Wichita ? The BTK serial killer investigation is being used as a teaching tool for college criminal justice programs around the country.

“It’s a very compelling case,” said Volkan Topalli, an assistant professor in the criminal justice department at Georgia State University in Atlanta. “There’s a lot of material to work with.”

Topalli will touch on the case next semester during the serial-murder portion of his course on aggression and violence.

BTK, which stands for “Bind, Torture, Kill,” has been linked to eight unsolved killings in Wichita from 1974 through 1986. The killer resurfaced last year with letters to Wichita media and police.

At Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln, students in a master’s-level forensics class are tackling the case much like Wichita authorities have been since BTK first surfaced.

One student, Jackie Hoehner, 43, is trying to re-create the crime scene and the layout of the home where the serial killer struck first, strangling four members of the Otero family in 1974.

“It is extra exciting,” she said, “because of the way he has resurfaced.”

One of the key mysteries, she said, is what happened to BTK during all the years he wasn’t communicating publicly. Her theory: He moved away, then returned.