Joseph Otero was 38 when a prowler forced his way into the family home at 803 North Edgemoor Street in Wichita on the morning of January 15, 1974. The intruder cut the phone line, bound the family with elaborate ligatures, and during a struggle Otero suffered cracked ribs and was suffocated with a plastic bag. His wife Julie and two younger children, Josephine and Joseph Jr., were also killed that morning. The couple’s older children—Charlie, Danny and Carmen—returned from school later that day and discovered the bodies.

The killer later called himself BTK; investigators documented the binding methods and the suffocations at the scene. Otero, a Puerto Rico native who had grown up in Spanish Harlem and served two decades in the U.S. Air Force before settling in Wichita, was buried with his family at Puerto Rico National Cemetery in recognition of his military service. The case stayed unsolved for decades until renewed investigative leads led to an arrest in 2005.