Ken Landwehr '04, the retired Wichita Police Department lieutenant credited with helping solve more than 600 homicides over the course of his 35-year career, was described by a fellow detective as always being "the calm in the chaos."
Landwehr joined the WPD in 1978 and worked in patrol, vice, narcotics, cold case, homicide and as a supervisor in the forensic lab for two years before becoming commander of WPD's homicide unit in 1992. A lead investigator into Wichita's infamous BTK murders – 10 in all, between 1974 and 1991 – Landwehr played a pivotal role in the 2005 capture of the serial killer who, in communications with news media and police, called himself BTK, an abbreviation of his working method: bind, torture, kill. It was no coincidence that Landwehr was named the 2005 Officer of the Year by the WPD.
After BTK's capture, Landwehr talked about the most prominent case of his career in an article in The Shocker. "At first we didn't have enough resources," he said about the reemergence of BTK who had resumed sending messages to newspapers and television stations in 2004. "It's very difficult to put together an operation like this, but it was a priority to all of us – the KBI, the FBI and the Wichita Police Department. We were going to finish this job."
Landwehr earned a bachelor's degree in history from Wichita State, where he also taught undergraduate and graduate level courses in homicide investigation.
Ken Landwehr died Jan. 13, 2014, in Wichita.
