Good Christian Moral Values

Los Angeles Times:

He called himself a monster, but in 31 years of hunting the serial killer known as BTK, Wichita police made it clear they were searching for a man who appeared in every way ordinary. On Saturday, they announced they finally had caught him.

Dennis Rader, 59, a church-going family man, a Cub Scout leader, a dog-catcher for the trim suburb of Park City, is in custody on suspicion of torturing and killing seven women, one man and two children from 1974 to 1991 — including two victims linked only this week to BTK.

Authorities would not discuss the specifics of their investigation into BTK. (The "code word" the killer used to describe himself described his method: bind, torture, kill). But they have compared Rader's DNA with the semen that BTK left at several crime scenes.

They said they were confident that Rader was the man who terrorized this industrial city for decades, taunting detectives with poems, word puzzles and boastful letters — including one in which he declared that there was "no help, no cure" for his sadism, "except death or being caught and put away."

"Bottom line: BTK is arrested," Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams said at a news conference Saturday morning. "Doggone it, we did it."

[snip]

Although some of his neighbors said he was friendly — and he was well-respected enough to serve as president of his church council— others called him mean and arrogant. "He wore a badge and would swagger around the street like he was above the law. I always considered him a bully," said James Reno, 42, who has lived across the street from Rader for more than a decade.

[snip]

They all have questions they'd like to ask: How did he pick his victims? Why did he claim credit for some murders and not for others? Why did he start communicating with police again after 25 years of silence?

One question that they do not need to ask is how he eluded capture for so long.

"We always said he was invisible because he was most likely so ordinary," said Smith, the retired detective. "As it turned out, he was exactly ordinary. He went to work. He went to church. He went to Boy Scouts. He did family things. Just an ordinary guy."

I, by comparison, never, ever set foot in a church. I'm not a serial killer, either. So much for church making you a more moral person.