BTK Killer’s Daughter on Stephen King’s ‘A Good Marriage’: ‘He’s Exploiting My Father’s Victims’

The daughter of the BTK killer has broken her 9-year silence on her father’s crimes in an open letter sent to The Wichita Eagle addressed to Stephen King and the media, in which she criticized the author for exploiting her father’s crime for profit in his new movie, A Good Marriage.

Dennis Radner’s daughter, Kerri Rawson, says that an interview by Stephen King about his upcoming movie is what prompted her to break her silence.

“He is exploiting my father’s 10 victims and their families,” she said, adding that A Good Marriage would only cause more pain for her family, the families of the victims, and the community.

Rawson, who did not know her father was BTK until the FBI told them shortly after his arrest in 2005, says that her father is in prison, where he belongs, and does not deserve the attention he will receive from the movie.

“He has said he is sorry, but that means nothing. He is not worth all the books and the news stories and all the attention. He’s [King] just going to give my father a big head, and he absolutely does not need that. Great – now Stephen King is giving my father a big head. Thanks for that. That’s the last thing my dad should get.”

In an interview with CBS This Morning on Wednesday, King said that the movie, an adaptation of a short story from his anthology “Full Dark, No Stars” published in 2010, was inspired on the BTK murders. The chilling story of a man who killed 10 people while living a seemingly normal life with his family inspired him to write his first screenplay since Pet Sematary 25 years ago.

He says the movie explores the wife’s reaction to finding out her husband isn’t the man she thought he was.

“She never had a clue of what he was doing and this secret life that he had,” King said. “And so I started to think, I wonder how many of us are sleeping with strangers and what we really know about the people that we think we’re close to.”

“We feel exploited,” Rawson said of her family. “We consider ourselves the 11th victim family. Stephen King has the right to tell a story, but why bring us into it? Why couldn’t he just find inspiration for another good story, but leave out where it all came from?”

In response to Rawson’s criticism, King said in an email statement to The Associated Press that he doesn’t think Rader’s daughter has to worry about her father being flattered by his portrayal in the film as a “banal little man.” He said that and none of the murders are shown and that the independently financed film is not expected to bring huge returns.

Rawson still feels it isn’t right to make any profit at all from so many people’s grief. “Any money King makes off this story should go either to abused children, battered wives, or police,” she said.

Here is the A Good Marriage trailer. Do you think the movie glorifies the killer?

Read more about King and why he thinks ebooks will never replace books in this Inqusitr article.

[Images via 103 iheartAustinand YouTube]