BTK serial killer’s daughter compares Gilgo Beach killer suspect to father

The daughter of the infamous BTK serial killer Dennis Rader reacted to the arrest of suspected Gilgo Beach murderer Rex Heuermann, Tuesday, detailing similarities between the two gruesome cases. 

Kerri Rawson said she was “elated” when she heard about Heuermann’s arrest earlier this month during “America’s Newsroom,” while noting she was surprised about the breakthrough given the fact that the case went cold for decades. 

“I was elated, really, to hear there had been an arrest because I didn’t think there would ever be one in this case. And then instantly it was, ‘Does he have a family?’ Because I know exactly what my family went through 18 years ago, and when I heard that he did have a wife and children, I was devastated, and I really was having a difficult time on Friday, on that day, remembering what I had been through,” Rawson told co-host Bill Hemmer Tuesday.

“The PTSD will come back, and… my heart just goes completely out to them,” she continued. “We’re really being told they’re innocent, and they need all protections here.”

Rader previously told Fox News Digital in a letter he saw Heuermann as his “clone” saying, “I was arrested age 59. Married, two kids,” Rader wrote in a letter to Fox News Digital. “Husband, dad longtime a serial killer, stalker, used electronic devices, lives in a neighborhood undetected.”

BTK and Heuermann were taken down similarly, Rader argued – “DNA and electronics his downfall much like me.” The convicted killer claims he predicted the similarities years ago.

“I was correct,” he wrote.

Investigators have been going through Heuermann’s home since his arrest, shortly before he pleaded not guilty to six murder charges in the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, 24, Megan Waterman, 22, and Amber Costello, 27.

Rawson detailed how her family was in shock like Heuermann’s regarding her father’s arrest almost 20 years ago. 

Rader was arrested back in 2005 after years of cat-and-mouse games in which he taunted investigators and the media with messages, ultimately leading police to his doorstep with a trail of digital evidence. He had given himself the nickname “BTK” in reference to his preferred method of murder – “bind, torture, kill.”

Rawson’s mother filed for divorce from Rader almost immediately following the arrest, a move also made by Heuermann’s wife, Asa Ellerup, who filed days after he was taken into custody. 

“The first day after or that first evening, even after my father was arrested, the FBI called us and said they had found evidence under our floorboards,” Rawson recalled. “So he had driver’s licenses of his several of his victims. He had jewelry that he had taken from their homes after he murdered them. Those were his most prized possessions, and he had carved out underneath the floorboards the place through this evidence in our hallway where it was like we rode out tornadoes, and that had been going on since the seventies.”

“And he had hit kits, and so we’re seeing with Rex Heuermann like handcuffs, my father had… fanny packs with like handcuffs and rope ties, like bondage gear, bandanas,” she continued. “Very similar to what we’re seeing coming out of Rex’s house.”

Officials uncovered more than 200 firearms, a large doll in a glass case, a large portrait of a woman with a bruised face and a filing cabinet from Heuermann’s home. 

Investigators, some dressed in “crime lab” T-shirts and protective suits, were seen earlier in the week carting away a desktop computer, a large picture frame, a mirror and many other household items.

Heuermann was arrested after officials linked data from his phone, numerous burner phones and the victims’ phones to the suspect vehicle and cell towers near his home on Long Island and office in New York City.

“It’s just trauma and shock,” Rawson said. “So when it was dumped on me and my mom and my brother, FBI agent literally was standing in my kitchen just he said, ‘your dad is BTK’ I literally was shaking for five days mentally, physically, medically, in shock.”

“I’m still expecting 18 years later that knock on the door, the FBI, to show up and completely destroy my world,” she continued. “It’s rebuilding your whole life under the glare of the media.”

Fox News’ Michael Ruiz, Bradford Betz, Jennifer Johnson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.