BTK serial killer Dennis Rader was ordered to serve 10 consecutive life terms on Thursday during an emotional hearing in which relatives of his victims called him a monster and said he should be "thrown in a deep, dark hole and left to rot."
The sentence -- a minimum of 175 years without a chance of parole -- was the longest possible that Judge Gregory Waller could deliver. Kansas had no death penalty at the time the killings were committed.
The two-day hearing featured graphic testimony from detectives and sobbing relatives. It culminated with rambling testimony from Rader, who said he had been dishonest to his family and victims and at times wiped his eyes.
"Nancy's death is a like a deep wound that will never, ever heal," testified Beverly Plapp, sister of victim Nancy Fox. "As far as I'm concerned, Dennis Rader does not deserve to live. I want him to suffer as much as he made his victims suffer."
"This man needs to be thrown in a deep, dark hole and left to rot," she said. "He should never, ever see the light of day."
Rader offered Biblical quotes, thanks to police and an apology to victims' relatives before he was sentenced. Some family members walked out of court during Rader's speech, saying they did not want to give him the time of day.
"A dark side is there, but now I think light is beginning to shine," Rader said. "Hopefully someday God will accept me."
Rader, 60, a former church congregation president and Boy Scout leader, led a double life, calling himself BTK for "bind, torture and kill." He was arrested in February and pleaded guilty in June to 10 murders from 1974 to 1991.
Family members of the victims talked about the hearing at a news conference afterward, saying that horror writer Stephen King couldn't have come up with a more monstrous character than Rader. Jeff Davis, whose mother was strangled by Rader, called Rader's speech a "pathetic, rambling diatribe."
"It's beyond comprehension. It was that pathetic," he said. "He just nauseates me. I just want them to put the cockroach away."
Rader's voice choked as he made his half-hour address to the courtroom, saying he had been dishonest to his family and victims and selfish.
"I know the victim's families will never be able to forgive me. I hope somewhere deep down, eventually that will happen," he said.
He also admitted he tracked his victims "like a predator."
Nola Foulston, Sedgwick County District Attorney, asked the judge that Rader be refused anything in prison, such as markers or crayons, that could be used to draw or write about human or animal forms, or anything that might be used to further his sexual fantasies.
Prosecutors earlier flashed a photograph of Rader wearing a mask, tied to a chair and donning a woman's blond wig. They also showed other pictures the killer took in which he had bound himself and was wearing a dress he had taken from a victim's house -- apparently reliving the ecstasy of the murder.
Investigators testified that Rader kept hundreds of pictures from magazines and circulars mounted on index cards, with details of the warped sexual fantasies he dreamed of carrying out.
Lieutenant Ken Landwehr, who coordinated the Wichita police department's investigation into BTK, said the index cards were some of the evidence of Rader's long history of terror that was found at the defendant's office, camper and small suburban home.
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