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- [00:00]
Ryan Reynolds
Hey, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now I don't know if you've heard, but Mint's Premium Wireless is $15 a month. But I'd like to offer one other perk. We have no stores. That means no small talk. Crazy weather we're having. No, it's not. It's just weather. It is an introvert's dream. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment.
- [00:24]
Mint Mobile Advertiser
Of $45 for three month plan. $15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first three months only. Then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra.
- [00:29]
Ryan Reynolds
See mintmobile.com Mint is still $15 a month premium wireless. And if you haven't made the switch yet, here are 15 reasons why you should. One, it's $15 a month. Two, seriously, it's $15 a month. Three, no big contracts. Four, I use it. Five, my mom uses it.
- [00:46]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Are you.
- [00:47]
Ryan Reynolds
Are you playing me off? That's what's happening, right? Okay, give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront.
- [00:53]
Mint Mobile Advertiser
Payment of $45 for three month plan. $15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first three months only. Then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com okay, I have to tell.
- [01:02]
Dr. Michelle Ward
You, I was just looking on ebay.
- [01:03]
Mint Mobile Advertiser
Where I go for all kinds of things I love.
- [01:05]
Dr. Michelle Ward
And there it was.
- [01:06]
Leland Hale
That hologram trading card. One of the rarest. The last one I needed for my set.
- [01:11]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Shiny like the designer handbag of my dreams.
- [01:14]
Robert Hansen
One of a kind.
- [01:14]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Ebay had it.
- [01:15]
Robert Hansen
And now everyone's asking, ooh, where'd you.
- [01:18]
Dr. Brent Turvey
Get your windshield wipers? Ebay has all the parts that fit my car.
- [01:22]
Dr. Michelle Ward
No more annoying, just beautiful. Millions of fines, each with a story.
- [01:28]
Mint Mobile Advertiser
EBay things people love.
- [01:33]
Dr. Michelle Ward
This podcast explores themes of murder and rape. Listener discretion is advised.
- [01:40]
Greg Baker
I was kind of upset when I saw the case was suspended. I just thought Hanson should have been looked at harder. I knew there were a number of missing girls and they weren't showing up.
- [01:53]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Patrol cop Greg Baker is convinced bakery owner Robert Hanson is responsible for the rape and kidnapping of 17 year old sex worker Cindy Paulson. But his superiors have shut down the case.
- [02:06]
Greg Baker
It just seemed to me like something further should have been done. I proceeded to look up any background I could find on Robert Hanson. Turned out to be quite a thick bundle of paper.
- [02:30]
Dr. Michelle Ward
I'm Dr. Michele Ward, and this is Mind of a the Butcher Baker. Episode 3 Robert C. Hansen vs. The World it's the summer of 1983 and dancers and sex workers have been going missing in the town of Anchorage for years. For patrol cop Greg Baker, Robert C. Hansen is emerging as a prime suspect. So who is Robert or Bob Hansen? What is his past? In this episode, we're going to dive deep to find out.
- [03:03]
Mint Mobile Advertiser
If you own a bakery, you bake at night, so you have fresh stuff in the day. It was entirely possible for him to have a completely separate life than Darla.
- [03:14]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Robert Hanson owns a bakery in downtown Anchorage. His wife, Darla, is a teacher and he has two kids, a girl and a boy aged 13 and 8.
- [03:24]
Mint Mobile Advertiser
When he was home sleeping, she was at school. He would get up when they would come home from school, they would eat dinner. He would spend time with the kids, then he would go to work.
- [03:38]
Dr. Michelle Ward
This is Diana Hansen, who the Mind of a Monster Team interviewed in 2019. In the early 80s, Darla was her teacher and Hanson's daughter was her classmate. And just in case you're wondering, her last name is just a coincidence. She's not a relative.
- [03:55]
Mint Mobile Advertiser
Darla, she was such an amazing teacher. She was so just fair about things. Each kid, she really helped them with whatever it was they had, which I don't think back then, I can tell you back then that didn't happen. And so she made a big impression on me.
- [04:18]
Dr. Michelle Ward
This isn't just Diana's point of view. Others who knew Darla well talked about how kind she was and how much teaching kids with dyslexia meant to her as a teacher. She was called, quote, a miracle worker. Author Leland Hale met darla in the 1980s and spoke with her several times. What were your impressions of Darla when you met her?
- [04:38]
Leland Hale
So she's kind of that person, you know, she's a little passive, kind of, I don't know if naive is the right word, but she's not, she's, she's no dummy. You know, she was the one who decided, I'm going to get my degree no matter what, no matter what Bob wants to do. She was the one who had continued to get credits toward a master's degree. She had, you know, teacher jobs. It was, she was really the essential breadwinner.
- [05:16]
Dr. Michelle Ward
So we know that Darla is well liked in her community and that she's smart. Robert Hanson has this neat nuclear family, right, with two kids, one boy, one girl. He owns a business. But is that the whole story?
- [05:28]
Leland Hale
You know, I want to read you a passage though. We talked about reading from some of Darla's stuff.
- [05:33]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Leland is reaching for some 35 year old paper notes he took on a.
- [05:37]
Leland Hale
Phone call with Darla in Fact, this is one I find very illuminating. And I find it doubly illuminating when I reread it recently. So I'm talking to her about Bob's temper. Because she's told me that he has a temper and there's some anger issues that he has. And she says, I guess I really. I don't know why he lost his temper. In his mind, if he wanted the house perfect, kind of wanted you to read his mind. If he wanted something, he wanted to make sure you got it right now when he wanted. It just was kind of hard to please, I guess. Always had a quick temper with short fuse. He got mad at things other people would not get mad at. People couldn't do things fast enough for him or something like that. My opinion was, you know, he intimidated her.
- [06:43]
Dr. Michelle Ward
I want to pick up here. Because when people recount the story of this case. There's this tendency to focus on the respectability of Robert Hansen and his perfect family life. And of course, it wasn't that simple. It never is. So that word respectability, it's something I want you to think about throughout this episode. Because the meaning of it and its implication keeps coming back up. In this case, it's 30 years earlier, and we're in Pocahontas, Iowa. Robert Hanson, or Bob, as he's often known, is a kid, age 10 or so. His parents are Danish immigrants, Chris and Edna. And they own a bakery right in the center of Pocahontas.
- [07:26]
Leland Hale
It's a farming community. It's a bohemian community. A lot of communities in the Midwest were peopled by folks leaving other places.
- [07:37]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Leland Hale visited Pocahontas, Iowa, in the 1980s. And spoke to a number of people who knew the Hansons. Along with his notes, we've pulled some newspaper reports and documents that I'm hoping can help us build a picture of Hansen and his early life. I mean, it's fascinating looking at some of these articles and what kind of kid he was.
- [07:59]
Leland Hale
So one of the people I talked to when I went to Pocahontas was Robert Hanson's. One of his grade school teachers.
- [08:10]
Dr. Michelle Ward
You did tell me about that.
- [08:12]
Leland Hale
So she's in a retirement home now. She said, I can't say much about him. There was nothing really about him. He didn't speak in class. And there's a pause and she says, but there was this one time he usually sat at the back of the room. And I could see him with this pencil. And he was just like he was stabbing something. And I go back and I see that he's stabbing the webbing between his fingers with the pencil. And I stopped him and I, you know, he. She said he had like, permanent scars. It was like a tattoo that the lead was left behind in his hand.
- [08:56]
Robert Hansen
Wow.
- [08:56]
Leland Hale
And he was in grade school.
- [09:00]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Having kids myself, this moment in the story just makes me a little sad. He's a little kid, he's not even a teenager yet, who's already self harming. But self harm doesn't make anyone become a criminal. So, Leland, as a neurocriminologist, I need to know more about Hansen's family life. Because as we all know, childhood's a really crucial time. We need to know if there are any events that happen to him that could affect his brain while it's developing.
- [09:29]
Leland Hale
If you talk to some of the local people who knew Bob growing up and you ask about his father, he would say, good guy, hard working, but kind of strict, disciplinarian. Kind of could be kind of rough.
- [09:46]
Dr. Michelle Ward
I'm reading here you're talking about his dad. And I'm reading here a quote from this paper. And it says his father, Chris, was a good person, but was very domineering. They had a dysfunctional relationship together. His dad would just lay into him.
- [10:03]
Leland Hale
That's absolutely correct. Darla talks a lot about the sense of his father and parents saying he's worthless. That's a recurring theme.
- [10:17]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Here's another element to this, Leland. Chris Hansen, Robert Hanson's father made him start at the bakery at 2am before he went to school, and then he's sent off to school. One of his teachers said, quote, hanson was an average student whose performance was below average. The reason being, I always felt, was the fact that his dad made him work hard.
- [10:39]
Leland Hale
I mean, he would fall asleep in class, as it turns out, of course, he had other difficulties in school. He had learning disabilities. Darla talks about her specialty as an educator, which is with children with dyslexia, children with learning disabilities. It's almost like Bob chose her career for her. And she talks. She said sometimes he would get emotional. When she was talking about the things she was helping her students do, like do their homework and figure out ways. And she said he would get emotional and say, I wish I had that help when I was that age. And so that was complicated. Pile that on. The fact that you're tired. He stutters, Right?
- [11:32]
Dr. Michelle Ward
And it's his stutter that seems to come up again and again when he describes his childhood. Here's Robert Hanson himself talking about this time in his life, recorded in a later police interview.
- [11:46]
Robert Hansen
I couldn't say hardly a word. I hated to be around people in general. Hated to, but wanted to so doggone bad. It was a setting. I can remember going up and talking to someone, man or woman, class meeting, whatever. You start to say something and start to stutter so badly that especially in the younger years, I'd run away crying, run off someplace and hide for a day or so.
- [12:35]
Dr. Michelle Ward
I think it's clear to say that for Hanson, his stutter was a big thing.
- [12:39]
Leland Hale
Absolutely.
- [12:41]
Dr. Michelle Ward
And while we cannot take everything he says in these later statements at face value, we do know that Robert Hansen was born left handed and his parents forced him to use his right hand.
- [12:51]
Leland Hale
So let's just put it this way. It may have doubled his propensity to stutter rather than eliminated his stutter.
- [13:01]
Dr. Michelle Ward
The research on stutters is mixed, but some studies show that a stutter is associated with a disturbed signal transmission between the right and left brain hemispheres. And that can occur when you try to force a left handed person to make their right hand dominant.
- [13:17]
Leland Hale
He was the guy who sat at the back of the class and didn't say much. He was the observer, observing people's behavior and observing how they acted. Because his observational skills were great. His speaking skills were not so great. And in fact, these observational skills that he perfected also made him a very good hunter.
- [13:39]
Dr. Michelle Ward
That's right, because even from an early age he loved to hunt animals. Let's dig a bit deeper with criminal profiler Dr. Brent Turvey.
- [13:48]
Dr. Brent Turvey
I don't take anybody's statement that to me, statements are not evidence. To me, statements are theories that need to be checked against the evidence.
- [13:57]
Dr. Michelle Ward
I would argue we do this with every type of criminal. We dig deep into their past to find the aha moment. And I'm always arguing that's not what it is. You'll remember that we discussed complex trauma with Brent in our last episode. Well, this is important here too. There is no aha moment. There are a series of events, relationships, biological and genetic predispositions, and unresolved trauma that affect how someone interacts with the world. I mean, I grew up in a very strict Scandinavian household. My family's fresh off the boat from Denmark. So when they're talking about how he gets up to work in the bakery at 2am I'm thinking, well, shoot, if my grandparents, that's what they would have done to us too. So for me, this part doesn't really stand out. But it did stand out in terms of his educators, his peers, his coaches, because he couldn't even stay awake in class.
- [14:49]
Dr. Brent Turvey
Sleep is a big deal. I think that's a really good conversation to have. Sleep is one of the biggest causes of mental problems that exist. It can induce mental disorders. It can induce problems, especially if you're a teenager. It can create a problem with your memory, with your cognition, with your understanding. It can lead to huge misinterpretations.
- [15:09]
Dr. Michelle Ward
So, okay, the fact that he was deprived of an incredibly important biological necessity of sleep, particularly in that age.
- [15:20]
Dr. Brent Turvey
Right. So the age and the context are what give that meaning. Because there are periods of time in everyone's life who isn't a millionaire where you've had to work very long hours with very little sleep and you aren't out there committing violent crimes. So that's not an explanation for the behavior. It's a contextual variable that we have to look at along with other contextual variables, like the strictness of the father, like the culture, and how he was taught to regard women.
- [15:43]
Dr. Michelle Ward
I'm glad you mentioned that, because it's a really important point. How he views his high school peers and how they view him are pretty much two different things.
- [15:54]
Robert Hansen
But the worst thing was that, you know, that I was the rebuttal of all the girls around the school. And I had a tremendous amount of acne and pimples and so forth in my face. Now I could see why maybe girls wouldn't want to get close to me. I could count the number of girls I went out with probably one hand. That set me very.
- [16:24]
Dr. Michelle Ward
So, Brent, you have his testimony here, and then you read this. A fellow classmate heard that Hansen thought fellow high school students talked about him in the hallways and girls shunned him. And she says, that's funny. I thought everyone in the hall was talking about me. I think it's pretty indicative of our ages. And then there's another from a second female classmate. Did we reject him? I don't think we treated him any different to anyone else. And to me, it's like we can't really trust either of those statements. Right. I mean, they're both made with hindsight and pretty much just defending a position.
- [16:56]
Dr. Brent Turvey
Lots of people have traits or characteristics that make them feel embarrassed or make them feel marginalized. Anybody who looks just a little bit different, they're gonna get targeted for bullying. So what I'd be interested in is accounts of him being actually being bullied, not just being rejected. Because when he's saying, I'm getting rejected or I can't communicate, he's talking from a position of entitlement.
- [17:17]
Dr. Michelle Ward
You mean that this reveals his perception of the events, not necessarily the events themselves?
- [17:22]
Dr. Brent Turvey
That's it.
- [17:24]
Dr. Michelle Ward
I think something else is relevant here too, because we know from a later document, a psychiatric evaluation in 1972, how he processed those rejections. It says at high school, quote, he fantasized about doing all sorts of harmful things to girls who rejected him. That, to me is almost like a modern day incident.
- [17:45]
Dr. Brent Turvey
Yeah, I mean, he is a person who has problems with relationships, expectations based on his culture and his upbringing that are not being met. And then a regard for women as property or objects, not people. And this does not distinguish him from anyone else at that time. At that time, that was the prevailing philosophy of the people that he was living with and living around.
- [18:07]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Right. Blame women who don't want you because you are entitled to a date with that girl.
- [18:13]
Robert Hansen
I just started to hit a hate. My friends, classmates were young boys that I ran around there. There are some that I think were out of the way, you know, to proved to me that they were my friend. And to this. I appreciate it. Oh, my God. To, To. To no end. But knowing that they was trying on my behalf seemed. Seemed to make it worse. Worse for me. Inside here.
- [18:55]
Dr. Michelle Ward
He's also talking about being pitied and how it upset him to be pitied.
- [19:00]
Dr. Brent Turvey
That's. That's an incel. Ideological belief. The man is strong and should be respected. Men, the love language of men who have these traditional views about themselves is unquestioning respect. Because that's what society has told me, that I'm a man and you're a woman and you should be quiet or getting me coffee or be available for sex.
- [19:19]
Dr. Michelle Ward
You hit on something really interesting, this attitude of his that I just need to be respected just because I was born. Do you think his dad being super strict, instilled any of that in him? Like the father was unquestioned and just respected because he had that role of father. Do you think that affected Hansen at all?
- [19:38]
Dr. Brent Turvey
Well, undeniably, it's what his father modeled to him. And that's the other thing. I mean, to me you have this context where this guy's growing and developing. He's not getting any feedback from anybody about how to improve or get better. He's not developing healthy relationships. And it's because of his context, it's because of his background. And it's because of how he feels he was being treated.
- [19:59]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Now there's something that happens when Hansen is 21 that might give us some insight into how he processes teenage years and childhood. I Have the documentation right here. It's on very faded paper in brown type. Robert Hanson, it reads, who was on the 9th day of October, 1961 in the district court of Pocahontas county, convicted of the crime of arson.
- [20:28]
Ryan Reynolds
Mint is still $15 a month for premium wireless. And if you haven't made the switch yet, here are 15 reasons why you should. One, it's $15 a month. Two, seriously, it's $15 a month. Three, no big contracts. Four, I use it. Five, my mom uses it.
- [20:44]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Are you.
- [20:45]
Ryan Reynolds
Are you playing me off? That's what's happening, right? Okay, give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront.
- [20:51]
Mint Mobile Advertiser
Payment of $45 for 3 month plan. $15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first 3 months only. Then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra.
- [20:57]
Ryan Reynolds
See mint mobile.com hey, Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now, I don't know if you've heard, but Mint's Premium Wireless is $15 a month. But I'd like to offer one other perk. We have no stores. That means no small talk. Crazy weather we're having. No, it's not. It's just weather. It is an introvert's dream. Give it a try@minmobile.com store switch upfront.
- [21:22]
Mint Mobile Advertiser
Payment of 45 for 3 month plan. $15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first 3 months only. Then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra.
- [21:27]
Simplisafe Advertiser
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- [21:58]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Okay, I have to tell you, I was just looking on ebay, where I go for all kinds of things I love. And there it was.
- [22:04]
Leland Hale
That hologram trading card. One of the rarest. The last one I needed for my set.
- [22:09]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Shiny like the designer handbag of my dreams.
- [22:12]
Robert Hansen
One of a kind.
- [22:13]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Ebay had it.
- [22:13]
Robert Hansen
And now everyone's asking, oh, where'd you.
- [22:16]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Get your windshield wipers?
- [22:18]
Dr. Brent Turvey
Ebay has all the parts that fit my car.
- [22:20]
Dr. Michelle Ward
No more annoying, just beautiful. Millions of finds, each with a story. EBay.
- [22:27]
Mint Mobile Advertiser
Things people love.
- [22:38]
Leland Hale
There was a basketball game. It was between the poker pocahontas Public School and the Pocahontas Catholic School. And so everybody's going to be at the game. It's the big game.
- [22:52]
Dr. Michelle Ward
On this night in July 1960, Robert Hansen is 21. And as almost the entire town gathers for the big game just a few hundred feet away, Hansen is in a field next to the school bus barn with a 16 year old accomplice. He throws gasoline over its roof and lights a match. Author Leland Hale.
- [23:15]
Leland Hale
What better time, under the guise of this big event, to pull off this fire. And of course it's aided, abetted, because Bob is a volunteer fireman. Many's the story, unfortunately, of volunteer firemen setting a fire so they can come be the hero and put the fire out.
- [23:37]
Dr. Michelle Ward
As Leland says, the fire Hansen sets is dramatic. The barn is completely destroyed and in front of a huge audience who gathered to watch the high school game. And for a year he gets away with it. Until the rumor mill on the teenage party scene catches up with him. And a friend of a friend goes to the police. Leland, you spoke with the police chief of Pocahontas yourself, Marvin Wiseman, Right. He knew Hanson pretty well because Hanson had been in the police cadets. Could you tell me about your perspective when you spoke with him?
- [24:11]
Leland Hale
Yeah, like he's a small town cop. He kind of reminded me of the Andrew Griffith character. Like this avuncular, friendly, you know, in all the pictures I have of him all too, you know, he's smiling, his police uniform doesn't quite fit, his tie's a little short. But he's a good guy who wants to do good things.
- [24:39]
Dr. Michelle Ward
One of Marvin's statements to the press, and as I understand it, he basically said the same thing to you was quote, Hansen had a resentment inside of him against authority.
- [24:50]
Leland Hale
Yeah, I think he was perplexed by him, right. That here is this kid who he'd elevated to a leadership role in the police cadets. And yet he was off more resentment toward him and toward the people of Pocahontas than he suspected. Nobody's expecting this Bob Hansen guy to act out the way he did. It's, you know, it's just not, it's not very small town.
- [25:26]
Robert Hansen
I hated the word school. I guess this is why I burnt down the bus barn way back in Iowa. I just hated that place. With a divine passion, I would do anything and everything I could think of to get back at that monster school that I convinced myself was out to do Bob Hanson personal wrong.
- [25:51]
Dr. Brent Turvey
So basically, think about this school bus incident. Three years after he graduated high school, he is holding on to some this and burning is like the motivation related to that is either going to be money or rage and there's no money for him in it. And he's holding this grudge for three years. So it's not just that he is perceiving these wrongs. It's not just that he's not getting enough sleep. It's not just his cultural upbringing and being overworked. It's that his perception is that he has been wronged and he has a trait in himself where he's holding up. For some reason, he holds on to that. So I'd like to know where that came from, that holding on to this grudge forever. This is and then expressing it so violently. That's interesting to me.
- [26:37]
Dr. Michelle Ward
It's like he's entitled to seek revenge and seek his own justice and to have the girls he wants to have. It's like Robert C. Hansen versus the world.
- [26:46]
Dr. Brent Turvey
Exactly.
- [26:52]
Casey (Casefile Podcast Host)
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- [28:14]
Ryan Reynolds
Mint is still $15 a month for premium wireless, and if you haven't made the switch yet, here are 15 reasons why you should 1. It's $15 a month.
- [28:23]
Dr. Michelle Ward
2.
- [28:24]
Ryan Reynolds
Seriously, it's $15 a month. 3. No big contracts.
- [28:28]
Dr. Michelle Ward
4.
- [28:28]
Ryan Reynolds
I use it.
- [28:29]
Dr. Michelle Ward
5.
- [28:29]
Ryan Reynolds
My mom uses it. Are you playing me off? That's what's happening, right? Okay, give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront.
- [28:37]
Mint Mobile Advertiser
Payment of $45 per three month plan, $15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra.
- [28:43]
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- [29:16]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Hansen pleads guilty to the arson to get a reduced sentence, but he maintains his innocence to the community. In fact, right around when all this was happening, Hansen gets married for the first time to a local woman. He even somewhat dramatically swears his innocence to her father before the ceremony. But after six months in jail, he confesses. Her reaction. She divorces him right away. And I see it here on the divorce decree. It says marriage April 1, and then a short year later, a divorce. You know, I mean, that date kind of sealed the deal, right?
- [29:56]
Leland Hale
I can just. I'm imagining now, but I can imagine her father say, well, you can get married. We got one day for you. The only one available, April 1st. Take it or leave it.
- [30:07]
Dr. Michelle Ward
I know, right? And something funny about this divorce decree is. Look at the reason for the divorce. I've got to find it over here. Okay, here it is. Intolerable indignities.
- [30:18]
Leland Hale
I mean, it's, it's beyond. I mean, it was intolerable indignities actually for her. I mean, there was like, you lied to me and you lied to everyone in town, and. And here I am married to this guy.
- [30:31]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Hansen gets out on parole after just a year in jail for arson, and he pretty soon meets his second wife, Darla in 1963. They move to Anchorage in 1967 and have a child. It's 1971 before Hansen has another brush with the law. He has a gun.
- [30:50]
Robert Hansen
I tried my hand for Mike, otherwise.
- [30:53]
Dr. Michelle Ward
I'd been shot or beaten up. I'm gonna have to repeat this for you because this is such an old recording. It's taken from a pretrial hearing in 1972. A young sex worker, Patty Roberts, just 18 years old, is on the stand and she says, he had a gun, tied my hands behind my back. He said, if I shout, I will get beaten up. Sound familiar? Patty is one of two, two young women who report Hansen to the police in 1971. The first is another 18 year old named Susan Heppard. She's not a dancer or a sex worker. She's A real estate secretary. Hansen sees Susie in town as he's driving along and then he follows her home and knocks on her door. He tells her that he needs to use her phone and they end up talking for a few minutes. The next day he comes back in the early morning winter darkness and tries to abduct her. She screams bloody murder. And he runs off into the snowfield darkness, leaving his car behind. Police officer Ron Rice was on call for investigations that morning and the mind of a monster team spoke to him in 2019, probably within 30 minutes or an hour.
- [32:06]
Ron Rice
Patrol, Anchorage police patrol stopped him and that's when he was actually arrested over that one. That's when I was called in and did the, did the interviews with him.
- [32:15]
Robert Hansen
Sit down there.
- [32:16]
Ron Rice
You know, he denies everything, but his head is down like that and he's not maybe looking at you. And he's just an innocent person. He doesn't know why they would do this. If it was anybody that he thought had more control over him. And in this particular case it's going to be the law enforcement folks. He was sort of mild and meek. Couldn't have been him, but it's a.
- [32:34]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Pretty clear cut case. Hansen is charged with assault with a deadly weapon and released on bail. Before he leaves the the station, Ron takes a picture of him and puts it in the Anchorage Police Department per book. I ask author Leland Hale to explain.
- [32:51]
Leland Hale
So in the old days, before computers were ubiquitous, troopers and police agencies kept a book, a perp book, sometimes referred to as the asshole book. And it were photos of, of either peeping Toms or rapists or people like that. And the reason for that was because these are crimes that tend to recur.
- [33:17]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Now that becomes important because a month later, while Hansen is still on bail from assaulting Susan Hepbard, a State trooper brings 18 year old Patti Roberts into the Anchorage Police Department to see Ron's perp butt.
- [33:30]
Dr. Brent Turvey
Come on in.
- [33:31]
Dr. Michelle Ward
This is the same Patty Roberts you heard from earlier. Patty claimed she'd been kidnapped and that her attacker drove her out to The Kenai Peninsula, 160 miles south of Anchorage and raped her. She thought he was going to kill her, but she persuaded him to bring her back to town by telling him she had a son and giving him the name of her parents and their address.
- [33:53]
Ron Rice
Patricia Roberts is her name. And she looked at a book and she selected Robert Chris Hansen as the person who had abducted her.
- [34:00]
Dr. Michelle Ward
That's him.
- [34:01]
Ron Rice
It was that same evening I went with a trooper and we arrested Edward Chris Hansen. We got there to his House. His wife was there, a small girl, two or three years old, little blonde haired girl.
- [34:11]
Dr. Michelle Ward
This was Darla Hansen and their tiny daughter.
- [34:15]
Ron Rice
I was trying to keep the little girl away. She's little three year old girl and the mother was holding on to her, didn't say much. I mean, she was just kind of withdrawn. So I just, I don't know. She was just that kind of person that didn't say much. And maybe he was the one that was the aggressor in that outfit. I don't know. She didn't say a whole bunch.
- [34:34]
Dr. Michelle Ward
So now Hansen has two charges, one for kidnapping and rape and the other for assault with a deadly weapon. But he denies sex worker Patty's story outright.
- [34:46]
Ron Rice
He indicated that it was a money dispute, she was a working prostitute, and that this was all over her money and there was nothing at all involved that he was going to do over that.
- [34:56]
Dr. Michelle Ward
I hope you recognize that phrase, money dispute, because Hansen is still using it many years later in 1983. Back in 1972, both assault cases go to the assistant district attorney for prosecution. And this is where everything takes a left turn. The assistant DA does a plea deal with Hansen. If Hansen agrees to plead guilty to assaulting the real estate secretary, Susan Heppard, he will get off scot free for the rape and kidnapping of sex worker Patty Roberts and avoid a trial because.
- [35:31]
Ron Rice
She was a hooker. What a shame. I mean, really, really was. That's all that they were doing that on. They thought they would have credibility problems with the jury. My answer to that is, once again, it's a jury question. Let's let the jury decide. And they didn't have an opportunity to do that. And they should have. He would have probably got 20 years to do in jail.
- [35:50]
Leland Hale
It's the old boy network. It's hard at work. It's like, oh, I see, Bob, there was a dispute over money and now she's going to come after you. Don't worry, we'll protect you. It's just a beef with a hooker.
- [36:06]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Hansen gets a five year sentence for the assault of the real estate secretary, but he's paroled to a halfway house after less than a year in jail. He is by all accounts a model prisoner.
- [36:20]
Leland Hale
He's got this, I'd say, practiced passivity. You know, he knows when to be passive because his father was, you know, quite strict and could be cruel. So he knows when to shut up. He knows when to say, yes, sir, yes, sir, yes sir, yes sir. All the while he's thinking other things. You know, he really did not spend much time in jail. I mean, if you talk to Darla, it was way too much because that means she lost an income and sometimes she wasn't working and it was a struggle. If the kids were sick, it was like it was either prayer or having them scream because we couldn't afford medicine and we couldn't afford doctors.
- [37:04]
Dr. Michelle Ward
I mean, that's difficult enough. But he's also in the local paper for kidnapping and raping a prostitute.
- [37:11]
Leland Hale
So she has suspicions, and it was suspicion, of course, that he was seeing prostitutes. And she went to a woman in the church who she trusted, who's kind of an elder, and she said, you need to talk to pastor about it. You need to talk to the male authority about it.
- [37:34]
Dr. Michelle Ward
What did the pastor say?
- [37:36]
Leland Hale
You know, it's a very fundamentalist Christian American, which is, you know, the male is the head of the household, you are this, you know, the servant. I mean, all this stuff. And she was very religious. She's got two kids. You know, there's this sense of keeping the marriage together no matter what.
- [37:55]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Criminal profiler Brent Turvey.
- [37:57]
Dr. Brent Turvey
How many women do you know that are in relationships with very violent men who avoid certain trigger words or trigger contexts just to keep the guy happy because they don't want to deal with the aftermath. They're trapped by economics, by children, by resources, by culture. They're trapped. So they don't have a choice. So their only choice is keep your head down, keep your mouth shut. That's a normal environment for many women in the United States today.
- [38:23]
Dr. Michelle Ward
So let's rewind a moment because Hansen just got a big break, right? I mean, he goes to jail for three months and then he's out of there. I feel like that's a really big deal. What do you think that did in terms of emboldening him on the one.
- [38:37]
Leland Hale
Case he gets in trouble? 18 year old real estate secretary, upstanding citizen, and then there's this other citizen who doesn't quite fit into that bucket, and that case just gets tossed. And so if you sort of. If I look back on it from hindsight, it's absolutely the turning point for Hansen.
- [39:06]
Dr. Michelle Ward
So now he knows to go for the sex workers only. And he knows that he can tell a compelling story.
- [39:14]
Leland Hale
He's believed well, as long as he says it was a dispute over money, then he could pretty much get away with it. They're coming after me. And even the most callous of cops can identify with, oh, boy, I wouldn't want my work wife to find out if I You know? Right. Or if this, you know, I can put myself in his situation.
- [39:36]
Dr. Brent Turvey
The reality is that it emboldens someone who thinks that they're getting away with it. Now. They be, one, you teach them what not to do in the future, and two, you teach them what they're doing is actually okay.
- [39:47]
Dr. Michelle Ward
And I think we tend to have this idea that these terrible injustices, well, they happened in the past, and somehow that makes us feel better, that life has moved on and we're all better people now. But when you work in the criminal sphere today, it doesn't take long to realize that that just isn't true.
- [40:04]
Dr. Brent Turvey
We had this problem in Alaska back in 2017. We had a judge who sat on a case involving a white guy who worked for the, I think, the faa, and he was accused of kidnapping and sexually assaulting and nearly attempted to murder a Native girl. And she was found in a snowbank with the semen on her, and she was almost dead, but she survived. They dropped all the charges down to almost nothing. When he did the sentencing, he basically said, okay, order, order. You're a good young man. You're one of us. I understand. You're one of us. I understand you're here doing good things for the community. So we're gonna let this go this time, but don't let it get out of hand. And to the native community, they heard you get to rape one Native girl.
- [40:47]
Dr. Michelle Ward
It telegraphs to the community that you're asking unimportant and to the perpetrator that as long as I don't see you in my courtroom too often, I'm going to let you slide. Let's head back to 1983. In the office of the Anchorage Police Department, Greg Baker has pulled all the information he can on Robert Hansen's past record. He doesn't have everything we've gone over in this episode, but he's got a fair bit of.
- [41:12]
Robert Hansen
It.
- [41:16]
Greg Baker
Started out with theft and the shoplifting. He had some shoplifting. I think he was involved with an arson. He had had contact with other prostitutes in the past. I had printed out copies of all this and bound all these reports up. I think they went back probably 10 years, maybe 15 years, turned it all over.
- [41:40]
Dr. Michelle Ward
The troopers, the Alaska State Troopers, at this point, they're still investigating the murder of Sherry Moreau, whose body was found on the kinik river over 10 months ago.
- [41:53]
Greg Baker
I knew that the task force was still in effect and no one was making any headway in it. I told him I had had this experience with this guy and a Prostitute. And I don't know if they were looking at him as far as the missing girls were concerned, but if they weren't, I thought they should be. And here's why.
- [42:18]
Dr. Michelle Ward
What Greg did, it's a bigger deal than it sounds. Sharing files with other agencies is pretty much against every unwritten police code.
- [42:27]
Greg Baker
I knew that if anybody found out that I took the information over to the Coopers that I would reap some consequences of some kind. I mean, I was not trying to make APD look bad by any stretch of the imagination, but I was also interested in seeing if we could stop these women from disappearing off the face of the earth with no idea what was happening to them.
- [42:56]
Dr. Michelle Ward
And who knows if exactly what would have happened to it and how the troopers would have proceeded with the case had a couple of hunters not found another body, that of 31 year old dancer Paula Goulding, on the kik river in September 1983, a year after Sherry Morrow's body was found nearby.
- [43:15]
Leland Hale
You know, they do the examination. What do they find? They find 223 shell casings in the grave, just like they found in Sherry Mo. And the whole tenor of things changes.
- [43:28]
Dr. Michelle Ward
The troopers considered there could be a serial killer out there?
- [43:31]
Leland Hale
Yes. Well, for sure. I mean, they'd been hearing it and there was some skepticism. But now they can no longer avoid that reality.
- [43:43]
Dr. Michelle Ward
Next time on episode four of Mind of a Monster, the survivor of kidnapping speaks out for the first time as the circle tightens around Robert Hanson.
- [43:53]
Leland Hale
I ran out of the passenger side.
- [43:57]
Dr. Michelle Ward
I escaped running butt naked through rocks and sticks and trees and barbed wire. Mind of a the Butcher Baker is produced by Aeromedia for I D. The executive producer for I D is Jessica Lowther. Aeromedia's producer is Jess Leyndeveer. Editor Millie Tapner. Audio engineering by Mahoney Audio Post. Our line producer is Philippa Whittle. Our production manager is Alexandra Kelly. Our junior production manager is Jodi Tanner Wilde. Our production coordinator is Shannon Tunicliff. Our archive producer is Katia Lom. And our assistant producer is Isabel Wilson. Aeromedia series producer is Gabrielle Nash and executive producer is Stuart Pender. I'm your host, Dr. Michelle Ward. Please leave us a five star review on Apple podcasts. It really does help spread the word.