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One of the largest unsolved mysteries in the United States of America for more than 30 years was the BTK serial killer case. Between 1974 and 1991, hundreds of thousands of hours and millions of dollars was spent by the police to try to identify the person who murdered 10 people in and around Wichita and Kansas. On February 16, 2005, computer forensics experts achieved what the police had failed to do for more than 30 years by identifying the killer. Dennis Rader was the killer of the 10 innocent people. This case is the most famous ever solved by computer forensics.

Computer Forensic Element

• On January 15, 1975 the case was started, when Dennis Rader strangled 4 members of the Otero family to death. After 15 years, he admitted to bind and kill 6 more victims, all female. While Rader was murdering victims, he sent bizarre notes to the police to taunt them. In Wichita Public Library was his first letter that was stuck in an engineering book. In the letter Rader claimed liability for the murders of the Otero family by providing information only known by the police. Rader committed more murders and indicated a nickname for himself “BTK”, which stands for Bind, Torture and Kill.

• Many letters including twisted poems, puzzles and pictures were written by Rader. He used different methods to send those letters sometimes he would post them to the media, other times he would send the letters right to the police or hide them somewhere. Furthermore, the police doubted that Rader placed references to himself in the newspaper’s classified section.

• The FBI and local police spent hours studying these communications. Local police and the FBI in order to follow up on every possible lead and to interview thousands of suspects hired best...

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... forensic computer crimes unit. The crime unit detective worked on delving into the floppy disc's hidden files and cryptic digital information. Then the detective found the related information that caught the BTK serial killer. The police officials obtained the appropriate search warrant to take Rader into custody.

Contribution of Computer Forensics

Nowadays, computer forensic experts and digital tools are used more then ever to solve many crimes such as murder, kidnapping, rape, fraud, and embezzlement cases. Computer forensic experts routinely dig up information, which they thought it was deleted on digital devices such as computers, cell phones, and cameras. The tools that the experts are using are getting more advanced every day. In this case, computer forensics helped find sufficient evidence to incriminate the ‘Person of interest’ of the BTK serial killer.