Wichita ? Investigators said Friday they have uncovered a link between a poem written in 1978 by the BTK serial killer and a former professor at Wichita State University.

Police Lt. Ken Landwehr asked the public for help in identifying anyone who had contact with the professor, P.J. Wyatt, who died in 1991 of cancer, or knew someone familiar with an obscure folk song titled “Oh Death.”

The BTK killer has claimed responsibility for eight deaths in Wichita, the first in 1974. The letters “BTK” stand for “bind, torture, kill.”

On Feb. 10, 1978, BTK sent a letter claiming responsibility for the murders of Shirley Vian, Nancy Fox and another unknown victim, Landwehr said. Enclosed with that letter was a poem titled “Oh! Death to Nancy” that was strikingly similar to the lyrics of the folk song.

On May 5 of this year, police said, BTK sent a letter to KAKE-TV that included a table of contents titled the “BTK Story” that had a chapter titled “PJs.” Investigators have determined Wyatt taught the song “Oh Death” in an English literature class at Wichita State University during the 1970s.

The song cited by police is similar to a version popularized by the 2001 Coen brothers movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and its successful soundtrack.

“The FBI profilers have confirmed our belief that there is a definite connection in the reference to PJ in the letter we received last May and the folklore song ‘Oh Death,”‘ Landwehr said.

While a professor at Wichita State, Wyatt was interviewed by police investigating the BTK killings, said Amy Geiszler-Jones, spokeswoman for Wichita State. Wyatt worked with investigators to analyze the folk song and also reviewed her student class lists with police.

Wyatt, who specialized in American folklore, taught in the English department at Wichita State from 1964 until 1986, the year she retired. Her name is engraved on a brick at the university’s Plaza of Heroines on campus.

In a tribute written to her by former colleague Anita Skeen, Wyatt is described as a humanist and philanthropist who lived simply and shared generously.

“She was a keen observer of life, a poet who didn’t write poetry but who spoke it, lived it, passed it on,” Skeen wrote in a short biography of Wyatt that is posted on WSU’s web page.

Were she still alive, it is likely she would be appalled by all the media attention the news conference linking her to BTK has generated.

“She was modest, unassuming, irritated by praise and attention. She would be furious that I have said all these things about her and made them public,” Skeen wrote.

Attention has refocused on BTK since March, when The Wichita Eagle received a letter with information on an unsolved 1986 killing. The letter contained a copy of the victim’s driver’s license and photos of her taken after she was slain.

It was the first communication from the killer known as the BTK Strangler in more than two decades, and police said it linked the serial killer to an eighth slaying. The other seven people were slain in the 1970s, with BTK claiming responsibility for those deaths in letters to the newspaper and a television station.

Police have received more than 4,000 tips from the public since BTK resurfaced last March.