MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Wicked Game

Episode Date: March 17, 2022

One morning in 1983, a truck driver was driving down a lonely Alaskan highway, when he saw a young girl come bounding out of the forest that butted up against the road. The girl ran out onto the highway, turned toward him, and began sprinting in his direction while screaming and waving her arms in the air. The driver came to a quick stop and as the girl got closer, he saw she had no shoes on and had a handcuff dangling from one of her wrists. When she reached his vehicle she threw herself inside and screamed at him to drive. The driver had no idea who she was or what was wrong, but it was obvious she was in serious trouble, so he didn't ask questions and just hit the accelerator. It would turn out this young girl had been kidnapped, and that morning she was being transported out to an isolated cabin in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness to play a "game." She had managed to escape, but before she did, her captor had told her what this game entailed, believing she would die before she could tell anyone about it. But of course, she lived, and after the truck driver brought her home, she spoke to police and told them all the horrible details of the wicked game in the woods.DISCLAIMER: This podcast is the remastered audio from a popular video on my "MrBallen" YouTube channel. The video is called "His victims had to play his evil game" (Here is the link to the video -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBOakDDZXaM)For 100s more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @mrballenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today's story is the remastered audio from His Victims Had to Play His Evil Game, which is a very popular video on my YouTube channel. The ending to this story is based on a killer's first-hand testimony. It is graphic and very distressing. As such, listener discretion is advised. But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious Delivered in Story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do, and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

So, if that's of interest to you, please secretly teach the 5-star review button's pet parrot to scream obscenities every time the 5-star review button is on a work call. Also, please subscribe to the Mr. Ballin Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Hello, I am Alice Levine and I am one of the hosts of Wondery's podcast British Scandal. On our latest series, The Race to Ruin, we tell the story of a British man who took part in the first ever round the world sailing race. Good on him, I hear you say. But there is a problem, as there always is in this show. The man in question hadn't actually sailed before oh and his boat wasn't seaworthy oh and also tiny little detail almost didn't mention it he bet his family home on making it to the finish line what ensued was one of the most complex cheating plots in British sporting history to find out the full story follow British Scandal wherever you listen to podcasts,

or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy. Okay, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers?

Okay, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep, that's right. It's stone-cold icon George Michael. From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet. Join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all. But behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil.

George is trapped in a lie of his own making with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. Okay, let's get into today's story. On September 12, 1982, two off-duty Alaska police officers were off hunting in a very remote section of Alaska about 20 miles away from Anchorage. The only way to get out to this area was by plane or by boat, and so generally speaking, the only people that came into this area was by plane or by boat and so generally speaking the only people that came into this area were big-time hunters. After a long day the two men realized it was starting to

get dark and they were still deep in the woods and so they decided it was time to turn around and start heading back to camp. The journey through the woods was challenging and so the men walked down to the nearby Kinnick River and walked across an exposed sandbar and as they walked they noticed up ahead there was a boot sticking out of the sand. And as they got closer, they realized it wasn't just a boot. There was also a human leg bone still in the boot. Being police officers, they knew the importance of not disturbing a potential crime scene. And so instead, they marked on the map where they were,

they left the area, and they reported the body to their department. The following day, crime scene technicians came out to that remote area and they very carefully unearthed the remains, which still had women's clothing on them, and then afterwards they began searching for evidence in the area and eventually they discovered a single shell casing that was a.223 caliber round, which is a common caliber for hunting rifles. The remains were sent back to the lab for an autopsy, and it was revealed this person was a female, and she had most likely died at least six months earlier. And she had almost certainly been the victim of a homicide, because she had died from three gunshot

wounds. Also during the autopsy, it was discovered that there were no bullet holes on any of her clothing, and so it appeared that she had been shot without her clothes on, and then her killer presumably redressed her. Also they found a hospital bandage wrapped up in her clothing that appeared to have been wrapped around her head, leading some to speculate that she had been blindfolded before she was shot. A couple of weeks after the autopsy, dental records came back, and they identified the body as belonging to 23-year-old Sherry Morrow. Sherry was an exotic dancer from Anchorage who had been reported missing 10 months earlier. In her missing persons report, it was stated that the

last thing she told her friends was she had been offered $300 to have pictures taken of her by a professional photographer, and she was going to meet this man right before she disappeared. While police were fairly certain that Sherry's killer was this so-called photographer, they had no evidence that would allow them to search for this person. They had nothing. All they had was this shell casing that was commonly used amongst hunters. There's lots of hunters in Alaska. So the police reported the finding of Sherry's body to the media in hopes that when they put that out to the world, that someone from the public would reach out with more information. During the police's press conference, one of the reporters asked them, you know, do you think Sherry's death is connected to

the other unsolved deaths in that part of Alaska? What they were referencing was two years earlier, two other women's bodies had been discovered in that rough area where Sherry had been found. One of the women was so badly decomposed there was no way to identify her. However, it was revealed she was probably in her late teens or early 20s. The other woman was able to be identified. It was 24-year-old Joanne Messina, who was an exotic dancer from Anchorage. But there was virtually no evidence at either of the two women's grave sites, and so their deaths remained a mystery.

Publicly, at this press conference, the police told reporters that they did not believe Sherry's death was connected to those two other women. But privately, some officers had their suspicions. Not only had these three women met similar fates in a similar area, but over the past couple of years, there had been a significant increase in missing people out of Anchorage, Alaska. And most of these missing people were young women that were either exotic dancers or prostitutes. This convinced many officers that they were dealing with a serial killer, but there just wasn't any evidence to actually prove it, so they couldn't come out and say it publicly. Over the following year, no new information came out about Sherry Morrow or the other two deceased women that

had been found in that same area, and so all three of their cases just continued to languish. women that had been found in that same area, and so all three of their cases just continued to languish. Meanwhile, more and more exotic dancers and prostitutes were going missing out of Anchorage, and no one knew why. Then, on June 13th, 1983, the police got a break. Early that morning, a man driving a truck turned onto a quiet Anchorage highway, and as he was making his way down the road, he saw up ahead on the side, there was this woman running towards him screaming with her hands over her head and she wasn't wearing pants or shoes. And so obviously he knew something was wrong. And so he pulled over and as this woman is charging up towards him, he notices she has a handcuff on one of her wrists and she appears to be a lot younger than he initially thought. She's probably in her late teens.

And so she comes running up to his car. He unlocks the passenger side door. She flings herself inside without even asking for permission. She slams the door behind her and then ducks down to keep her head out of the window, like she's trying to hide from something out there. Now, this man looked out and he didn't see anyone or anything, but he wasn't going to wait around for whatever it was she was scared of. And so he just made a gut decision to take this girl away from here. And so he peeled off and drove down the road. And the girl, who was very shaken up, couldn't even tell this guy what was going on. She just asked him to please drop her off at a nearby motel. And the man didn't ask any questions. He drove her to the motel and he

dropped her off. The girl ran inside and up to her room. And when she ran inside, the motel receptionist sees this girl running in. I mean, she doesn't have her pants on. She's got a handcuff on. She looks terrified. And so she called the police. A few minutes later, the police showed up. They went up to this girl's room. They knocked on the door. The girl opened it up and she was obviously very scared. And she allowed the police inside. And she told them her name was Cindy Paulson and she was 17 years old. The police recognized this girl is terrified, she's not a threat, and so they removed the one handcuff that was still on her and then they asked her,

you know, what happened? And the police officers would say her story was just horrible, but what stood out to them was not how disturbing the story was, it was how composed and brave this girl was as she told it. This is her story. The night before, Cindy was working the streets of Anchorage. She was a prostitute and a car pulled up and inside was this wiry, bearded guy with glasses who seemed kind of slight and harmless and he asked to buy her services. And because she didn't view him as a threat, she agreed and hopped in his passenger seat. And as soon as she sat down, he reached over and put a handcuff on one wrist and then drew a gun on her and told her to be quiet.

And then he drove her to this fairly nice neighborhood, pulled into a driveway. He got her out of the car and led her into this house. And he brought her along downstairs into the basement where as soon as she got down there, there was a dim light and she saw there was a chain swinging from the ceiling. And he strung her up onto that chain. And for hours he assaulted her. And then after he grew tired of doing that, he told her he was going to go take a nap. And when he came back, they were going to leave this house and go out to his cabin in the woods. At this point, she begged him to let her go, but he really didn't care.

He just told her that if she made any noise or tried to escape at any point, he would have to kill her. And then he walked out of the room. And for the next several hours, Cindy remained chained to the ceiling with half of her clothes off, wondering what horrible thing was going to happen to her next. Eventually, her attacker came back in the room, and he untied her from her chain, and he walked her upstairs to his living room, where he very proudly showed her a number of hunting trophies he had, and he began telling her about how much he loved hunting and where he went hunting. And it was at this point that Cindy realized this guy has no intention of keeping her alive. He's shown her his face, his house, his car. He's told her about places he likes to go and things he likes to do. He's

given her all this information about himself. She is a huge liability to him. And so it dawned on her that if she didn't find a way to escape, she was going to die. After the trophy tour, the man led Cindy back out to her car. He put her inside and then he drove to a nearby small airport where he said his plane was. And so he pulled over to their hangar. He got her out of the car and he put her inside of the plane. And as Cindy is sitting in the plane, she's watching this guy load gun after gun and bag after bag of what looks like military supplies into this plane. And so she knows that this is the moment. I have to escape right now

because as soon as this plane takes off, I'm done for. And so at some point when this guy went over to his car to get something and his back was turned to her, she jumped out of the cockpit of this plane. She fell to the ground. She got up and just began running out of the hangar. And she managed to get out of the hangar and began turning the corner

and running towards this forest right as she hears this guy charging after her screaming that he's going to catch her and kill her and so she just keeps running for her life all the way into this forest all the way to that highway before she finally stopped and turned around and she saw the man had stopped following her. This is when she went onto the highway and she flagged down the guy in the truck who brought her to the motel. The police were shocked by her story. It sounded totally unbelievable, but she was so genuinely scared and so detailed that they believed her. And so they told her they would have to bring her to the hospital, and on their way to the hospital, she demanded they go back to that airport that she had been held at so she can try to

identify the hangar she had been in, and hopefully the plane would still be in there. And so the police comply. They go into the airport, and Cindy points out the hangar she believes she was in. And when they get there, the plane she had been on was still there, but the man, her attacker, was not there. And so the police got out and they began taking down notes about the plane, its different tag numbers and what it looked like. And while they're standing there, the security guard from the airport came over because he saw the police cars and he told the officers that the night before he had seen the owner of the plane they're looking at acting very suspiciously with something inside of his car. And so on a hunch, he had recorded that man's license plate number and he gave that number to police. And so the police were able to use that license plate number and some of the numbers on the plane to figure out who owned both vehicles.

And it was a local man named Robert Hansen who owned a very successful bakery downtown. I'm Peter Frankopan. And I'm Afua Hirsch. And we're here to tell you about our new season of Legacy, covering the iconic, troubled musical genius that was Nina Simone. Full disclosure, this is a big one for me. Nina Simone, one of my favourite artists of all time, somebody who's had a huge impact on me, who I think objectively stands apart for the level of her talent to her and engaged with her message, it totally floored me. And the truth and pain and messiness of her struggle, that's all captured in unforgettable music that has stood the test of time. Do you think that's fair, Peter? I mean, the way in which her music comes across is so powerful, no matter what song it is. So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone. what song it is. So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone.

In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and he seemed really unwell. So she wound up taking him to the hospital right away so he could get treatment. While Dorothy's friend waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit. But she would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and so many more. Every week, hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case to try and discover what really happened. And with over 450 episodes,

there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. After dropping Cindy off at the hospital, the police officers decided to pay a visit to Robert Hansen at his house. When they got there, Robert was actually pulling into his driveway right at the same time, and they saw his car matched the description that Cindy had given of his car. And then when Robert got out of his car, he matched the description that Cindy had given of her attacker. When Robert saw the police parked outside of his house, he immediately invited them over and said, you know, what can I help you with? And the police said, we'd like to talk to you. Can we go inside? Robert invited them inside. And when the police went into his house, it matched the description

that Cindy had given of his house with all the hunting trophies everywhere. And so they sat down and they asked him what he was doing the night before. And he said he had spent the night with some friends. And he had their contact information. And if you needed to talk to them, you could. But they would say he was with them. When the police asked if they could have a look around his property, Robert immediately consented and said, you can look anywhere you want. And so the police searched his property,

but found no signs that Cindy had been attacked there. And so they thanked him for his hospitality and they left. Once they got back to their station, they checked in with Robert's two friends he claimed he was with the night before, and they each independently corroborated Robert's story saying that yes, he was with them from this time to this time. And so it appeared, as unlikely as it seemed, that Robert was telling the truth. And so the police went back to Cindy and they said, you know, are you sure that everything you told us is exactly as you remember it? You didn't exaggerate anything. You know, this is the truth. And Cindy said,

absolutely. And they said, okay, well, are you prepared to take a lie detector test to prove that you're telling the truth? And Cindy said, no. Now it's unclear why she said no. Maybe it was a general distrust of the police, but either way, when she said no, it immediately cast an enormous amount of doubt on her story in the eyes of the police and when cindy started to pick up that the police really didn't believe her anymore she got spooked and just left town and after that her case and robert hansen were largely forgotten about but three months later on september 2nd all of that changed on that day a construction crew was doing some work on a backcountry road not far

from where those three women's bodies had been found, and at some point one of their machines uncovered some human remains. The police were called in, who pulled up the rest of the remains, and then just like in Sherry Morrow's case, when they looked for evidence around this new body, they found a single shell casing from a.223 caliber round. The remains were brought back for an autopsy, where it was determined that the body was female and she had died from several gunshot wounds. Using dental records, they were able to identify this woman as being 17-year-old Paula Goulding, who was an exotic dancer who had gone missing five months prior from Anchorage. The police sent the.223 shell casing found in Paula's

gravesite, along with the other.223 shell casing found in Sherry Morrow's gravesite, along with the other 223 shell casing found in Sherry Morrow's gravesite, to a lab to be analyzed. And it was quickly determined that both of these rounds had been fired from the same rifle, and therefore both women had most likely been killed by the same person. This was the moment the police knew they were dealing with a serial killer, and many police officers wanted it to be Robert Hansen. He seemed like the guy, but he had a rock-solid alibi and they had no hard evidence against him. And so without any other suspects, the police turned to a famous FBI profiler, a guy by the name of John Douglas, and they asked him to build a profile of who he think killed Sherry Morrow and Paula Goulding. And when John's report

came back, the police were shocked. The profile described a man in his 40s who blended in easily with society. He was well liked and got along with people and was just a normal guy. And he was successful probably because he owned a successful business. He was an avid outdoorsman and hunter and he most likely had a significant speech defect like a lisp or a stutter. The profile was perfectly describing Robert Hansen. And because of John Douglas' prolific success in correctly identifying killers based on his profiles, when a judge saw this particular profile and saw how neatly it

lined up with Robert Hansen, he gave the FBI a search warrant for Robert's house. And this time, they would find very damning evidence, like a map of the local area. It was a hunting map, and on it, there were 37 X's marked off. And some of those X's coincided with the same area where those four women's bodies had been found. They also found a.223 caliber rifle, along with a bag of women's jewelry that contained a necklace belonging to Sherry Morrow. As the FBI was carrying evidence out of Robert's house into their truck, a neighbor walked over after seeing all the commotion and she walked up to one of the agents and she was very skittish and anxious and she

said, you know, my husband, he's friends with Robert and he recently pretended to be an alibi for Robert. He had no idea how much trouble he was in and I certainly didn't know, but I want you guys to know that my husband was lying. He was not with Robert on the night that he said he was. And this was the proverbial nail in the coffin for Robert Hansen, because now without this alibi, he had nothing to hide behind. And so when the police approached Robert with their overwhelming evidence against him between what they found in his house and this now recanted statement from his former alibi, Robert said, okay, I'm going to confess. But there was a catch. He was only willing to confess to murdering the four women whose bodies

had already been found by police. Now, the police knew Robert had almost definitely killed more people. And so at this point, they just wanted to know who the other victims were and where they were. And so they offered Robert a deal where he would confess to those four murders and then give additional information about other victims, where they were located, who they were, what happened to them. In exchange, they would not prosecute him on any other victims he named. And so Robert agreed to these terms, he signed the deal, and then he gave a full horrifying confession. He said he would drive around Anchorage at night and look for young vulnerable women that were all alone. These were usually prostitutes out on the street or they were exotic dancers he would try to befriend inside of clubs. And when he approached these women he would tell them he was

a professional photographer and he thought they were beautiful and he wanted to take photos of them and he would pay them for the photo shoot. And many of these women were aspiring models and they were really excited at this idea and so they would agree to go. And many of these women were aspiring models and they were really excited at this idea and so they would agree to go. And so Robert would tell them to meet him the next day at a particular location, which was usually a fast food restaurant, and Robert would show up much earlier and he would hide in his car and he would wait to see when they showed up if they were alone or not. And when he saw they were alone and they had no one to help them, he would drive up and he would ask them to get in his car. What these women couldn't see was on the inside of the passenger side door was a handcuff

that was already latched on to the door itself and there was an open cuff waiting for them as soon as they got in. They would get in the car, he would reach over them and act like he was helping them put on their seat belt and then as they're kind of looking at him wondering what he's doing, he would grab their wrist, throw it in the open handcuff, then he would draw a pistol and hold it against their head and say, be quiet. During his confession, Robert bragged to police that he had done this so many times, putting the handcuff on and drawing the pistol, that it was like muscle memory for him. Once he had the women handcuffed inside of his car, he would drive them back to his house and he would bring them into his basement and he would chain them up to the ceiling just like Cindy had described. And then after assaulting them for hours, he would take them

out of his basement, put them in his car, drive out to the airport. He would put them in his plane, but unlike Cindy, these women didn't escape and he would take off and he would fly them out to his cabin, which was not far from where those four bodies had been found. Once he got the women into his cabin, he would undress them and put a blindfold on them. And then with their handcuffs still on, he would assist them out the front door and tell them to run. And they would. They would take off as fast as they could into the woods,

running into trees, falling over, but just running for their lives, believing their ordeal was now over. They just had to get away from this guy. But what they didn't know is their ordeal was just starting. Robert had no intention of allowing them to escape. they just had to get away from this guy. But what they didn't know is their ordeal was just starting. Robert had no intention of allowing them to escape. He knew there was deep water that surrounded his cabin, and so if they actually made it that far to the water's edge, they would drown. And so Robert would give these women a significant head start to give them the sense that they actually might escape. And then Robert would grab his knife and his hunting rifle, and he would head

out and begin stalking his prey. And for the next several hours or days, he would walk around the woods looking for these women and he would just stay off watching what they were doing. And at some point, he would sneak up on them and he would wound them intentionally, usually with his knife, and then he had a blood trail to follow. And he would follow these dying women who were screaming out for help. And at some point, these women would know they were going to die die there was no hope for them and they would collapse or they would stop and at that point robert would walk up to them and he would shoot them afterwards he would remove their handcuffs he would redress them and then he would bury them in a shallow grave before he was carted off to prison to serve a life sentence without the possibility of parole he was brought out by

authorities to help identify where other grave sites were in that hunting area. But he was only able to find eight additional victims because he would go to different grave sites and the remains would not be there anymore, most likely because animals had ransacked the area, or he just simply forgot where it was, or he didn't want to share any more information with police. Robert never confirmed if all 37 of those X's on that map that was found are actual sites of victims that he buried. But investigators say that's exactly what they were. And in fact, many believe there are other maps with more X's on them. But the police could only confirm 17 victims.

If there were more, we probably will never know. Because in 2014, Robert died in prison and he took those secrets to the grave. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. If you got something out of this episode and you haven't done this already, please secretly teach the five-star review button's pet parrot to scream obscenities every time the five-star review button is on a work call. Also, please subscribe to the Mr. Ballin podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Google, and anywhere else you get your podcasts.

This podcast airs every Monday and Thursday morning. But in the meantime, you can always watch one of the hundreds of stories I have posted on my YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin. If you want to get in touch with me, please follow me on any major social media platform and then send me a direct message. My username on all of them is just at Mr. Ballin. Lastly, we have some really cool merchandise, so head on over to shopmrballin.com to have a look. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support.

Until next time, see ya. Hey Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. And before you go, please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good you are a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious. And if that's the case, then I've got some good news. We just launched a brand new Strange, Dark, and Mysterious podcast called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries. And as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years. And we finally decided to take the plunge, and the show is awesome.

In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre, unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between. Each story is totally true and totally terrifying. Go follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're a Prime member, you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music.