Alaska Serial Killer Robert Hansen: The Baker Who Hunted His Victims Like Game

1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,620
He was a baker, a family man, a world record hunter with trophies on the walls, and a good

2
00:00:06,620 --> 00:00:10,080
word from practically everyone in Anchorage.

3
00:00:10,080 --> 00:00:16,480
Behind all of that, he had an aerononical chart hidden behind his headboard with 37 X marks

4
00:00:16,480 --> 00:00:17,560
on it.

5
00:00:17,560 --> 00:00:22,260
The only person who ever got close enough to expose him was a 17-year-old girl with no

6
00:00:22,260 --> 00:00:47,740
shoes and a pair of handcuffs on her wrists.

7
00:00:47,740 --> 00:00:53,260
Robert Hansen grew up in a house where the emotional vocabulary was essentially "labor."

8
00:00:53,260 --> 00:00:58,300
His father, Christian Hansen, was a Danish immigrant who had built a modest life in Esterville,

9
00:00:58,300 --> 00:01:03,380
Iowa, around a local bakery that he ran with the warmth of a tax audit.

10
00:01:03,380 --> 00:01:07,620
Robert started working there practically before he was old enough to see over the counter,

11
00:01:07,620 --> 00:01:15,300
35 cents a day, which even adjusting for 1940's Iowa economics isn't very much money.

12
00:01:15,300 --> 00:01:22,060
Christian also decided that Robert's natural left-handedness was a problem requiring correction.

13
00:01:22,060 --> 00:01:25,580
So he had his son retrained to use his right hand.

14
00:01:25,580 --> 00:01:28,940
This was considered "recentible parenting" at the time.

15
00:01:28,940 --> 00:01:33,380
Researchers have since linked forced-hand retraining to the development of speech impediments,

16
00:01:33,380 --> 00:01:35,660
and that is exactly what followed.

17
00:01:35,660 --> 00:01:41,340
Robert Hansen grew up with a severe, debilitating stutter that shattered him through every classroom,

18
00:01:41,340 --> 00:01:46,940
every attempted conversation, every moment of trying to be just a normal kid.

19
00:01:46,940 --> 00:01:50,100
Girls teased him relentlessly in junior high.

20
00:01:50,100 --> 00:01:54,540
Sistic acne left permanent scarring across his face by high school.

21
00:01:54,540 --> 00:02:00,300
He graduated in 1957 from a class of 31 students, and the yearbook staff managed to misspell

22
00:02:00,300 --> 00:02:05,940
his name, 31 people, and you still managed to misspell one of them.

23
00:02:05,940 --> 00:02:11,820
The activities that actually worked for Robert Hansen were the solitary ones, hunting,

24
00:02:11,820 --> 00:02:13,860
fishing, archery.

25
00:02:13,860 --> 00:02:16,460
Out there, no one was laughing at him.

26
00:02:16,460 --> 00:02:20,180
He turned out to be genuinely gifted at all of it.

27
00:02:20,180 --> 00:02:25,020
Years later in Alaska, he would earn multiple world record designations through the Pope and

28
00:02:25,020 --> 00:02:28,180
Young Club for archery big game hunting.

29
00:02:28,180 --> 00:02:33,860
His ability to track animals, read terrain, and be patient and precise in the wilderness

30
00:02:33,860 --> 00:02:37,100
was something his peers admired openly.

31
00:02:37,100 --> 00:02:41,380
In another version of this story, that is just a man with impressive trophies and a good

32
00:02:41,380 --> 00:02:44,300
reputation at the sporting goods store.

33
00:02:44,300 --> 00:02:46,300
We're not in that version.

34
00:02:46,300 --> 00:02:52,260
After a brief stint in the army reserve, Hansen returned to Iowa, married in 1960 and found

35
00:02:52,260 --> 00:02:57,220
work as an assistant drill instructor at a police academy in Pocahontas.

36
00:02:57,220 --> 00:02:59,380
He was also a volunteer fireman.

37
00:02:59,380 --> 00:03:04,600
In December 7, 1960, he recruited a teenager acquaintance and they set fire to a school

38
00:03:04,600 --> 00:03:07,500
bus garage in Pocahontas County.

39
00:03:07,500 --> 00:03:12,400
This was deliberate, calculated revenge against people he felt had mistreated him during

40
00:03:12,400 --> 00:03:14,060
his school years.

41
00:03:14,060 --> 00:03:19,220
He had been keeping a ledger of people that had wronged him, and apparently the bus garage

42
00:03:19,220 --> 00:03:20,620
was on it.

43
00:03:20,620 --> 00:03:23,100
His accomplice confessed almost immediately.

44
00:03:23,100 --> 00:03:27,340
Hansen was convicted and sentenced to three years at state penitentiary, serving about

45
00:03:27,340 --> 00:03:29,740
20 months of that three years.

46
00:03:29,740 --> 00:03:34,480
Prison psychiatrist evaluated him and left behind findings worth paying attention to,

47
00:03:34,480 --> 00:03:39,800
manic depression with periodic schizophrenic episodes, and something they specifically labeled

48
00:03:39,800 --> 00:03:42,020
infantile personality.

49
00:03:42,020 --> 00:03:47,380
In practice, that describes a person who cannot process perceived slides, and instead converts

50
00:03:47,380 --> 00:03:50,820
them directly into a need for retaliation.

51
00:03:50,820 --> 00:03:56,380
No resolution, no moving on, a running tally that kept growing.

52
00:03:56,380 --> 00:03:59,540
His first wife divorced him when he was incarcerated.

53
00:03:59,540 --> 00:04:05,460
The state of Iowa documented all of this carefully, filed it, and then released him.

54
00:04:05,460 --> 00:04:11,740
In 1967, Hansen moved with his new wife, Darla, and their two children to Anchorage, Alaska.

55
00:04:11,740 --> 00:04:14,300
He opened a small bakery downtown.

56
00:04:14,300 --> 00:04:15,460
Bob the Baker.

57
00:04:15,460 --> 00:04:19,660
Cheerful, reliable, genuinely well liked by everyone.

58
00:04:19,660 --> 00:04:23,220
The cops started popping in regularly for coffee and donuts.

59
00:04:23,220 --> 00:04:25,980
His pastries were apparently excellent.

60
00:04:25,980 --> 00:04:31,300
In the mid-1970s, arrived with the construction of the trans-Alaska pipeline, an Anchorage

61
00:04:31,300 --> 00:04:34,300
transformed almost overnight.

62
00:04:34,300 --> 00:04:36,340
Workers arrived by the thousands.

63
00:04:36,340 --> 00:04:41,860
Oil money moved in loud and fast, and an entire secondary economy assembled itself

64
00:04:41,860 --> 00:04:43,780
around 4th Avenue.

65
00:04:43,780 --> 00:04:49,060
Strip clubs, sex workers, men rotating in and out of pipeline schedules.

66
00:04:49,060 --> 00:04:52,180
The Bush Company was the best known club on the strip.

67
00:04:52,180 --> 00:04:57,180
A woman disappearing from that world could go almost entirely unnoticed, because the people

68
00:04:57,180 --> 00:05:01,820
around her were already in constant motion and often not in close contact with anyone who

69
00:05:01,820 --> 00:05:03,980
would file a report.

70
00:05:03,980 --> 00:05:09,900
Hansen understood this the way that a hunter understands where game travels before dawn.

71
00:05:09,900 --> 00:05:12,780
His method developed deliberately over time.

72
00:05:12,780 --> 00:05:18,300
He would approach women working at the clubs or streets of 4th Avenue, offer cash for

73
00:05:18,300 --> 00:05:23,660
sexual services, and once they were inside his vehicle, produce a firearm.

74
00:05:23,660 --> 00:05:26,700
Some he drove back to his home in the Moldon neighborhood.

75
00:05:26,700 --> 00:05:31,780
To a basement den, with a post he'd used to restrain victims by the neck.

76
00:05:31,780 --> 00:05:35,620
He held them there for hours, sometimes for days.

77
00:05:35,620 --> 00:05:38,140
Then came his Piper Super Cub.

78
00:05:38,140 --> 00:05:41,220
A blue and white airplane he kept at Merrill Field.

79
00:05:41,220 --> 00:05:46,580
He would fly captives out to remote locations, with no road access and no witnesses, release

80
00:05:46,580 --> 00:05:50,940
them into the wilderness, and then hunt them with his rifle.

81
00:05:50,940 --> 00:05:55,900
The skills he had built as a lonely kid in Iowa, in the woods where nobody was watching,

82
00:05:55,900 --> 00:06:01,900
had been quietly converted over the years into the architecture of murder.

83
00:06:01,900 --> 00:06:06,300
His first confirmed victim is known only as Eclutna Annie.

84
00:06:06,300 --> 00:06:12,540
Her remains were found in 1980 near Eclutna Lake, north of Vancrich, buried in a shallow grave.

85
00:06:12,540 --> 00:06:17,760
She was somewhere between 16 and 25 years old, wearing a brown leather jacket and red

86
00:06:17,760 --> 00:06:19,460
knee-high heeled boots.

87
00:06:19,460 --> 00:06:21,980
Her real name has never been established.

88
00:06:21,980 --> 00:06:26,820
Hanson told investigators she was his first murder, and that when she realized what was

89
00:06:26,820 --> 00:06:29,020
happening to her she tried to run.

90
00:06:29,020 --> 00:06:31,740
He chased her down while she was begging for her life.

91
00:06:31,740 --> 00:06:35,580
He later confessed to 17 murders in total.

92
00:06:35,580 --> 00:06:41,500
And behind the headboard of his bed, investigators would find an aeronautical chart with 37 X marks

93
00:06:41,500 --> 00:06:42,500
on it.

94
00:06:42,500 --> 00:06:49,420
June 13, 1983, a 17 year old named Cindy Paulson was picked up by Hanson under the pretense

95
00:06:49,420 --> 00:06:51,660
of a paid encounter.

96
00:06:51,660 --> 00:06:57,020
Once inside his vehicle he produced a gun, drove her to his home in Muldoon, and held her

97
00:06:57,020 --> 00:06:58,980
there for several hours.

98
00:06:58,980 --> 00:07:03,700
During every moment of that ordeal, Cindy Paulson was paying close attention to everything

99
00:07:03,700 --> 00:07:05,300
she could observe.

100
00:07:05,300 --> 00:07:06,820
The bar is on the window.

101
00:07:06,820 --> 00:07:11,300
A bullet hole in the floor, the hunting trophies covering the walls.

102
00:07:11,300 --> 00:07:15,100
From one of those trophies there was a name, Robert Hanson.

103
00:07:15,100 --> 00:07:19,900
She understood immediately what knowing his name meant for her chances of leaving.

104
00:07:19,900 --> 00:07:24,300
When Hanson drove her to Merrill Field to load her onto his plane, she was in handcuffs

105
00:07:24,300 --> 00:07:26,020
and had no shoes on.

106
00:07:26,020 --> 00:07:31,100
He turned his back while preparing the cockpit, and she crawled out of the backseat and ran.

107
00:07:31,100 --> 00:07:35,460
She made it to the road, flagged down a passing driver, and eventually the police were

108
00:07:35,460 --> 00:07:36,540
called.

109
00:07:36,540 --> 00:07:39,700
What followed is worth saying plainly.

110
00:07:39,700 --> 00:07:45,060
The Anchorage Police Department weighed the account of a 17-year-old sex worker against

111
00:07:45,060 --> 00:07:48,860
the word of one of the most respected businessmen in the city.

112
00:07:48,860 --> 00:07:52,940
Hanson told investigators she was trying to extort money from him.

113
00:07:52,940 --> 00:07:54,820
He was refusing to pay her.

114
00:07:54,820 --> 00:07:57,660
He produced a friend as an alibi.

115
00:07:57,660 --> 00:08:00,980
The department did not believe Cindy Paulson.

116
00:08:00,980 --> 00:08:03,140
So Robert Hanson went home.

117
00:08:03,140 --> 00:08:07,900
Alaska State Trooper, Glen Floth, had been building a separate case, connecting bodies

118
00:08:07,900 --> 00:08:13,180
found in the Matsu Valley into a pattern that he believed belonged to a single perpetrator.

119
00:08:13,180 --> 00:08:16,300
He pulled Cindy's report and recognized the same signature.

120
00:08:16,300 --> 00:08:22,100
He then contacted FBI Special Agent John Douglas of the Behavioral Science Unit.

121
00:08:22,100 --> 00:08:26,500
Douglas built a profile from the Graveside evidence and Cindy's testimony.

122
00:08:26,500 --> 00:08:32,580
Experienced hunter, chronic low self-esteem, a documented history of rejection by women,

123
00:08:32,580 --> 00:08:36,540
almost certainly keeping physical trophies from victims.

124
00:08:36,540 --> 00:08:38,860
Then Douglas added one more characteristic.

125
00:08:38,860 --> 00:08:42,180
The perpetrator likely had a stutter.

126
00:08:42,180 --> 00:08:46,980
In a city that size, that detail does not describe a long list of people.

127
00:08:46,980 --> 00:08:53,980
On October 27, 1983, the State Trooper executed a search warrant on Hanson's property.

128
00:08:53,980 --> 00:08:59,380
In a hidden attic area, investigators found jewelry belonging to multiple missing women.

129
00:08:59,380 --> 00:09:04,700
A gunsafe held the rifle which forensic testing matched to shell casings recovered near

130
00:09:04,700 --> 00:09:06,500
a victim's grave.

131
00:09:06,500 --> 00:09:10,100
Behind the headboard of his bed, they found the chart.

132
00:09:10,100 --> 00:09:12,860
The assistant DA told Hanson the plan.

133
00:09:12,860 --> 00:09:17,500
Once the spring-thaw made the ground workable, tracking dogs would be deployed at every single

134
00:09:17,500 --> 00:09:20,900
one of those 37 marked locations.

135
00:09:20,900 --> 00:09:23,820
He later described what happened in that room.

136
00:09:23,820 --> 00:09:26,420
Hanson's face went deep red.

137
00:09:26,420 --> 00:09:28,420
The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

138
00:09:28,420 --> 00:09:33,420
After 12 years of selling donuts and hunting women in the Alaskan wilderness, Robert Hanson

139
00:09:33,420 --> 00:09:36,180
finally stopped performing.

140
00:09:36,180 --> 00:09:41,860
In February 1984, he pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder and confessed to

141
00:09:41,860 --> 00:09:45,980
rape being an additional 30 women across his 12-year spree.

142
00:09:45,980 --> 00:09:51,260
He received life plus 461 years without the possibility of parole.

143
00:09:51,260 --> 00:09:57,980
Robert Hanson died in prison August 21, 2014, at 75 years old.

144
00:09:57,980 --> 00:10:03,740
Twelve of the 17 bodies were ultimately recovered, and 11 of those have been identified.

145
00:10:03,740 --> 00:10:09,340
The woman found, with a brown leather jacket and the big red boots, is still unknown.

146
00:10:09,340 --> 00:10:13,660
Some of those 37 X marks on the map have never led to anyone.

147
00:10:13,660 --> 00:10:15,580
No one knows what they mean.

148
00:10:15,580 --> 00:10:19,380
The Alaskan wilderness is keeping whatever secrets are buried there.

149
00:10:19,380 --> 00:10:23,540
Cindy Paulson was 17, barefoot, and handcuffs.

150
00:10:23,540 --> 00:10:27,700
She outran him anyway, and everything that mattered came after that.

151
00:10:27,700 --> 00:10:37,700
[Music]