What If Your Father Was a Serial Killer? This New Netflix Doc Explores the Unthinkable

If you’re fascinated by murders and serial killers, you probably already know that Netflix is the place to go for all things true crime.

The latest offering from the streaming platform, My Father: The BTK Killer, is an in-depth look at Dennis Rader, also known as the BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill) serial killer, through the eyes of his daughter, Kerri Rawson.

Here’s why the Watch With Us team was blown away by this shocking documentary — and why you should watch it next.

The Director Has Made Some of Netflix’s Best True Crime Docs

If you’re new to Netflix’s true crime series and movies, we have one important lesson for you — when you see the name Skye Borgman, pay attention. This prolific director has been behind the camera for some of the biggest documentaries of the year, from Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser to Unknown Number: The High School Catfish.

Borgman’s experience on Unknown Number, which revealed that a series of cyberbullying messages received by high schooler Lauryn Licari were actually sent by her mother, may have prepared the director particularly well to work with Kerri Rawson — Borgman displays an understanding of the deep complexity of parental relationships and the gut-wrenching betrayal that a child feels when they learn their parent isn’t who they believed.

It Features Never-Before-Seen Insight Into a Notorious Criminal

My Father: The BTK Killer reveals that Rawson did not know about her father’s activities before his arrest in 2005. Rader had been a well-respected community member — he was the president of his church congregation and a Cub Scout leader. Rawson had a happy childhood, and by 2005 was recently married with her first child on the way. After her father was taken away from work during his lunch break and arrested that year, Rawson recollected, “I was dying inside. I was hiding. I spent almost 10 years rotting inside after he was arrested.”

Borgman told Netflix that gaining Rawson’s trust was key to making this film. “[Kerri] has lived much of her life under the weight of her father’s crimes and is understandably cautious about who is allowed into that space,” Borgman told Netflix’s Tudum website. “I needed to earn Kerri’s trust, and that meant showing up with transparency, listening to her needs and respecting the boundaries she spent years building.”

The hardest part of learning the truth about her father, Rawson reveals, is the way it made her question everything about her childhood. She recalls suffering from insomnia as a little girl, wondering in hindsight whether her subconscious knew that her father was “a bad man.” “I think my subconscious was trying to get it out of me since I was a little girl, saying, ‘Hey, there’s a bad man in my house,’” she explains in the film.

It’s an Inspiring Story of a Daughter’s Perseverance

Despite her pain, Rawson is an inspirational figure, and by the end of the film, you’ll be full of admiration for her ability to rise above her trauma. She was able to offer empathy to her father even after he admitted to his crimes.

In the film, she reads a letter she wrote to him after his arrest, asking, “We don’t know who that other man is, but we love the husband and father, the man we know with all our hearts. I was wondering if something happened to you as a boy, and if you wanted to open up and talk about it.”

Even more impressive than her empathy for her father, however, is Rawson’s ability to extend compassion toward his victims. The movie explores how she has worked with police in multiple investigations since his arrest, with Rawson stating, “If my father has committed more murders, then we really do need to get to the bottom of the truth, and we need to get to it before my father passes away.”

My Father: The BTK Killer focuses on sympathy rather than salaciousness, making it an intelligent portrait of one woman’s strength within a very dark story.

Watch My Father: The BTK Killer on Netflix.