{{Short description|American writer and activist (born 1978)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=March 2026}} {{Infobox person | name = Kerri Rawson | image = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = Kerri Rader | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1978}} | birth_place = Wichita, Kansas, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = | occupation = Author<br>Activist | known_for = Being the daughter of Dennis Rader | notable_works = ''A Serial Killer's Daughter: My Story of Faith, Love, and Overcoming'' (2019)<br>''Breaking Free: Overcoming the Trauma of My Serial Killer Father'' (2023) | spouse = {{marriage|Darian Rawson|2003|2021|end=div}} | children = 2 }} '''Kerri Rawson''' (born 1978) is an American author and activist for the rights of crime victims. She is the daughter of serial killer Dennis Rader, known as BTK, who committed ten murders in Kansas between 1974 and 1991.
Rawson wrote two books about her father's crimes and her life, with one of them inspiring the Netflix documentary film ''My Father, the BTK Killer''.
== Life before Rader's arrest == Rawson was born in 1978 in Wichita, Kansas, to Dennis Rader, a U.S. Air Force veteran, and Paula Dietz, a Kansas native who worked as a bookkeeper.<ref name="people2025"/> She has an older brother named Brian, who was born in 1975.<ref name="people2025">{{cite news |last1=Hamadeh |first1=Yasmeen |title=Where Is the BTK Killer's Ex-Wife Now? What We Know About Paula Dietz |url=https://people.com/where-is-the-btk-killer-wife-now-paula-dietz-dennis-rader-11826846 |access-date=January 17, 2026 |work=People |date=October 12, 2025}}</ref> By the time of Rawson's birth, Rader had murdered eight people, including two young children in 1974, when he massacred the Otero family in Wichita.<ref name="abc2019">{{cite news |last1=Effron |first1=Lauren |last2=Smith |first2=Jenner |last3=Dooley |first3=Sean |title=BTK serial killer's daughter shares letters he wrote her from behind bars: 'The dark side took me away' |url=https://abcnews.go.com/US/btk-serial-killers-daughter-shares-letters-wrote-bars/story?id=60730932 |access-date=February 5, 2026 |work=ABC News |date=July 26, 2019}}</ref>
In April 1985, Rader murdered Marine Hedge, a neighbor of the Raders' home in Park City, Kansas.<ref name="people20251">{{cite news |last1=Sager |first1=Jessica |title=Where Is Dennis Rader's Daughter Now? All About Kerri Rawson's Life 20 Years After Discovering Her Father Was a Serial Killer |url=https://people.com/where-is-dennis-rader-daughter-kerri-rawson-now-11828064 |access-date=February 5, 2026 |work=People |date=October 11, 2025}}</ref> Rawson stated in interviews that she was six years old when she was informed of Hedge's killing, adding that she began to experience night terrors, telling her mother that there was "a bad man in the house".<ref name="nyt2025"/> Rawson recalled that when the news about Hedge's murder was brought up in the family, Rader blamed Hedge's boyfriend.<ref name="nyt2025">{{cite news |last1=Tumin |first1=Remy |title=Her Father Is the B.T.K. Killer. She’s Helping to Close More Cases. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/us/btk-daughter-dennis-rader-kerri-rawson.html |access-date=February 5, 2026 |work=The New York Times |date=September 15, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251001142422/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/us/btk-daughter-dennis-rader-kerri-rawson.html |archive-date=October 1, 2025}}</ref>
While attending high school, Rawson recalled that Rader gave her his car to drive to school. After Rader's arrest, Kerri learned that he had killed his last known victim Dolores Davis, a 62-year-old native of Stella, Nebraska, who resided in Wichita in 1991, and that he had hidden Davis's body in the trunk of that car.<ref>{{cite news |title=Dolores Davis |url=https://www.weremember.com/dolores-davis/0c7f/memories |access-date=February 5, 2026 |work=We Remember |date=2025}}</ref><ref name="independent"/> After the murder of Davis, Rader did not kill again and disappeared from the spotlight, with Wichitans believing that he had died.<ref name="independent">{{cite news |last1=Cavallier |first1=Andrea |title=Kerri Rawson’s father gave her a car in high school. Years later, she learned he was the BTK killer – and had stashed his final victim in the trunk |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/btk-killer-daughter-kerri-rawson-netflix-doc-b2842660.html |access-date=February 5, 2026 |work=The Independent |date=October 10, 2025}}</ref>
After her high school graduation, Rawson attended Kansas State University, where she obtained two degrees, one of them in education.<ref name="weagle">{{cite news |last1=Wenzl |first1=Roy |title=BTK's daughter: Stephen King 'exploiting my father's 10 victims and their families' with movie |url=https://www.kansas.com/news/special-reports/btk/article2251870.html |access-date=February 6, 2026 |work=Wichita Eagle |date=November 2, 2016}}</ref> She married a man named Darian Rawson in 2003, with Rader taking her down the aisle in the church ceremony.<ref name="biographycom">{{cite news |last1=Piccoti |first1=Tyler |title=Kerri Rawson Thought She Knew Her Father. Then She Learned He Was the BTK Killer. |url=https://www.biography.com/crime/a68208514/btk-killer-daughter-kerri-rawson-relationship-netflix |access-date=February 6, 2026 |work=Biography.com |date=October 8, 2025}}</ref> The Rawsons moved to Michigan to start their family there, while maintaining frequent contact with Kerri's parents. Kerri and Darian had a girl (born 2008), and a boy (born 2011).<ref name="biographycom"/>
When Rader sent a floppy disk to the Wichita Police Department in early 2005, investigators were able to track the disk's information to a local church in Wichita, whose president's name was Dennis Lynn Rader.<ref>{{cite news |title=Computer disk may have cracked BTK case |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna6988048 |access-date=February 6, 2026 |work=NBC News |date=February 17, 2005}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Pearson |first1=Nick |title=Today in History - February 16 {{!}} The floppy disc slip-up that led to cold case serial killer's arrest |url=https://www.9news.com.au/world/today-in-history-february-16-what-happened-on-this-day/456a6400-af32-425f-9465-6f96ab45a445 |access-date=February 6, 2026 |work=Nine.com.au |date=February 15, 2025}}</ref> Keeping a low-profile investigation to avoid alerting Rader, detectives took DNA samples from Kerri's medical records at Kansas State University, which eventually linked her father to the BTK serial murders.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Pozirekides |first1=Troy |title=Who is the BTK Killer? His Daughter Tells the True Story in New Documentary |url=https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/my-father-the-btk-killer-release-date-news |access-date=February 6, 2026 |work=Netflix.com |date=October 10, 2025}}</ref><ref name="doddpeople">{{cite news |last1=Dodd |first1=Johnny |title=DNA Taken From BTK Killer's Unwitting Daughter Led to His Arrest: 'They Needed to Catch My Dad' |url=https://people.com/crime/btk-killer-daughter-dna-led-to-arrest/ |work=People |access-date=February 5, 2026|date=February 1, 2019}}</ref>
== After Rader's arrest == After Rader's arrest in February 2005, Paula Dietz was granted an emergency divorce by a judge, after which she moved out of Kansas, leading a private life.<ref name="allinteresting">{{cite news |last1=Margaritoff |first1=Marco |title=The Disturbing Story Of Paula Dietz And Her Marriage To Dennis Rader — The Infamous BTK Killer |url=https://allthatsinteresting.com/paula-dietz |access-date=February 6, 2026 |work=All That's Interesting |date=May 28, 2022}}</ref> Rawson's brother, Brian, whom she says suffered physical violence by Rader, has always declined requests to speak about his father.<ref name="kidsrader">{{cite news |last1=Tron |first1=Gina |title=What Happened To The BTK Killer’s Kids? |url=https://www.oxygen.com/crime-time/what-happened-to-the-btk-killers-kids |access-date=February 6, 2026 |work=Oxygen |date=February 22, 2019}}</ref> When Rader was arrested, Brian was an Eagle Scout. He served in the Navy between 2004 and 2009, working in submarines on a base in Groton, Connecticut.<ref name="kidsrader"/> Rawson said that no one in Rader's family went to court hearings out of respect for the victims and their families.<ref name="people20251"/>
Rawson began surfacing in media in the early 2010s, speaking of her journey of returning to her non-denominational Christianity (Evangelical) faith and forgiving her father.<ref name="weagle"/><ref name="foxn">{{cite news |last1=Nolasco |first1=Stephanie |title=BTK's daughter tells all in new doc, says faith helped her forgive serial killer: 'I just shut down' |url=https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/btks-daughter-tells-all-in-new-doc-says-faith-helped-her-forgive-serial-killer-i-just-shut-down |access-date=February 6, 2026 |work=Fox News |date=February 15, 2019}}</ref> In 2016, Rawson gave an interview, accusing horror author Stephen King of "exploiting" Rader's victims and their families with his novella ''A Good Marriage'' and its film adaptation of the same name.<ref name="weagle"/> She also said that Rader himself was a fan of King and that some of King's books might have influenced her father's actions in his latest murders.<ref name="weagle"/>
She released her first book in 2019, titled ''A Serial Killer's Daughter: My Story of Faith, Love, and Overcoming'', which became a ''New York Times'' best seller.<ref name="weagle1">{{cite news |last1=Neil |first1=Denise |title=New BTK documentary on Netflix tells story from daughter's point of view |url=https://www.kansas.com/news/special-reports/btk/article312431134.html |access-date=February 6, 2026 |work=Wichita Eagle |date=October 10, 2025}}</ref> In 2023, she published another book, ''Breaking Free: Overcoming the Trauma of My Serial Killer Father'', which Rawson wrote while dealing with long COVID symptoms and struggling with mental health issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Schonfeld |first1=Zach |title=Inherent Flaws in COVID-19 Testing Mean Some of Those Infected Don't Get the Treatment They Need |url=https://time.com/5833709/coronavirus-false-negatives/ |access-date=February 6, 2026 |work=Time |date=May 8, 2020}}</ref><ref name="abc2019"/>
Rawson received many letters from her father, to which she did not reply, including birthday cards, one describing the beauty of sunrise in Kansas, and another advising Kerri and her husband to take precautions and "be extra careful due to all my crimes", adding that "(he) would wish no harm to you but some crazy individual might try something."<ref name="abc2019"/>
In 2023, Rawson was recruited by investigators to visit her father in prison to question Rader about cold cases matching his modus operandi, including the unsolved disappearance of 16-year-old Cynthia Dawn Kinney in Osage County, Oklahoma, and other unsolved missing person cases in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri.<ref name="cnn">{{cite news |last1=Sutton |first1=Joe |last2=Hanna |first2=Jason |last3=Casarez |first3=Jean |title=Authorities search BTK serial killer's former property in connection with 1976 missing person case and other unsolved cases |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/22/us/btk-serial-killer-dennis-rader-kansas-property-search |access-date=February 6, 2026 |work=CNN |date=August 24, 2023}}</ref> Rawson visited Rader in El Dorado Correctional Facility and tried to make him confess; she was advised by investigators to avoid direct accusations due to the risk of Rader shutting down and refusing to talk.<ref name="foxnews2">{{cite news |last1=Nolasco |first1=Stephanie |title=BTK killer's daughter calls him 'subhuman' after final prison confrontation ends relationship |url=https://www.foxnews.com/us/btk-killers-daughter-calls-him-subhuman-after-final-prison-confrontation-ends-relationship |access-date=February 6, 2026 |work=Fox News |date=October 19, 2025}}</ref>
When questioned about cold cases and other possible crimes, Rawson said that her father asked her why she wanted to talk about that and that they have a "normal father-daughter" relationship.<ref name="foxnews2"/> Rawson pushed further and asked him why her name was on a 1981 note about a bondage sexual fantasy (she was 3 years old) and if he had molested her.<ref name="people20251"/><ref name="foxnews2"/> Rader told her that it was "just a fantasy" and that he "never touched family", adding that his daughter was seeking fame by creating stories.<ref name="foxnews2"/> Rawson left deeply affected and vowed never to return, calling her father a "subhuman".<ref name="foxnews2"/><ref name="people20251"/>
Rawson said that she keeps in touch with her mother and brother Brian, describing Brian as "bright," but expressing concern about him, saying that "[Brian] doesn't have the kids and the family that I have."<ref name="kidsrader"/> She also stated that Rader had once choked him for "spoiling dinner".<ref name="kidsrader"/> Brian has never publicly spoken about his father's crimes.<ref name="kidsrader"/>
In 2021, Rawson reported that she was divorcing Darian, adding that she chose to be a stay-at-home mom and actively pursue activism for rights of crime victims, as well as accompany the families of other serial killers who go through similar experiences.<ref name="people20251"/><ref name="biographycom"/>
In January 2023, Rawson spoke to media about Bryan Kohberger, the man who was convicted in 2025 of murdering four college students in Moscow, Idaho, in November 2022, saying that her "stomach sank" when she saw many similarities between Kohberger and her father, including the interest in criminology and criminal justice, which experts say is common among serial killers, citing further examples like Joseph James DeAngelo and Ted Bundy.<ref name="indep2023">{{cite news |last1=Hurley |first1=Bevan |title=BTK Killer’s daughter sensed her father in the Idaho murders. Bryan Kohberger's arrest took her breath away |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/bryan-kohberger-btk-killer-dennis-rader-idaho-murders-b2274519.html |access-date=February 6, 2026 |work=The Independent |date=January 6, 2023}}</ref> Rawson believes that it is "entirely" possible that her father and Kohberger were in touch via email or phone before Kohberger's murders and that Rader influenced Kohberger, explaining that Rader had problems with prison officials at El Dorado for sending his underpants, glasses, and other memorabilia to his "fans".<ref name="indep2023"/>
Rawson appeared in the 2025 Netflix documentary film ''My Father, the BTK Killer'' and in the ''Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer'' Netflix documentary chronicling the story of the Gilgo Beach serial killings and its main suspect Rex Heuermann, who pleaded guilty to eight murders on April 8, 2026.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Halpert |first1=Madeline |title='Cold as ice': Serial killer admits to eight murders in case that haunted Long Island for years |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crl12xl2p4lo |access-date=8 April 2026 |work=BBC News |date=8 April 2026}}</ref> Rawson met with Heuermann's wife, daughter, and stepson during the production.<ref name="biographycom"/><ref>{{cite news |last1=Biggs |first1=Jade |title='My Father, the BTK Killer': Where Is Kerri Rawson, the BTK Killer's Daughter, Now? Here's What We Know |url=https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/tv/a69001512/where-is-btk-killer-daughter-kerri-rawson-now/ |access-date=February 6, 2026 |work=Cosmopolitan |date=October 11, 2025}}</ref>
== References == {{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rawson, Kerri}} Category:Living people Category:1978 births Category:Activists from Michigan Category:Activists from Kansas Category:American women activists Category:Crime victim advocates Category:People with post-traumatic stress disorder Category:People with mood disorders Category:Kansas State University alumni Category:Writers from Wichita, Kansas Category:Writers from Michigan Category:American women writers Category:21st-century American biographers Category:21st-century American women writers Category:American women crime writers Category:American non-fiction crime writers Category:American evangelicals Category:American Evangelical writers