It’s one of the most disturbing prospects you could imagine, and one many of us assume we’ll never have to face.
Finding out a trusted family member is actually a serial killer would undoubtedly be devastating, casting doubt on everything you once knew to be true.
This was the living nightmare Kerri Rawson found herself in on February 25, 2005. Kerri had been in her apartment near Detroit, when an FBI agent knocked on her door.
The FBI agent proceeded to inform Kerri her father, Dennis Rader, had been arrested as a BTK suspect, a serial killer who bound, tortured, and killed ten people in Kansas between 1974 and 1991.
Hw was given the name BTK killer because of his infamous signature – bind, torture, kill.
Kerri was just 26 years old at the time of this discovery, and ‘tumbled into an abyss of despair and terror’ as she read more about the horrific murders committed by her father’.
Kerri has now written a book, A Serial Killer’s Daughter: My Story of Faith, Love, and Overcoming, about her attempts to cope with the crimes of her father.
In an extract from the book, published in the New York Post, Kerri discusses the dark side to her father that she never saw:
I’ve always argued he’s 95 per cent my dad and 5 per cent I don’t know — don’t know that man. Never met him. I’ve still not reckoned fully with who my father really is.
Kerri has also wrote about coming to terms with the evil side of the man she calls Dad:
What’s in my past is what it is; it can’t be changed. Dad murdered 10 people and devastated countless lives.
Yet on the days when I’m not wrestling with hard, terrible truths, I will tell you: I love my dad — the one I mainly knew. I miss him.
You can purchase A Serial Killer’s Daughter: My Story of Faith, Love, and Overcoming here.
If you have a story you want to tell send it to UNILAD via stories@unilad.co.uk
Jules studied English Literature with Creative Writing at Lancaster University before earning her masters in International Relations at Leiden University in The Netherlands (Hoi!). She then trained as a journalist through News Associates in Manchester. Jules has previously worked as a mental health blogger, copywriter and freelancer for various publications.