Robert Hansen : The Butcher Baker

alaska the northernmost state in the united states it was purchased from russia on october 18 1867. it was officially made the 49th state on january 3rd 1959. it's the largest state in the union though it's the least populated this makes its population density one person per square mile in comparison if manhattan had the same population density it would have 22 residents these great open spaces make the area attractive to people who want to get away and be left alone it's also a place where avid hunters and fishers can enjoy an abundance of wildlife including moose caribou bear deer and goat robert hansen grew up as an awkward boy with a stutter who turned into an awkward man with a stutter this caused him to be bullied when he was young and he spent the rest of his life focusing on revenge he would get that revenge by taking the lives of people who had nothing to do with his childhood abuse this is monsters [Music] [Applause] [Music] on june 13th 1983 officer greg baker and officer wayne vance got a call at about 3 or 4 a.m that a young woman was running down fifth avenue handcuffed and naked she had been picked up by a motorist and dropped off at the big timber motel where she had been living the officers arrived at the motel got her out of the cuffs and got her some clothes the young woman was 17 year old cindy paulson who had been working as a prostitute in the heart of anchorage there was an influx of young men coming to the area to work in the oil fields and with it run an increase of services that young lowly men might pay for due to the disparity in numbers of men there were in the state than women alaska was fairly easy on prostitution cindy explained that she had been approached by a man who offered her 200 for oral sex despite thinking that offer was a little too good to be true she got in the car and he immediately pulled a gun on her and threatened her if she screamed he brought her back to his house where he sexually assaulted her and then chained her to a post in his basement wrapping a chain around her neck four times the attacker took a nap and that gave cindy time to make a note of her surroundings she described the inside of the man's house even telling them about what animal trophies he had hanging on the walls and the bear-skinned rug on the floor then the man loaded her into his car and drove them to a nearby airfield he had told cindy that he liked her so much that he was going to fly her out to his cabin where he was going to quote unquote make love to her and then he promised he'd let her go cindy may have been young but she wasn't stupid she knew that he was going to kill her while he was busy loading equipment into the plane she managed to get out of the car and run for her life he chased after her but when she got to the road she was picked up by a man and taken to her motel the driver wanted to take her directly to the police but she refused he ended up going straight to the police station after dropping her off and reporting the incident also confirming that there was a man chasing her with a gun when he picked her up cindy took officer baker to merrell field which was coincidentally right by her motel she pointed to a small blue and white super cub airplane and as the officer was noting the tail number an airfield security guard approached them he said he had seen a man there that morning in a green vehicle and gave them the license plate number the vehicle in the plane were both registered to robert hansen an area resident who owned a local bakery after leaving the airfield officer baker took cindy to the hospital where they performed a rape kit and recovered semen when the police arrived at robert's property he was cooperative and allowed them to search the house inside the house was exactly as cindy had described but that wasn't proof of a crime it was just proof that she had been there they didn't find any evidence at robert's house and when they asked him to come down to the station for an interview he agreed he told detectives that he was at one friend's house the night before until early in the morning then was at a different friend's house the rest of the morning those two friends verified his alibi and the detectives let him go when a check of his criminal record came back clean the detective said that he believed robert and didn't see a married man with a family in a business being a killer i bet he was surprised when israel keys ended up being caught since he had a family in a business or what about dayton rogers he had a family and owned his own business or all the other serial killers who had families in good jobs like dennis raider or joseph d'angelo just to name a few it's sad how many people still believe that a serial killer has to be some hideous hunchbacked gollum with no job family or friends evil is not exclusive to being unsuccessful and of course the story was coming from a prostitute who was clearly less reliable than an upstanding local businessman with no evidence that proved cindy's story was true the case was shelved but officer baker wasn't convinced and he knew that the anchorage police department was in the middle of changing computer systems so not all of the records were complete when a hard copy of robert hansen's criminal record was received from juno the state capitol it turned out that robert was not as squeaky clean as they had previously thought he had a lengthy record of assaults against women going back 12 years not long after he had moved to anchorage robert hanson was born on february 15 1939 in estherville iowa his father christian hansen had immigrated from denmark and worked at a bakery his father was a short-tempered man and his mother edna was more soft-spoken and comforting the family moved to california near san francisco but after a few years they moved back to iowa and settled in the town of pocahontas there chris hansen opened his own bakery which quickly became successful when robert was old enough he was put to work by his father who was a more strict boss than he was a parent robert was expected to work from 2 o'clock in the morning until it was time to go to school this made him fall asleep in class and his grades suffered some people believe the stress put on robert as a child is what caused him to develop a stutter not only did chris expect perfection from his son at the bakery oftentimes making him feel worthless for even the slightest mistake but when he found out robert was left-handed he forced him to only use his right hand at school not only did his stutter make him the target of bullies but he had severe acne that would end up leaving his face pockmarked and scarred in adulthood the stress of it all made him completely withdrawn he rarely spoke and when he did he would get so nervous that his stutter would get worse causing him to just walk away in the middle of a conversation his lack of social skills made him unpopular with the girls at school even if he was able to get a date it's not clear if he'd be able to go on it his parents expected him to work at the bakery during all of his free time and their devoutly lutheran views didn't agree with many of the social activities that other kids were taking part in they did allow robert to be in the school choir and he did well on the track team otherwise robert began taking part in activities he could do on his own mainly hunting fishing and archery when robert graduated high school he didn't really have any prospects besides continuing to work at his father's bakery which he was getting tired of so he joined the united states army reserves this gave robert some freedom as he went to fort dix new jersey for training it was during this time that robert had his first encounter with a prostitute something he would later say he didn't enjoy because he wasn't the one in control back in pocahontas robert resumed working at the bakery and began dating a young woman from the lutheran church he also started teaching classes for the pocahontas junior police program at this point in robert's life he was headed down a path to have a career and soon a wife it was a clear path at a crossroads in his life but robert decided to take a smaller path of revenge and destruction on december 7 1960 the pocahontas school district bus barn caught on fire by the time the fire department arrived half of the building was engulfed in flames not only were buses destroyed but gym equipment stage props and other school materials that were being stored in the building were lost forever after the fire was out the fire department determined that the fire was set intentionally but they didn't have any leads as to who the culprit was robert couldn't get over his unpopularity in high school and wanted revenge so he planned to burn down the bus barn he and another young man who worked at the bakery took a five-gallon gas can to the building while the rest of the town was distracted by a baseball game at the local catholic school he lit the building on fire and then he got rid of the gas can and put on his gear since he was a volunteer firefighter he went back to the scene and helped put out the fire that he himself had set in march his accomplice had blabbed about the arson and another kid went to the police robert was charged with arson and released on bail once out of jail he and his girlfriend got married because she believed he was innocent in fact most of the town thought he was innocent chris hansen was a good church-going family man with his own business surely his son could not be a criminal sound familiar the prosecutor had the testimony of the accomplice plus another bakery employee that robert had invited to participate in the arson but he declined robert eventually pleaded guilty claiming that he was hoping for leniency since he was being framed he was sentenced to three years in a state reformatory chris began circulating a petition around town claiming that his son had been framed and demanding his release that lasted about six months until robert finally admitted that he really was guilty to his family his wife immediately divorced him and his father sold the bakery and bought a resort in leech lake minnesota because when i think of a relaxing vacation i think a lake full of leeches sounds nice robert would also be connected to a tractor that had been blown up a few months prior and a plan to blow up the town's water tower he also wanted to blow up the police chief's house in the reformatory robert met with a psychiatrist and he talked openly about his desires to get revenge on the various people who bullied him when he was younger this led to his first parole being denied after that robert became a model prisoner and began pretending that his violent fantasies were going away they weren't but he knew it was the only way to get paroled he was released on parole after serving 22 months despite their disappointment in robert his parents allowed him to come live with them in minnesota in may of 1963 robert began working for his father once again this time he painted did repairs and acted as a guide for the guests when they wanted to go fishing it was there that he met a young woman who worked as a housekeeper for the resort darla henriksen darla was a lover of all things outdoors and she and robert began dating neither of them planned on working at the resort long term and soon robert got a job at a bakery in north dakota and darla joined him soon after the following month the two got married they weren't there long since robert got a job at a different bakery in minneapolis and the couple ended up settling down there darla enrolled at the university of minnesota to finish her degree and become a special education teacher robert was known to be a hard worker but his boss said he did have a short fuse especially towards people he felt were beneath him over the next few years robert took to stealing as a means of dealing with his criminal impulses he was arrested for stealing fishing lures from a sporting goods store on february 22nd 1965 but the charges were eventually dropped he was caught breaking into the owner's office at the bakery but he was about to leave the company for a position at a different bakery so the owner didn't report it he was also arrested for stealing a softball from a department store but those charges were dropped as well when darla graduated in 1967 they packed up and moved to anchorage alaska my that's quite a city isn't it that's anchorage the chicago of the north a center of defense industry mining and agriculture [Music] [Applause] do they go swimming in alaska why certainly summer temperatures up north often are in the 80s and 90s this is the lake near anchorage robert started working as a cake decorator at a grocery store and darla began teaching in the area they bought a duplex and rented out the other half to help with the mortgage soon robert began spending most of his free time camping hiking and hunting enjoying the wide open spaces that alaska had to offer when darla got pregnant in 1971 they sold the duplex and bought a bigger home after their first child a daughter was born robert started becoming distant from his family and spent more time outdoors hunting though he had already become proficient at hunting deer moose and mountain goats roberts started hunting a new type of prey on october 15 1971 robert spotted a young woman in a car he would later explain that he saw the woman downtown and thought she was attractive he said i wanted to talk to her so i followed her home slow down there bobby i know you were awkward in school and have never been good at talking to women but following them home isn't the best way to break the ice eighteen-year-old susie hepard had the day off from her job as a receptionist at a real estate office and when she got back to her apartment from running errands she planned to take a shower before she was able to get into the shower there was a knock at the door so she wrapped a towel around herself and answered it she immediately recognized the man as having been stopped at a stoplight next to her while she was driving home he asked her if he could come inside and use her phone book and she reluctantly agreed he flipped through the book for a while and said he couldn't find what he was looking for then he asked her out on a date she told him that she was engaged and robert left two days later as susie pulled into her apartment complex and got out of her car robert jumped out and pointed a gun at her she started screaming and even after he told her to stop or else he'd shoot her she continued screaming this alerted her roommate who looked out the window and then called the police robert put the gun in her back and pushed her into his car but soon police cars were pulling into the complex so he fled on foot it didn't take long for the police to pick him up walking nearby and susie immediately identified him as her attacker when they searched his car they found a 22-caliber pistol under his front seat he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon but maintained that he hadn't done anything he claimed that he had felt light-headed so he parked his car and went for a walk then he claimed he might have blacked out so it was possible he assaulted susie but he didn't remember despite him being an obvious danger to society he was released pending his trial this was because his lawyer argued that he was a family man with a stable income who owned a home and was a decent person who tried to kidnap someone and what does owning a home have to do with whether or not you're a kidnapping psychopath well his status as a homeowner didn't seem to stop him from kidnapping another woman on december 19th eighteen-year-old patty roberts was about to go into a cafe for a hot cup of tea when robert stopped her and managed to invite her out on a date amongst his stuttering when patty turned him down he pulled out a gun and forced her into his car he took her way outside of anchorage to a motel where he sexually assaulted her and then brought her out to the woods where he thought about killing her but she managed to convince him that she wouldn't tell anyone robert looked through her wallet and wrote down her personal information and told her that he would hurt her and her family if she told anyone then he dropped her back off at the cafe paddy kept her word at first but when she read the news on december 27th of a young woman found frozen to death in a ravine she started having second thoughts celia van zantin had disappeared after hitching a ride to a convenience store her body was located naked with her hands tied behind her back and her chest cut open an autopsy revealed that she had survived the fall into the ravine and managed to climb about 20 feet back up but ended up freezing to death soon paddy reported her kidnap and raped the police and they were able to go to the motel he had taken her to and confirm his identity from the clerk robert was arrested and at the police station he was asked to remove all the contents from his wallet inside was a slip of paper with paddy's personal information on it he claimed he had no idea what it was or how it got in his wallet get the [ __ ] out of here this would be a slam dunk piece of evidence if they were able to use it in court one detective tried to take the piece of paper right then but they didn't have a warrant so while they waited for a warrant to come in they booked robert into jail when a rookie officer was inventorying his personal belongings robert said that the piece of paper was the info for who would pay for his bail and he needed it the officer handed it over and it was never seen again now the trial would hinge solely on paddy's testimony unfortunately she wasn't an absolute angel and the defense was able to paint her as unreliable then they had two of robert's friends testify that he was that good homeowning job-having god-fearing family man they also had a psychiatrist claim that robert was schizophrenic and was susceptible to dissociative episodes which was absolute [ __ ] the prosecutor made a deal with robert to plead no contest to the kidnapping charges against susie hepburn and they would drop the rape and kidnapping charges in paddy's case robert ended up pleading no contest to the kidnapping charges against susie hepard the judge sentenced him to five years in prison and after only three months he was eligible for parole and work release being caught for these crimes didn't do anything to deter robert from preying on young women what it did do was teach him to choose his victims more carefully while he was going back and forth to meetings with his parole officers he would pass by prostitutes and strip clubs in downtown anchorage and that gave him an idea he started kidnapping sex workers since they were an overlooked class of people in most cities from this point on robert would prey on women that didn't have anybody looking for them when they disappeared over the years robert opened his own bakery which was successful he and darla had another child a son despite robert's legal troubles and their dissolving relationship darla would take frequent trips to visit family and often stay away the entire summer these times would give robert the privacy he needed to carry out his dark desires though he remained careful with his abductions he wasn't able to stay out of trouble completely in 1976 robert walked out of a fred meyer retailer with a chainsaw and was immediately caught a security guard watched the man check that the coast was clear then pick up a discarded receipt off the ground before heading out the door with the chainsaw when the guard caught up with robert he checked the receipt and it clearly wasn't for a 200 chainsaw robert claimed that he was suffering from mental health issues and hired a psychiatrist to support that claim he pleaded guilty to larceny and was sentenced to five years in prison in order to receive psychiatric treatment he served a little over a year in prison before being paroled he was given no parole guidelines and was essentially a free man with nobody watching him he was able to go right back to killing on september 12 1982 a couple of off-duty police officers decided to go out moose hunting a common activity in the alaska outdoors these are some hunters getting off with their guns and packs they're going moose hunting [Music] why here's a moose now better eat fast young fella better yet get the heck out of here or you'll end up hanging on this rack with your daddy while searching for moose they found some disturbed soil that looked suspicious when they took a closer look they discovered it to be a shallow grave when the body was fully exposed it was of a young woman who was fully clothed and had been shot once in the chest she had an ace bandage wrapped around her head which looked to be acting as a blindfold near the body they found a shell casing for a 223 caliber round the medical examiner said she had likely been there since at least spring of 1982. on september 27th the remains were identified as those of 24 year old sheri moro she had worked as an exotic dancer at a local club and had been reported missing by her boyfriend in november of 1981. police initially said they didn't believe that sherry's death was related to a group of other sex workers who had gone missing since the beginning of 1980 and like those cases sherry's soon went cold but not everyone gave up on the case two years before sherry's remains were discovered detective maxine farrell had been on the scene when a young woman's body was discovered in a clutna on july 17 1980. aklutna is 28 miles or 45 kilometers north of anchorage detective farrell determined by the clothes she was wearing that she was probably a sex worker but they couldn't match her identification to any missing person's report authorities were able to create a facial reconstruction from her skull but never got an id so she became known as a clutena annie then detective farrell got a report of another missing sex worker 24 year old roxanne eastland then 48 year old lisa futrell 24 year old joanna messina and 34 year old sue luna of course when cindy paulson reported her abduction it only strengthened detective farrell's belief that there was a serial killer operating in their area when the body of another young sex worker was found near the knick river in september of 1983 detective farrell and a few other investigators knew it was time to get more eyes on robert hansen this body was identified as belonging to 21 year old paula goulding and she was also shot once the shell casing from a 223 caliber round was found nearby the anchorage police and the alaska state troopers started a task force to work toward catching the person who was murdering women in their city sergeant glenn flothy from the alaska state trooper's office was assigned to the case and he requested a profile from the fbi when they got the profile back from the fbi's behavioral science unit it told them that they were looking for an organized killer the killer would blend into society have a family and he was likely married to a religious woman he would most likely be a business owner he would be an avid hunter love guns and the outdoors then the profiler stunned everyone by saying that their killer most likely had a speech problem like a lisp or a stutter this information made investigators sure that robert was their killer the tower at merrell airfield where robert kept his plane was asked to monitor his flights and report them to detectives they also went through his flight logs looking for times that could link him to other missing women but the search turned up nothing this was because robert didn't use his plane's tail number when he would take off he purposefully painted the id numbers on his plane small so they would be harder to see by the tower he would take off and wait to be a thousand feet in the air before calling into the tower at that height the staff wouldn't be able to see his tail numbers and would just have to take him at his word when he called them in for such a small airfield they had no reason not to trust him not only did it hide his identity so he couldn't be tracked but also because the faa had denied his pilot's license when they found out he was taking lithium robert wasn't about to be denied the ability to fly his plane though so he lied as robber became their prime suspect they began digging into his life even more and they found a report of a burglary happening at his own home in early 1982 robert reported his house was broken into and all of his hunting trophies were stolen because of that he received a substantial payment from his insurance money he used to open his bakery the problem was when police searched his house after cindy paulson's attack all of the hunting trophies were there the police saw the inside of his home was covered with them this tiny detail allowed them to get another warrant for his house based on the suspected insurance fraud on the morning of october 27 1983 police picked up robert from his bakery and took him to the station for an interview once he was at the police station detectives searched his house again it seemed as though they weren't going to turn up anything new until they went into the attic there underneath pink bat insulation they found an aviation map covered with exes they found a 223 caliber rifle and a number of trophies from his victims including an arrowhead necklace belonging to sherry moro and a fish-shaped charm that belonged to another missing woman named andrea altieri among other things while this was going on robert was sitting in an interrogation room denying ever having killed anyone he said that he had never shot anyone or intentionally harmed anyone in his life they pushed him as hard as he could but he eventually asked for an attorney when one of the neighbors saw the police at the hanson's house she came over and asked what was going on when the detective told her about the case they were building against robert a look of dread came over her face soon she brought her husband to the detective and he confessed to providing a false alibi for robert on the night that cindy paulson was attacked he explained that robert had told him that he had been seeing a prostitute and asked to cover for him but now that he knew the truth he officially retracted his statement when sergeant flothy started looking closer at the map he realized that some of the exes were in the exact same spots where bodies had been discovered authorities believed that robert had been putting an x on the map at the places he had dumped bodies and there were 21 x's now that the case against robert was coming together investigators wanted to talk to cindy but they couldn't find her unfortunately people like her tended to live transient lifestyles and would regularly work under different names detectives were finally able to track her down at a different motel and she agreed to testify against robert despite the mounting evidence robert continued to deny his involvement in any murders it wasn't until they presented him with the map they found in his house that he finally broke down and confessed to his crimes though he wouldn't confess to every single murder that the map uncovered robert continued to deny killing celia van zanten along with 17 year old megan emmerich and 22 year old mary phil despite all three of their bodies being located in spots marked with an x on his map there were also two women who robert confessed to killing though their bodies were never found roxanne eastland and andrea altieri robert flew out to remote locations with authorities and helped them recover seven bodies they belong to lisa futrell sue luna robin pelkey malai larsen teresa watson angela federn and tamra peterson the identity of robin pelkey was unknown until october of 2021 when she was identified to genetic genealogy in total robert hansen confessed to 14 murders but he's believed to have killed at least 21. he's also believed to have raped at least 31 women despite him confessing to the murders he continually tried to minimize his premeditation of the crimes during his confession he would talk about how he would take the women out to a remote location and they would start fighting him so he would have to kill them he wanted it to seem like he wasn't actively planning to abduct sexually assault and then murder women when that's exactly what he was doing even the insurance fraud charge he tried to deny claiming that after he got the insurance payment he found the trophies in his backyard and forgot to tell the insurance company about them right he told detectives that he only picked up prostitutes because he wanted oral sex and darla was such a good woman he could never ask her to do something like that with the confession cindy's testimony the stolen jewelry and the fact the shell casings recovered from the two crime scenes matched the rifle that was found in his attic robert really had no chance of winning at trial to save a lot of time and keep cindy from having to relive her experience robert hansen pleaded guilty to four murders the ones that investigators had the strongest evidence of for the murders of sherry morrow joanna messina paula goulding and aklutna annie plus the kidnapping and rape of cindy paulson robert hansen was sentenced to 461 years in prison without the possibility of parole part of his plea agreement was that there would be no publicity or press and that he'd be sent to prison outside of alaska these requests he said were to help protect his family from any more heartache he was sent to the united states penitentiary lewisburg in pennsylvania but was sent back to alaska in 1988. he served the rest of his time at spring creek correctional facility in seward darla had financially supported herself throughout her marriage to robert she used the money from her job to maintain the house and raise the kids she told detectives that robert used the money he made on things for himself she also supported him financially while he was in prison various times after he was sentenced for the murders she divorced him sold the bakery in their house and moved with the kids to arkansas robert hansen died on august 21st 2014 from natural causes he was 75 years old being bullied is a horrible feeling but killing people as a way to get back at society only turns you into a bully yourself except you're worse because you're torturing and murdering people a human being will have negative feelings about being bullied and hopefully find a way to overcome those feelings a monster will murder people over them if you're the victim of domestic abuse please reach out to someone for help please talk to your local battered women's shelter or call the national domestic abuse hotline at 1-800-799-safe that's 1-800-799-7233 or you can go to thehotline.org to chat with someone online the great thing about this website is that at any time hitting the escape key twice will take you to a google search page that way if your abuser is nearby you won't get caught looking for help if you're having feelings of harming yourself or someone else or even just need someone to talk to please contact your local mental health facility call 9-1-1 or call mental health america who operate the national suicide prevention hotline at 1-800-273-talk that's five 1-800-273-8255 they're available 24 hours a day seven days a week and we'll talk to you about any mental health issue you might be facing thanks so much for watching this video you can help us out by hitting the like button or leaving us a comment you can also subscribe to the show to ensure you don't miss an episode if you'd like to support the show you can do that by checking out our merchandise at teespring you can also discuss the channel and the episodes on our subreddit are forward slash this is monsters you can find more ways to support our show and how to find us on social media by visiting this is monsters.com thanks again and be safe you

Channel: this is MONSTERS

Views: 402,073

Keywords: True crime, robert hansen, butcher baker, serial killer, alaska

Id: mJcxRFNEKeU

Length: 34min 49sec (2089 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 11 2022