Wichita ? When Dennis Rader started killing more than 30 years ago, Norman Williams had not yet joined the Wichita police force and Lou Heldman was a new reporter.

But Williams would later become the chief of police and Heldman publisher of The Wichita Eagle. And the two men would forge an unlikely partnership to tell the story of one of the nation’s most notorious serial killers, BTK.

“Bind, Torture, Kill: The Inside Story of the Serial Killer Next Door” goes on sale this week and documents the link between the city’s police and newspaper, and Rader’s arrest in February 2005.

Rader, 62, a city code inspector, gave himself the nickname BTK – for “bind, torture and kill.” He was sentenced in August 2005 to consecutive life sentences for 10 killings between 1974 and 1991.

After three decades of police work and newspaper reporting, the chief and the publisher collaborated to tell details about the process that eventually led to Rader’s capture.

Williams credits Heldman, a former weekend police beat reporter for the Detroit Free Press, with persuading him to allow Eagle reporters and editors to interview detectives and look through police notes and files.

“For law enforcement to open the doors to allow that to happen is unprecedented,” Williams said. But he did it “because of the importance to the community, to the department and also to the victims.”

The newspaper publisher made a promise to the police chief: The book would be accurate and respectful to Rader’s victims.

The book, co-authored by Hurst Laviana, Roy Wenzl, Tim Potter and L. Kelly, details The Eagle’s association with the police back to the earliest days of the investigation.

The killer began communicating through the newspaper in October 1974, calling columnist Don Granger to tell him about a letter hidden in the public library. Under an agreement Eagle management had with the police after BTK killed four members of the Otero family, Granger told the police about the letter.

“Part of that story unknown to all but a handful of Eagle staffers was the uncommonly close relationship that quickly developed between the newspaper and the police chief,” the book reads.

Then the killer stopped talking. After years of silence, BTK sent a letter to The Eagle. Reporter Laviana copied the letter and took the original to police, where it ended up in the hands of homicide commander Ken Landwehr, who knew the secret signature to look for that BTK had used over the years.

“Lt. Landwehr came in and said, ‘Chief, this is the real McCoy, BTK has resurfaced,”‘ Williams said.

The subsequent 11-month search for BTK, and Rader’s arrest and guilty plea, were covered worldwide.

“What almost no one knew was what happened during the investigation and how they finally got him,” Heldman said.

A portion of The Eagle’s proceeds are being donated to the Sedgwick County Law Enforcement Memorial Fund, which will honor fallen officers.