other organizations are collaborating on the case with the Osage County Sheriff’s Office.
For more information, the sheriff’s office will host a press conference on Tuesday at 2 p.m. local time.