Dolores "Dee" Davis

Dolores "Dee" Davis

Dolores "Dee" Davis, 62, was born in 1928, in Stella, Nebraska. Raised on a farm; she was an excellent cook who made everything from scratch. In 1961 after 12 years of marriage, a son, and daughter; Dee and Harry divorced. She was a fun, protective, and devoted mother and grandmother adored by her family. Jeff, her son, always spoke to his mother on the phone on weekends for hours. When her children and grandchildren gathered for Christmas at her house in 1990 they cried as they watched "All Dogs Go to Heaven" together.

Dee had just retired from her job of over 25 years as a secretary for a fuel company. She was passionate about animal right’s issues and enjoyed being a Mary Kay cosmetics sales consultant.

It was scouting time again. January 19, 1991 began as busy day for Dennis Rader. He would use his involvement with the Scouts "Trapper’s Rendezvous" to cover up the murder of Dee, living near a dog kennel, "Project Dogside."

After setting up camp, he parked his car near home at the Baptist church. He had a key to the church through his Scouting involvement. Inside the church, he changed into dark clothes and assembled his "hit kit" of tape and cords.

He started to get lazy because, he was near his own neighborhood, "something serial killer’s don’t do."

He walked nearly two miles across a field and a cemetery on a very cold night to get to Dee's secluded residence home. He had qualms about entering the place he had cased so many times before but finally threw a concrete block through the plate glass patio door to enter.

Thinking a car hit her house; Dee came running out of her bedroom. Rader handcuffed her. He told her he was on the run, needed food, and keys to her car.

Dee begged, "I've got kids. Don't hurt me. Don't hurt me."

He talked with her until she calmed down.

While he pretended to be gathering food, and other necessities he checked the location of her car.

Acting as if he was about to leave, Rader removed her handcuffs, tied her up, and strangled her with panty hose. He said the two or three minutes it took for her to die fueled his fantasies for years. He put her blanket around her, drug her to her car, threw her in the trunk and dumped her body under a County bridge.

Rader returned to put a mask on her the following day and “pretty her up” before taking her pictures.

Using a remote cord to take his own a picture he posed wearing lingerie he stole from Dee after killing her. The BTK Task Force found a container in a cabinet with a picture Rader took of himself bound to a chair, in a blonde wig and the mask. He also took photos of himself buried up to his neck, wearing the mask.

It wasn't known if Dee had been abducted or murdered for thirteen days. Her body was found on February 1, 1991. Rader did not take credit for this killing until after his arrest.

"I can think of nothing but savoring the bittersweet taste of revenge as justice is served upon this social sewage here before us today," said Jeff Davis her son at Rader's sentencing.

The Next One

The BTK Murders: Inside the "Bind Torture Kill" Case that Terrified America's Heartland by Carlton Smith. From 1974 to 1991, in Wichita someone was leaving behind slain tortured bodies who called himself “BTK” for “Bind, Torture, Kill.” For 14 years, he was silent. But he began sending letters again.. Police arrested Dennis Rader. He coldly described “his projects.” The tricks he used to trap victims, the puzzles he sent the media, and the role his daughter played in his arrest. one victim’s family member called him, “a black hole inside the shell of a human being”—and the worst American monster since Ted Bundy.