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262 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN BTK: The KBI Helps Pursue the Infamous Killer On the morning of January 15, 1974, four members of a family were brutally murdered at 803 North Edgemoor in Wichita. The victims, a husband and wife and their two youngest children, had been bound with window blind cord, gagged, and strangled to death for no apparent reason. A few days later, I had lunch in downtown Wichita with Bill Cornwell, the Wichita Police Department homicide chief, later Deputy Chief of Police, and Senior Resident Agent Elmer “Reid” Fletcher of the FBI. At the time, I was a special agent with the FBI and Fletcher was my boss. During lunch, Cornwell briefed us on the quadruple murder case. Cornwell explained that these recent homicides seemed premeditated and yet without any clear motive. He asked if Fletcher and I would like to visit the homicide scene, which by then had been released, following three or four days of intense examination by Wichita detectives and forensic investigators. We quickly agreed and I drove us to 803 North Edgemoor. I recall, before we entered through the front door of the home and crossed the yellow “Police— Do Not Cross” tape left by the crime scene crew, that Cornwell showed us the back door, pointing out the absence of any sign of forced entry. He also directed our attention to the cut telephone line at the rear of the home, and then he walked us around the outside of the small, modest, one-story woodframe home, indicating that the windows, like both doors, front and back, revealed no indication of physical disturbance. Then, as we walked through every room of the house, the homicide chief reiterated the lack of any obvious motive for the crime and the lack of any evidence of forcible entry. Nothing of value had apparently been taken, although the thirty-eight-year-old husband’s wristwatch, and maybe a radio, were possibly missing, according to the three surviving children, who were in school when the deadly assault occurred. Cash and jewelry in the home were untouched. The father, Joseph Otero, was recently retired from the U.S. Air Force with an honorable discharge. He and his thirty-four-year-old wife, Julie, had been born in Puerto Rico but raised in Spanish Harlem in New York City. Julie Otero, who had loved being a military wife and had thoroughly enjoyed their last military posting in Panama prior to retiring to Wichita, had found a job she liked with the Coleman Company. She was a devout Catholic BTK 263 and the driving force behind the family’s faithful church attendance. She was also passionate about the family’s Puerto Rican heritage. Although weighing only one hundred pounds, the petite Julie, like all seven members of her family, was expert in judo. She possessed the brown belt. A pretty lady, she was excited about the family’s new life, new home, and future in Wichita, although not yet fond of winter in Kansas. Indeed, on January 15, 1974, Wichita and much of Kansas were covered with snow. Joseph Otero, who had enlisted in the U.S. Air Force as a New York teenager , had been a champion boxer, an expert in judo, an avid pilot, an exceptional flight instructor, and a master aircraft mechanic. Airplanes and his family were his great loves. He had retired from the air force with more than twenty-one years’ service in August 1973 to accept a position as flight instructor and aircraft mechanic at a small airport near Wichita. Mr. and Mrs. Otero were found dead on their bed in the master bedroom, lying side by side and fully clothed. Both had tape on their mouths, with their wrists bound behind them, and their ankles tied together. Mrs. Otero had not been sexually assaulted. Both had been strangled. Cords were still around their necks when they were found. In addition, Julie had a pillow atop her face and Joseph had a pillow case over his head, both removed by one of the surviving children when he discovered the bodies. Bill Cornwell wondered aloud how the Oteros could have made such an enemy, or enemies, in such a short period of time in Wichita. They had arrived in Wichita barely five months earlier. Investigators had already learned that the Oteros were admired at their respective jobs and popular at their children’s schools and at the family’s church. The nine-year-old son, Joseph, called...

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