Rader initially worked as an assembler for the Coleman Company, an outdoor supply company. He then enrolled at Wichita State University, and graduated in 1979 with a Bachelor of Science degree, majoring in Administration of Justice. He attended Butler County Community College in El Dorado, earning an associate degree in electronics in 1973. Rader married Paula Dietz on May 22, 1971 they had two children, Kerri and Brian. Upon discharge, he moved to Park City (a suburb of Wichita), where he worked in the meat department of a Leekers IGA supermarket where his mother was a bookkeeper. He served in the United States Air Force from 1966 to 1970. Rader attended Kansas Wesleyan University after high school, but received mediocre grades and dropped out after one year. However, Rader kept his sexual proclivities well-hidden, and he was widely regarded in his community as 'normal, polite, and well mannered'. He later admitted that he was pretending to be his victims as part of a sexual fantasy. Years later, during his 'cooling off' periods between murders, Rader would take pictures of himself wearing women's clothes and a female mask while bound. Rader acted out sexual fetishes for voyeurism, autoerotic asphyxiation, and cross-dressing he often spied on female neighbors while dressed in women's clothing, including women's underwear that he had stolen, and masturbated with ropes or other bindings around his arms and neck. He also exhibited zoosadism by torturing, killing, and hanging small animals. įrom a young age, Rader harbored sadistic sexual fantasies about torturing 'trapped and helpless' women. Both parents worked long hours and paid little attention to their children at home Rader later described feeling ignored by his mother in particular and resenting her for it. Sources give Rader's place of birth as either Columbus, Kansas, or Pittsburg, Kansas. His brothers are Paul, Bill, and Jeff Rader. Dennis Rader was born on March 9, 1945, to Dorothea Mae Rader ( née Cook) and William Elvin Rader, one of four sons.

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