Serial Killer's Link to Kansas Newspaper Continues

By: Joe Strupp When Wichita police investigating the city's most famous serial killer asked reporter Hurst Laviana of The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle for a DNA sample last summer, he was not really surprised. After all, from the time the murders began 30 years ago, the newspaper and the killer known as "BTK" have been inextricably linked.

Since he first struck in early 1974, BTK (his self-given nickname for "Bind, Torture, Kill") has sent the newspaper four letters and one poem. The Eagle's Web site received a subpoena last year when investigators thought the murderer might be posting items on a discussion board. And BTK's recent re-appearance, in the form of a letter he sent the newspaper this past spring after 16 years of silence, is believed to have been sparked by a lengthy Eagle story marking the 30th anniversary of the first killing.

"It has always been part of the paper's lore," said former editor Rick Thames, who spent seven years at the Eagle's helm before moving to The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer last summer. "BTK has always been there at the Eagle."

The paper was back in the news last month when a man arrested on an outstanding warrant was thought to have a link to the case. But he was quickly ruled out as a suspect. Police found in December a driver's license and some other items belonging to one victim killed in 1977. There was more news yesterday, as police announced that they believe that the killer took a necklace from that 1977 victim and gave it to a girlfriend at that time.

Laviana had wondered why police hadn't sought his DNA earlier, given that he has followed the case for more than 20 years. He was one of three area reporters covering the story who had samples voluntarily swabbed from their mouths in June. "It seemed like a logical thing for them to do," Laviana said, adding that police told him they'd received five tips from people urging that the reporter be tested. He never heard back from investigators after the test occurred.

The elusive BTK has killed eight people since Jan. 15, 1974, with most of the murders committed between 1974 and 1977, and the last in 1986. The majority were strangled in their homes. The first letter to the Eagle-Beacon, as it was known then, appeared 10 months after the initial killing, placed inside a book at the local library, and found after a call to the paper alerted reporters. The last letter arrived in March 2004 and included crime scene photos from the 1986 murder, as well as a copy of that victim's driver's license.

BTK has sent letters and made phone calls to a local television station as well, but the Eagle has remained his key media connection.

"It's a self-conscious position for a newspaper to be in," said Sherry Chisenhall, editor since July and a five-year Eagle employee. "We are more careful about how we are doing things."

Although the BTK case had been quiet for more than a decade, its unsolved nature required Laviana during his 23 years at the paper to ask police the same question when covering any local murder: "Did the [killer] cut the phone lines?" ? one of BTK's signature practices.

Early on, the paper's ties to the case went beyond the letters when the Eagle -Beacon offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in 1974. When BTK's poem was received in 1978, just two weeks before Valentine's Day, it was mistakenly thought to be one of the romantic messages the paper runs on Feb. 14 and was originally sent to the classified advertising department. The paper also has done stories as wide-ranging as how psychics viewed the case.

BTK made his need for media attention clear in a 1978 letter to a local television station, in which he said, "How many do I have to kill before I get my name in the paper?" adding, "a little paragraph ... would have been enough."

After the investigation received a new boost in 2004 from the latest letter, the Eagle found itself again in a strange position as both a provider of evidence and chronicler of the news. When Laviana received the most recent BTK letter on Friday, March 19, he immediately passed it on to police, but they did not look into it until the following Monday. Investigators then took two days to review it and asked the Eagle to withhold certain information from its story, which ran on March 25 ? nearly a week after the paper received the letter.

Wichita Police officials declined to comment to E&P about the case or the newspaper's coverage.

The Eagle found itself in the middle of the investigation again in April when the Sedgwick County District Attorney's office subpoenaed the identities of six people who had posted items to a BTK bulletin board on the paper's Web site. The Eagle cooperated without a fight, Chisenhall said, but drew criticism from District Attorney Nola Foulston when the paper ran a story about the subpoenas.

"We knew that we should disclose it," Chisenhall said. "But they thought [the story] would alert people using the bulletin board, especially if one of them was BTK." Foulston did not return calls seeking comment, but a statement placed on the District Attorney's Web site after the Eagle story ran said the paper had been ordered not to disclose the subpoena's existence and had sparked "serious concerns about the disclosure of information ... that could jeopardize the ability to identify a suspect."

Then there's the ongoing interest of hundreds of national and international media. "The hardest part is juggling all of the calls and doing your job," Laviana said, adding that magazine reporters from as far away as Japan and Sweden have asked questions. "A British TV crew took over the managing editor's office for a day because that was where they got the biggest angle for a shot of the newsroom."

But is anyone at the paper afraid that BTK may target one of them as the attention increases? Thames said some employees began asking for escorts to the parking lot at night following the last letter. "It is something in the back of your mind," Laviana admitted. "But we are hoping it is more likely that he would contact us to say he is ready to give up."