Crime Weekly - Rachel Hansen | “Someone Broke In and Shot Me” (Part 1)

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

On June 4, 2022, 19-year-old Rachel Hansen called 911 from her apartment in Gilbert, Arizona, and told the dispatcher that someone had broken in and shot her while she was sleeping. Just minutes later, first responders found Rachel critically injured on the floor of her bathroom. She was rushed to the hospital, but despite hours of emergency surgery, she did not survive. To everyone who knew Rachel, the shooting made no sense. She was a successful young entrepreneur and a beloved daughter, sister, and fiancée who had her entire future ahead of her. She had no known enemies, no involvement in criminal activity, and no obvious reason anyone would want to hurt her... Try our coffee! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: https://www.FactorMeals.com/CrimeWeekly50Off - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY50OFF for 50% off PLUS a FREE Daily Greens Box! 2. Ladder.fit/CrimeWeekly - Get a 7-Day FREE trial and $10 off your first month! 3. Pocket Hose - Text CW to 64000 for TWO FREE GIFTS with your purchase of a new Pocket Hose Ballistic! 4. https://www.Wildgrain.com/CrimeWeekly - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY to get $30 off your first box and FREE croissants for LIFE! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On June 4, 2022, 19-year-old Rachel Hansen called 911 from her apartment in Gilbert, Arizona, and told the dispatcher that someone had broken in and shot her while she was sleeping. Just minutes later, first responders found Rachel critically injured on the floor of her bathroom. She was rushed to the hospital, but, despite hours of emergency surgery, she did not survive. To everyone who knew Rachel, the shooting made no sense. She was a successful young entrepreneur and a beloved daughter, sister, and fiancé with her entire future ahead of her. She had no known enemies, no involvement in criminal activity, and no obvious reason anyone would want to hurt her. But as investigators began looking deeper into Rachel's life, they discovered several troubling leads,

including prior threats against her and a series of strange encounters at her apartment in the days leading up to the shooting. What initially appeared to be a census attack soon became far more complicated. leaving investigators trying to untangle a case filled with unanswered questions, conflicting theories, and a young woman whose future was stolen just days before her 20th birthday. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Lavasher. So today we are diving into a brand new case, Rachel Hanson. And Derek, you're actually familiar with this case. I am. I covered it on Detective Perspective. It was a while ago.

and it was before any of the police reports were released. And since then, we've had an opportunity to actually work with the family. So the episode did really well on my channel, which is much smaller than Crime Weekly. And with these new documents being released and this new information and still not having answers, I figured it would be a great case for us to cover here. I have my opinion on what happened. And so this is a little bit of a change up from what we normally do. But I'm interested to hear your opinions on it after we, you know,

go through the whole facts for everyone out there. Obviously, you know them now. And so this will kind of be a benefit to anyone who's never heard of this case, but also the people who heard about the case somewhere else or through detective perspective. Yeah, this is going to be new stuff. Yeah, with updates and, you know, our team working with the family, we are able to have more insight and more updates that even people who saw your detective perspective episode won't have.

Nope, brand new stuff, not in the DP episode. This is going to be, there's a lot more to break down here. And so I'm looking for it. is better for a dialogue as opposed to me just talking about it. But before we dive in, just a couple positive notes before we get into what we're really here for. First off, congratulations to the May Patreon winner, Ariel. Real quick thing for you guys, if you're a Patreon member, please make sure that you have a good email with us or you're checking your DMs a couple times a month. We did have another winner.

But unfortunately, we DMed them, we emailed them. They did not get back to us. and it was almost a week and a half at that point. So we want to get these, these are cool gifts. This month it was a Kindle. We want to get it out to you guys. We want to get it in somebody's hands. We want someone to use it.

So we picked a new winner. Congratulations, Ariel, you won. And then the big thing I wanted to talk about before we dive into this week's episode, CrimeCon just passed. You guys have heard us talk about it pretty religiously over the last couple of years, but we were just promoting it before we went out there. And for anybody who doesn't know yet, we're very pleased to announce that we were fortunate enough to win content creator of the year again. People's choice, yeah. People's choice,

which is voted on by the fans. It's voted on by you guys. And candidly, behind closed doors, Stephanie can back me up on this. We were up against some heavy competition, and I didn't think there was a shot in hell that we would win again because not only of the competition, but because we had previously won. And if you get a chance to go watch the video, we were both genuinely shocked that we won. We were shocked, but, I mean, obviously, please, so happy, so grateful. So happy. I think, you know, that when you're up for an award like this and you realize that it is the people's choice, it's even better than winning something.

Yeah, it's the best award of the night. Yeah, because there's a panel. Yeah, there's a panel of judges that vote on the other awards, and that's great. But to know that it was you guys that voted and chose us and you put your faith in us and you gave us this opportunity that we, were then able to share with you through the people who came to CrimeCon and then everyone else who wasn't at CrimeCon. Hopefully, a lot of people who keep saying they want to go. It's in Florida, Orlando.

Next year, it's October or September of 27, I believe. Yep. And so start planning now because we love to be able to talk to you guys at the booth, to be able to see you and then to be able to do this war ceremony and then see you afterwards and thank you in person for being the ones who put us there. You don't do it for the accolades, but to have. some tangible affirmation that you guys are approving of not only the cases we're covering them, but how we're covering them, and knowing that this all leads to the same thing, which is

a bigger platform to bring exposure to these cases and to try to help the people that we're actually talking about. So I say it all the time, sound like a broken record. We're not oblivious to the fact that we wouldn't be where we are without you. This show only goes as far as you guys take us. And we're so proud of the community that we've built over the years. And we're just getting started. So thank you again. It means the world to us. We love you guys. And we're going to keep on going. Yeah, we are. Like, like Derek said, you know, it's a benefit to be able to meet you guys, see you guys. And we do have a little bit of imposter syndrome. So we're always like, well, maybe everyone hates us, you know. And so when we get to see you guys, it's great for you,

but it's also great for us. Because what do I always say, Steph? I'm always like, I hope You know, we have a line every year, but I'm like waiting for the time when we plan for a line and we don't have one. And I'm like, yep, well, that's it. The carpet has been pulled out from under us. I'm waiting for it. But then, you know, we understand we're a family here. We're not going to just get tired of each other. Well, we might get tired of each other, but we'll still stick by each other through it all.

You're stuck with us. As long as you'll have us, you're stuck with us. We appreciate you guys so much. And yeah, on to the next year. We keep fighting. We keep getting stronger. We keep building what we're. doing here and we make sure that as many people as possible listen or or see these cases.

And we keep figuring out new ways to support victims and their families. And that's what I think I really love about Crime Weekly and the progression and how we're evolving is the more kind of visibility we have, the more options we have to connect with different people and find a way to continue to support victims and their families and advocates through. Well, the more influence we have too, right? Yeah. Like, I mean, let's just be honest. Like if we only had 10 people listening to the channel and we're bringing exposure to bad police work or whatever it might be, they're not going to listen to us because we're basically just a dot on the radar. But when you have hundreds of thousands of people listening, watching and it gets back to the decision makers, they have no choice but to listen. So the stronger we get, the more impact we have.

And so for instance, our previous crime weekly news was. Yeah, just came out this week. Yeah, Derek and I getting the opportunity to sit down with three Epstein service. survivors at Crime One. And their story needs to be told and heard and it needs to be decimated very widely and very far. And so that's what we're trying to do. And we might not have had the ability to even have that influence to secure that interview if it wasn't for you guys. We wouldn't have. If Crime Weekly wasn't doing what we're doing, they were very busy. They had a lot of interviews. They had bigger people who were interviewing them. And, you know, we were given that.

Yeah, Chris is one of them. And so it's because of you guys. that we had accessibility to them, and then afterwards we get to share their story and make sure that their messaging is getting out there the way they wanted to be received by you guys. So can't say it enough. Don't want to sound like a broken record, but we love you guys. It's amazing.

So Rachel Hanson is another case that needs more exposure. Why? Because it's not solved. Yeah, there's a lot of people that know about it, but we're sitting here years later, and the person responsible or the people responsible still haven't been held accountable, and Rachel's family still looking for answers.

I have my opinions on what happened here. I'm going to save them, but this should not be the case. You're going to save them, but you're going to tell us. Yeah. I'm going to tell you at the end for sure. And anybody who's watched Detective Perspective, you kind of know how I feel about it. But there's something here that I'm having a problem with as far as at this point, we should know who's responsible for this. I don't think it's at that difficult.

This is 2022. We always talk about older cases where science and technology. This happened in 20. We're in 2026. this happened in 2022. Yeah. 2020, right. So the science and technology is available, but anyways, I'm interested to hear your opinion

on it because maybe it'll be the same, maybe it'll be different, but I know everyone out there will have their opinions as well. Well, I don't know your opinion yet, so. That means you haven't watched Detective Perspective. What a friend you are. I did not watch that episode. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Which means I will have nothing to

live up to. Yes, that's why you didn't watch it. It's going to be, yes, it's going to be a genuine, my opinion and we'll see if it aligns with yours. And honestly, it's hit or miss. Sometimes we do and sometimes we don't. So I'm looking forward to seeing. So let's talk about Rachel. Rachel Ann Hanson was born on June 12, 2002, which is actually right around the corner from where we film this. June 12 is a few days away. But before Rachel found the family, she would eventually call her own, she endured years of instability and trauma. She had a rough start. Her family would later describe the first years of Rachel's life as the dark years.

And those experiences would leave a lasting impact on her. When Rachel was still a toddler, her mother abandoned her, and she entered the foster care system. She eventually went to live with a man who cared for her, but tragedy struck when he died unexpectedly. And to make matters worse, Rachel was the one who found his body, which I can't even imagine how traumatic that would be for a young child. And after her caretaker's death, Rachel was placed in emergency foster care. She spent the next six months with a family who told her they were going to adopt her. And for a little girl who had already experienced so much loss and disappointment, that promise meant everything. But when Rachel was around five years old, the family changed their minds.

And once again, Rachel found herself back in foster care. Not long afterward, Kim and Todd Hansen received a phone call asking if they would be willing to take Rachel into their Gilbert, Arizona home. Now, Kim and Todd, they weren't new to fostering. In fact, they had spent nearly two decades caring for children and had fostered more than 100 kids during that time. They had adopted eight of those children, in addition to raising four biological children of their own. Their large, spacious home sat on an acre of land, and there were usually anywhere from nine to 15 children living there at any given time. It was chaotic in all the best ways, and the Hansons loved having a full house. However, by the time they got the call about Rachel needing a foster home, the Hansons were winding down their foster careers.

They weren't planning on taking any more children. But then they heard that Rachel was the sister of one of the children the Hansons had previously adopted Grace, who was one year older than Rachel and had been living with the Hansons since she was a newborn. And so at that point, they were like, this just kind of makes sense. Grace is a part of our family. Rachel's a part of her family. So obviously Rachel is coming to live with us. And they didn't hesitate to take Rachel in as well. So Rachel soon joined the Hanson family.

but at first her foster parents, Kim and Todd, they chose not to tell Rachel or the other children that she and Grace were related. Kim told us that Grace and Rachel were half sisters, but they didn't look alike, and Kim felt it would be better to wait until Rachel had settled in and adjusted before sharing that information.

As Kim explained, quote, it just seemed better to wait until she had fit in and adjusted, and we were just one big family to not make the others feel displaced or anything, end quote. So later, they did tell both, the girls the truth, they understood, but even after Rachel found stability with the Hansons, there were still challenges ahead. Rachel had been diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder. This is a condition that can develop when a child experiences severe disruptions in caregiving

during their early years. According to the Mayo Clinic, children with reactive attachment disorder often struggle to trust adults, seek comfort from caregivers, or form healthy attachments. And this makes complete sense when you think about it. The nervous system of a child is developing in those early years. And if the nervous system of a child learns, adults can't be trusted. And even when I think somebody's going to take care of me, something happens to where that doesn't go through. And it's not what I thought. And I end up back in the same place I was.

That nervous system in order to protect the child is going to sort of learn more independence. I don't need anybody because I can't trust anybody and I can't depend on anybody. Nobody's consistent or reliable. And this causes obviously issues in childhood, but issues in adult life and adult relationships as well. I mean, you think about the trauma, the children experience and how they carry it through the rest of their lives when they're in their 30s, 40s, and their parents themselves. So, I mean, this is no different.

I think attachment disorders are becoming far more commonly understood now, but for a long time, they weren't. For instance, they used to kind of say, hey, you know, if your kid won't sleep a night, your baby won't sleep at night, then just put the baby in the crib and let it cry it out, right? That was the whole cried out method. And I have three kids. So I've gone through it and gone to doctors and been like, I don't know, they won't sleep, you know, oh, let her let them cry out. That's sleep training. But now that they, they've kind of figured out how the early nervous system works and how attachment to the parental figure works, Now new studies, new science is saying, actually, that's very detrimental to children to let them cry it out because it's a sign to them, I'm upset, I need something, and no one's coming. No one's coming to save me or help me. So, yeah, I think that these attachment issues are becoming far more prevalently spoken about, talked about, studied. And we're starting to see how they might be the crux to almost everything, you know, how people go forward in their adult life and how they form healthy attachments. or not healthy attachments and how they struggle with certain things

like commitment and trust and vulnerability. So it's definitely very important those early years what a child goes through and that's going to affect them for their entire lives. Now for Rachel, these struggles often showed up as fierce independence. She'd spent so much of her life taking care of herself. She didn't know how to let anyone take care of her.

And Kim told us that even something as simple as brushing Rachel's hair could turn into a battle. Kim would try to help her and Rachel would immediately say, I can do it myself. Kim would remind her that she didn't have to do everything alone anymore, but Rachel wasn't interested in help. Kim and Todd knew this response came from her traumatic early childhood, so they were understanding and patient. But of course, they're also adults and they want to now give Rachel a different life

and they want to show her, hey, you're still a kid and we are here to take care of you and we know how to do that unlike others in your past. And so we're here to kind of show you that there's a different way. that you can be cared for and you deserve to be. But it was very hard because Rachel had already developed this almost unconscious belief that no one could be trusted and no one could be depended on. And the longer Rachel stayed with the Hansons, the more certain they became that they wanted her to stay forever. They knew they couldn't be another family who walked away from her, not after seeing the results of that in Rachel as it was. So after only a few months,

they made the decision to adopt her. And when they talked to Rachel about it, she was excited. I wonder if there was a part of her that was also like, maybe this will fall through, like I'm excited, but I'm also not getting my hopes up kind of thing, which makes me very sad for young Rachel. But Kim told us that one day while she was making dinner, Rachel was sitting on the kitchen counter next to the stove talking with her about the upcoming adoption. Kim said Rachel, whose name was actually Rochelle at the time, suddenly asked, when I'm

adopted, do I get a new name? And Kim told her that it was up to her, that she was old enough to pick her own name if she wanted to. So Rachel thought about it for a moment and then said, I want a name from the Bible. And this made perfect sense to Kim because all of the Hanson children had biblical names, Matthew, Zachary, Andrew, Grace, Faith, Joshua, Jacob, and Benjamin. So after hearing that Rochelle wanted a biblical name as well, Kim suggested Rachel because it sounded similar to Rochelle, and it still started with an R. and it kind of gave Rachel that feeling of like starting over without completely changing a name that she'd had for so long. Now, as soon as Kim said the name, Rachel responded, quote, that's perfect. I want to be called Rachel, end quote.

And from that point forward, she was Rachel. Kim told us that Rachel was incredibly proud of choosing her own name and she talked about it all the time. It was something she got to decide for herself. And after so much of her life had been out of her control, that small autonomy meant a lot to Rachel. So Rachel was officially adopted by the Hansons on May 14th, 2007, and her name was changed to be Rachel Ann Hanson. The date meant so much to her that years later, Rachel got a tattoo on her arm with the numbers, 514, 2007, written in Roman numerals. So obviously for Rachel, the adoption, I think, meant so much to her because of all the disappointments in the past and all the times she thought, okay, this is stability, this is, you know, how I can set. and live my life and the rug was pulled out from under her.

But this adoption was, you know, not only a sign from the Hansons of like an emotional commitment, but also a legal one too. Yeah. It's solidified, I think, like, her identity for her. Like, this is, this was the real start to her life with this new family, with her sister, and with this new name, almost as if it was like, I don't know, I don't know what Rachel was thinking, but like a clean slate where any of the bad memories and the bad experiences that she had as Rochelle could be less.

with that name and this was a new official start. And I mean, yeah, it's speculative on my part, but I do think the fact that she memorialized that date with a tattoo signifies that it was more than just a name change. Oh, yeah. It was a new start. It was a new life path. Yeah. The one that would be the one that would bring her away from the trauma of her childhood

towards the young woman that had a family, had a secure ground under her, and could do things and achieve things with that, which is what she did. Yeah, she definitely did. There's a lot more to talk about. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. You know what happens to me all the time? I'll get completely buried in work.

And I look up at the clock and then I realize it's three o'clock in the afternoon and I haven't even eaten anything yet. I mean, I'm kind of the opposite. Like, I remember I need to eat, but I won't have anything ready and I'll put it off. And suddenly I'm standing in front of the refrigerator, staring at ingredients like they're going to assemble themselves. Right. And that's the problem.

You're trying to eat. healthy and it sounds like it's easy until you're actually busy. And that's why we love Factor, because these are chef-crafted meals that arrive fully prepared and ready in just a couple of minutes. That means no grocery shopping, no meal prep, no thinking about it, and no dishes piled up afterwards. And the most important part, they're actually really good. They taste great.

Yes, they do taste so good. I always talk about the bolognais. I do love it. But right now, because I'm in the gym, once a week, I'm trying to, you know, build some muscle. I like it. Once a week, we're starting. Once a week, it is. It's small, but it's something.

step in the right direction. So I'm trying to pack in the protein and I'm loving the peppercorn steak. Oh my gosh. One of my favorite meals. It's so good. Packed with protein. It's filling. It's perfect for those days when I've been researching, filming, editing. And I haven't eaten anything. I just need real food fast. Yeah. And so you're trying to put on muscle, but they've basically got options for any goal you can think of. So whatever you're trying to accomplish, factors got you covered. Yeah. That's the weight loss. They've got that higher protein. Like I'm in overall nutrition. They have GLP1 support. They even have workout recovery through their muscle pro collection. So they've got meals built around whatever your goals are. Plus, there's more than 100 rotating menu items and globally inspired meals, ready to eat salads. So they got the

miso at amami. That's a favorite of mine right now. Yep, delicious. And they even have extras like green juice and peanut butter energy bites, which is great because I used to make those peanut butter energy bites and they are good, but they take a long time. And then they got to sit in your refrigerator for like six hours or overnight to kind of solidify. And then there's peanut butter everywhere. It's very messy. With this, they taste just as good, probably better than anything I could make. And there's not peanut butter everywhere. So basically what Stephanie's saying is it's the convenience of takeout, but without the terrible decisions. We love Factor. You should try them out. It has genuinely made busy weeks so much easier for us. So had to FactorMeals.com slash crime weekly 50 off

and use code Crime Weekly 50 off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27, 2026. See website for more details. So Rachel is now kind of, okay, I'm on solid ground. I have a family. I know I'm wanted. But even after the adoption, she remained fiercely independent. And that's something that never really changed.

And it won't a lot of the times when you develop this kind of belief in your nervous system early on. You really kind of hold on to that. Independence was part of who Rachel was. and she liked doing things on her own terms. But that didn't stop her from being incredibly close to her parents. With her father, Todd, Rachel loves spending time outdoors, boating and camping with him. Rachel and Kim bonded over their shared love of animals.

Kim had been involved with horses for years, but by the time Rachel joined the family, Kim and Todd had already rehomed the rodeo horses, their older daughters had owned, so there weren't any horses at the house anymore. But it wasn't long before Rachel made it clear that she wanted to change that. Kim remembered Rachel climbing up on the fence surrounding the old horse pasture and telling her that she wanted a horse. Kim knew horses could be incredibly therapeutic, especially for children who had experienced trauma. So she didn't hesitate to get back into that lifestyle. They got a horse for Rachel who started riding at just six years old, and it quickly became obvious that Rachel had a natural talent.

Not only was she a gifted rider, but she seemed to have a special connection with horses in general. It was almost like she was the horse whisperer. Rachel loved horses so much that she couldn't wait for anyone to help her get on one. Kim would catch Rachel climbing up the fence, swinging her leg over onto the horses, and getting on completely by herself. A lot of the time she would do it barefoot and without a saddle, and sometimes she would just lay on the horses back. Kim told us there were mornings when she would look outside at 5.30 and see Rachel laying on top of a horse before most people had even started their day. That's just who Rachel was. And that just makes me nervous in general because I don't know if I've ever told the story, but I used to ride horse.

horses when I was young this young. Oh, you did. I got crap for laughing at this story. You've told this story, but go ahead, tell it again. I mean, this was just a beautiful horse. This horse and me had been together for years. It had never done anything out of character. And then one day, years after I'm riding her, she kind of bucked me off.

And I was still attached by the stirrups. And she kept going through our jumps. And it was kind of like me twisting and turning to avoid my head, like twisting my body in the air. should like avoid my head being hit by the by the wood of the of the jumps. And I don't, I wasn't successful in missing every jump. But she's laughing. I'm not. Yeah. You guys gave me last time for laughing through this whole story. I wasn't successful in missing every jump. But I got kind of, I got kind of beat up. And horses can be like any, you know, animal. It depends on the

day. Maybe they saw something. They got spooked. But young children around horses by themselves, hearing that she was on barefoot, sometimes without a saddle, which honestly probably would have been safer for me because then my foot wouldn't have gotten caught in the stirrup. But I understand the love of, and they are very therapeutic and throwing a blanket over the horses back and just laying on it. My youngest, Peyton, is infatuated with horses right now. She's riding every single week. In fact, you speak about riding barefoot. She had sneakers on in one of her early training sessions. She was just seeing if she liked it.

and a lot of you guys in my comments on Instagram like she needs her boots her strata the stear whatever they're called I don't know I just paid for it

but she has him now she has them now but yeah I do get a little nervous there at the at the farm because she'll be cleaning her horse

shout out wanton and he's smaller but I always get nervous because she's like sometimes a little oblivious and she always walks toward the back of them and I'm like dude

get away from there because if he kicks you in the chest he could kill you Yeah, because you're getting so into the, you're cleaning, you're brushing. And you're just, it's, it's therapeutic. You like go into this place when you're doing that. Your brain knows what you're doing.

So you don't really have to think about it. Your hands just do it. And then, yeah, you can walk behind the horse. And horses are very notorious for kicking backwards. I get nervous. But yeah, the horses are beautiful animals. They've got such personalities. But like you were saying a little while ago, sometimes they're in good moods and sometimes

they're in a bad mood. And you don't know why. Yeah. Like I said, my horse Goldie for years. Not a... Shout out Goldie. Yeah. I missed that horse, but I didn't want to get back on a horse after that.

It was very... No. But overall, I think what you're saying here, to bring it back to Rachel, is this again, just another thing where Rachel found her passion. She found something that she could be herself in, and she probably trusted those animals unconditionally, because unlike humans, she hadn't been betrayed by them yet. And so she felt probably more comfortable with them than she did with her peers, you know, just. That's actually a trademark of people who go through this attachment, these attachment issues in childhood, is they very much resonate with animals because they look at animals as like, you're innocent, you have no motive to hurt me. They feel safe with them. How many dogs were at CrimeCon this week?

Oh my God. You know, I loved them so much. We had the service dogs. Shout out to Hufflepuff. Hufflepuff. They kept bringing them over to me too because, you know, I get overstimulated and I kept hugging them because it was really just comforting. Yeah. Yeah, a couple nice emails from the handlers.

There was a lot of you guys who had had therapy dogs as well. Yeah, they're incredible. I love animals, babies, give them to me any day over an adult human. Yeah, for sure. So I think it also pulls back in Rachel's Independence Creek, where in her head, she's like, this animal's not going to hurt me. Yeah. And so there's nothing I have to protect myself against. I can do it on my own.

I can go out there. I don't need someone to help me. I don't need someone to, you know, I don't need to wait for someone to, you know, I don't need to wait for someone to help me. This is my horse. This is my friend. We are, we're good. And I mean that she is very independent, but it does give me a little like pause because it scares me a little bit. But as Rachel got older, she rolled all kinds of horses and she participated in rodeos. Kim said Rachel never met a horse that she couldn't get on. She could do things other people wouldn't even think about doing. And while it scared Kim to death sometimes, it all seemed completely

natural to Rachel. Kim recalled multiple stories that illustrated just how comfortable Rachel was around horses. One of her favorites happened when Rachel was around 12 or 13 years old. Near their home, there was a horse living in a pasture along a canal. Kim said the owners didn't seem to pay much attention to him, which I know bothered Rachel to no end. She sees this beautiful animal and she's like, this animal should be getting all the attention and love in the world. Yeah, and they're supposed to be ridden like every day from my understanding or makes them kind of like upset yeah so rachel's like why is this this beautiful innocent animal who would never heard a fly not getting the attention and love it deserves she started climbing the fence to spend time with this horse and she'd put a fly

mask on him because no one else did which i'm not sure if you know but flies obviously love horses and they you know horses have their tails that they can kind of swap flies off with but they don't have hands like us so they can't just like swat them away from their face. So if a horse doesn't have a fly mask on and they're just out in a wild pasture, the flies are going to be attacking their face. It's so sad. So Rachel was like, absolutely not. I'm going to put a fly mask on him. She obviously quickly became attached to this horse. Now one day Rachel came home and announced, quote, I'm just going to ask if I can bring the horse to our house and work with him. End quote. Now, Kim couldn't believe what she was hearing. The horse was only about a year old, completely untrained.

And to get him to the Hanson home, Rachel would have to walk him through the connection. area. From Kim's perspective, there was no way the owners were going to agree to that, but she was wrong. Before long, Rachel came walking across the backyard with the horse. The owners never questioned it, never contacted Kim, never even checked on the horse. I wonder if Rachel just went in the pasture and was like, you're coming with me. Yeah, well, also, based on how the horse was being taken care of, they probably didn't even notice it right away, but I'm sure she asked. I'm sure they were like, yeah, that's a burden off our plate. Thanks. Yeah, they were like, take the horse. Yep, it's yours.

So Rachel ended up caring for this horse for about six months. She eventually got a saddle on him and started riding him. He would sometimes buck Rachel right off onto the ground, but she would just get up and climb right back on. So Rachel and this horse are building trust with each other. Rachel can almost, I think, relate to the horse. Like, I understand what it's like to be scared and not trust people. I understand what it's like to buck people off.

But I'm going to show you that I'm stable and solid and that you can trust me. And I understand that it's going to take patience and time to achieve. that because that's what it takes for people to achieve that with me. Now, Kim told us another story from when Rachel was around 13 or 14 years old. Rachel learned about an Arabian horse that needed rescuing and was living about four miles from their house. She told Kim about it and Kim agreed to take the horse trailer over so they could see if they could help.

Kim said they spent hours trying to get the horse into the trailer, but nothing worked. The horse simply refused to go. So Rachel came up with another plan. Instead of loading the horse into the trailer, she decided she was just going to ride it home. Now, not only has Rachel never even been on this horse before, but the horse didn't have a saddle. So Rachel climbed on, bareback, and rode the horse all the way back to the house where the horse lived for the next few years. Stories like that became common throughout Rachel's life. She always took the opportunity to rescue a horse whenever she had the chance, and horses weren't the only animals Rachel loved.

The family property was home to chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, peacocks, pigs, pigs and goats, and Rachel loved caring for all of them. If you think about it, the Hanson's home and their land and their farm was the perfect place for someone like Rachel to be. I mean, I'm jealous right now. I want to live there. Peacots, like what? I don't want to take care of it, but I like the idea of it. I just want to stroll around and say hi to all the animals. Kim joked that Rachel could, quote, catch a mad chicken like nobody's business, end quote.

She also loved helping the animals give birth, which she learned to do working alongside her mother, Kim. Kim told us that one year she traveled to Rwanda to visit one of her daughters. and while she was gone, one of the family's goats went into labor. And Kim was obviously worried because she wasn't there to help, but Rachel knew exactly what to do. She successfully delivered the baby goat herself and then sent Kim a picture afterwards saying it all went smoothly. And that little goat obviously quickly became Rachel's baby.

She bottle fed it, let it sleep in her bed, and spoiled it so much that the goat seemed to think it was actually a dog. When Kim got home from Rwanda, she had to remind Rachel that the goat couldn't live in the house forever. Why? Why, Kim? I know it's going to get bigger, but otherwise, why? Don't we have an extra room here for the goat? But even so, Rachel continues spending as much time with her goat as possible.

There's even photos of Rachel floating in the pool in an intertube with the goat beside her. Kim said Rachel actually taught the goat how to swim, which was something she had never seen before. And we'll put a picture up of Rachel here with her goat in the intertubes. tube. I mean, that's adorable. That's the cutest thing I've ever seen. The goat's clearly still very small here. Yes. But not that small, to be honest. Living his best life, though. Like, no complaints. The goat learned how to swim. Amazing. And that's really, once again, like, just a sign of who Rachel was. Yeah. Because some people think that when a person has, like, attachment issues, they can't love, they can't care. It's not that. They just need the right.

environment in the right circumstances to love and care. And then in those circumstances, they are the most caring people that could exist. I also think, and I think a lot of people agree with me on this, is, I mean, animals may not be able to speak, but they have this innate ability to read people and understand who the good ones are. And they gravitate toward those people. They're a judge of character, yeah. And you, if you're having a bad day or something, I feel like they can sense it. They do. They can. Yeah. And so with Rachel, clearly she was accepted by these animals.

And I think that's because they genuinely could tell that she was there to help them. She wasn't there to hurt them. She didn't have it in her. She didn't have it in her to hurt them. Right. And they had a comfort around her because of who she was just naturally. That's not something you can fake because they'll sniff right through the bullshit. You can fake it with people maybe for a little while, but not with animals.

Yeah. No. And so clearly she was one of the good ones, not only based on the actions that you're describing here, but the animals themselves told you the story. She had the seal of approval from the animal kingdom. Think about the Arabian horse, right? They're having all these difficulties with it. And she was able to hop on it, bear back, ride at home, no issues. That horse allowed her to do that. If it wanted to, it could have really hurt her, but it was accepted her without even really knowing her. And so, yeah, these stories are, and a lot of this I didn't

talk about in detective perspective because I'm more fact-based, but these things are important because we're going to talk about the crime, no doubt about it, but it's always important to know about the victim as well, because we have to remember them that way, right? Yes, we're talking about her because of this tragedy and we're trying to get answers for her and her family, but it's important not to lose sight of who they were in life and what they brought to everyone that they met. To me, that's the most important part. Most important. Yeah, the most important foundation to build. I agree. I agree. Well, Rachel's caring nature extended far beyond animals. She genuinely loved helping people too. She participated in fundraisers, including barrel races that

raised money for a friend with a serious medical condition. She was always looking for ways to support others in her community. She helped collect food for food drives, organized baskets for auctions, and she volunteered whenever and wherever she could. In fact, Rachel was just 10 years old when she loaded up a wagon and pulled it around the neighborhood asking people to donate food, and then she collected everything she was given and donated it to families in need, which is just a stunning thing to see a 10-year-old kid do, right? Because usually kids are very self-involved, which they should be. But you can really tell, like, once again, Rachel has been searching for connection all of her life.

And she is always thinking about those who are kind of side thoughts to everyone else, the people who are in need, the animals. She's always kind of like she wants to make sure that she's including them when she is, giving out her love and her care. And I think that's amazing. And once again. And think about what you said there. This is a 10-year-old girl. Yeah, that's crazy. Right? And think about the stories that you're describing. You don't usually align them with the 10-year-old. I got a 10-year-old at home, love her to death, but she has to be guided in this direction. She's got a great heart. But, you know, the initiative that Rachel was taking at such a young age because of the experiences that she had. She didn't want anybody else to feel that way. Yeah, the independence she had. I'm not going to

wait around for somebody to tell me what to do. I do things in my own terms. I feel like I have an idea. I want to do it. I'm going to execute it. That's it. And you could start to see, there is a big following that has been consistent with Rachel's story. This is a case that is more known and people still to this day are fighting hard for justice for her. And now you can kind of understand why. When you hear these stories about Rachel, it either reminds you of someone that you know or just in general, you're like, this is an amazing person and to think that we're here talking about her because she was murdered. How could this happen to someone like this?

And I think that's why people gravitate toward this case. Yeah, she reminds me of the girls when you were talking about, you know, the Arabian horse and yeah, those were the books that I was reading when I was six and seven years old. The books that made me want to ride horses, you know, the books about these girls who were just so special and they were so giving and they were like little adults almost, you know, they had this drive in life and motivation. and they knew what they wanted, and they're like, I want to see that wild horse be tamed. It needs love.

And I was like, yeah, I'm going to ride horses. I'm going to do that too. You know, it's somebody to aspire to be. So even as an adult in our 40s, we look at 10-year-old Rachel and we're like, I would aspire to be that. I'm impressed. I admire you for this. Absolutely. Yeah.

So we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. I think one of the most frustrating things about working out is not the workout itself. It's wondering if what you're doing is even working. Like it's so much time and energy dedicated to something. You're thinking about it. You're doing it. You're sore afterwards.

And then you're like, is this even accomplishing what I want to accomplish? Right. I've definitely been there. You spend an hour at the gym. And then you leave and you're thinking, was any of that actually productive? Exactly. And that's why we love the ladder app. It takes all the guesswork out of it.

Now, before ladder, I would, you know, I'd be on like social media, Instagram, TikTok. I'd save random workouts, try random things I found online and kind of piece everything to myself, but my question was, is anything connecting? And the answer was probably not. There was no actual plan. Yeah, and that really is the difference. The ladder app isn't just a bunch of workouts. It's an actual training plan. You have your own trainer. Shout out Brian. Because it's like an actual strength training plan designed by these certified coaches. So the good thing is, I think that's why honestly, I just realized that that's probably why they call it ladder because every workout builds on the one before. So it's like climbing up.

up a ladder. There you go. Look at you. Light bulb moment. So every week, built on the previous week, you're not randomly exercising. You're training towards something. Yeah. And like I said, it actually feels like you have your own coach with you. And there's actually a chat room attached to ladder as well. And you can see all the other people who are on the same program as you. And if you're in there enough, you'll see the trainer, Brian, actually in there talking with everyone, motivating you, making sure that you stay in the gym, make sure you stay focused on the workouts that he's giving us on a daily basis, it really does give you a sense of community. Yeah, it does. And it's cheaper than hiring a personal trainer, which is cool because it costs

less than a dollar a day. And that's kind of crazy when you think about what one personal training session cost. And trust me, I've done this before. And I don't even want to think about what one personal training session costs. So for me, the biggest benefit is simple. I never have to wonder what workout I'm doing anymore. I open the app. My plan's already waiting for me. and I'm not feeling guilty about the money I'm spending. So remove the guesswork with the ladder, get a real coach in your year telling you exactly what to do for every workout, no thinking, everything planned for you.

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Yeah, you're going to love it. It's great. It's great. Check them out. Rachel Hansen stood out in school as well. She was an excellent student and academics came naturally to her. In fact, Rachel was often finished with her homework before she even got home, which sometimes irritated her siblings who still had assignments waiting for them.

But Rachel had a good reason for getting everything done so quickly. Do you know what it was, Derek? Let me guess. I'm going to guess and say the horses. Yeah, exactly. So Rachel's not just like, I love school. I can't wait to do my homework. She's like, let me get all of this stuff out of the way.

So I can do what I really want to do. Yeah. Spend time with my horses. She wanted to spend as much time as possible with her horses. And when she wasn't at school or caring for animals, Rachel was usually involved in sports. She loved both wrestling and soccer. And in eighth grade, she was even on the football team,

making her the only girl on the roster. Once she got to high school, Rachel initially became a manager for the wrestling team. But during one meet, a wrestler was able to compete because of an injury. And Rachel stepped in to fill that spot. after that she transitioned from team manager to wrestler and that decision really didn't surprise anyone who knew her. Rachel was always doing her own thing.

She never seemed concerned about whether someone was considered typical or expected. She wasn't really concerned with what people thought of her. It was just like this personal compass of what she wanted to achieve. And the more we learned about Rachel, it's like they should have made a movie about this person. You know, she sounds like the perfect, just the perfect like well-rounded individual. loves animals, great with animals, you know, donates her time to charity, thinks about others before herself. She's smart.

She's competent. She is good at sports. It kind of seemed like anything she wanted to do. Save some for the rest of us, Rachel. Yeah, right? Like anything she wanted to do or even if it was something she didn't want to do, she was just like, well, if I'm going to do it, I might as well be the best at it. Yeah, I might as well be, right?

Love that. It's kind of awesome. So Rachel also played soccer throughout high school. Of course she did. Of course she did. She was probably amazing. But whether she was on the field, around the horses, or in the classroom, people seemed to just gravitate towards her. I wonder why.

Because everyone's like, hey, can I get some of that star power you have? Yeah, for sure. She was well-liked by just about everyone she met. She had a reputation for being exceptionally kind. One friend described her by saying, quote, it was hard to have a bad day around Rachel. she was the sweetest person and no doubt a lot of people's best friend, end quote. And I'm starting to kind of, I also feel a little bit like, is this a people pleasing tendency though that some people get from these attachment issues in early childhood?

Like if I'm always good at everything, if I'm always the best, if I prove my value through everything I do, then maybe I'll be chosen and maybe I won't be left. Because I know a lot of people, I've done a lot of research into this and I know a lot of people in adulthood say that they are perfectionists when they become adults. They feel the need to show everybody around them, I'm worth something. So even though the early years of my childhood did everything to show me I wasn't, I want to show everybody that I am. And this does sometimes lead to, you know, like I said, that perfectionist streak, burnout, kind of always trying to be on and on top of everything and never letting anyone down. Well, maybe secretly,

you're abandoning yourself a little bit. Like you're not filling your own cup enough. So I'm kind of curious to see whether those strands pull back in as we go through Rachel's story. But just as she grew, she's a teenager now, she's in high school. Rachel stays focused on sports, horses, and her grades. And by her senior year, all of her hard work had paid off when she was offered a full ride scholarship to attend Northern Arizona University and play soccer. She accepted the offer and planned to leave her college after graduation.

Everything was in place, but as the move got closer, things became more complicated. So Rachel's mom Kim told us that the weekend before Rachel was scheduled to leave for college, she had a panic attack and decided she couldn't go. Kim believes Rachel's history of abandonment made it difficult for her to be away from the people she loved the most, the place she had finally found, you know, safety in. And that makes complete sense, of course. Total sense. Yeah.

So instead of heading to Northern Arizona University, Rachel made a different. decision. She gave up that scholarship and focused on building a future for herself at home. Yeah. But it totally makes sense. It does. I mean, we all start, or most of us, not everybody, where we have this childhood and we build this ecosystem, if you will, where we have people in it, and we developed rapport with individuals. And then you're looking for that opportunity to get out and become a more independent person. Rachel had the opposite experience where she went through the first part of her life not being able to trust anyone and it probably took her a long time to get to that point many years she didn't have the foundation that many of us had so once she found

it she didn't want to let it go because she knew how hard it was to obtain it so to have to start over from from ground zero for you and i you know we go off to school not as big of a deal but for someone who's experienced such trauma at such an early age that's a big change to have to go back and everything you've worked towards the last 10 years. Now you've got to start over. Yeah. Not easy. They did these studies with babies when they were studying attachment in, you know,

early childhood and in infancy. And they showed that the babies who had secure attachment, they would be with their moms. And then they would put like toys and other stuff in the room for the kid to go look at. And the baby would crawl away from the mother. and every so often, like, check and see if the mom was still there, but go and play and explore. The baby had no problem exploring because it had a secure attachment. But the babies had a place to go home to. And it knew that place isn't going to leave me.

It's right there. I'm going to check maybe once in a while. Now, the babies with insecure attachment, they were very clingy. They didn't want to go explore. They wanted to, like, stay right with their mothers. And when they did, after a little while, feel like maybe they could crawl a little bit away, they kept looking back, kept looking back, kept looking back to make sure the mother was still there. and they never really did have that desire to go and explore all these new things like the baby with secure attachment did.

So it shows you because Rachel didn't have a secure attachment. She didn't feel safe to go and explore the world. She wanted to make sure what I have here is going to stay here. And the only way I can make sure that's going to happen is by having my eyes on it. Yeah. Well, I also think that level of comfort and trust is a commodity that if you're born with it, you can take for granted where Rachel really learned to appreciate it. because she saw the other side of the coin at a very young age so that when she finally got what she had been searching for and wanting her whole life, that was something that she really

valued. And she wasn't willing to give that up for the college experience like many of us dumb young kids would do. She appreciated it much more than we ever could. Well, a lot of kids, too, who come from bad homes and they stay in those bad homes, they want to get the hell out and go to college. Yeah, there is the adverse. Yeah, that is also true. Because they're like, there's got to be something better out there than this. Yeah. But she was like, this is as good as I've ever known it to be. This is her sanctuary.

What could possibly be better than this out there? And also, I'm sure, I mean, I wish she was here to tell us herself. But like, she definitely was drawn and more trusting of animals. And it was like the perfect world for her. And she was smart enough to know that going to a university, you're not going to have that. It's going to be more city living. They might have like an agriculture program or like a horticulture. They might have something there.

Yeah. the extent of this. It's not going to be your farm in your backyard where you're swimming with goats. Not this perfect ecosystem that she had built around herself there. That's right. Yeah. That's right. Well, Rachel stays home, but she's not going to just be like, oh, I'm fine. I don't want to grow. She didn't want to grow. She started her own business, training, riding, hauling, selling, and locating horses for clients. So which is perfect. It's her calling. Yeah, her calling. And she named it Arizona Hansen Horses and she approached it the same way she approached everything else in life with determination. and a clear plan to be the best, right?

Rachel created a website. She developed a business strategy. She spent a lot of time networking and promoting her services on Facebook. She was only 18 years old, and she was already fully committed to making this business successful. Rachel soon moved out of her parents' house and into an apartment located at 1900 South Coronado Road in Gilbert, near San Tan Village Parkway and Ray Road. The apartment, you know, it's a step in the direction of kind of, okay, I can

leave home a little bit. Independence. But it's still only three miles away from the Hansen's place, which gave her, you know, that little independence while still keeping her close to home so she could go and visit whenever she wanted. And Kim said Rachel felt happier and safer knowing that her family was nearby. But then, after living in the apartment for a period of time, Rachel accepted a job that included both working and housing on a horse ranch around 30 minutes away in Queen Creek. So now this is out of her comfort zone, right? We're not doing baby steps anymore.

We're going from three miles away from home to several miles away from home. I don't know exactly how many miles it would be, but 30 minutes away. That's probably like- A little bit of a troop, maybe 20 miles. Yeah, 20, 25 miles. Now, Rachel's lease wasn't over yet at her apartment. So she sub-lease the apartment and moved onto the ranch with her boyfriend, Joe Metz. So Rachel threw herself into ranch work while continuing to build her relationship with Jomet.

Now, it wasn't long before the couple became engaged. So Kim and Todd weren't concerned about the engagement, despite Rachel's very young age. They actually really loved Jomet. They adored him. They knew the two of them weren't planning to rush into marriage. In fact, Rachel and Jomet planned to stay engaged for several years because so many wedding venues were booked following the pandemic. Their focus was on building their careers, traveling, enjoying life to. together before starting a family. As Kim explained, quote, she had a lot she wanted to do,

travel and see, end quote. And I like this for Rachel. So now she's kind of like trusting another person, a partner. And now this partner can be her sort of portable safe place, right? So now I can feel safe to go out into the world and travel and see things, which somebody like Rachel should do and would want to do because she had such a curious mind. But I can bring my person with me. So my little piece of home and my safe place is coming with me, transporting around. Yeah. And I also felt when I read this the first time, and I could be wrong, please correct me on this, but I feel like Jomet understood Rachel as well, because here is someone who had issues

with abandonment and these attachment issues. And even though they weren't going to get married for a few years, there was a promise made that I'm not going to leave you. There's a commitment. Yeah. I'm here and I'm in it for the long haul. We'll do this. We don't got to get married tomorrow.

Yeah, we'll do this at your pace. Yes. What I'm willing to do it. You can trust me. You can let go. You can allow me in because I'm not going anywhere. And so I think Joe Matt probably through conversations that he had had with Rachel over the years and understanding which she had endured gave her that commitment and wanted to let her know this isn't just, you know, we're not just going out here. This isn't going to be a short term thing.

I want to spend the rest of my life. with you, you can trust me. I mean, honestly, for someone like Rachel to even end up living with a person, like a partner, a romantic partner, Joe Matt would have had to approve to her. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That already that she could trust him, that he was safe and that she could be vulnerable around him.

For her to even open up her living space, someone like Rachel, that would be a very big step, like a very big commitment. Yeah. And so I think that he probably did know, understand. and showed that patience that she needed to see that, you know, he's here. He's not just going to run away if I have a bad day. He's not going to run away if he finds out I'm broken or there's something wrong with me or I have a flaw. Because a lot of kids who go through that abandonment issues in early childhood,

they, of course, internalize it. There's something wrong with me, and that's why no one stays around. Yeah, it's terrible, but you're wrong. So while Rachel's relationship was going well, the same could not be set for her situation at the ranch, that new job that she took. Now, she was having ongoing difficulties with the owners. The job wasn't turning out the way she had hoped. As a result, Rachel kept thinking about what she wanted to do next and where she wanted to live.

So around that same time, she earned her real estate license and began making plans to specialize in helping people buy and sell properties with livestock and horses. So by the end of May of 2022, things were becoming increasingly stressful for 19-year-old Rachel. She learned that the people sub-leasing her apartment had not been paying the rent, which suddenly created a significant financial burden. Now, I do have a question. You probably know this, because I know you have like, you know about property management and stuff. If you have an apartment, your lease isn't up, you sublet it. That means you're the lease holder now for this other person. But with the initial property or person that you made the lease with, you're still,

you still owe them the money. So it doesn't take the initial agreement between you and the initial person and put it on the new person. You're just the middleman now, right? Yeah. And many cases it's not even allowed. So there might have been an agreement here where it was. That might have been something in this area that was okay. But yeah, you can sub lease. Usually when you sub lease, it's you're living there with this person who's subletting a room, but to completely lease it out to them, usually the landlord or the property owner will make you give up that apartment and just lease directly to the new tenant because there's a lot of responsibilities and a lot of obligations as far as... And a lot of things that could go wrong. Yeah. Yeah, maintaining the property and who's

going to be responsible if something's damaged. Right. Yeah. So maybe it was being done legally. Maybe it wasn't. But it is important to point this fact out because when we start getting into the nuts and bolts of this case and we're going to go back to this apartment, I do think some of this information here that you're discussing is extremely important when we start to think about

potential suspects and motives. So do not, if you're listening or watching right now, we're talking about sub-leasing, but do not gloss over this because the important fact to remember here is that somebody else was living in this apartment that I don't want to get too far ahead, but Rachel's going to end back at. We're going to talk about it. But that is to me critically important to the story. So what Derek's saying is Rachel leaves because she's got to go to this ranch where she's got the job. And the part of the job is you have to live here, right? Yep. Now Rachel's like, well, things aren't going great with the job. What am I doing next? And then at the same time,

She finds out the people that she's sub-leasing the apartment to that she used to live in, they're not paying the rent. And this leaves her with very few options because she could pay the rent for them and let them stay living there. But why would you do that? And who could afford that? So in the end, Rachel decides it's easier, you know, I can't force them to pay. And I'm going to be financially responsible anyways. It's easier for me to just move back into that apartment.

That's right. So the job with the ranch isn't going great anyway. She's making other plans. It's kind of like, okay, this is where my focus. needs to be. So she made the decision to move back into that apartment herself. Even though she knew she could always move back home, Rachel wanted to figure things out on her own. She was determined to handle the situation herself. Also, she's got a lease, right? And you've got to pay to get out of that lease. Yeah, it might be a year or two year, whatever it is. You're financially obligated to pay

that thing off. Right. So Rachel and her boyfriend, Joe Matt, packed up their belongings. Joe Matt moved in with his parents while Rachel moved back into her Gilbert apartment on June 1st. At that point when Rachel moved back into her Gilbert apartment, she was less than two weeks away from her 20th birthday, which would have been on June 12th. And the family had already started making plans to celebrate. They planned to spend the day at Canyon Lake. This was one of Rachel's favorite places. She loved tubing, water skiing, and cliff jumping. But tragically, they would never get to do any of that.

And that's kind of, you know, I want to lay out the timeline. It looks like Rachel's got this job at this ranch. then the whole thing happening with the apartment goes down, she moves back into the apartment, and shortly after that is when she's killed. Yes. Yes. And I think there's something to that. I agree.

I don't think that's something that's just a coincidence. And I think it does, it may give us some insight into what happened, why it happened, and who potentially is responsible. Yeah, I agree, actually, that the timing is important here. So again, just to reiterate, someone else was living there, not connected to her. Not connected to her in the way of, you know, they were just somebody she found to lease the apartment while she was gone. That's correct. She wasn't aware of what was going on in that apartment before she took it back over.

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And right now, for a limited time, when you purchase a new pocket hose ballistic, you'll get a free 360-degree rotating pocket pivot and a free thumb-drive nozzle, which is awesome as well. All you have to do is text CW to 64,000 for your two free gifts with purchase. Once again, that's CW to 64,000. Message and data rates may apply. So on the night of Friday, June 3rd, two days after Rachel moved back into her apartment, she spent the evening with her boyfriend Joe Met. The two had dinner together and they spent some time at the apartment complex pool.

They planned to watch a movie before spending the night together. So at around 9 p.m., Rachel spoke with her mom, Kim, on the phone. And at the time, Kim was in Indiana visiting some of her grandchildren, which meant she hadn't been able to help Rachel move back into the apartment. Kim told us that on that evening, nothing seemed unusual during. During the call, Rachel sounded happy, was excited to be settling back into her place, and before they got off the phone, Kim told Rachel she would be home on Sunday and would help her finish unpacking. And that was the last time they ever spoke.

A few hours later, at around 11.30 p.m., Jomet received a phone call from his father telling him he needed to come home. And even though the original plan had been for Jomet to stay the night with Rachel, he then left Rachel's apartment around midnight, not realizing he'd never see her again. So we're kind of pulling this thread back in. Although Joe Met's not living with her at the apartment, it doesn't seem like the two are, you know, kind of living separate lives. He's spending the night with her whenever he can. But for some reason, that evening, his father needed him back home. Now, just a couple of hours later, at approximately 2 a.m. on June 4th,

Rachel called 911 and told the dispatcher, quote, I've been shot, someone broken and shot me, end quote. And then she provided her address and her apartment number. She then pleaded, quote, please hurry, please hurry, I'm bleeding, I'm bleeding. End quote. The dispatcher immediately began asking questions and trying to gather information. When asked whether anyone else was inside the apartment, Rachel said no and confirmed that the person who shot her had already left. The dispatcher tried to keep Rachel talking while help was on the way.

They instructed Rachel to apply pressure to the wound with a shirt, towel, or anything she could reach. But Rachel said she didn't have anything nearby. So as the call continued, the dispatcher urged her to stand the line saying, quote, Rachel, I need you to talk to me, okay? End quote. Rachel's response was heartbreaking. She simply replied, I can't. Approximately four and a half minutes after Rachel placed the call, police officers and firefighters arrived at the apartment complex. Body camera footage, portions of which have been blurred and redacted, shows officers rushing through the area with their weapons drawn while they searched for a possible suspect.

But just like Rachel said, the shooter was gone. And when first responders finally entered Rachel's apartment, they found her bedroom door had been kicked in, and Rachel was lying on the floor of her bathroom, suffering from a single gunshot wound. So in the body cam footage, officers can be heard repeatedly encouraging Rachel to stay with them as paramedics work to stabilize her. She was then rushed to the hospital, where surgeons spent the next three hours fighting to save her. her life, but they were faced with a devastating injury. Rachel had been sleeping on her back when she was shot. The bullet entered her lower left abdomen and traveled upward before exiting through her upper right shoulder. Rachel's mom Kim told us that the surgeon who treated Rachel

said injuries with that trajectory are almost always fatal. But because Rachel was so young and healthy, doctors remained hopeful and they worked tirelessly to save her. Sadly, despite their efforts, Rachel died three hours later. And so there's a few things that we can unpack here, right? First off, on that phone call, I know a lot of you guys are going to be saying, well, did Joe Matt actually go home? Was it, you know, could it have been him? At this point, Rachel's coherent.

She's talking on the phone. It's very reasonable to assume that if she had seen the shooter and recognized it to be Joe Matt, she would have said my boyfriend just shot me. She did not say that. It's my belief without knowing with 100 percent certainty that she probably didn't see the shooter. When you think about the crime scene itself, either this person was covered or it was too dark in the room. But it appears to me that they came into the room, kicked the door open, and didn't even really go over her. They just shot quickly and ran back out of the room.

And so this was a premeditated attack. They were going there with a deliberate purpose. And there was someone who was intended to be shot. The question is, and I pose it here, and we'll talk about it throughout the rest of this episode. And the next one was Rachel the intended. target. Now let me ask you a question. The surgeon said that this trajectory that Rachel had been shot out is often fatal. Do you think, given that you believe the person ran in shot and then ran out, do you think the person who shot Rachel intentionally or knowingly shot her at that trajectory,

knowing it would be fatal, or do you think they just got lucky with that? Yeah, I think they just got, I think it was the angle which they were at. So if you're picturing this, she's in bed. She's obviously horizontal at this point. The shooter comes in and depending on their height, depending on their posture and stance, they shoot toward her, but it's almost, it's on an angle, but it's almost parallel to her body. So without even trying, they inflict the most damage because we've talked about ballistics before. When you think about this round exiting the firearm and then mushrooming, it becomes a lot bigger, maybe a quarter in size. So now it's entering your body. And in some cases, is you're shot through and through where you'll be lucky.

And even though it's a big round, it misses any vital organs. But when you visually kind of interpret this, it's going into her stomach and then up through her shoulder. So it's basically tearing up everything inside her body in between that path. And so it's just, it doesn't leave a lot of hope that it's not going to hit a vital organ. So you don't think it was like somebody who was kind of trained and knew, hey, if I shoot this person this way? If, no, if it was trained and it was a deliberate execution, somebody who had any type of experience in the past, what would be the most efficient way to do this?

In the head? You have someone who's asleep. You have the drop on them. You run in there. You shoot them in the head. It's game over. To me, this sounds like an amateur. This sounds retaliatory.

This sounds like someone who had an objective, but didn't really want to be there, didn't want to get caught. So as soon as they boot the door in, they shoot quick, they hope they hit what they were intending to hit. And they run back out without even confirming that the person. they're looking for is in the bed and then they actually hit the person they were trying to hit. Or without confirming the person was dead. Right. I think this is an amateur for sure. This is someone who may have experience with firearms, may be involved in some type of violent

activity or a group or organization, but is by no way, shape, or form an assassin. This comes off as gangbanging to me, kind of. Something like that where it's quick, retaliatory in the moment, in and out. And again, I know I'm saying a little bit here, but it's kind of impossible. not to. I want you guys to be in my head as well and where I'm going with this as far as how I feel without influencing you, but take all of this into consideration because again, just to reiterate, Rachel wasn't even in that apartment. A few weeks prior. Yeah. That's right. A few weeks prior, right? There was somebody else in that bedroom. Something to keep in mind as we continue to move forward.

So they also, they didn't stop to make sure that she actually died because as you said, she's sleeping. as I said, she's sleeping, but they weren't worried that she saw them. And even Rachel herself was able to call and stay alive for long enough and said, no, I didn't see who did this to me. That's right. Yeah, I think it was too dark. And there's some other things we'll talk about. And I know you're going to bring them up.

I'm sure it's in the script somewhere. But it's, that's my take on it so far. And I think that the ballistics and the crime scene itself, how it was carried out is suggestive of that. It was just quick. In and out. Done. That's it. You break into the apartment.

kicked the bedroom door down. They sometimes refer to as, you know, pray and spray. I mean, you're not even looking where you're shooting. If the police found Rachel's bedroom door kicked down, it would have had to have been very quickly because obviously quick enough where even the sound of her door being kicked in didn't wake her up enough before she was shot. That's right. There's not a lot of reconnaissance put into this, right? They didn't know if there was another person there. They didn't know if people were awake, if they were asleep. It seems like this was, there was not a lot of thought put into the shooting. They were there to send a message.

Send a message, yeah. And that was it, in and out. All right. So at approximately 7 a.m., officers went to the Hanson family home to deliver this devastating news to Rachel's father, Todd. Because remember, Kim is out of town. And Todd was then faced with the unimaginable task of calling Kim and telling her that their daughter was gone.

And Kim told us they were completely shocked. They had no idea who could have done this to Rachel. or why. Rachel had no known enemies. She wasn't involved in criminal activity. She wasn't living a high risk lifestyle. She was a 19 year old woman just weeks away from her 20th birthday trying to build a future for herself. Can we talk about that as well? Because when we're thinking about motive, right, Rachel didn't have any enemies, right? We are going to talk about the previous relationship with the horse owners where she was staying. At the ranch, yeah. At the ranch. But if this was someone who was at the apartment complex or knew Rachel, in most cases, just

historically speaking, what are you going to see before the shooting? If this was somebody who knew Rachel? Right. What would be the motive for killing her in this way? Sexual and nature. Yeah, sexual in nature. Or if it was something, you know, more personal, like from anger, you'd see some sort of, I think, other things happening to Rachel.

I would expect to just be candid to see some signs of a sex crime prior to the shooting, something where this person had been watching her and know she's alone, even though Jomet was there till midnight, but somehow knew that she was alone, goes in there with the intention on sexually assaulting her and then killing her. This person did not do that. There was no signs of sexual assault. This was as simple as going in there, shooting and leaving. Nothing else. So again, you ask yourself why. who would have the reason to want to even kill Rachel, but what would be the purpose of this?

What message are you sending? What could she have done that was so heinous that you would want to kill her? And from all accounts, everybody who's looked into this case, detectives, PIs, there's nothing in her past that suggests there was anyone in her life that would want to take her out,

that would want to kill her. And so not having any signs of a sexual assault, coupling that with nothing in her history that suggests she had enemies, it really leaves you wondering, was she the person? Was she the person that was intended for this bullet? And for me, I've always struggled getting there.

Well, I mean, also, like you said, this was retaliatory, right? It feels that way. Yeah, but that means she would have had to have done something. Owe somebody money, right? Mainly that's what you'd expect. She owes somebody money, enough money where they know they're not going to get it. And her life in exchange for that is what they're going to get. And they're trying to also.

And she hadn't been back there long. Yeah. And they're also trying to send a message to someone else who may be involved with Rachel who may see what happened to her and say, oh, I better get these people their money or I better not do the same thing that she did or I better make myself scarce. So there's somebody who's being left alive who's going to understand what this means. There should be. If she's the right person, yeah, there should be another person who's going to get this message, receive it and then say, okay, now I have to respond. Now I have to answer whatever they're asking for. And it just doesn't make sense because the person who did this would have been someone who would have been close in her life because this was kind of not something that was super planned out, her going back home.

So it would have been someone who would have known that she had made the decision to boot the people out that were in there before and move back to the apartment. Yeah, it kind of seems like the people Rachel was closest to her boyfriend and her family. That's right. Yeah. That's right. And obviously the people who were living there. Yeah, she doesn't have this huge group of friends who are knowing her every move. And at the end of the day, what you're saying is if Rachel was the target,

somebody would have had to, the person would have had to have known that she moved back in. And like I said, this would be leaving somebody alive in her life who knows what her death means. The death has to achieve something. Yes, it has to achieve something for the people behind it. And as far as we can tell, everyone in Rachel's life is completely shocked. they're not getting this message. That's right. And so instead of just being cryptic here, when I'm looking at this case as an investigator

up to this point in the story, my two main focuses are who were the people living there before her? Because they may have an ax to grind. We don't know what the dynamic was when Rachel told them that they had to go. We're going to get there. But then even more importantly than that, who did they have issues with, the people that were living there before her? What were they involved in?

Because although the puzzle pieces aren't fitting when it comes to Rachel, these same questions that you're asking, these statements that you're making, they could apply to the previous person who was living there. Did they have something they were involved in where by them being shot, someone in their life would know what this meant? Yeah, because when I see something like this, I'm thinking drugs, money. No doubt. Right? And the people, we know the people who were living there before Rachel, when she was sub-leasing it to them, they weren't even paying their rent. So obviously they're not, they don't have money. They don't have money hand around or they're not paying it.

Why don't they have the money? Right. And who else did they not have the money for? Who else were they not paying? Okay, we're going to take our last break and we're going to be right back. This episode of Crime Weekly is brought to you by Wild Green. You know what's funny? There are certain foods that instantly make a house feel cozy and fresh bread is, of course, one of them.

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All right, so we're back from break. And yeah, that's, when I first heard this story, that's where I was because I'm thinking about the players in her life who could have been involved. You think about family members, friends, the fiancé, and then you think about the actual crime scene itself and the potential motive based on the crime scene and how it was conducted. And it aligns more with what we've been saying, retaliatory, someone who was sending a message, someone who may not have been that experienced, someone who went in there with a mission to shoot someone and this person didn't even take the time to make sure they weren't shooting the intended target. That's what it sounds like.

Now, they could have been right and got the right person, but unfortunately for Rachel, it appears that she moved in right at the wrong time. And so here, at this point in the story, I'd still want to look into Joe Matt, right? I know more about it now, but at where we are right now, I'd want to look at to Joe Matt, I'd want to look into the previous residents who were staying at that apartment, and I'd want to double check any of Rachel's dealings or relationships, specifically ones that involve money, right? Because something here suggests that this is financial and nature, because we've already

established it's not sexual in nature. So it's either a crime that is the result of some type of retaliation where Rachel burned the wrong person, and then you have to ask the question why, or, or, you're not or does Rachel owe somebody something and they decided to take matters into their own hands? But it's a small pool of suspects right now. This doesn't sound like it would be another resident. We've had cases like that. One of them being Faith Hedgepath where I thought for sure it was going to be someone who was personally connected to her.

And it looks like now it was just someone who had been in that area at the time. But that crime was a crime that involved a sex crime. This one doesn't. And so that's where the differentiating factor for me is where it doesn't seem like someone who had been obsessing over Rachel and maybe had been watching her would go into the apartment and not not conduct some type of sexual act before killing her. I don't want to be disrespectful about that. If you look at the timeline, somebody could have been watching Rachel. They could have seen her at the pool, which would be a more public kind of area with her boyfriend, Joe Met. They could have watched them go back into the apartment together.

but then they could have still been watching and saw Joe Matt leave around midnight. And that's why they struck a few hours later. But once again, there is no sexual motive here. Right. So the point is to just go in there, shoot her. And did she say something? Did somebody make a pass at her? And she turned them down and they didn't like it and they resented her for it?

That's possible. Sure. But it seems like an extreme. And you would think that Rachel would have communicated this negative interaction with someone in her life, whether it was Joe Matt or a family member saying, yeah, there was this creepy dude who came up to me and I had to tell him, you know, I'm not interested. But no indications of that. Yeah, absolutely. And I think also another, if you're just coming into this and you're following the timeline and Rachel's been killed and we're looking and kind of canceling out possible, you know, motives for her to have been killed, I would also look at that ranch that she went to live at and work at. Clearly that was not an ideal situation for her. She went into it. thinking it was going to be something, this good opportunity to live and work on this ranch where she could be around these horses, which was her passion. But then it's not going exactly

the way she wants it to. She's starting to think about what else can I do. So clearly, this was not a good situation for her. Why wasn't it a good situation for her? Was she not getting paid? Was there somebody there at the ranch who was making advances towards her because she was living on the property and that was making her uncomfortable? There's a lot of potentials and possible kind of suspects and motives we could look at based on the limited, I think based on the limited sort of things that Rachel was doing in her life, right? Once again, it seemed like she spent a lot of time with her boyfriend, a lot of time with her family, a lot of time focused on work and building her business and building her career. So outside of work and personal, which

it didn't seem like Rachel's personal life was very expansive, what else could it be? What else, who else connected personally to Rachel? If this, wasn't a mistaken identity case, could be out there as a suspect. It's pretty limited. But though, one more wrinkle at you, and it's just food for thought, because we don't have these answers. Another thing that has always bothered me is the fact that the shooter only shot once, and as you've already described, it was in the stomach region. When we talk about the possibility that this could have been a case of mistaken identity, right? I do wonder if the shooter shot once and then somehow because of the way Rachel reacted, maybe sitting up or whatever

it was, or maybe making a sound. Yeah. Realized, holy shit, this is the wrong person and then ran back out. Because if your intent was to solely go in there and kill this person, if you're not going to shoot them in the head, wouldn't you at least fire a couple rounds? Make sure you hit what you're aiming at and also make sure that it's fatal, at least the combination of them, to only fire once and to not even hit them in the head or in the chest. That's a risk in it of itself. So I do wonder if the one shot is also telling us a story, as in even though Rachel didn't see the shooter,

the shooter saw her. Right, because at the end of the day, Rachel herself could not identify the shooter. But if this is a case of mistaken identity and the person killed Rachel thinking she was someone else, leaving the Rachel alive, if the person thought that Rachel was still, someone else, that would cause an implication because if the person who was shot, which we know is

Rachel, but this person thought was someone else, that person might be able to identify the shooter because the police are going to ask if the person survives, well, who would want to do this to you? Who would have an issue with you? Who do you owe money to? Do you have any problems with anybody? Has anybody threatened you? And that person might name the shooter or whatever group the shooter is affiliated with. And so that's giving the opportunity for the person in the bed who the shooter didn't know was Rachel in this kind of theory to stay alive and be able to identify them.

So why would that person leave the person in the bed alive if they thought it was their intended target and not a mistaken target? Correct. And also, it doesn't seem like the shooter was too concerned about being identified by Rachel. So to me, that suggests that whoever this was, this wasn't an individual who had a personal connection or a previous encounter with Rachel, where if Rachel did survive, she could say, yeah, that was the guy who came up to me at the pool, or that was the person who I dealt with at the ranch, or that was my fiancee, or that was a neighbor. This person probably had no previous interactions with Rachel prior to this incident. Yes. So I also want to mention, because we're going to get more in depth into this in the next part. We're just scratching the surface right now.

There were things that happened after Rachel moved back into that apartment on June 1st that were out of the ordinary. That's correct. That made Rachel take notice. Threats she was receiving. There was a point where she's in bed and she gets woken up because someone's opening the bedroom door. There's a jar of pickles on her counter one morning that she finds that she didn't put there. She didn't buy. So then you'd have to once again ask the question, though, if,

that's the case and these weird incidences are related to her being shot, would that person who's in the apartment opening the bedroom door, leaving the pickles, being weird, would they not have realized by that point that Rachel was Rachel and not the person they were there to kill? You would think. Or it's unrelated. Unrelated. That would be difficult to. I mean, it's completely possible. I mean, we're talking about different. And we're going to dive into these, but it could be different people. Again, depending on the people that were there before her, the lifestyle they were living, some of this might have been pretty common behavior. Well, it seemed initially when Rachel gets shot and she sadly dies, the police are looking into it. And they were like, hey, there's no very obvious leads here, kind of like you and I are saying.

There's no explanation for why this happened. But as investigators do, they started digging deeper. They started looking deeper into Rachel's life, and that's when they quickly discovered several leads that they felt needed to be explored. For instance, there were threats against Rachel that had prompted her to file a police report, and this happened just two months before she was killed. Then there was also the suspicious theft of her prize horse only days before her murder. Yep, a lot of people talk about this. This is very important. And then there was several strange encounters that had taken place at her apartment in the days leading up to the shooting, which is what I've already discovered.

Somebody opening her bedroom door, leaving the pickles on the counter. And when you look at all of these in totality, it is actually difficult to believe that they were all connected to each other and all connected to her being shot. It's hard to understand why that would happen. And once again, because when you look at everything in totality, there's no clear motive for why those things would happen and then she would be shot. There's no clear motive for why somebody would go in knowing that was Rachel Hanson in the bed and kill her. unless we have an absolute psychopath on our hands who Rachel just looked at wrong one day. And this person developed, you know, this fascination or this delusion that Rachel was like their alter, their nemesis, their arch nemesis, you know.

There's not a lot of very logical conclusions to draw from all of these random things, but all these random things that seem to be unrelated or could be related, they're all bizarre and weird and scary. So they're not innocent, benign things happening. And we have to dig deeper into that. Like Derek said, we will do that in part two because investigators need to look into all of those leads and try to figure out if any of them were connected to Rachel's murder. And where all of these random incidences came from, could they be connected back to somebody who would lead the police to figure out who murdered Rachel?

Or could they be connected back to somebody that could be kind of canceled out as a suspect in Rachel's murder? and then you would know that thing wasn't connected. And they did a lot of work in this. And that's all going to have to wait for part two. But we will get there. And it is fascinating. So stay tuned for that.

Yeah, 2020. This occurred. Yeah. Not long ago. Yeah. Still not solved. And the question is why. I think it will be, though.

I would hope so. It's kind of what I said at the top of the show, right? Like this seems like a case that should be pretty easy to solve. And I don't say that lightly because I know no case is easy to solve. they can be very difficult to get it from investigation to prosecution. But part of this not being solved could be because it is an outlier. It is something that doesn't make a lot of sense on the surface because the people who know what happened know that this wasn't the intention, that this in it of itself was pre-planned, but pre-planned poorly. And so when someone with a half of brain is trying to connect the dots, they can't.

because Rachel wasn't initially one of those dots. That's where I have always come back to and I could be completely wrong, which is part of the reason this case hasn't been solved. But that's where my gut goes because nothing here to me makes sense when you start to think about like a web and tying it back to Rachel.

There are going to be things you're going to talk about. Like you said, the stolen horse and the issues. It is a web, yeah, but sometimes it doesn't go anywhere. And that's when you told me, oh, hey, like, let's cover this case. New information's come out. It's a fascinating case. I was like, okay.

And then when I started looking into it, yeah, these, all of these things started to occupy my mind and I'm trying to find a common ground or a thing that ties them together or. Well, if you do let me know. Something that makes sense. But that's kind of where we get, we get stuck here where it's like, once again, all of these weird things happening to Rachel, given that, honestly, she's the last person, anything weird should have happened to. But all these weird things happening to her.

And then her being shot in her own apartment, in her own bed while she's sleeping. And it's hard not to believe that everything's connected in some way. But if the way that they're connected makes sense, I haven't figured it out. Yeah. And not to be insensitive, but it wasn't even a clean shoot. It wasn't even a well done shooting. I mean, if this was a little bit to the left or a little bit to the right or a little

higher or lower, there's a possibility she could have survived her injuries, right? So not someone who had a lot of training or thought put into this. And I definitely have more questions than I have. answers and that we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts. You will see Stephanie that there's a lot of people who are who have really dove into this case and know it back in front. But you know what it makes me think of because we just and this could be because we just finished Carrie Farver, right? We just finished the Carrie Farver case. So that's still very like clear and present in my head. But when I think about something like this and the weird stuff that was happening, I think of someone like Liz,

right? Yeah. Like you could see someone like Liz potentially doing something like this, like leaving these little Easter eggs and doing these random things that don't seem, you know, that don't seem to almost be escalating in violence, but just seem to be like almost harassing in nature and kind of maybe distracting. And then to go so far as to go into someone's house and like shoot them because Liz shot herself to try to set up her ex-boyfriend's ex-girlfriend for it. It seems like somebody like that. So is it somebody like that? That person would be very hard to identify if that's the case because we know that the motive with Liz was never really anything real. It was very delusional in her own head. So if the motive to go after Rachel was kind of the motive of a Liz,

which was delusional and in their own head, that would be very hard to figure out. And it would make sense why none of these things are adding up. Even more so, if it's a mistaken identity, then there's no connection. There's no connection. But there is a way to go about that where if Rachel's not the intended target, but as a detective, you're able to figure out who was, then the same methods can be applied. You can still reverse engineer that person's life to see who was in their circle that may have had an axe to grind. And like I was just saying, we're going to talk about all of it. Please keep in mind, we're only in part one here, guys. So there's more to cover. We have a whole another episode to do on this. So there may not have been a few things mentioned. They will more than

likely be mentioned by next episode. So save it if you can. And if it's not mentioned next episode, put it in the comments, let us know. But we're looking forward to hear your thoughts on this one. And this is only going to be in two parts, by the way. So we should have everything out by the end of the second part. You guys will have it and we'll discuss and kind of talk about where we go from here. And again, just on a positive note to bring it back to the beginning, talking about platform, bringing exposure to cases. Rachel's one of them. And again, it wouldn't be possible without you guys. And so yes, we are in a position now where we received an award based on you guys twice, but that award would not be possible without you. It's literally called the People's Choice Award.

So that is something that we do not take for granted. We are extremely grateful and we're going to continue to work harder for you guys. We will be back next week with Rachel Hansen Part 2. Until then, everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you soon.