Wichita ? Dist. Atty. Nola Foulston vowed Tuesday there would be no plea bargain in the case against the former church leader and city employee charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder in the BTK serial killings.

“I look forward to a trial of this case because it is important after 30 years for people to know and for people to understand and appreciate, not only the work of law enforcement, but to be able to say, ‘It’s over, it’s over,”‘ Foulston told reporters after the arraignment of suspect Dennis Rader.

Rader, 60, stood mute during his brief arraignment, leaving it to District Judge Gregory Waller to enter a not guilty plea for him. Waller set a trial date of June 27, though that date will almost certainly be postponed.

Rader, a former city compliance officer from suburban Park City, was arrested Feb. 25 and charged in 10 deaths linked to the serial killer known as BTK, which stands for “Bind, Torture, Kill.” The killings terrorized Wichita for more than three decades and made headlines again last year when the killer again began sending cryptic messages and packages to media and police.

Defense attorney Steve Osburn said Rader, despite his lack of cooperation in the courtroom, “cooperates with us. We are able to work with him, and he is able to help with his defense.”

Defense attorneys not involved in the case called Rader’s decision to stand mute a “legally sound defense tactic” that preserves more rights on appeal than if Rader had entered a plea.

“That is a clever move and a smart move,” said Warren Eisenbise, a Wichita defense attorney who has tried 31 murder cases since 1958.

Attorney Robert Beattie, who has written a book on the BTK killings, said the tactic was obviously well-thought out by Rader’s attorneys. “It did show he is going to have a very vigorous defense,” he said.

Prosecutors can’t seek the death penalty because all the crimes were committed before 1994, when Kansas passed its capital punishment law.

Park City resident Dennis Rader, charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder in the BTK serial killings, is led from Sedgwick County District Court in Wichita after Judge Gregory Waller entered a not guilty plea on his behalf. Rader's arraignment was Tuesday.

Plans for a hard-40

But in a dramatic moment during the brief arraignment, Foulston stood squarely across the table from Rader and looked him in the eye as she personally handed him a court document seeking a harsher sentence for the most recent of the 10 killings.

Foulston told Rader she would seek the hard-40 sentence for the death of Dolores Davis, the 62-year-old woman who was abducted from her Park City home on Jan. 19, 1991, and found strangled two weeks later. The sentence means Rader would have to serve at least 40 years in prison without a chance of parole if convicted.

Foulston told Rader she was going to seek a separate sentencing procedure on that charge because it met one or all of three criteria: It was premeditated, he committed the crime to avoid arrest or the crime was particularly heinous. Davis’ murder occurred after state law was strengthened to allow longer sentences before eligibility for parole.

As Rader was being taken out of the courtroom, one of victims’ family members yelled out to him: “Don’t worry, you won’t last that long.”

In the other nine killings, Rader would have a chance of parole after 15 years even if sentenced to life in prison under law on the books at the time of those crimes.

Need for closure

Foulston told reporters she wanted the case to go to a jury trial to determine Rader’s guilt or innocence.

“Without that we still will wonder and live with the question for the rest of our lives in this community — and there isn’t a book, there isn’t anything that can make sense of this case — without a jury making a determination,” she said.

Rader’s defense team is considering seeking a change of venue but had not made a final decision, Osburn said, adding attorneys do not anticipate making Rader’s competency a part of the defense.

“We still have a lot of discovery left,” Osburn said. “Most has yet to be seen.”

History of the killings

The earliest crimes linked to the BTK strangler date to Jan. 15, 1974, when Joseph Otero, 38, and his 34-year-old wife, Julie, were found strangled in their home. Also killed were their children, 11-year-old Josephine and 9-year-old Joseph.

BTK’s next three victims were young women found strangled in their homes: Kathryn Bright, 21, on April 4, 1974; Shirley Vian, 24, on March 17, 1977; and Nancy Fox, 25, on Dec. 8, 1977.

Vian’s oldest son, Steve Relford, told KWCH-TV after the arraignment he wanted to see Rader go to trial.

Police did not connect the Sept. 16, 1986, strangulation death of Vicki Wegerle to BTK until the killer resurfaced last year with a letter to The Wichita Eagle that included photos of the crime and a photocopy of her missing driver’s license.

Rader, the president of the church council at Christ Lutheran Church and a former Boys Scout leader, also is charged with the killings of Marine Hedge, 53, who was abducted from her Park City home on April 27, 1985, and found dead along a dirt road eight days later, and Davis. Those deaths were not linked to BTK until Rader’s arrest.

“We now have to buckle down and do our job,” Osburn said.

Recently unsealed documents show prosecutors have listed 247 potential witnesses.

“We will not go without letting our public know something about this case, but the best way we can do that is in a free and open courthouse,” Foulston said. “We cannot let this just close the book and walk away. That would be so unfair to our victims and their families and to the community and to the public that we serve.”