WICHITA, Kan. – The daughter of one of the 10 victims of BTK serial killer (search) Dennis Rader won a $250,000 default judgment against him Friday in the first of nine lawsuits filed by families.
Judge Timothy Lahey granted the maximum allowable under Kansas law in the lawsuit filed by Carolyn Hook in the 1985 death of her mother, Marine Hedge. The family withdrew its request for punitive damages.
Rader, who is representing himself in the civil cases, did not attend Friday's hearing nor did he call by phone from prison as he had in an earlier civil proceeding. A default judgment was granted because Rader did not respond to the lawsuit in time.
Rader, who called himself BTK for "bind, torture and kill," (search) pleaded guilty to 10 killings carried out from 1974 to 1991 and was sentenced in August to 10 consecutive life terms. Kansas had no death penalty at the time of the murders.
Hook's attorney, James McIntyre, told the judge that she does not want Rader to profit from the killings.
Hedge, 53, was abducted from her Park City (search) home on April 27, 1985, and found dead along a dirt road eight days later. The autopsy showed she had been strangled, and although her hands weren't tied, a knotted pair of pantyhose was found nearby. Her death had not been linked to BTK until Rader's arrest.
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