BTK killer’s daughter upset Stephen King wrote a story about the BTK killer

Interesting piece in the Wichita Eagle today. There’s a new Stephen King movie coming out October 3, A Good Marriage. King adapted the screenplay from his 2010 novella of the same name. It’s based, he says, on the BTK killer: Dennis Rader, the Wichita serial killer who murdered 10 people between 1974 and 1991. Here’s how King describes his inspiration on his website: 

This story came to my mind after reading an article about Dennis Rader, the infamous BTK (bind, torture, and kill) murderer who took the lives of ten people—mostly women, but two of his victimes were children—over a period of roughly sixteen years. In many cases, he mailed pieces of his victims’ identification to the police. Paula Rader was married to this monster for thirty-four years, and many in the Wichita area, where Rader claimed his victims, refuse to believe that she could live with him and not know what he was doing. I did believe—I do believe—and I wrote this story to explore what might happen in such a case if the wife suddenly found out about her husband’s awful hobby. I also wrote it to explore the idea that it’s impossible to fully know anyone, even those we love the most.

But Rader’s daughter, Kerri Rawson, is not happy about the movie. “He’s exploiting my father’s 10 victims and their families,” she told the Eagle.

In a public letter to King and the media, she says this:

My family is done, we are tired. We are not news, we are not a story to be exploited & profited on, to be twisted & retold to your liking whenever you want. Leave us, the families & the community out of it.

My dad is not a monster, that’s elevating him. He’s just a man, who choose to do some of the most horrible things a person can do. Not a monster, a man. A man who took 10 precious lives & tried to destroy countless others. He’s not worth the attention.

My mom is the strongest & bravest woman I know. She doesn’t need her life re-spun in a story or on the big screen. Her life is a true testament of all that is good & right in this world.

My family has tried hard to fight the good fight, to stand on our faith & live out a peaceful life. So let us live that life & please, leave us out of it. Out of the noise & chaos & the ugly & the awful.

Kerri (Rader) Rawson

A few thoughts on that:

*It’s true that Dennis Rader is not technically a monster. He is not blue or red, and he does not have horns, and he is not 10 feet tall. But he is as much of a monster as a man can possibly be. He killed 10 innocent people in the service of fulfilling his own sick sexual fantasies.

*Few humans on this planet have even the tiniest shred of an idea of how traumatizing it must be to learn that your father or husband is a serial killer. The Rader family deserves privacy and respect. 

*Stephen King is a fiction writer — a wildly successful one — and he can write whatever the fuck he wants. Certainly, one of the most notorious serial killers in the history of the country is fair game for story inspiration. 

King will be here in KC, at Unity Temple on the Plaza, on November 13, to talk about his latest book. He’ll be in Wichita, home of the BTK killer, the following night for the same.