Naman Shrestha
The BTK killer terrorized the area of Wichita, Kansas, by committing gruesome murders, nearly a dozen in the span of a decade or so. To conceal his crimes, he maintained the facade of a family man with a loving wife and two children. When he was finally connected with the murders, her daughter, Kerri Rowson, was shaken to her core. In Netflix’s ‘My Father, the BTK Killer,’ Kerri recounts her childhood with the serial killer and how the revelation affected her life.
Kerri Rawson Learned About Her Father’s Truth After His Arrest
Kerri Rawson was born in 1978 to Dennis Rader and Paula Dietz and raised in the family’s Kansas ranch house alongside her older brother, Daniel. Around the time, her father, also known as the BTK killer, was active in the Wichita area, where he killed multiple women. However, she was unaware of his gruesome crimes for nearly three decades. While tracing back her childhood memories of her father, she could remember that he used to display flashes of anger time and again. Kerri has recalled an incident in which, according to her, Dennis became physically aggressive toward Daniel during an argument.
Kerri finally learned the grim truth about her father in February 2005, when the FBI knocked on her door and told her that her father was the BTK killer. By then, he had been arrested for being involved in multiple homicides. When the news broke out, Kerri and her house were swarmed by journalists asking questions. While Dennis was sentenced to 175 years in prison, she was reportedly diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and PTSD, for which she enrolled in grief counseling.
Kerri Rawson is a Published Author and an Advocate For Victims
Before her father, Dennis Rader, was arrested for a series of murders he had committed decades ago, Kerri Rawson had graduated with two Bachelor’s degrees — one in Life Science and the other in Elementary Education — from Kansas State University by 2003. After the truth about her father came to the surface, she became an advocate for victims of abuse, crime, and trauma, as she opened up about her experiences of growing up with a serial killer. Since then, she has been sharing her hopeful and faithful journey with other victims, in an attempt to motivate them.
Kerri also became a public speaker and media guest, giving interviews with various media outlets. In January 2019, she published her first book titled ‘A Serial Killer’s Daughter: My Story of Faith, Love, and Overcoming,’ becoming a published author. In the following years, she made an appearance on a podcast called ‘Ask Jillian’ and a documentary titled ‘The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets.’ Following the success of her first book, she published her second book, ‘Breaking Free: Overcoming the Trauma of My Serial Killer Father,’ in May 2023.
Kerri Rawson Leads a Private Life in Florida Today
While attending Kansas State University, Kerri Rawson met Darian, whom she married in 2003. In the following years, the couple welcomed two children into the world — a daughter named Emilie in 2008 and a son named Ian in 2011. After nearly two decades of togetherness, Kerri revealed that she was in the middle of a divorce in May 2021. A couple of years later, in 2023, she met her father face-to-face at the El Dorado Correctional Facility in Kansas, after maintaining contact through handwritten letters for years. However, she went there to get answers about several missing persons cases that the police had been investigating at the time. During another visit, she also asked him if he had ever sexually abused her as a child.
In January 2025, Kerri Rawson battled a health scare related to COVID-19 in the middle of moving into a new house. Instead of shifting, she was hospitalized, and her belongings went into storage. In order to pay the medical bills for her extended hospitalization due to the illness and the ongoing housing crisis, she resorted to making a GoFundMe page as she was reportedly in a bad financial situation. Thanks to the immense support she received, she managed to secure temporary housing. From what we can tell, she is a divorced mother of two children who currently lives in Greater Orlando, Florida. Given her fascination with wildlife, she is also seemingly a mother to two cats.
Read More: BTK Killer’s Victims: Who Were They?
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