FHSU grad comes back to Hays to tell tale of forensics art in her new book
By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Julie Riedel was a 32-year-old college student when she was assigned to create age progression sketches of the BTK serial killer.
By the early '90s, law enforcement had been trying to apprehend BTK for almost 20 years.
In her new book, "The Sketcher," Riedel describes the process of creating the sketches and facets of her own life during BTK's reign of terror.
Riedel's grandparents were from Hays and she has two master's degrees fro Fort Hays State Univeristy. Today she's an art teacher at Wichtia Southeast High School.
She was back in Hays On Wednesday to present a lecture on her new book at the Hays Public Library.
Dennis Rader, the serial killer known as BTK, killed at least 10 people in Wichita and Park City between 1974 and 1991.
BTK stood for bind, torture, kill. Although Rader killed two men and two children, most of Rader's victims were women, which he bound and then suffocated with a plastic bag or manually strangled.
He stole personal items from the victim's homes, including underwear, and sent taunting letters to the news media, which described his crimes.
He resumed sending letters in 2004 and was finally arrested in 2005.
At the time of his arrest, Rader was married and had a daughter and son. He had worked as a dogcatcher and compliance officer in Park City. He had been president of his church council and a Cub Scout leader.
He is serving 10 consecutive life sentences at the El Dorado Correctional Facility.
Riedel read from the first chapter of her book Wednesday, which described how she became involved in the BTK case.
Riedel was finishing her art degree at Wichita State University and had been approved for an independent study in forensics art.
Despite encouragement from her professor at WSU, Riedel doubted her abilities.
"I was unexperienced dealing with people in authority like the people at the Wichita Police Department," she read from her book. ... "I was scared shitless, quaking in my well-worn boots at the prospect of walking into the Wichita Police Department. So few people had believed in me in my life, I doubted that professional criminologists would take me seriously."
She said she had no idea she was going to be asked to draw a serial killer. She thought she might be assigned a theft suspect, but the police were so desperate for any information to lead to the arrest of BTK that they were willing to take a chance.
After arriving at the Wichita Police Department, the officer in charge of the case brought her a two-wheel dolly with the case files on the BTK killer and ushered Riedel into a musty storage room to spread out the files.
Officer Landwehr explained that he wanted Riedel to use the sketches and flipbook images from witnesses to create an image of what BTK might have looked like at 26 and 46.
These were to include versions of the suspect bald, with facial hair and without and with glasses.
This type of age progression drawing had never been done before. This was a time before AI or widespread internet use that could be used for research.
"I was speechless. The crimes committed by the BTK were the stuff of nightmares in the Wichita metropolitan area," she read from her book.
"No one knew who he was. Suspicion reined in and around the city," Riedel said. "He could have been your next-door neighbor, your electrician, your telephone repair man, or the guy staring at you in the grocery store, and I thought about that all of the time when I went to the grocery store," she said.
Riedel, who had two small children, insisted that her name never be used in connection with the sketches.
She was referred to as The Sketcher.
"At that moment, I accepted the assignment," she read from her book. "I didn't understand how much the decision would change my life."
The drawings took Riedel about three to four months to complete.
She took her first clues from an image that was created from the account of a firefighter who had been standing behind Dennis Rader when he made a payphone call to KWCH Channel 12 in Wichita.
He was so frightened by the experience he had to be hypnotized to help him describe the suspect.
She started with the eyes, which was counter to what she had been taught as an artist. She thought about BTK. Would he be stressed? Would he be happy, delighting in his killing?
She considered how bone structure and facial muscles would change as a person aged. She took clues from her life drawing classes as well as the studies of Leonardo da Vinci.
Da Vinci raided graves to discet human bodies so he could better understand their muscles and skeletal structures. With no internet, this study all had to be done at the library using books.
She started to look at people differently. She saw the killer everywhere.
"Is that him? Is that him? Wait, he has that feature," she said.
She started having nightmares about BTK slipping a plastic bag over her head to suffocate her—his face becoming more complete as she neared completion of the sketches.
When the sketches were complete and returned to the Wichita Police Department, they were distributed to all local media outlets, nationwide and ultimately worldwide.
As the police finally started to close in on Rader, Riedel was asked to bring the sketches back to the police department. The media was swarming the WPD, waiting for the big break.
As Riedel was leaving the police department, she saw Rader in the parking garage.
He was reveling in the media circus gathered at the WPD office. He had his hood up on his car. He didn't know her or know she had done the drawings, but his eyes locked with Riedel's.
She immediately went back into the police department and begged to see Officer Landwehr.
"Please, please, he's out there!" she said.
But Landwehr was in a press conference.
Rader was finally arrested not long after that day.
Riedel was not called to testify in the Rader's prosecution. However, her drawings were entered into evidence as exhibit 13.
"There's so many things that I got to learn from drawing the BTK," she said. "It's overwhelming sometimes to think about it. I was scared all of the time. It's a very scary thing, and I was scared for my children."
She said she decided to write the book now, with the help of a ghostwriter, as a means of healing.
"We came from a pretty rough family. We all made it. We all love each other. We're all close. We had a pretty rough upbringing, and that's part of what the book's about," she said. "I parallel the book with my life at that time."
She said the book was difficult to write.
"You find find a way to forgive when you write it down," she said.
She continues to teach and hopes to encourage her students to seize opportunities as she did in the BTK case.
"My passion is art and helping others succeed," she said. "I firmly believe in helping kids figure out what's in their heart and what they want to do in their lives.
"So many kids are lost, and they don't know what to do. I help them get scholarships too, as well as be an art teacher."
Riedel continues to be contacted by law enforcement to assist with cases.
She has also been contacted by producers interested in turning her book into a movie.
You can learn more about Riedel, her book and her art at thesketcher.org and riedelartstudio.com
She has an exhibit on display now at Gallery 12 in Wichita.
Her original BTK sketches are for sale. Her book can be purchased at major book retailers across the country.