“She was chosen. I went through the different phases, stalking phase, and since she lived down the street from me I could watch the coming and going quite easily. On that particular date I—I had a—a other [sic] commitment. I came back from that commitment. Parked my car over at Woodlawn and 21st. Street at a bowling alley there at the time. Before that I dressed into—I had some other clothes on. I changed clothes. I went to the bowling alley, went in there under the pretense of bowling, called a taxi. Had a taxi take me out to Park City. Had my kit with me. It was a bowling bag….There I asked—I—I pretended that I was a little drunk. I just took—I just took some beer and washed it around my mouth, and the guy could probably smell alcohol on me. I asked—told him to let me out so I could get some fresh air, and I walked from where the taxi let me off over to her house.…Well, as before, I was going to have sexual fantasies, so I brought my hit kit, and lo and behold, her car was there. I thought gee, she’s not supposed to be home. So I very carefully snuck into the house, she wasn’t there. So about that time the doors rattled, so I went—went back to one of the bedrooms and hid back there in one of the bedrooms. She came in with a male visitor. They were there for maybe an hour or so. Then he left. I waited till wee hours of the morning. I then proceeded to sneak into her bedroom and flip the lights on real quick like, or I think the bathroom lights. I just—I didn’t want to flip her lights on, and she screamed, and I jumped on the bed and strangled her manually.…After that, since I was in the sexual fantasy, I went ahead and stripped her and probably went ahead and—I’m not for sure if I tied her up at that point in time, but anyway, she was nude, and I put her on a blanket, went through her purse, some personal items in the house, figured out how I was gonna get her out of there. Eventually moved her to the trunk of the car. Took the car over to Christ Lutheran Church—this is with the older church—and took some pictures of her.”
Annotation
Describing the 1985 murder of his neighbor Marine Hedge. Courtroom confession of Dennis Rader, 6/27/05.
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