National Park After Dark - NPAD Goes Lights Out: The Butcher Baker of Alaska

Episode Date: August 4, 2025

Today’s episode is a collaboration a long time coming! Our friends Josh and Austin of the Lights Out podcast hosted us in their studio during a recent trip to Denver to discuss the extremely disturbing case of Robert Hansen aka The Butcher Baker.Listen to Lights Out wherever you listen to your favorite shows! For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to the week’s partners!Rocket Money: Use our link to get started saving.IQBAR: Text PARK to 64000 to get 20% off all IQBAR products and free shipping.Naked Wines:  To get 6 bottles of wine for $39.99, head to NakedWines.com/NPAD and use code NPAD for both the code AND PASSWORD. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We're so excited to have you here. I'm Cassie. And I'm Danielle. And this is the first time that we've been physically recording with each other for a while because Danielle and I just got back from a group trip and our own personal trip to we were over in Glacier and we visited the Granite Park Chalet for the first time ever, which was really, really cool. And then we did a group trip to Colorado following that pretty shortly after.

And we were gone for about six or seven days. in Colorado and now we're finally both back home and both recording and we're excited to be back. I feel like you're kind of glazing over the fact that you also were gone in France a week before that. So you haven't been home in a month, a literal month. And I've been gone for three weeks because between Glacier and our trip, we also had some days in Denver, which we'll get to in a second. But let's talk about Montana really quick. because it was a full circle moment and it was really special.

And a lot of people asked us about it because we posted about it on Instagram and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, we went to the Granite Park Chalet where if you have listened to episode, I think, 12 and 13. I thought of the grizzlies. I don't know. It's Night of the Grizzlies. If you know, you're traumatized just like we are. We went to the location where one of those mallings happened, which was, of course, the Granite Park Chalet and the

Granite Park Campground as well that we went and visit and we saw a sow in her cubs, which was really cool and a little eerie just knowing what happened there. But the Granite Park Chalet was amazing. It was between the views, the people that were there, the people who are working there, the locals that came. I mean, we met the most incredible people. We got to hike around. It was just really, really lovely. I can't, I can't recommend it enough. If you are physically, able to get out there. It's about an eight mile hike out or four miles, depending if you take the straight up route up the loop trail or if you do the high line. And then there's a couple other ways you could get there too, but those are the more popular. Definitely recommend doing it. Yeah, we were

fortunate enough to have a friend that won the lottery. So not only did we hike out and get to spend some time at the chalet, we stayed there for two nights. So it was really lovely and wonderful and probably visually a top three national park in my book. Just like stunning scenery, everywhere you look, you had that Owen Wilson. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. That's my take on it. And of course, it was just like the wildlife was insane. And then we also decided spur of the moment to, um, so we went to glacier, of course, Montana. And then we had plans to go down to Colorado for a group trip, which was great too. And in between we drove down from glacier to Bozeman to hop on a flight to Denver. And we stopped by Wes's house from Tooth and Claw. He showed us around. It was great to see him

and his property. And then we were in Bozeman. And instead of staying as was planned, we're like, God, we are so damn close to Yellowstone. Yeah. Let's just send it. So we did. And we hopped down there for a bit. we saw some wolves, we saw some bears. It was great. It was really cool. We got stuck in a bison traffic jam, which was, oh my God. We were going to stand a bead of bison. Okay, perfect segue into today's actual episode. This isn't just us like shooting the shit. So today, well, during that bison jam, we had a meeting with our podcast colleagues, Josh and Austin, at like 9.30 in the morning. but we really wanted to get into the park for sunrise, for, you know, the best wildlife viewing opportunities.

So we're like, okay. And Lamar Valley was what, an hour from where we were staying? Yeah. We're like, okay, let's get up. We got up at, I don't know, three, four in the morning, drove out there, had a great morning. And coming back, we're like, it's going to be kind of close because you get service like right over the entrance. We're looking for service within the park so we wouldn't have to leave so we could take a call

with Josh and Austin in the park, but it just wasn't going to happen. So we realized. We were trying like different lodges. The car was like, oh, the car has Wi-Fi. We're like, oh, perfect. Did not. Did not work. But anyway, so we're like, okay, we just have to like get out of the park as soon as

possible. So we're coming back. And of course, we get stuck in the biggest bison jam. I have ever personally been a part of me. It was like a bison stampede of and jam, a combination of both, because there were, there were hundreds of bison that took up this entire field that was next to us, but also the entire road for as far as you could see, were just bison in the middle of the road. And we couldn't, we couldn't move. There was nowhere to go. And we were like, oh, no, Josh and Austin, we're going to be so late.

They're never going to believe us. How do we explain this? I took pictures just in case and a video because it's like, who's going to believe that we were late for meeting because we're in a bison jam? And we had never met them before. So we're like, they're definitely not going to believe us. So we peel into our Airbnb with one minute to spare. Yep. We like throw our packs down, get on our Google meet, and it was all well and good. But anyways, we were meeting because a. couple days after that we were going to link up in their studios out in Denver to record the episode you were about to hear. Yes. And I guess that's a great segue to just go into. We had a really interesting and fun conversation with Josh and Austin from the Lights Out podcast and we discuss a lot of very interesting, I say very interesting, but we also talk about a very morbid story that we've never covered on our podcast before. And we discussed it and mutually researched it with lights out.

And it's a pretty lengthy episode. So sit back and enjoy. Yeah. And it has actually been recommended a couple of times to us in the past. And that's kind of how we landed on it when we were talking about what case to cover and what would mesh best with both of our audiences. So we decided to do the Butcher Baker of Alaska. There's been movies made about him, several documentaries, a couple books.

He was pretty awful, evil individual, and he was responsible for the deaths of over a dozen women. So it's a heavier episode, but it was one in which that we really sat down and dissected. The full episode is over two hours long, but we cut you some slack a little bit on our end because for the first like half hour or so, Cassie and I kind of just introduced ourselves because this episode was also on their feed a couple weeks ago. So for the first half hour, so we were talking about a lot of stuff that you guys probably already know about us in the show. So if you want to hear us talk about all that, you can go over to their feed and listen to the entire thing. But for our purposes, we just, you know us.

Some of it's in there. But we did cut some of it out to leave you some mystery to go check out Lights Out. Yeah. All right. So let's get to it. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Lights Out. And today we have a very special episode because we're joined by some lovely guests who have graced us with their presence.

And really, it just all worked out so perfectly that national parks after dark happened to be in Colorado, about to embark on what sounds like a truly amazing trip, by the way. Yeah. And we thought, let's collab. We have a lot of crossover. You know, we talk about a lot of similar spooky stories and we're like, let's do it. And so we're pleased to welcome National Parks After Dark to Lights Out. Thank you. It's good to be here.

And thank you for having us in your wonderful studio. It's fun to be in person. Yeah, this is amazing. Wonderful so far. Yeah. We'll be heard. Before we even brought them into the studio, Josh tried to scare the bejesus out of them with our hauntings and our curses in the studio.

Hey, just true stories, all right? I'm just warning you. there could potentially be a presence here. We've been told, too. It's not just me making this up. Other people have said the same thing. But as far as you know, it doesn't follow anybody home. Maybe me, but maybe Austin as well.

I kind of brushed it off, though. The Ouija board? I removed it. Okay, good. Yeah, yeah. Just in case, because I don't, if I had like a fiery car crash on the highway, I didn't want them finding that in my trunk.

Well, obviously. This makes sense. Yeah. But please, for those that don't know you guys and vice versa, I'm Josh. I'm Austin. I'm Danielle. And I'm Cassie. And there you go.

That's, uh, now you know us. That is our names. That is our name. Been out of for a while. I think we've been doing the shows about the same time because, yeah, we have a couple. Do we have a three hundred? I don't even know. I lost count after a while.

I don't know that we've hit 300 yet. I think we have. Have we? I'll go double check. We don't even know. I know we have at least 200, probably more than that. Honestly, we get the question a lot of if we're afraid. You know, are we afraid to recreate or be outside, whether it be in groups or alone or whatever

activity. And especially with the wildlife, of course, people are afraid of big predators. But time and time again, we kind of revert back to we're more afraid of people and what they're capable of. And that is kind of why we're interested in this story, because it's this interoperate. intersection of the wilderness and and true crime and the horrors that people can inflict on each other and not just being afraid of the natural world. Because this takes place in an area of the country that's pretty rugged and remote and has a lot of dangerous wildlife. But like this guy was the most dangerous thing within a thousand miles of this place.

Yeah, Robert Hansen. Yeah. And then on the other flips out of that coin and the paranormal, you know, go away from the natural. You go to the paranormal a little bit. we covered that one boogieman episode. And there's a theory that when you're a kid and you grow up, you kind of lose this fear of the boogeyman because you start to realize that it's human. It's real living humans that you should be afraid of.

Those are the true boogeyman. I still check under my bed, dude. Yeah, just in case. Did you guys ever watch, Are you afraid of the darkest kids? Oh, yeah. There was one that had monsters under your bed, and I was scared until I was like 15.

Like I would, if I had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I would jump off of my bed to the door. To the door, get up. So we'd grab your feet as when you stepped on the bed. How long are those arms under there? That was the question I never asked myself. If it's paranormal, it would probably reach you at the door. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, one thing I want to ask you guys is that I'm very interested in this whole, they call it the missing 411 phenomenon. I'm sure you guys get pinged about that all the time. But there's this author, David Polita's out there, who's written, done extensive research on the national parks and the amount of people that go missing out there under strange circumstances, hunters that disappear in a strange circumstances. And then he kind of leaves it, you know, the door open to a lot of possibilities.

And like before the show, we were just talking about Bigfoot, you know, or, you know, is there some type of creature out there? Or is there an interdimensional portal? Like, is there secret government? government, you know, testing going on and some stranger things type shit going out in the national parks. And I think it's, it definitely captivates the mind, right? Like, for sure. But I think for you guys, I'm curious what, like, just overall, just quickly, like, what do you guys think? Do you think it's possible there's anything going on out there, whether it be government's secret facilities

or something paranormal existing out there in those woods? Well, yes. To, I mean, All of it. I mean, the thing about national parks is they're so remote, which makes it possible for so many things to happen. And I mean, one of the first things I kind of think of, which isn't paranormal and maybe not really government related, but there are cartels that are very active inside national parks where they have marijuana plants out there. And it's because there's no one out there. And there has been many, many stories of people who have accidentally been on these high. hiking trails or got and veered off or whatever and stumble across these huge marijuana plantations that are out there and either find themselves in trouble or quickly get out of there because there's some darker stuff happening in these remote areas. And I think that when you're somewhere so far, there are so many things that could be happening and no one's around to really either stop it or intervene or report on it. So whether you're experiencing something paranormal, whether something bad is happening at the hands of someone else, if there's a government, I mean, I don't know, aliens, you know, there's stuff happening and they're hiding it.

Yeah. There's definitely that. There's definitely that. And but as far as like the sheer amount, like you can't attribute all mysterious experiences to that. Like, no, of course. And, you know, it is like you said. So it engages you and your imagination and your curiosity and it just like hooks you of all. the different possibilities of things. And that's really cool to contemplate. And of course,

it could be applicable to certain circumstances. But for us, especially and people who spend a significant amount of time outdoors, when you're hearing, there are certain stories that are kind of regurgitated and perpetuated in the media or just throughout war and legends and things like that, that anybody in the, who has spent a significant amount of time outside can clearly be like they got lost or were exposed to the elements or and there's and it's just as simple and as heartbreaking is that you know they got turned around the the forest and different environments are so difficult to navigate sometimes even the most experienced people in the wilderness go off step off the trail to go to the bathroom get turned around and aren't found for years

and it's not because an alien abducted them or anything they literally really just starved and couldn't find their way back. And unfortunately, that's kind of the story that's mostly true throughout. Yeah. And it's not as fun to think about. Or fun. Yeah, exactly. But also when you're going into this rugged terrain where the weather is unpredictable, a lot of times it really is just people recreating in the backcountry and something, something happens. An injury, getting lost, getting turned around, running into somebody. that has bad intentions. Like there's just a lot.

Nature is brutal and a lot of people find themselves in trouble. And we're not immune to it. Yeah. But of course, that leaves also room for that's a small slice of that pie for like there must be something else going on here. And like Cassie said, I mean, there's a lot of dangerous operations going on in especially very remote national parks, especially down in Texas. I mean, you have to travel five hours by car just to get to them. And then they're so expansive and they're on the border where there's a lot of different things going on. And you did a weed growing operation in California.

And it's just, yeah, I titled it, don't crow weed in national parks. Yeah, I figure that's. You can smoke it in some, but yeah, don't grow it. Don't grow it there. In some you can. I mean, probably not legally. It's federal property. In Colorado, you can't light up.

No, I think in federal. It's federal. It's federal land, so I don't think you can. Just like you can't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think they even had like signs at Rocky Mountain National Park last time I went or something. This was a few years ago.

But and then also no drones. Yeah, drones is a big one. Which I used to drone in the national parks back in the day and did a little vlogging. It used to be allowed. It used to be allowed. And then they changed that. I mean, now you, if you think everybody would be bringing a drone. Yeah.

There just be like, you know, you just, it ruined the, disrupt, disrupt, everything about the national forest land. Well, there's national forest land. You can do that. Yeah. In some places, it's, yeah, but national parks, I mean, especially the ones that are heavily visited. If everyone, or even if one of ten people had a drone, it would be, the airspace would

be insane. Yeah. These poor eagles and birds up there can't fly around because of freaking drones everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Animals are getting scared. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, and just too, the just lack of staff. you see. And obviously, as of late, you know, continued cuts to the National Park Service and, you know, people that absolutely need to be there are no longer there, you know, not as many as there were before to make sure that we protect the parks and, you know, people aren't littering and trashing them and which is a huge issue. I've noticed whenever I've gone, it's just like, it's so dirty in some places. And people, I'm just like, what is wrong with you? Yeah, what is wrong with you? I can't comprehend littering. You could have put that in your vehicle and drive it out. You had to just drop it on the trail.

Yeah, it blows my mind. Yeah. And it's hard because not only do we see limited staff, but we're also seeing record numbers of people that are going to these places. Like, we just read an article when we were in Yellowstone, that Yellowstone is seeing already halfway through the summer on track to have a record-breaking year. Yeah. But when you see all these funds that are being cut and there's less staff, now you're

dealing with the same problem, but you have more people and less staff. So it's making things a bit. matter and we see a lot of initiatives when we're visiting parks ourselves that are saying, hey, clean up, like help clean up. There's like a cleanup initiative where if you see trash, even if it's not yours, just pick it up because it's helping. And we did that. I mean, I picked up a couple things. I picked up water bottles and wrappers, things like that. Pieces of people's camelbacks and yeah. Yeah. And it's hard because it's not just like at face value. It's like you don't want to see litter. Nobody wants to see trash around. But it's just such a

cascade effect because not only is it trash, then it's habituating animals and wildlife to people and associating them with food, which can lead to different encounters, potential attacks, things like that. And then less rangers means, okay, yeah, maybe the pit toilets aren't going to be stocked with toilet paper and that's annoying or closed, but also no one's going to be there to save you and help you, you know, like in life-threatening situations, whether it's you're climbing and you get into a big climbing accident, or you just roll your ankle and you're eight miles out. Or you have a medical emergency where you're just on the trail.

There's a lot of older people or just people who are maybe not used to hiking in extreme weather's or whatever. And we see heart attacks on the trail and we hear of them all the time. And if there's no one to come out and help you get medical attention in time, it can be detrimental. So it's a lot of concerns. All encompassing and it's a big deal. So when people, you know, at first hear. are about budget cuts and it's like, okay, well, it's only like one person in this park or whatever.

Well, if that's the only search and rescue or EMT, that's a big deal. Yeah, well, not only that, what always crosses my mind, which kind of ties into our episode today is crime on the trails. Like, are we going to see a spike in crime out in these parks and these rural areas where there used to be some form of law enforcement, at least around, is less and less. you have less officers that are patrolling a large area and becomes easier and easier for a criminal to perpetuate some type of attack on somebody or dump somebody somewhere or assault somebody out on a trail and there's nobody there to help or catch that person. And that's scary to think about. And maybe that's just me being paranoid in covering as much true crime as we do.

But I can't help but think about that and just. Well, you should, yeah, and everyone should. I feel like, I almost feel like I need to, if I go into the wilderness, I need to make sure I have a way to defend myself, you know, and I don't think you can bring, can you bring firearms into national parks? I think it's really dependent. I guess you could. Asking the real question to your family.

Can I come pack and heat? So on my height, can I be like open carrying? Just in case, I mean, it's scary out there. There's scary people. Yeah, I think it's a totally valid question, too, because there are places where backcountry rangers are no longer employed there. So now when you're on these backcountry trails, where these people, maybe you're camping out there where these backcountry rangers used to patrol and just check in on everyone, they're not there anymore. Yeah. And so it's a totally a valid question.

And I don't know about the carrying when you're in national parks, but like we have bear spray. I was just going to say, hitting with the bear spray. But not all parks allow bear spray. So there's also that. What? Yeah. Like Yosemite is a good example. They don't.

Well, they don't have a grizzly population. But as we talked about, black bears will still do some damage. Yes. It's not that black bears aren't dangerous. Yeah. But yeah, they have certain policies as far as from parks. So they'll ask you, be like, are you carrying bear spray? I don't think they ask.

You always want it on you. So if a ranger sees you with it, they'll say, yeah. Yeah, you guys didn't know. That was a fun little fact I didn't know. You have to be able to pull bear spray and spray it within three seconds, you guys said? I didn't know that. You got a quick draw. So we can't keep it in our backpacks on our back.

It's useless. Like under your lunch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Here, take that. Hold on. It's like quick distractions.

Yeah. You won't work. So you keep it on you. They'll get you and your lunch. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. Wow.

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Watch only on Prime. Well, somehow this all ties into what we're covering. Yeah, we're actually covering a serial killer, which is never, never a fun experience whatsoever. I mean, this guy, Robert Hansen, the butcher baker, as he was known, a truly, I mean, one of the worst. Really, when it comes to serial killers, a sadistic evil man that he took the most dangerous game literally, actually kidnapped his victims, took him out to the wilderness in Alaska, and then hunted them like the big game that he'd hunt out there, which is just absolutely horrifying.

You know, the way that I think about, I think serial killers, because it's always the question of like, why are we interested? Why do we even want to talk about this guy in the first place? And I think there's a lot of little things that are important to learn about just from history because obviously when you start looking at the victims and you look at the time period and you start wondering like how come we don't have the same types of people and situations happening today as we did back in the 70s 80s and things like that and I think you can look at like the cultural shift and you know as we'll talk about with many of the victims there were sex

workers and and sadly in almost every serial killer case we've ever covered it's it's always marginalized women that society at the time did. didn't care about and yeah that's often the one thing care about that's often the one thing that never changes in these cases like you can look back through history and be like oh this can't happen now because we have DNA testing whatever etc etc but the one thing we always find in these episodes it's always marginalized people and because they're prioritized differently in the eyes of law enforcement and that these predators can see that and they understand that yeah this is how it happens even today even today yeah exactly i mean

And I know you guys have covered missing and murder indigenous women is a huge issue. We've covered a number of potential serial killers operating, you know, in and around reservations, up and down major highways. And it's still very much a big, big thing. And I think luckily technology and as Austin said DNA testing have gotten better. So is there a bunch of singular serial killers operating still? There could be. But it seems like there's also a lot of.

of people that are just taking advantage of of these different groups and as well as just some of these rural areas where still to this day there's just not a lot of resources and you know you could argue they're still not as interested in solving those cases as you know say you know somebody else from a different community would be you know where they get national news FBI comes in and well that's yeah I mean going back to how you brought up we did the murdered and missing indigenous women episode you know we, from the beginning when Gabby Petito's case unfolded, we were very early on into our show and we got a lot of requests to cover her story and we understand 100% why, you know, people live in. It's literally our exact show. But for a number of reasons, we did not cover

her story and still do not want to, not because we're not interested in Gabby and what happened to her, but just because it happened so recently and it was just, it's a very sensitive. It was widely covered. Yes. But we used her story as kind of the foundation for the Indigenous women episode that we did just for that stark contrast of exactly what you were saying. You know, just like the disproportionate amount of media coverage that is given to certain people of a certain demographic and background versus what we're talking about. today as far as people in kind of like on the fray of society or um it just different demographics and things like that and when you put it side by side like that it's so glaringly obvious and we

really wanted to highlight that um because there are so many stories that just like the victims today that are just not given the the limelight you know not given the same attention and um so and likely because of that because they don't get the same media attention that other cases do then enforcement doesn't prioritize them. Correct. And that's a real thing. I mean, it's such a pattern that exists amongst all crime all over the U.S. and even in other countries in Canada.

We've seen a lot of the same trends and patterns with the way that they handle their indigenous cases up there. And it's the same thing. And it's just, we covered it was a, what highway was that? Highway of tears. Yeah, the highway of tears. And that case very stark because people didn't really start paying attention until a white women, a white woman was one of the victims, whereas before there had been countless indigenous

victims, but it wasn't until then that the publicity of that case really exploded. And it's sad to see that. Yeah, well, so a lot of that unfolds with Robert very much so. And, you know, Robert is one of those individuals who, I think he had a lot of luck due to the time period that he was And he really created a great cover story for him for himself by having a family. You know, this guy is the baker, you know, at the donut shop. You know, he's going to church with his wife. Yeah, gives a little BTK. Yeah, he was a church leader, scout leader, et cetera.

Anytime family man. Yep. Anytime somebody is a pillar of the community. Yeah. Can be trouble. But yeah, he had this like exterior. this very, like he had a very, I think, carefully manicured front just for the community and just kind of like it couldn't be him. Yeah, very unassuming, nothing that you would, I mean, even when you look at photos of him, he's not someone where you would outwardly look at him and be like, oh, he's very recognizable.

Like he would be someone who would blend into a crowd, blend into a community. And, I mean, who, when you pick up your bake goods, if you have a local baker, that you go to, that's kind of like a, it's a wholesome job. It's a wholesome, like, way to be part of a community. So he definitely, definitely disguised himself among his peers and used that to his advantage as well. Yeah. And like you were saying, the vastness of the parks is how, you know, the cartel can operate in these small little areas. He also took advantage of this isolation that you get just way out in the middle of nowhere. You can basically get away with anything. And that's kind of the danger. We are cheating a little bit in this episode because it's not a national park,

but he is, he was committing these crimes near a state park. Same gist. And I know Alaska is also seen as they've called it like the final frontier of wildlife, et cetera, because there are these spaces where there is just no one for miles and miles and miles and miles. And he certainly took advantage of that. Yeah. And it's unfortunate because Alaska is one of the most beautiful place. It's one of my favorite places on the planet, and we've been to a lot of places on the planet, so that's saying something. And we'll get into it as far as like bush planes and things like that. But as far as getting around, Alaska has more pilots than any other state. You know, there are, you need to be able to fly a plane in Alaska to get to the vast majority of the state.

There aren't road systems like we're used to here in the lower 48. And he took advantage of that. And especially, I mean, Alaska, even now is pretty. undeveloped comparatively, but even, you know, a few decades ago when this happened, even more so. And he really played to that. Have you ever heard of outdoor boys on YouTube? Yes, yes. So it's this guy, I think he just ended his channel. He did. It was so sad. Everyone's like having a crisis about it. I was devastated. Yeah. I would just throw on his videos, having my morning coffee. It's this guy he goes out in the middle of often the Alaskan wilderness. And his videos really, if you're curious about the Alaskan wilderness, go check out some of his videos. You will start to understand the scope of just how vast.

It's almost unfathomable because you'll look at some of his footage and it's just nothing and nobody forever and it's just him out there like going fishing in the middle of absolute nowhere. So if you want to get an idea, go check out maybe some of his videos. Yeah. We miss you. Yeah, we miss you outdoor boys. Yeah. Alaska. has always been on my my bucket list for sure i've been upset i was obsessed with it as a kid i would fantasize about having like a big ranch up there and like in my fifth grade class i made a whole like vision board for like a project and it was like buy an rv have a house in alaska raise husky

do the identitra you know and live that life up there so i definitely got to get up there because i mean it just looks absolutely stunning because it's it's almost like you're in a different country yeah right um for sure Sure. Like, no comparison to, like, our wilderness is pretty nice here in Colorado, I would say, but. Definitely. But you go to our people everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone's got their Patagonia. You spot them from a mile away. Subaru's everywhere.

Teslas. Yeah. Very different in Alaska. Not as wild. Yeah. Definitely not as wild. I mean, you get up to Alaska. We were in Anchorage, right? And we're just sitting outside, eating lunch and a moose walks by us. That's so wild. And you know, and you're in the middle of the city. And it's just the city. Yeah, the city of Anchorage, say very loosely. But yeah, it's very wild. You have to take bushplains to get to most of the places. And Robert definitely used that to. I mean, he planned this, right? Because when he first-

Yeah, I mean, to get your pilot's license and then to get a bush plane and get out to these places. And then, like we mentioned earlier, he would go into these forests and he would hunt the women down when he got there. And a lot of, I mean, he became a very notorious serial. killer in Alaska and a lot of question, I think, around any serial killers, like, how did, how did they get to this point? What really brought them to this point in their life? And I think that a common theme that we see is that they're bullied as kids and they have a hard upbringing. And that was very true with Robert as well. So I guess kind of going into his backstory a little bit of this is he struggled, I mean, he struggled a lot as a kid. He had acne that he was relentlessly made fun of.

Girls didn't like him when he was growing up. And it kind of triggered this resentment towards, I think, women later in life, these experiences that he was having. And his home life wasn't much easier either because his father was a Danish immigrant who was very, very strict with him and also forced him to work a lot. I mean, he was 10 years old when his father had him going to the bakery before sunrise. It was like, get to work, work these long hours, which also I think we would see later in life he becomes a baker. And that stemmed from very early in his childhood.

But I think throughout his life, he just longed for attention as a kid. And when he was constantly getting rejected by women over and over again, he was feeling humiliated. And it later stems into what happened later in life. because that resentment festered. And in 1957 at the age of 18, he enlisted in the Army Reserve. And after his discharge, he took a job as an assistant drill instructor at a police academy in Pocahontas, Iowa. There he met a younger woman who he actually eventually did find someone who he connected with. And in the summer of 1960, when Robert was just 21 years old, they got married. And you might think that this would be a milestone where it would be like, okay, all the bullying's over. He's made it past this like really, really. hard point in life that he would kind of move on from that. He found the love of his life. He's married, but he didn't. He actually had this deep resentment. And it wasn't long. It was actually later that same year in 1960 that he was connected to his first crime. And Robert set fire to a local

school bus garage in this destructive act of revenge. And he was arrested, convicted of arson, and sentenced to prison. Which interesting thing with that, So there's something called the McDonald triad. Yeah. Or the serial killer trifecta. And a psychiatrist developed sort of this, this theory around, you know, patterns amongst serial killers in their upbringing. And the three things are arson, bedwetting. And the third one is cruelty to animals, right?

Which he is a big hunter, which, again, doesn't necessarily mean you're, someone might argue that's animal cruelty in itself. But there's a lot we don't know. This guy wears masks. Yeah. He may have been just using like, I'm an avid huntsman. Who knows what he's actually doing out there or, you know, to animals. Maybe he's maiming them and torturing them. I mean, who knows?

Or who knows what he was doing in his childhood? That hasn't been reported. Right. But the fact that he's got this arson in there is just that right there. Yeah, exactly. And basically they figured out that if they, if a person exhibits, you know, one of these three characteristics or all three of them, the likelihood that they turn into an aggressive serial offender of some sort, especially a violent one, is pretty high.

And so I thought that was, I wasn't surprised when I heard that he set fire to the bus barn. But Robert, he spent 20 months behind bars for his first major crime, which you'll see this is kind of a running theme with him. He doesn't ever spend, well, until the very end there, a ton of time in prison. But he graces law enforcement constantly. Oh yeah. He's like always coming across them throughout his entire life. Because yeah, I don't know if we mentioned this, but he did get married. And so he was married.

And after this whole ordeal, though, his wife filed for divorce while he was still incarcerated. And when he got out, he felt like he had nothing. I mean, he had managed to build somewhat of a normal life for himself. But then he went and did this and just completely screwed all that up. And so after, you know, getting out of, prison. He really didn't have a whole lot of stability. You know, he's bouncing around job to job. And he racked up a few more minor arrests along the way. And by the mid-1960s, Robert was ready for a fresh start. So he remarried this time to a young woman named Darla. So what he would do is he'd put

personal ads in the paper for like dates. Yeah. Original Tinder. Yeah. I was just going to say that. Yeah. I'm like, that is so odd. Yeah. People used to also, uh, this was too early for the I think, but people would also record video. They would do video dating. Have you guys ever heard of this? On what? On what? They would, I can't remember.

It was like a service that you would buy into where you would record yourself on videotape and then send the videotape in and they could then send your videotape out to other people who bought into it. Have you seen Millionaire Matchmaker? No. I've seen an episode or two. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But I see what you're saying.

It's kind of same. Little interviews and they would, you would videotape yourself and tell people. about you and your interest and things like that. And you would send that into a matchmaker. And they would go through the profiles and be like, here are five clips from potential. Kind of a wholesome way to date. Yeah. It's like, here I am. Like, I'm 34. I'm like long walks on the beach. At least you get to see the person. But imagine just looking in the newspaper, reading a written description for somebody. And then calling the number and setting up a date. Well, we've done a couple of episodes like that.

Yeah. The Ottercliffs woman. The Ottercliffs. Yeah, there was this woman, unfortunately, it did not work out well for her. But she was, she did this exact same thing in newspaper ads. And she responded to her because she put herself out there and someone responded to her. And they ended up getting married if he killed her in Acadia National Park. But it was the same kind of idea where she was like, hi, I'm single.

I'm looking for love. I live here. I'm having trouble meeting people. these are the things that I like and someone responded to that and that's how they got together. Wow. Yeah, well, that's exactly how Robert got with Darla. And Darla was a teacher. She was also a devalry Baptist and soft spoken. And I think probably really worked well for Robert. Because I mean, if you really start to imagine what Robert was like, especially earlier in his life, he just seems like very introverted, doesn't probably. avoid social interaction to some extent, unless he has to. But he's notoriously bad with women, right? He's just like he's rejected throughout his whole life. And so he felt like this was his only outlet to hopefully try to meet somebody. And he did. And so the two of them briefly moved to

Minnesota, but Robert still felt like an outsider there. So then he wanted to go somewhere new, somewhere his past couldn't reach him. And where do you go in the U.S.? If you want to go very, very far without leaving the country. Well, there's only two places. There's Hawaii, which is one option, and then there's Alaska. So he moves up there in 1967 with Darla, and they moved to Anchorage, Alaska, which you guys have obviously been to. And at this time period, the city was in midst of rapid change. It was tons of oil was found out. There was like a bunch of boom towns up there. Or was that what Anchorage was originally, like kind of a boom town that developed? Yeah, they found a lot of oil up there and people went up in flocks. I mean, whole towns were built up around

that because that's where the money was. And so you saw a lot of people from the lower 48, just heading straight up there to go for the summertime and make all their money and then leave. So it was very much like people would go up while the weather was good enough and then they leave and do something else. So it was kind of this revolving state where people didn't stay long because the weather is really harsh up there. In the winter, but there was a huge, I mean, it was gold mine for people. Yeah. And quite literally.

Quite literally. You know, before this, like right now we're talking about an oil boom and this thing. But, you know, decades prior in, you know, the 19th century, the 1800s, it was gold. And it was the same thing. We have these frontier boom towns popping up. And a lot of them are ghost towns now. And you can go visit the remnants of these different mining operations and things like that. But literally, whole towns and communities came.

and built up overnight, quite literally, for the same exact thing, just not oil, but cold. So Alaska has seen a lot of this type of, you know, influx of people and has kind of gotten used to the, oh, yeah, they're here, but for a season. And when they go, there's not a lot of questions asked because that's just kind of the way the community is by and large or had been for a while. And I'm sure Robert's not the only person who had this thought of like, I want to to escape my past. So let me go up to Alaska where the chances of running into somebody that would know me or know my past is probably slimmer than, say, somewhere here in the lower 48.

So Robert goes up there and he's obviously got to find work and he does as a baker at a local supermarket, which was a steady early morning job. They really suited his quiet demeanor. And it makes sense. I mean, it's just you in the oven and some dough. And so that's what he'd be doing and Darla was in a teaching position nearby at a school and they rented a modest home and they had their first child and began settling into what looked from the outside like a fairly normal life and by the early 1970s oil had been discovered in Prudeau Bay and almost overnight the city of Anchorage transformed from this quiet outpost into a bustling frontier town so as you can imagine when that happens tons of construction crews you got pipeline workers and you know people are

chasing the money, right? People are going to chase the opportunities and that's exactly what happened. Everybody starts pouring in from across the country and with them, you know, it's not all work, no play. You got to have places to hang out, to relax to, you know, unplug. And so bars, clubs and a thriving underground economy comes along with that, of course, including exotic dancers and sex workers. And so like you guys were just talking about, it's a transient community. You got people coming and going. And a lot of people at this point in time aren't even going by their real names. And you can imagine what the influx of people is the infrastructure supporting that people and protecting those people, aka the police department, are they prepared to protect and serve

this all of a sudden massive population that just showed up here? And then also this underground economy and crime. You know, with people comes crime. And so now there's an influx of crime. So it's very obvious that they were very understanding. daft, under-resourced, and they're kind of just like trying to maintain the piece as best as they can. But they're really not equipped or prepared for what's about to happen as time goes on. Yeah, and it makes sense that when you think about it, this underground network that starts with the exotic dancers and sex workers, because when you think of these oil companies and big operations, they're very manual jobs. So it's a lot of men who are coming up. So I think that a lot of women who were in these industries saw Alaska as this opportunity.

They're like, okay, everyone's up here. It's remote. They need fun because they're working these like really difficult jobs. Like let's open all of these places. So I think it makes sense that with this outpouring of people doing these really manual labor jobs in this time, that these people would also be heading up there at the same time. Yeah. And I mean, brothels were huge in Alaska because the gold miners wanted fun. And it's just kind of like just kind of the same thing in a different time. But as far as Robert goes, of course, he's not in the oil industry. He is a baker. But he's keeping really strange hours for people who are, you know, don't have a normal nine to five can't really relate to. But he was up, you know, early in the morning, one, two in the morning. So while the rest of the community is asleep, he's up and he's on the streets of Anchorage at the same time as a lot of these. different people who are in sex work or exotic dancers, and they're clearly looking for clients. So he later told police that the first time he encountered a sex worker in downtown Anchorage, he said, quote, my body tightened up, I didn't even want to get close to one. But those initial feelings, whether they be repulsion, disdain, just uncomfortability or maybe

even fear towards these sex workers, became entwined with his deep-seated resentment that Cassie was talking about earlier towards women in general, and something started to shift inside of him. On the evening of November 15, 1971, Robert was out driving when a young secretary named Susan pulled up beside him at a stoplight. She smiled, wave turned over. I mean, we do it all the time. How many times do you pull up to someone, you catch her eye, and you're like, oh, hey, you know. I accidentally cut someone off. Hi, hi, hi. Hi. Yeah. In the city, it's more of a middle finger than a, than a wave and a smile. Yeah, especially in Boston. in the northeast where we are from.

But for her, she was pleasant. She gave him a small smile and wave. And to her, it was probably nothing more than just this passing moment. Didn't give it another thought. But for him, it was quite different. And he later recalled this moment saying, Bell started going off in my head. This was a young girl that looked kind of attractive,

that maybe she likes me for me, you know? And at this point in time, he's 32, and Susan was 18. So let's keep that in mind. Just from a smile. Yeah. He's having these thoughts going off. So later after this, he follows her home, knocked on her door and claimed that he needed to borrow a phone book from her. And at this point, we can probably assume that she didn't recognize him from that small interaction and didn't put the two and two together.

Being pleasant and kind, she said okay and lets him inside. And throughout this interaction at some point, he asks her on a date and she politely declines, says, I have a boyfriend, I'm sorry. And Robert left, but he was not able to let that go, that rejection go. And a week later, he returned to her apartment complex, but this time with a gun and he was laying in wait for Susie. When she arrived, he grabbed her, held her at gunpoint, and threatened to kill her if she screamed. but thankfully she did scream and that scream ultimately saved her life.

A neighbor heard the struggle, heard her scream, saw what was happening out through a window, and called the police. Robert fled, but tracking dogs quickly tracked him down to where he was hiding and he was arrested right there on the spot. Robert was eventually released on bail only two weeks later on December 2nd, 1971, and that sense of control he felt while briefly having Susie really ignited him in a really gross way, and it became this insatiable urge for him. In the early hours of December 19th, Robert abducted another woman at gunpoint. Her name was Patricia Ann Roberts,

and she was an 18-year-old exotic dancer. Robert drove for more than 100 miles south to Seward Alaska through snow and ice. Do you imagine that, being driven 100 miles south? With a guy you don't know. It's such a long car ride to not know what is going to happen to you or where you're right. They only stopped briefly at a motel and this is where Robert raped her and then began the long drive back. And at one point, he even pulled over on this just completely barren, desolate stretch of road near a cliff

and Patricia thought he was going to kill her right then and there. She ended up begging for her life, promising not to tell anyone. what he had done and Robert ultimately believed her and let her go. So that did save her life in the end. But not before taking information about her family and then threatening to harm them if she went to the police, which is just disgusting, right? Yeah, and it seems like at this point, it's about sex for him. And it's about control and putting himself in this authoritative position that he's never been with women ever and he's uh but he and he's trying to adjust his strategy too he's you know he did it right there pretty much out in the open and then he got caught and then he's like okay i got to go farther

and so you kind of see over time he goes a little bit farther and a little bit farther and a little bit farther he's just escalating exactly time goes on and then also realizing can't i trust that these women are not going to turn me in right so you kind of see this evolution unfolding uh with which is really, really disturbing. And even just probably seeing her kind of submit and be like, I won't tell anyone it's fine. And him thinking that he has this total control over her did work on him. Because I think you're right. It is about control at the end of the day.

But the good thing is that despite his threats, a few days later, she ended up telling police still what happened. And she was later able to identify him in a series of portraits of similar-looking men. The police, you know, they do a photo lineup. They presented it to her. and she was able to point out Robert. So earlier that next year, her experience, along with Susie's,

led to a trial against Robert for assault with a deadly weapon. That's all they could really get him on. Unfortunately, without much physical evidence, the charges related to her case were dropped. So they had pretty much nothing on him. I hate that this happens so often back in the 70. And again, I think there just comes down to a lack of knowledge of how to investigate these cases.

Yeah. Yeah. Mostly. There's probably other maybe prejudice there as well. But. And we've covered a lot of these older cases, they're like, oh, circumstantial evidence doesn't really count when it does and should, you know. And so I think that's also how they handled these where it's like, oh, no physical evidence. Didn't happen. We'll throw it out. Yeah. And it's also evidence. It's not enough to believe a woman. You know, this person just detailed her entire account. She pointed you to the person who did it. And still you need this physical evidence that. doesn't exist anymore, especially if you're talking like months later and just believing wasn't enough for the police officers, which if they had, we'll see would have stopped a lot of future crimes that he commits. Yeah. We'll also see, I think even later in this case, we'll see the police departments. They'll do this thing where they'll throw a polygraph test at victims. Be like, if you fail any part of this, we'll throw your case out or people will just outright

refuse because it's like, oh, you just don't believe me. This is kind of ridiculous. I have to go through all these loopholes to just get you to believe my story, which is ridiculous. And polygraphs are some of the most unreliable. Yeah. So that's, yeah, they're inadmissible in court. It's, it's just a way sometimes for a police department's to kind of just write things off quickly. And they're, they're measured on emotion. And you're talking to someone who is victimized and who is coming forward with their story. Of course, it's going to be emotional for them. So how do you? you really judge that accurately. People have learned how to gamify those things and how to pass them even without you can do

physiological things. Yeah. Yeah. In March 19703, Robert was convicted solely for the attempted attack on Susie and was sentenced to five years in prison. Around that time, a psychiatrist named Dr. J. Ray Langdon conducted a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation and he ended up diagnosing Robert with a disassociation. associative mental illness, possibly involving psychotic or schizophrenic episodes. That's a pretty serious diagnosis. Langdon described Robert as having, quote, a compulsive personality with thought disorder,

and he noted that Robert had harbored violent fantasies toward women, even going as early as his teenage years. But despite all this, it didn't really matter. And the seriousness of his crime, Robert served only three months in. in prison before being transferred to a halfway house. So he's just getting off easy again. And many years later, he would confess to police. And he would even say this.

Even when I was in jail, I got to thinking, boy, I couldn't wait till I could do it again. Insane. At the halfway house, he was supposed to drive only to and from work. And instead, he would drive downtown. And he would watch sex workers from his vehicle. Yeah. And before we move on, I think it's important to, note of just side by side, he received 20 months in prison for arson and how many months?

Yeah, it was three months cut short. For crimes against women. And I think that's just so telling of kind of like the pattern that we're going to see unfolds. Yeah. The rest of this and how. Property destruction is more important to us than sexual assault. It's like. Yeah. Yeah, it's disgusting. Yeah. And going into. after three months, it was only November 1st of that same year, 1973, that Robert Hansen was released on probation. And all while, his wife, Darla, stood by him through this. Even after all of these accusations and the trial and him going to jail, she was still by his side.

And the couple who already had one child together, she was expecting another. And even though he went to prison for this period of time, the community didn't really think any less of him. He was still the baker. He was the soft-spoken guy that they all knew, and it didn't change how the public saw him. Which is wild. How? I want to know more about Darla. And I know it seems like she didn't do a lot of interviews or anything like that after the fact.

But I would love to get a peek into where her head was at, what she was thinking, what she thought of him at the time. How much did she know? Yeah, how much did she know? Because I think that's always the question with serial killer spouses or partners. is like how much did they actually know what was going on? And then once they found out what happened, their actions afterwards are pretty telling. Usually it's divorce,

they immediately leave because they didn't know potentially. Or in this case, it's like, did she also not believe the victim too? She was like, oh, yeah, right. Robert would never do that. This is somebody just trying to get my poor Robert in trouble or something. Yeah, and I do know she was very relieved. religious, right? That was a big part.

Robert tends church with me. He's a good godly man. Yeah, and I wonder if she was willing to use kind of this like, oh, everyone can be absolved. Everyone can change in the eyes of God, something like that. I'm not sure. This is all me kind of speculating just what I know about Darla, but I mean, it just makes you wonder how your spouse doing something like this and being convicted of things like this. I don't know the mental processes you kind of.

have to go through to stay together, really. I do think that Robert was a very manipulative person because you look on the outside, right? And as we mentioned, he's this upstanding person in the community and he's your baker. He's soft spoken. And he has manipulated the community to not care about these charges. So I can only imagine what was happening behind closed doors when he's with his wife. If he's manipulating the community in this way, what is he saying to his wife? Oh, yeah.

That's a good point. You know, and it also brings out he's doing horrendous things to women. And it just makes me wonder if she was also the victim of abuse in her own home. Or like maybe she wasn't and maybe things were like beautiful and wonderful at home. So it made it even harder, that manipulation even harder for her to understand or believe these accusations. But I think there's just probably so much that went on that we'll never know unless, you know, like unless someone has. has firsthand information on this. I don't think we'll ever know, but he seems like someone who would be very, very manipulative.

Yeah. As most serial killers are. That's where they, that's one of their strong suits. True. They manipulate people. Yeah, I think you're spot on with that. Yeah, well, he doesn't stay out of trouble for very long because in 1976, he was arrested again. And this time, it was for stealing a chainsaw from an Anchorage department store.

And in a second court ordered psychiatric evaluation, a man named Robert McMillard. Annen diagnosed him with manic depression, which is known today as bipolar disorder. He recommended that Robert receive ongoing treatment and continue periodic psychiatric treatment and follow-ups, but it's pretty unclear if those recommendations were ever followed is kind of uncertain. Robert then spent another year in prison and then once again was released on probation. And once he was free again, he returned to the streets of Anchorage to watch the women like Danielle had been mentioning before. By the autumn of 1979, Robert Hansen was 40 years old, and his past crimes had been largely forgotten. In the community, again, he was a well-respected trophy hunter, soft-spoken family man, still a baker. But behind closed doors, his violent urges never faded.

They'd only grown more intense over time. The next time he acted on them, he picked up a young woman who was a sex worker, according to Robert, though her identity was never able to be verified. According to his account, Robert led her to believe that they were heading to his house, and instead he drove them north of Anchorage onto backroads that led deep into the forest. At some point, during the drive, the car became stuck, probably because he's out on these backroads. Like, who knows what these roads in Alaska look like, they're probably just dirt full of potholes. They become stuck.

And this was when this woman realized that something was very, very wrong. and suspected that they were not going to his house or wherever they were going was not safe. So she actually panics and she pulls out a knife on him. And during this, there's this big struggle that happens. Robert ends up getting the knife from her. And in the struggle, she ends up lying face down in the dirt and Robert stabs her in the back before he drives away. Her remains were found seven months later in July of 1980 by workmen near Acclutna, Lake Road, And adding to the heartbreak, police were actually never able to identify her to this day.

We don't know who she was, so she became known as only a cloutna Annie. And she was the first woman that Robert admitted to killing. But, of course, she wasn't the last. After the killing of a cloutna Annie, Robert's violence began to follow a pattern. He would prowl the streets of Anchorage, especially in the morning hours, looking for women who seemed isolated, vulnerable, or simply out of place. He'd offer money for sex or he would even offer money for modeling gigs saying, I'll pay you to photograph you for something.

And he would use fake business cards or prop camera to build trust and validity of who he was. He's like, look, I'm real. Like, this is my business card. You can see. And it was once they trusted him and got into his car was when he would act. And this was when he would threaten them to try and gain control, as we saw before, threatening families, things like that. And he would use handcuffs.

a gun to get them to comply. Some of the women he even actually brought back to his house. If his wife and kids weren't home, he would bring these women back home. Or if they were home, he would just drive away into the deep woods and do his crimes there. He always had a cover too, because if, you know, his wife hadn't seen him in a while, it'd just be like, oh, I was out hunting. Like, sometimes it takes a while. You've got to get way out there. I went camping.

There were a million covers for him through all. his activities. Not to mention he's a baker and he's got weird hours as it is. Right. So if he's not home, it's not. It's not weird. If he's out one, two, three, four a.m. He's like, yeah, I'm making donuts down at the shop. Yeah. Which is, you know, alone. So there's no one there to verify it. Right. So who knows if he's actually at the bakery or if he's out prowl on the streets? I mean, nobody really knows. So it was really the perfect cover for him. And I think with a clout and Annie, I think this was the turning point for him where he goes, he really realizes how sadistic he really is and how much enjoyment and pleasure he got out of killing somebody. And, you know,

for him that was like power to the max. And he felt in complete control. And I think that was where he finally starts that evolution into a full-blown serial killer where he's like, Now I've done it and now I can do it again. And then you see all the other steps that he's taking to really turn his methods into a full, you know, it's very organized. He's got business cards. He's got a story for everything and he's knowing how to manipulate and pull these women out from, you know, where they work or where they're staying and then come with him, which is, says a lot about him that he was very much in control of himself, of his thoughts of, of his actions at this point in time and that at this point in time, he's not just this like psychopath who, well, he probably is a psychopath,

but he's not, you know what I mean? He's not, he full well knows what he's doing. It's very, he's calculated. He's premeditated. I'm just going to say calculated. It's not like, yes, he's acting upon urges that he's feeling, but it's not in the moment. Yeah. Right. You know, it's very carefully planned. He has, like you said, all of these different, whether they be, alibis or stories built up. Like he has this entire world that he has crafted. It's not just a, he has this random urge and he just lashes out. You know, this is stuff that he's put a lot of thought into.

Yeah. And there's, there's theories for this exact reason. He is so calculated. And we're already, this is kind of like early on, at least in the cases that we're aware of. And this is why there are theories that he had already been killing people in the continental US before moving to a lot. Alaska because you're like, wow, this guy has it down to a science out here already. Yeah. So there are theories that he may have killed way more even before this.

We just don't actually know. Yeah, because to him, or as according to him, I should say, occult and Annie was like the turning point. He's like, and he kind of made it seem like it was a mistake. You know, it was just a result of a scuffle and it wasn't his plan. And then as soon as he did it, something kind of changed in him and he wanted to keep doing. that. Yeah. But who knows? He says it's his first, correct? Yeah, that's what he says. But if we take him, we know he's a manipulator. So if we take him at his word, this could be his first. But how is he this calculated already? He's been fantasizing about this for years. Yeah. And we do see him escalating too because he started on a whim or

of we know. Because of course, like you're mentioning, there could be so much more that has, he's never admitted to and we can't link him to, but we go from his first where he saw someone smile at him. He showed up at her house a couple weeks later after being rejected and attacked her in the middle of the street to now he has this whole plan to get them isolated to carry out these crimes. He's escalated in his violence. So it feels like he's learned from past mistakes where he's gotten caught to and we're seeing this escalation and violence and calculation. Because just weeks after Kluena Annie's body was discovered in July 1980, a second set of remains turned up. And this time, they were near a remote campground outside Seward, more than a hundred miles south of Anchorage, where Robert had driven Patricia Ann Roberts nearly 10 years earlier. And the victim was identified as 24-year-old Joanna Messina.

Joanna had grown up on the east coast of the U.S., and she got married and worked as a dental assistant in New York State. but she'd left that life behind, separating from her husband and heading west and eventually making her way up to Seward, Alaska. Friends there described her as free-spirited and footloose, and she didn't have a job. She was living light and drifting, which made her vulnerable. And when Robert spotted her on the docks in Seward, it was May 1988, two months before her remains would be found. And in his later police confession, Robert said, quote,

I was down there walking up and down the docks and talking to different fishermen, and there was kind of an attractive gal there. I'll be the first one to admit, I got to thinking, gee whiz, ah, maybe I can ask her to have supper with me and spend a few pleasant moments. Robert offered to take her out for a meal, posing as

a friendly, helpful stranger, and Joanna accepted. Preparing, you know, for what she thinks is going to be a casual evening together. She brought her dog to the dinner, but when she later asked Robert for money, the illusion Robert had built in his mind collapsed. because he's, it's hard, it's hard to believe, is this a moment where Roberts still hoping he's going to have a genuine connection with a woman?

It appears that way. It appears that way? Or is that just like what we, he wants us to think. Yeah, I mean, he is married too at this point. Right, yeah, it's not forget about. Yeah. Yeah. It seems like he's seeking validation. And because I feel like we keep hearing again and again with quotes, he's saying, I was hoping she would like me for me, you know?

And then when they ask for money, immediately that feels like a switch for him where it's like, oh, you're here for money, not for me personally. And it kind of sets off this trigger of maybe from his childhood being rejected over and over again. And now it's coming out in these small moments. But again, he's married. He asked for a casual dinner. You know, it's just it feels like this is his trigger of being rejected. Yet while being a married man. Yeah, and I wonder if it has something to do with where he feels like he's in disguise with his wife.

So it's like she's accepting me for a character that I'm playing and not for me. So when he's picking up these random women, maybe he is being vulnerable and more himself seeking some weird validation for me like, this is the true form. This is my freak self. And maybe I'm trying to find some validation here. I don't know. They don't know I'm married. Why would they reject me? Yeah.

Because when he was talking to police about this, he's like, this is someone I really wanted to be with. I guess it was just a fond hope that she would still want me just for me. And then when she asked for money, he just got angry and called her a whore. And then they actually started fighting. And Robert claimed Joanna reached for his gun, but he got to it first. And as she tried to run away, he shot her in the back with his 22 caliber revolver. And then he shot her dog. He dumped her body in a gravel pit near the campground where she would be found two months later.

And he said, I didn't even dig a hole. God. And this stems back to what you were talking about earlier with violence against animals. I mean, not many people would shoot a dog. I mean, not people either. And obviously that. But when you look at someone who's also willing to harm dogs, I think that that's another red flag of a lot of serial killers. Yeah.

I mean, a lot of killers and serial killers, you see their stories. unfold and you read about them and they leave the animals alone. And I mean, not to say that that's right. Or worse or whatever. It's just a psychological thing. But yeah, he even went out of his way to kill the animal as well. Yeah. So I just think it adds an extra layer of evil that is hard to, you know, you're killing two forms of innocent creatures, you know, and beings.

Yeah. And it's just like out of spite for her too. Right. Yeah. Because she set him off. And he's like, oh, her dog's hair too. Well, just get rid of that too. Or maybe he thought it was evidence or something potentially.

But then he doesn't really try that hard to dispose of her body or anything like that. He just said, I just pushed a bunch of gravel down on top of her. And then he threw his gun into the snow river on his drive back to Anchorage. Yeah, it's just, it just tells you everything you need to know about his demeanor, the way he thinks. This guy is completely unhinged. And something as simple as that can set him off and cause him to kill you. Yeah. And he clearly sees his victims as like a disposable thing that he can use.

It's all disposable. Yeah. And it almost feels like this last disrespect, this last revengeful moment where she rejected me, I'm not even going to give her a burial. Right. Yeah. Just throw some gravel on her. And the fact he said it the way that is just so disturbing.

It feels braggy. Mm-hmm. And it's just, it's really, really disturbing. And a small, like a small window into his mind when you see him saying things like that. Yeah. What a monster this guy is. Yeah. Two years go by. And in 1981, Robert opened his own bakery in Anchorage, which he paid for in part with the money from a fraudulent insurance claim.

Because of course, this guy was a fraudster as well. He had reported a false burglary claiming someone had stolen valuable hunting trophies from his home. The bakery quickly became a local favorite. it, including for the area's law enforcement. So you know he was serving up some must have been delicious donuts or just free donuts for the cops as we'll see you later on. Get on their good side. Yeah.

There you go. All calculated. All unilip with them. You know, it's all intentional. Bring him down the big goods. It couldn't be him. We can't suspect him. The donut guy.

I don't know if he's making donuts. I'm just saying. Cops like donuts. I mean, it's interesting because we get sometimes a lot of connections with the stories we tell that are more. recent like this. I mean, the 80s isn't recent, but in the grand scheme of things, there could be people out there who are watching or listening and know and have been to this bakery or have family that have visited there. I mean, if it's Anchorage isn't this small little place,

you know, it's a big bustling area. And if it's a local hot spot, you never know, like, if somebody had ever visited. Yeah, that's very true. So despite his previous convictions and the bodies being found, nobody is suspecting Robert at this point. as possibly being the one behind the killings. And, you know, he's doing his very best to continue the cover up, to continue the story. Like I was just saying, he's delivering donuts to the police stations. He's doing all that he can to keep them off of his trail here, which, again, very calculated. I feel like deliberate for sure.

And with a religious wife, two kids in a thriving business and an impressive record as a trophy hunter, that's the whole thing too. when he's not baking donuts for the cops, he's out shooting big animals in Alaska and mounting them on his wallet. A very impressive taxidermy collection. Which I'm sure made him a lot of friends in Alaska too. That's huge there. Yeah. Absolutely.

Every place you go into, there's probably some type of taxidermy almost. Yeah. And for like for us in the lower 48 or just the region we are, if I walked into someone's house and they had a ton of taxidermy everywhere, I'd be like, oh, this is kind of weird. This is a lot of dead animals. But in Alaska, it's so normal. I mean, you go into restaurants, hotels, wherever you are, there's taxidermy somewhere because hunting's so big in the culture there. So I feel like that was probably one, I think he enjoyed it. But two, I think that was also part of this cover up that he was fitting into society with was this.

Yeah. And going back to just our conversation a little bit about the cruelty to animals and how, you know, there's a distinction of not everyone who trophy hunts is enjoys the act. the act of killing, but I think for Robert, that was the difference. You know, we have a large listenership that are hunters and subsistence hunt or even trophy hunt, but the motivation behind it is vastly different. And I think for Robert, yeah, the trophy hunting definitely made him fit in and it is the norm in Alaska, but what's not the norm is the motivation behind it. And I think he truly got a thrill out of killing some.

something, not just as a conservationist or, you know, I'm trying to lower the moose population here. Exactly, exactly. Because I know it's, you know, you show, you know, people show off their, their trophies and things like that. It can be an impressive thing to be like, you walk into another hunter's home. You're like, oh, wow, look at that buck. Look at that. Yeah. Look at that bear. I mean, it can be very, you can be one of those kind of egotistical things of like, oh, look at, look at how good of a hunter I am, look at what I've, look at the expeditions I've been on. But yeah, I 100% agree with you. I think he, it was killing. It was taking another life, probably, you know, getting in there,

cutting it open. You know, he got something out of that as well. And it, it was probably practice for him as disturbing that is in a lot of ways for, for what's to come here. He's, he's had a lot of practice with killing and, you know, dressing animal and things like that. And it's, uh, because I mean, people, uh, I think a lot of people don't understand the flip side. There's the shooting part of it, but then there's the cleanup part of it and the actual like processing the animal and things like that. They're dressing an animal in the field and doing all that. It's, uh, not easy work and it's, it's quite messy.

Uh, and so, yeah, it's, I wonder, I mean, he's been doing it for a long, long time. So I wonder if he, who knows what kind of sick fantasies he had out in the woods while he's just hunting animals even. I mean, he could, I mean, your imagination could go crazy there. But Robert later admitted that the violence he inflicted on women gave him a sense of power, which I think we all know that at this point. He said, quote, having control over them made it feel like I had control over my own life. That explains all you really need to know about him. Gross. Yeah. And this life that he is carefully crafted to have the shiny, innocent veneer. And obviously we know the darker, you know, what's going on behind closed doors. But that very same year that Robert opened his bakery, another woman disappeared. And her name was Sherry Morrow and she was 23 years old.

Sherry had grown up in Washington State and as a child had been separated from her sister named Millie after their mother died from a blood clot after a surgery. Their father wasn't in the picture and the sisters were split up by social services. So because of that, Millie actually wouldn't know for years and years that her long-lost sister had made her way up to Alaska. Sherry was around 5'5 with this big voluminous blonde hair. She had glasses, this radiant warmth that. Millie said could light up a room. And like many young women at the time, she had been drawn north to Alaska by this promise of opportunity that we talked about at length. Dancing jobs that paid well, a chance to start over, and just this fast, good money in a frontier town.

On November 23rd, 1981, she told a friend that she had a modeling gig lined up, just this simple photo shoot with a man who offered to pay pretty well or some pretty simple photos. So she went to that friend's house to get ready, do our makeup, get dressed, get ready for this photo shoot. And that was the last time that anyone saw her alive. Well, pretty much anybody except for, as you may have guessed, Robert Hanson. And when Sherry disappeared, her boyfriend quickly reported her missing. But of course, in a transient city like Anchorage, police, as they often did, assumed that this young woman had simply moved on like so many of them did. And 10 months later, in September of 1982, two off-duty police officers were hunting along the banks of the Kinnick River when they stumbled upon the remains of a young woman in a shallow grave. The remains were later identified as Sherry Morrow.

She had been shot in the back, was naked, all of her clothes were missing, except for her leg warmers, which were still wrapped around her calves. There was no fabric in the bullet holes, so investigators believed that she had been forced to undress. prior to being killed. Sherry was the third of Robert's victims to be discovered, but no one yet realized that they were connected or just how many more were still out there. In fact, during the 10 months between when Sherry disappeared and when her body was found,

Robert's crimes escalated once again. And this time, he's getting a different mode because we've been talking a lot about how he is abducting them or luring them into a vehicle and driving them away. But as we talked about earlier, a big mode of transportation in Alaska is bushplains. You can get further into more remote wilderness to places that don't have any sort of roads, let alone a dirt off-road vehicle type of pathway. So in January of 1982, he upped his game and he bought a Piper Super Cub bushplane, which is often used by not only hunters, but just residents of Alaska who are going off into different expeditions. in different parts of the wilderness.

And the thing about bushplains is they're able to take off and land very quickly. They don't need lengths of runway. Like we're accustomed to with commercial planes. Just some flat ground in the forest, basically. Yeah. Because they've got kind of big old tires on them, kind of thick tread on them. Yeah, they're cool planes, too. I think you can even buy, like, kits to build them, too.

I think a lot of people build their own Piper Cubs. planes and it's a great sort of first airplane because they're not they're not like super you know they're not fancy by any means no they get the job done yeah um they're not the picture of luxury or anything um but yeah bush planes are everywhere up there and i certainly wouldn't want to build my own yeah i wouldn't trust myself to build a plane i have some family friends up in alaska and their pilots and have built planes and it's like very normal they have a vacation house that they go to and they take their bush plane and they just fly out here to and it's very normal to meet people who live in Alaska who are pilots where obviously here it's a little

not as common as that but it's interesting to see their lifestyle because they just they have their own plane and you drive we drive by and they're like yep there's my plane parked over there like oh okay yep and yet another yeah another way that he is not raising any eyebrows Yeah, super normal to have a plane, especially as a hunter. Yeah. Yeah. You do that in Nebraska, maybe a little different, you know, or another state. Oh, why do you?

Yeah, where are you flying to? Yeah. It's like all these women are disappearing and showing up in the remote wilderness and you have a plane. But in Alaska, it's like everyone has a plane. Right. Why would we suspect you? Yeah. And of course, this gives Robert the ability to fly even deeper into Alaska's backcountry,

far beyond what he could reach by car, where there are no roads and no witness. just endless trees and tundra. There he could truly hunt his victims in total isolation. He often chose an area northeast of Anchorage near the Canick River Valley, which is rugged, remote terrain on the edge of Chugash State Park, an area he knew very well and intimately from hunting game, and any hunter knows, you know, you don't just show up somewhere and try your luck. You know, you're mapping this out, you're becoming intimately familiar with the terrain and the different geologic formations and So he was getting to know this area for multiple purposes, not just hunting animals, but hunting people. And we have been to Chugash State Park.

It's absolutely stunning. If you have good weather and the mountains out, you get to see Donali from Chugash. And it's just, it's stunning. It's a really, it's awful that such horrific things happened in such a beautiful place. Yeah. Chugash State Park, one of the largest state parks in all of the United States. covers nearly half a million acres of wilderness. That's it.

Yeah, only half a bit. Half a million. I can't, can't, can you even conceive of half a million acres? In my minds, I can't even understand. A lot of times when we are going through numbers like this, especially with national parks, we do an equivalent of the size of Switzerland, the size of, you know, just give it a tangible, like,

okay, I can actually envision that on a map. Smart. Type of thing. Do we have an equivalent to half a million? We also started recently using another form of measurement and how many Titanic ships equal. So I just Googled it. And it says approximately 26, 26, 26,0006,730,000,00036 Titanic ships would be equivalent to 500 million acres. Yeah, I still can't even conceive that.

We've also been the Titanic. No, it's a large expand. Especially when you're referring to a state park. I mean, we have so, I think there's over 9,000 state parks in the United States and many of them are small. You know, the local state park. You have a go have a picnic. Cherry Creek Reservoir. Yeah, right.

That's what I was thinking of. Yeah. Chatfield where there's like, there's like 50 boats on the lake and they're all up next to each other, shoulder to shoulder. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it's beautiful out there. It's filled with ice fields and alpine lake. wide glacial valleys and braided rivers.

From the city, it looks like a wall of mountains straight up, but once you're inside, it's very expansive, very quiet. And it's very isolated, and we know that Robert Hansen likes isolated places because he uses them as hunting grounds, for people specifically and also for animals. He had, in his own words, by now, he had become a predator.

In April 1983, a woman named Paula Gould's, when missing just a few weeks after moving to Alaska. She was 30 years old, originally from Hawaii, and had recently taken a job as a topless dancer in Anchorage. Friends said she was very smart, she was self-assured, and they worried when she failed to show up for work. She was last seen getting into an unidentified man's car outside her club, and this man was later identified as Robert Hansen.

He followed his usual routine that he had built up by now, except this time he drove her out to Merrill Field Airport. That's where he parked his bush plane. He handcuffed her, forced her into his plane at gunpoint, and he flew her deep, deep into the frozen wilderness, that isolated area near the Canick River. There he released her into the wild and hunted her down. This is why they call this case kind of, you know,

the most dangerous game, but real life. Those who don't know, did you guys have to read the most dangerous game? in middle school or anything like that. Yep. You did. I read it. Yeah. I read the hatchet.

Oh, the hatch. That's a great book. Who's the author of that? Gary Paulson? Yes. I don't weirdly. I would have never known that right now. Weirdly.

I recalled that very well. It's very good. Love the hatchet. Yeah. Love that. And then they made the movie too. Oh, I never saw the movie. Yeah.

There's a movie? There's always a movie. Just like with. There's always a movie. Yeah. The, um, The most dangerous game, though, very disturbing, fictional story. I remember reading it in middle school was maybe the time when our teachers were introducing more violent literature to us.

I remember we read this in like, Telltale Heart, Po. And I was just like, oh, my God, people are writing this, like, crazy, disturbing stuff. And that was when I was first introduced to this idea. And it's fun in fiction, quote unquote, fun. still horrific, but because it's not real. But here, unfortunately, in Robert's case, this was very real and super, super disturbing. Which is why I mentioned earlier was like all those years he was just hunting animals. Was he fantasizing about one day potentially hunting humans the same type of way?

Did he have the idea a long time ago and now he's finally executing it? I don't know. Just a thought, but it's nevertheless just as disturbing. I mean, to go the, you know, to go the extra step of kidnapping someone, taking them out to the middle of nowhere, dropping them being like, now run. And I'm going to come after you. I mean, just the absolute fear and, I mean, just a horrible way to go. Yeah, there's a callousness about it that is really unnerving when you think about it because just in my own, like, I think about myself. Like, how could I ever do that to a person or even think of.

doing that to a person and he's out here committing. He's like really heinous acts. Yeah, and he's very obviously comparing his victims to animals. He's treating them like it, right? So, yeah, it's disgusting. And so after he had hunted her down, her body was discovered months later. Like Sherry, she had been shot, stripped, and left to decompose in a shallow grave. This was basically Robert's new blueprint. He's moved on from what he was doing earlier, and now he's using the, a very literal hunting method on his victims. He chose his victims with chilling calculation. He targeted women.

He believed, you know, no one would miss. They were runaways. They were dancers, sex workers, kind of women living on the margins. And he understood how society overlooked them. And he counted on it. He thrived on this idea. And unfortunately, he was a bit correct, especially as we talked about earlier in the eyes of law enforcement,

that these women were overlooked and for almost a decade no one had connected to the dots but luckily by the summer of 1983 that tide was beginning to turn but more women were still going missing and more bodies were being found the terrain around the Kinnick River

had become basically just a graveyard for his victims and someone at the Anchorage Police Department was finally finally starting to see the connections and started to ask the right questions Still, it wasn't a detective who brought Robert Hansen down. He was actually a teenage girl, and this time she had gotten away. And that girl was Cindy Paulson.

She was a 17-year-old dancer and sex worker who lived with her mother in Anchorage. She had worked at many of the same establishments that Robert visited while he was looking for his targets. And on June 13, 1983, Robert pulled up to Cindy in his car and picked her up. And he offered her $200 for oral sex. and told her that his name was Don. When she got in the car, he immediately pulled out a pair of handcuffs and cuffed one of her hands. When she tried to get loose, he pulled out a handgun and threatened her with it. And she admitted to fighting back a little bit, but not a lot because she feared that that would escalate the violence.

So there was almost this like, if I don't fight back too much, maybe he'll, he won't hurt me. And so he eventually did get the other handcuff on her. And then Robert drove Cindy to his home in Muldoon. where he raped her and tortured her for hours on top of a bear rug in his house. He kept her in handcuffs the entire time. He also tied a chain around her neck four times to keep her restrained. Meanwhile, all of this awful stuff is happening to Cindy, and she has this mental note to actually take note of everything that's happening to her

and know every detail that's happening that is within the home. So she would remember the bars he had on the windows, and a bullet hole that was in his floor. And according to Cindy, after the assault, Robert fell asleep for a few hours on a nearby couch. When he woke up, she told him that all she wanted to do was go home and that she wouldn't tell anybody. Robert told her that he had a plane parked at the Merrill Airfield and that he would head there and then take her to his cabin near the Connect River. And he said that he liked her so much that he wanted to take her there, have sex with her,

and spend the whole weekend together. Of course, this raised some red flags for Cindy because this meant that she was going somewhere that was only accessible by boat or plane. And even though he promised to bring her back later that afternoon, she immediately thought, no, he's, she's never coming back if she goes to this place with him. And I think probably another red flag for her is Robert decided to show her all of his trophy huntings. and to see that, his large collection of hunting trophies and then to be like, I'm going to take you somewhere remote away from everyone, probably felt like a big red flag. And even though he had told her that his name was Don, when he showed her these trophies, his name was printed on them. So she now knew his real name and believed that he was going to kill her. Robert also told her about the other victims that he had.

According to Cindy, he claimed that there were seven others whom he had kept for about a week. and even though he never admitted it to Cindy, she assumed that he had murdered them. So fearing for her life, she told herself that she would try to escape if she could find any window of opportunity before they got on that plane. Smart.

And I think, if I'm not mistaken, his, like, trophy room was, like, his basement. Yes. Yeah. Where this fair room was, yeah. It's chilling to look at. Yeah. Yeah, no natural light.

We do have this picture of it that I found online which just gives you the chills to the bone. Dark, dingy basement. Yeah. All these dead animals on the wall. Mm-hmm. Yeah. No windows.

Scary place. Yeah, no natural light. But around 5 a.m. the next morning, Robert drove them both to Merrill Field. Cindy was still handcuffed with her hands in front of her body in the back seat. He parked the car. He got out and told Cindy not to draw attention or else he'd kill her. He then went to fuel and load up the back seat. Bush plane, a Piper P.A. 18 Super Cub. Cindy watched as he loaded a large hunting rifle into the

plane. Imagining what he would do with the rifle, Cindy knew she had to escape. I mean, it'd be pretty easy probably to put two and two together, especially after what you just went through and now you see him loading a rifle into the plane. I mean, he's clearly not going to let you go at this point. She then threw herself into the driver's seat and managed to open the driver's side door. She left her blue sneakers on the passenger side floor of the vehicle, leaving proof behind that she had been inside Roberts car. Very smart. I mean, Cindy's clear. I mean, it's amazing for how young she is, how aware and just smart she is to leave behind, take mental notes and leave behind evidence that would link in case she doesn't return that she was with him.

Yeah, and even having that intuition even early on that she knew, she's like, this guy's. probably going to kill me, so I need to get out of here. Now barefoot and still handcuffs, she sprinted toward the nearest road. Robert knows her fleeing and chased after her. He yelled at her to stop and come back, but she made it all the way into 6th Avenue. Luckily, a driver, Robert Yount, was in a pickup truck passing by. And he saw how disheveled and underdress Cindy was, as well as the handcuffs around her wrists. And you see that.

I mean, you're going to be like, okay, this is not right. Something's seriously wrong here, so he immediately pulled over. And when she got inside the truck, she asked him to take her to a nearby motel. Meanwhile, Robert raced back to his car and fled the airfield. And while Robert was fleeing, a security guard noticed the odd situation that was unfolding and wrote down his license plate and car model. Cindy soon made it to a nearby motel, the mush in while still wearing handcuffs. Robert Yount was still on the clock for work, so he left.

Cindy was able to use the phone at the front desk and get a hold of her boyfriend who had been staying at the big timber motel. And not long after, a motel employee called the Anchorage Police Department and reported what was going on. Police arrived soon after and they found Cindy in a motel room and removed her handcuffs. And we will now show you a clip of police officer Greg Baker explaining how they found Cindy. We found her in handcuffs with very little clothes on. She was real credible. She's very scared, she's very frightened, and she told us her story. It's important to note here that we have a police officer who's immediately saying she's credible.

We find her in handcuffs, she's barely dressed, she's credible. So with that in mind, the rest of this story is kind of ridiculous of what happens regarding the police department, how they handled this case. Yeah. Well, Cindy goes on to give police a highly detailed statement. about what had happened to her. She would also give them Robert's description. She described him as tall, wiry, scruffy, and unthreatening. She also gave them information about his car,

a detailed account of the interior of his home. I mean, we talked about his very recognizable basement, just small details that she took into account while she was there. And even the street that his property was on, she was paying very close attention. and she even gave specific details about the gun that he had threatened her with, saying it was a revolver with a wooden handle. She also described the chain that she was tied up with and the blanket that Robert had wrapped her in. The police took her to the hospital, which was standard protocol for a sexual assault victim.

And while on the way to the hospital, Cindy noticed that they passed by the same airfield that she had just escaped from. She asked the police to pull over and to go into the airfield so she could point out where she had just been taken. She could also point out Robert's blue and white bush plane. And so, I mean, the luck and fortune of that of being like, this is where I just came from and this is the plane and everything. Like, it's all right in front of you. And the security guard also, who had just jotted down all the information about Robert's license plate and model, noticed that the police were entering the airfield.

He flagged them down and shared the information that he had just gathered as well. Once they had Robert's plane registration information, the Anchorage Police contacted the Federal Aviation Administration for confirmation on his plane. And when the officers in Sydney arrived at the hospital, police received a call that confirmed the registration for the plane and the car. And of course, they both belonged to Robert C. Hansen. His home address was tied to the registration as well. Officers later showed up at his home, where he was returning moments later, actually in the same car, that Cindy had just described. So things are coming together here.

And they asked him if he had time for a few questions. He said yes and invited them inside. Police noticed that the interior of his home was exactly as Cindy had described it. It's believed that the chain he had used on her was not visible because Robert had hidden it away before he and Cindy left the house earlier that day for the airfield. And when they questioned him about Cindy's statement, of course, he denies every. I mean, he's gracious and allows them in, but he's not going to admit to any of that. He said that Cindy was just causing trouble because he wouldn't pay her extortion demands. So casting blame on the victim almost immediately.

He had used this excuse before back when he was accused of rape in 1971. And when asked about the sexual assault, he responded to law enforcement, you can't rape a prostitute, can you? Disgusting. It's so telling of what he thinks of women just in general that he thinks even though she's a sex worker doesn't think that consent matters because of her line of duty or her line of work. And it's just really another, I think all of these quotes are really opening like these little windows into his brain of how much he has no respect for women and how he doesn't really view them as people. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know, what do you guys think of this extortion demands thing that he is trying to sell the police on? I mean, considering the fact that they have an eyewitness who was at the airfield who saw all that go down, she's running out of his vehicle, she's handcuffed. We also have the driver picking her up. She's half-clothed. The police later find her in this motel room with handcuffs on, and she gives us highly detailed story. where are we at with like believing the extortion demands if you try and put yourself in the shoes of the like a police officer in this case? Yeah, I think he's really leaning into the fact that he thinks that police officers are also not going to care about these marginalized communities.

I think that he is taking advantage of that fact and he, I mean, even to the first thing, he allows them into his home after he's probably pretty certain that she just gave a statement because now police. are at his house, that he will be more believable than she will. And I think he's really banking on that. And almost it feels like even confident that they will believe him over her. Definitely. And to say like, oh, she just wanted money. It feels like he's taking his own feelings for sex workers and thinking that police are going to feel the exact same way. And unfortunately, he's kind of on the money, which is where it's disturbing.

when they asked him where he was on the date in question, he told them his family was vacationing in Europe, but he had stayed behind to hunt and run his bakery. He was doing what he always did. But more specifically, he told police, he had been spending time with friends on this time frame in question. He was drinking and he even repaired a seat for his airplane. He claimed that he stayed at a friend's house until 5.30 a.m. on the morning in question.

He then claimed he went to the airfield to install this repaired seat. One friend and neighbor he mentioned seeing that night and morning was a man named John Henning and John later gave Robert an alibi. This will come up a bit later as well. But along with his alibi, you know, police saw Robert as humble. He's this soft-spoken guy. He's harmless. He's a baker. He's seen in the community as just, you know, another, another casual member of society. And even the local police often went to his bakery, as we mentioned. They would get coffee and donuts all the time. They would even get free donuts sometimes.

And this was all even confirmed by the assistant DA, Frank Rothschild. So here he is actually explaining how people in the community saw Robert. The troopers and the police used to go to his donut shop all the time. It was a very popular place to go. He was, he had a bakery. People knew him. He was friendly. He was just a hardworking guy.

Police couldn't find any evidence of the rape and torture Cindy told them about in his home. And they only found a loose panel filled with firearms. But, you know, investigators didn't find this really that odd because Robert, they knew he was an avid hunter. You know, you could go check out his basement. You see a million trophies on the walls. It's not that concerning.

And unfortunately, they also could. could not find that revolver that Cindy had described the one with a wooden handle, and they couldn't find the chain or blanket that Cindy had also described. So they really just didn't consider Robert a serious suspect. Cindy obviously was very disturbed by the outcome of this investigation, and in hindsight, you know, police most likely distrusted her because of her profession. And likewise, she, knowing that she's a sex worker, probably distrusted the police to some degree. Cindy was able to point Robert out in a photo lineup. They asked if she would be willing to take a lie detector test to prove she wasn't lying,

but she ended up refusing. The case was then suspended for weeks and in the meantime Cindy left town to try to put the incident behind her. And all of that is so frustrating because, okay, they couldn't find this evidence that they're looking for to confirm her story. But she, the police are called. She points out the plane who is connected to the person that. that they connect a witness, sees his license plate. They connect it to this guy.

They say, hey, is this this guy? And she's like, yeah. And it's all connected the dots. She's not making it up. She's describing the interior of his home. Yeah. But she's never been there. And this isn't, you know, or like this is his version where it was consensual.

And she's saying it's just. And then she tried to extort him. That's his lie that they're probably buying into. Right. Yeah. Even though his superior had suspended this case, this, this officer. that you heard from earlier, Officer Greg Baker. He was actually one of the few who was still suspicious of Robert Hansen.

Here he is and his comments on the case. He had taken her to the airport where he was going to fly her out with a story that if she maintained her helpfulness, that he'd bring her back and let her go. Well, Cindy was bright enough to know that she was on a one-way trip. and so was I. And so I kind of just put two and two together and figured that he was a very good suspect

for the missing dancers. Also considering that she is in handcuffs and they're about to get on a plane, I mean, doesn't it just suggest there's more going on here? It's not that hard to see through. But luckily, Officer Baker actually continued to investigate Robert Hanson,

but he did not report his findings to his superior since the investigation. was still technically suspended. Which is interesting that he would even go to the lengths, I think, to continue. Even though everyone was like, it's not him, like move on. He had the sneaking suspicion and was in the background, kind of making sure that this wasn't forgotten and that Robert Hansen was still in his mind of maybe he's not just a baker and this seems very, very likely to be our person.

Yeah. Well, I can't help but think at what point did they ever even think. like who is their suspect at this point? They have all these missing sex workers and dancers, yet they have nobody. Yeah. As a suspect person of interest, as far as we know,

they have not named anybody. Yeah. So here you have a guy with these unusual circumstances playing out. You would think that it'd be like light bulbs going off. And prior convictions? Yeah. They lick them up. Like, oh my God.

He has all these things that line up with the type of person that we're looking for. And I think it goes back to. two things. They are clearly there's major prejudice there but also just a hugely major lack of experience here. They just don't know how to deal with these types of cases because they probably have never taken them that seriously before. And then in this time period, serial killers were a relatively new thing and they just really didn't know how to connect the dots,

which seems wild because even just sitting here kind of talking about it from this this perspective, we're all like, how do you not put these together? But for some reason, they just couldn't put it together. Yeah, I just don't. How? You have a man who's trying to force an underage girl in handcuffs into his plane to go God knows where. It seems like two and two equals four.

And his excuse of, well, she's trying to extort me. It's crazy to me. And I'm just curious. of what's happening with his wife, because he's admitting to hiring sex workers by saying that. And it seems like his wife is away for a lot of this, but still, I mean, it's a, Anchorage isn't that big of a town. I mean, rumors spread, and she must be hearing at least something of what's going on. Yeah. The neighbors are watching the police go inside this guy's home, you know?

There's no talk circulating. Yeah, but again, the manipulation that might be happening at her home. So meanwhile, Detective Glenn Floth, an ace homicide detective with the Alaska State Troopers, and his team investigated the discovery of several bodies in and around Anchorage, Seward, and the valley where Robert had his cabin. Hikers were known to get lost and succumbed to the elements in the area, but the victims in the area were growing in number. Detective Floth believed that the following victims were all connected to a single murderer. Two of the victims had already been found before Detective Floth was. assigned to the case. So this is kind of a recap of the women that we've talked about. So one of the

victims, of course, was found by construction workers near a cloutna Road in July of 1980. And that victim was Jane Doe, who was given the nickname Acclutna Annie. The remains of Joanna Messina were discovered in a gravel pit near Seward. The remains of 23-year-old exotic dancer Sherry Morrow were discovered in a shallow grave near the Canuck River. She had been reported missing, as we discussed earlier, by her boyfriend a year earlier, and her gold arrowhead pendant that she had always kept with her was missing. This is an important detail, too. So remember that gold arrowhead pendant.

Yes. And about a year later, the remains of exotic dancer Paula Goulding were also found near the Canuck River, buried in a shallow grave not far from Sherry. and she was found in an area only accessible by boat or plane. 223 shell casings were found near the bodies of both Paula and Sherry, and ballistic reports would later show that they had been fired from the same high-powered hunting rifle. And here we have an Alaska state trooper Wayne Van Clossin describing the connections they made while finding these bodies.

And that's about when everything started to become kind of scary for everybody because the profile was the same. They were topless dancers from the clubs downtown, but that was certainly when there was the belief that there was a serial murderer out there. Missing persons was a relatively low priority. Statutorily, if you're an adult, you have a right to be missing. And there were a lot of instances

where these girls would just jump on a plane and go away. The authorities then warned dancers and sex workers of the dangerous man that was. on the prowl. And here's assistant DA Frank Rothschild explaining that. Law enforcement were then and had been for a time advising young women who were working in some of these clubs and who were working the streets to be careful and to advise them there was a maniac out there who was who seemed to be abducting and killing people. It didn't take long before Detective Float realized that the Alaska State truth,

Troopers didn't have the experience or the resources to take on a serial killer. And this is Alaska State Troopers. I mean, these guys are the premier law enforcement agency up there even to this day. Because they have jurisdiction over the entire state as opposed to Anchorage Police only has jurisdiction over the city. And so these guys are like, yeah, we're out of our depths here. And I kind of respect. He admits to this. He's like, we're out of our element here.

We need the federal agencies to come in. Because, yeah, FBI was really the experts. I really coined the term serial killers. And so, you know, it was time to get in touch with the experts. So they reached out to Special Agent John Douglas, who is just a badass, honestly. Yeah, this guy's awesome. But Special Agent Douglas was one of the first FBI criminal profilers and became well known for his work over the years. You know, if you've ever watched the show Mind Hunter on Netflix, very, very good show.

the character Holden Ford is based on Mr. Douglas. Word on the street is that it's coming back. I heard, but are we taking that to heart? I'm not, but I kind of like enticing the rumors a little bit. They might even do it as like small movies.

Okay, interesting. Yeah, if it comes back. It's been years, I hope they do. But Mr. Douglas famously interviewed serial killers and other violent sex offenders at various prisons, including David Berkowitz, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Charles Manson, Ed Kemper, and many more. So he's talked to a lot of the same type of individuals.

So he's got a lot more experience, I think, than anybody in Alaska at this point. And maybe anybody in the world. Or in the world, quite honestly, yeah. He's the serial killer expert. So here's Mr. Douglas talking about interviewing serial killers. Here a little bit of his perspective. You finally get them talking. You start giving you that thousand-yard stare.

They're back. They're back 10 years ago, 20 years ago when they were perpetrating the crime. And they kind of lock into that thousand-yard stare. And their memory is just so precise. In the fantasy is what keeps them going over and over and enables them to survive when they're incarcerated. So I've got to tap into that. It takes time.

But once I'm in there, I get tremendous information. Meanwhile, Alaska State Trooper, Wayne Van Closson, pulled Roberts' records from the archives in Juneau, since the records had it been computerized yet, which that was, I think, a big hindrance for law enforcement, especially with serial killer cases. They didn't have an easy way to share records, information is all manual for the most part.

Just slowed the whole process down of sharing information. It was just disjointed also. Yep, yep. I mean, literal filing cabinets, Manila folders, those days. But he researched every town Robert ever lived in. Archived criminal reports on Robert. Robert Hansen dated back to 1961.

Like, whoa, this guy's got quite the criminal history here, including that arson of the school bus garage. Trooper Claussen gathered everything he could carry and sent the rest by truck before heading home. State troopers then examined Robert's history in great detail. Detective Floth requested that Special Agent Douglas helped put together an offender profile based on the bodies they had found and the information that state troopers had collected. Special Agent Douglas determined that the killer was an experienced hunter and an avid outdoorsman with low self-esteem. Which doesn't seem like a huge revelation. I think we'd all be like, yeah. Sure.

Yeah. Kind of seems like that. But at the time, you know, this is big stuff for them. He had a history of being rejected by women and grew up feeling like an outcast, and he would most likely keep trophies of his murders and his victims, possibly even their jewelry. which if you remember back, we kind of mentioned. The pendant. The profile also stated that the killer worked independently and most likely owned his own business.

It also suggested very specifically that the killer might have a speech impediment and would have a history of arson. Which he did have a speech. Check. Yeah. Very, very spot on here. The only thing he's missing is if he said he was a baker. Right. Everything else is like, like, right all the money.

Yeah. Yeah. Special Agent Douglas's criminal profile literally matched Mr. Hansen almost exactly. He believed Cindy's story and he believed that Robert was fully capable of committing these crimes. So here you have the expert on serial killers

being like, guys, he checks out. I mean, all these different things here, he's definitely capable of this. It couldn't be more obvious at this point. Right, right. Larm bells. When you're laying it out like that, it's so obvious. But, you know, back at this time,

much of what they had against him was circumstantial. Right. You know, so we're looking at it through a different lens and we have more information, but at this point in the story, it's all circumstantial. And also, it's important to note that never in U.S. history had a behavioral profile been used as the basis for a search warrant. So this is also a pivotal time and just a different approach and means of going about an investigation. So to obtain a search warrant, they needed to provide a list of items.

tied to the crimes to look for In Roberts' home, bakery, and vehicles. They had Cindy Paulson successfully identify a firearm that was potentially in the home. Investigators also listed the rifle that was used to murder several of the victims, because of course there was the casings and we had discussed that. They also knew they needed to search for pieces of jewelry that belonged to the victims, according to Douglas's profile. Douglas also helped police write up the 48-page act. affidavit. It had to be bulletproof since the case was so large in scope and so complicated and all-encompassing.

So eight search warrants were eventually obtained for Roberts Plain, his vehicle, his bakery, and his residence. I know they were very worried about not getting evidence. So that's why they, like, that's a huge affidavit. And then eight separate search warrants. So they're like, we cannot screw this up. We have to get this guy. I know the DA was really worried. They're like if we don't have strong evidence for this, he could get away again. So they were making sure they were going to leave no stone unturned for this. Or getting off on a technicality where you didn't have a search warrant for this and it's not admissible in court. Right. And all before the age of DNA too.

Right. So they need that like smoking gun to feel like they've got enough to convict him. Police searched his property on October 27, 1983. And police picked him up outside his bakery that morning. They asked to bring him in for questioning, and again, he did so without resisting, just like prior when they wanted to enter his home and speak to him. He seemed to be pretty compliant, but of course he's probably getting a little bit nervous at this point. Robert's wife was still at home at the time, and inside the home, investigators found several pieces of jewelry and personal belongings that belonged to some of the missing women, including the Golden Arrowhead pendant that Sherry Morrow always wore. This discovery matched the criminal profile.

I mean, exactly, like right on the money. Yeah, Douglas is just like on it. And of course, everybody in the true crime world knows of him and his work. They also discovered a stash of firearms hidden within the insulation in the corner of his attic. And we did talk about before they found, you know, there was this loose panel that had some firearms in it. And to me, the first thing I think of, especially in Alaska or any hunter, or anywhere, usually have their firearms in a gun case or some sort of, I don't know, sometimes you display them in a glass case, there's a lock or not hidden.

To have them in the insulation or even a loose floorboard or panel, that's sketchy right off the back. Right. And he had two children, correct? Yes. He has children in the house and he just has firearms. Not locked away. Yeah, that's incredibly dangerous. Yeah.

This included the 223 caliber Ruger Mini 14 semi-automatic rifle, and this was the exact same caliber of the shell casings found near some of the victim's remains. One of the most damning pieces of evidence that was found in his bedroom, actually. It was hidden behind his headboard, and they discovered a flight map, with dozens of these little exes marked across it. Investigators would later match these markings with the locations where some of the bodies had been found. I mean, if that is in evidence, what is? I feel like that's your smoking gun.

Yeah, this is huge. And of course, the pendant is a huge piece as well. This map became the single best image for the scope of Robert's crimes. It's kind of haunting to look at. Many of the exes were concentrated near his favorite killing grounds, which we know this was along the Connect River northeast of Anchorage. but it's sobering looking at this map, at least for me, because it does kind of just look like data points on a map.

But when you kind of start thinking about what it actually is, it's just really, really disturbing, that he was keeping this hidden as well, like, near his bed by his headboard. It's like he kept it as like this little trophy. Like he liked that. It was there, and he was his little checklist. And his wife is laying right there. Right there.

That knowledge also in psychology, I'm sure there's something to this. Headed to his excitement of it. Yeah. Of like it is so close, all this knowledge and violence is so close to my other world, which is Darla and my family. And it's so disturbing. Yeah. I tend to say this kind of a lot in our recent episodes, but if you're going to be a

criminal, be a stupid one. Because slam dunk, you just marked the. of where you hid all your bodies. Right. Boom. You're done. That's it because you were this stupid about it. So during the search of Robert's home, a neighbor John Henning's wife came out of her home

to see what was going on. If you remember, John Hennings, this was the guy that gave Robert the alibi during the time that Cindy had been kidnapped and raped. And when police told John's wife what was going on with Robert, she immediately rejected that alibi that her husband had previously given. And she claimed that John was lying. He had not seen Robert that day. He lied to protect his friend not really realizing how serious Robert's crimes were, which is crazy to me.

I mean, I can't imagine myself giving my friend an alibi, especially without knowing, like, one, lying about it, but two, especially not knowing the gravity of the situation. Yeah. Maybe, I don't know, you could claim complete ignorance on this, but that's just a terrible, terrible move. Yeah, I don't know if Danielle asked me to give her an alibi, I'd probably do it. Yeah. They're like, yeah, she was with me. Why? Luckily, John did, he called police later on, and he did retract his statement. So thankfully, he did that because they did hang on to that alibi for a while.

The police did. Meanwhile, nothing of note was found inside Robert's vehicle, his bakery, or his plane. So they finally arrested Robert that day. this was four months after attacking Cindy Paulson, and they initially only charged him with salt, kidnapping, multiple weapon offenses, theft, and insurance fraud. Which I found this kind of funny. They tacked on insurance fraud, if you remember earlier.

It was for lying about his hunting trophies being stolen. That he used to fund his bakery. Yeah. And I know in the investigators' minds, they're like, we have to get this guy on literally every single possible thing because we have to get him off the streets, and we have to hold him as long as we can. So they weren't willing to do a murder charge quite yet

because they were going to build up the case a bit more. They were going to get them into questioning and the interrogation. But I doubt they're like, now we're going to get them on that insurance. What is that? A couple days, a couple weeks of holding time. Yeah. Well, police later revealed to Robert

the incriminating evidence that they had discovered during their searches. But even still, he was denying everything for hours. And so how I understand it, it was kind of a parallel they were searching his home and they had brought him in for questioning. So it was while they were getting calls from the people searching the home, they were kind of reeling what they were finding to him, hoping that he would initially crack. And during the interrogation, he initially made himself look defenseless and weak. He even ended up talking about his painful upbringing, his strict family, and this was all just a tool, you know, true or not. This is a tool that he used to try and manipulate police, but it would not work on them.

Frank Rothschild, the assistant DA, told Robert that he and another DA were actually going to wait until Spring Thaw the following year to look for more bodies. And they would be using tracking dogs at every location marked on Robert's map that they had just found. They would search for victims' remains and shell casings to match his rifle. and later on they would find the ballistics had confirmed that the bullets found that the crime scenes had matched Robert's firearm specifically and it was at this point Robert decided to enter into a plea bargain. Frank said, quote, as I sat there watching Hanson, there was a transformation that took place that was just amazing.

His face got really red and literally the hair on the back of his neck stood up. And that was when he changed to my eye from Bob the Baker to Bob the serial killer. And all of a sudden, I'm looking at this guy thinking, there's the guy who killed all those people. Kind of took the mask off in that moment. Yeah. All right, you got me. Here I am.

Yeah. In that moment. And on top of the evidence investigators had found, they also convinced a previous anonymous victim who was kidnapped and raped by Robert to agree to testify against him if the case went to trial. Robert then proceeded to admit to his crimes dating back to 1971, but he made sure to blame his victims and justify his actions,

kind of similar to what we've already seen. Like, oh, it was extortion. It's not my fault. Like, it's because of these women. It's not me. Which makes zero sense whatsoever. You took them to the middle of the wilderness and hunted them down. Yeah.

And you're armed. They're vulnerable. Yeah. It's, yeah. And of course, finally the police are. realizing that what he's saying is not true. So they charge him with murder and his bail was set at $500,000. Police had identified 24 X's on Robert's map.

His plea deal also included deciphering his map, which he admitted to some of the murders marked on the map but not all of them. In a tape confession, he admitted to murdering 17 of the victims. He also admitted to raping up to 30 women over 12 years. In a police interview, he said he did not hate all women and that he liked women in general, but he said, quote, I guess prostitutes are women I'm putting down as lower than myself. In his mind, there was a clear distinction between, quote, good girls and, quote, bad girls. The women he murdered, he referred to as bad girls, and he often dehumanized them and saw his victims as animals, objects, or even machines.

which really coincides with a lot of our conversation we've had through this and what we've seen, just the way he speaks about women in general. Yeah, I wish so bad we could play some of the tapes of his, because there's quite a few tapes that have been released through different documentaries. I think it's called Mind of a Monster. On Discovery. On Discovery Plus is really good if you're interested in hearing what this guy sounds like. but it definitely gives you a little bit more insight into the way this guy thinks

and just kind of helps connect all the dots. But yeah, he's about as disturbed as they get, I think. Yeah. Yeah, and he explained why he was targeting the specific women he was. And he said that dancers and sex workers were easier to track. And police didn't prioritize them, which is also what we've spoken about a bit here. He also explained that they had been drawn to the area since so many men had moved there for good paying jobs during the construction of the 800-mile pipeline in the 70s. Many came and went, including the dancers and sex workers, so their disappearances didn't stick out.

And Robert really took advantage of this. And he, I mean, we've been talking about this this whole episode, really, but he confirmed all of this. Yes, in the confession, yeah. Yeah. He confessed to luring, kidnapping, assaulting, and murdering his victims in the same way over and over. He would often meet them at a local place and lure them to his car. Then he would handcuff them and threaten them with a handgun. After, he would drive them to his property and rape them before blindfolding them.

And then he would drive or fly them to the outskirts of town. And here was where he would let them loose in a secluded spot he would use as his hunting ground. and there he would actually kind of toy with them and chase them and hunt them down in the same way that he would animals. By 1983, he developed what he called, quote, his summer plan. He had this whole, I mean, going back to the manipulation here, he had this really planned out because he would send his family away on these vacations. Like, have fun, guys. Like, enjoy your summer vacation. Meanwhile, that would open up his home to him being alone.

and he could, as we've said throughout this episode, that he would actually bring them back to his house that he shared with his family. And when he was done doing what he would do to these women, he would bury them in shallow graves out in the wilderness. Investigators called the previous anonymous victim to let her know that Robert had confessed, and we do have a video of her explaining how she felt hearing this.

The third time they called back and said that he had confessed and they wouldn't need me. So I hung up the phone when we were done talking, got my son off to school, got my husband at the door, and proceeded to fall apart. I started crying. I couldn't stop.

I had no control over it. It controlled me. I could see each and every one of those. women, how they died, probably hunted down like dogs, wounded, and then hunted more. In exchange for his cooperation with investigators, he was promised an easier criminal process, which I'm like, why'd we give him anything easy? Right. Do you think they kind of just said that?

Probably. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I'll be like, yeah, we'll make it nice for you. but maybe they didn't mean it. Yeah, they're bluffing. What's crazy to me, and I'd even notice that Alaska did not have the death penalty at this time. Yeah. Was the death penalty repealed or was it just not instated until later?

Because I thought Alaska does have the death penalty currently. Let's see. The capital punishment has never been practiced within Alaska throughout its history as a state. It was abolished in 1957. Well, it was abolished in? Yeah, it looks like it was never practiced and it was also codified in law

that they just abolished it. I couldn't look more into this. Interesting. I had no idea. I thought for certain Alaska would have capital punishment. Yeah, I mean, you kind of just think that that would be a thing up there.

Right. Alaska as a state has never had a death penalty. The territorial legislature abolished capital punishment two years before Alaska gained statehood. Ah, okay. I guess that, yeah. So minors courts handled legal matters in Alaska before this, I guess.

Seven people are estimated to have been executed under that system. I have to imagine, though, that if death penalty were an option in this case, it likely would have been pursued. But again, if he's going to do a plea deal, probably would have asked to have that taken off the table as well. Sure. But Robert requested that he'd be imprisoned out of state to lessen the chance of running across people who knew his victims. What a coward. Okay, dude. Okay.

And then he also wanted to keep his case out of the larger media outlets. Yeah, I mean, obviously doesn't do him any good, but who cares what he wants at this point in time. But Frank's DA office did agree to those conditions, although Frank later admitted that he didn't believe Robert was telling people. police the whole story during his confessions. Robert pled guilty to the murders of Sherry Morrow, Joanna Messina, Paula Goulding, and the Jane Doe known as Eklutna Annie. And he was convicted. On February 27th, 1984, at 44 years old, Robert was sentenced to life in prison,

plus 461 years without the possibility of parole. So a very good sentence at least. Finally, adding, though, without the possibility of parole. too because he was getting out on probation and parole for all of his other convictions. And after his conviction, he flew in a helicopter with investigators over an area north of Anchorage

where he pointed out where 17 of his victims were buried. Reportedly, he became excited when pointing out each burial site. That literally just gave me. Yeah, how disturbing is that? I don't know if it's the AC in here or not, but I haven't felt that

this entire episode. Yeah, it's gross. It's just so gnarly. Yeah, and what's even worse is when they landed, apparently at one point he got on his hands and knees and started like digging for the remains. Yeah. At one of the sites. Yeah. Like excited though, like a dog digging for a bone, which is truly disturbing.

Some locations on his map were not explored by the police and other burial sites had been scavenged by bears. Because again, he buried all of his victims in shallow graves. Yeah. Which I assume. he probably did on purpose, probably because he just didn't want to take the time to really bury them, but also maybe he knew that they would be scavenged at some point. He was not charged for the other unsolved disappearances because district attorney Victor Crum claimed it wasn't necessary since Robert would never get out of prison anyway.

They were also not sure if they could find all the graves. And we see this a lot in other cases where, you know, they, he's, you know, perpetrators aren't charged further after they already received such a, such a, you know, severe sentence like that where he's never going to get out of prison. Yeah, we've seen in some cases, if there is a potential chance that they will get out of prison, then the DA will be like, okay, we can now go and charge him with, with another crime that we have here to hopefully try to put the nail in the coffin. And keep them, yeah, in prison, yeah. But it is estimated that Robert killed anywhere from 17 to 37 victims and raped over 31. I mean, that makes him by far the

most prolific serial killer in Alaska's history, if not one of the most prolific zero killers in American history altogether. I mean, that is a very high victim count when considering all serial killers. And he really had the, or he thought he had the sort of perfect situation, the perfect cover that I think he thought would probably get away with for forever, potentially. but special agent John Douglas believed there were potentially more victims that Robert would not confess to. And here's another clip of Special Agent Douglas talking about it. Killers like Hans will come into contact with a lot of women, but fantasy is everything. And they may not like the way the person talks or the person dresses, the style.

And so they'll make a decision. Well, this one will live. This one over here will, you know, we'll, you know, will. die. I believe he was good for a lot more cases. And I still believe there was a chance that one of the reasons that caused him to go up to Alaska, he was running away from homicides back in a lower 48. Well, police were able to locate and exhume 12 of Roberts victims. 11 were identified and returned to their families. During the sentencing, Superior Court Judge Ralph Moody emphasized that Hansen had been arrested three times over the past 12 years, twice on charges

associated with kidnapping or sexual assault. Each time he was allowed to go free. Even when he was previously convicted, the Alaska Supreme Court reduced a five-year sentence for larceny in 1978 to time served. Judge Moody said, quote, I cannot think of a bigger indictment of society than we have here. This gentleman here has been known to us for several years. We've turned him loose several times.

That quote, I felt like I really had to add. That's such a, damn, I cannot think of a bigger indictment of society. That really stuck with me and I'm like, he's spot on. Right. This is some guy that is clearly a menace in the most vile sense. And yeah, we continuously, our system let him go countless times. Yeah, it's just disturbing to think about. And was kind of sadly the norm in a lot of cases back.

in the 70s, 80s, during kind of the golden age of serial killers. You saw this happen all the time. They'd get caught. They'd be let go. They'd get caught. They'd be let go. And by the end of it, you know, a lot of people lost their lives that didn't need to. Yeah.

And thankfully, I think we've learned, I think we've learned a lot from this time period. And I think that's partly why we don't see serial killers exist in the same way that they did, along with lots of other things, especially DNA testing and forensics, advancements in forensics. But yeah. Well, going back a little bit to the death penalty and our discussion about that and different people have different feelings on the death penalty and whether or not it's something that they would seek,

well, Assistant DA Frank Rothschild didn't regret not being able to seek the death penalty. And he said, I would have wished every breath he took had an element of pain to it. But here's how I thought about it. Here's a guy whose passion in life is going out into the wilderness and hunting, the great Alaska wild. Instead of being able to do that, he was put in a cell with no view of anything.

Forget the mountains. With rancid air and horrific people around him, that to me is supreme punishment. And what do you guys think about that? Like, do you agree with that? We've talked a lot about capital punishment. on the show. You know, we've kind of exhausted about it.

If you're curious, you go back to some other episodes. You know, I'm pretty against it just because, mostly because systemically, I think it's a flawed system. I think it's a racist system. I think it's, if you're poor, you're more likely to be executed. And, yeah, I mean, I think he brings up some really valid points that this guy gets to do nothing of what used to make him tick. He's put in a place that's kind of completely the opposite of what made him breathe. And so I think Supreme Punishment is spot on. I think at least for this case, you know, you could kind of talk about other cases in a more general sense, but at least

for him, I think that's spot on. Like, yeah, he's just, he just gets to rot. Yeah, like this is a version of hell for him, you know, and that's, that's good. Yeah. his eyes, you know, that's what he wants. Yeah, because we've talked about, like, if we would, kind of how we would do in prison in some episodes. And part of me thinks, I don't know, I would just get a lot of reading done, maybe write a book. Like, I, unfortunately, I can exist in, like, kind of smaller spaces and find things to do, but I think guys like him can't. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I mean, I get the concept of an eye for an eye, because especially when emotions are heightened and there's victims' families. But at the same

time, I feel like the death penalty really is kind of a get out of free card because you don't, their families are going to be alive and have to live with this every day for the rest of their lives. But the person who committed these acts is dead and gone and doesn't have to think about this ever anymore. And it's instead of sitting in punishment for the rest of their life, they kind of get out. Yeah, I think that's a really fair way to look at it. I've sometimes offered up the point of view of I would, if they were up to me, I'd leave it up to the victims and their family members because like what you just described might work for somebody, but somebody else might be like, I can't sleep at night knowing this guy is still breathing

and still alive. And in some cases, there's always the looming possibility of could they get out on parole in other cases with killers, not necessarily serial killers, but other cases. And we've seen in those cases where it's like the potential parole, all the families have to like go show up to these hearings again. Yeah. And they're re-victimized again, you know. So like, yeah, there's that that you always have to think about as well. But in this country, it's very much a flawed system. And as we know, people who end up on death row are on death row for a long period of time. And then, you know, what's the quality of life there? Sometimes it's better than it would be if you were just, you know, in prison for the rest of your life. Or it could take years for you. to actually end up being executed if you ever get executed, then there's this long, long process. There's the appeals system.

The appeal system, exactly. So it kind of ends up sort of being the same thing as being sentenced to life in prison in some cases. So I think the capital punishment in this country is extremely,

the system is antiquated and flawed. And if you're going to have it, it needs to be swift and just. It means to, we can't dilly dally around with it forever. But again, and brought up, there's cases, you know, there's cases of innocent people being executed.

Yeah, those are the worst. And so it's like, there's, I don't think there is a perfect answer to it. I think in my mind, I would, I would leave it up to the victims to decide. Because I think even there's recent cases where, like the Coburger trial, you know, the Idaho murders, there's victims, families that are upset with the outcome of that trial or that case. And, um, um, you know, the Idaho murders, uh, there's victims, You know, a lot of them wanted to see him have the death penalty brought down and instead he's going to serve prison for the rest of his life. And so it just really depends on who you are. And again, emotions do play a big factor. It's not a black and white.

No. No. And that's why it's a continuing conversation. Yeah. Right. You know, there is no cut and dry answer. Right. But I think in this case, you know, for Robert, like, I think that penalty.

is definitely, you know, being secluded and away from nature and, you know, the, what made him tick and just like his passions and being out in the wild. And, you know, that is a form of severe punishment. Totally. So especially in this case, I think. Right. This guy was out enjoying the most, some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world and just freely going wherever he wanted and to rip his freedom away. This is a guy who's flying and, you know, doing a lot of things. some of us never do.

And seeing things that some of us never do. So to rip that all away from him, put him in a cement walled room for the rest of his life, probably is worse than just killing him. Yeah. Yeah. Frank Rothschild retired and moved to Hawaii after closing this case. And he said, when you're doing that kind of work, you're seeing a portion of the world that's pretty dark. You're just so involved with all these horrible life situations and it wears on you.

And the ultimate was the Hansen case. It doesn't get any darker than that. I also couldn't think of a better place. Like if you're from Alaska, living in Alaska, to retire to Hawaii. Yeah, it's like, I just need a complete change of suffering here. Yeah. Robert Hanson was initially incarcerated in Pennsylvania, but was moved to Lemon Creek in Alaska briefly before being sent to Spring Creek Prison in Alaska in 1988,

becoming one of the first prisoners there. So I think that was important to note because if you remember in his plea deal, that was a part of it. Yeah, he's like, I don't. Yeah, no Alaska. So they just put him in Pennsylvania for like a hot second. Yeah, like, sure. Yeah, we technically didn't imprison you for the first, you know, moment of your imprisonment in Alaska.

So they agreed to the deal, but then I found a little loophole in it, which I appreciated. In 2014, he was moved from Spring Creek to medical segregation in Anchorage correctional complex due to failing health. And on August 21st, 2014, Robert Hansen died of natural causes at the age of 75 at Alaska Regional Hospital. He did have a do not resuscitate paperwork on file. And Robert Hansen, he will forever be known as this terrifying archetype of what an American serial killer is. He hid in plain sight as this quiet, meager baker.

He was a husband. He was a father. yet he raped and killed dozens of women for sport. And in October 2021, some good news, the Alaska Bureau of Investigation and Cold Case Investigation Unit launched another attempt to identify more potential victims' remains, and a young woman once named Horseshoe Harriet was actually identified to be Robin Pelke after 37 years.

Her skeletal remains had been discovered in 1984 near Horseshoe Lake, which is why she got that nickname. And this was near the Little Susitna River, which was just a few miles northwest of Anchorage, and through a new DNA profile generated and uploaded to public access genealogy database, investigators were able to construct her family tree, which then led to her identification,

which is just awesome science that we have now. I don't really understand it fully genealogy, but I'm very thankful that people do understand it to this degree that can, And I know it's sometimes it's a lot of deduction. And it's even just like asking people questions, reaching out. Like, oh, was this your sister? And do you know this?

Did you have a half-brother or whatever? And then obviously it's a lot of DNA as well. But, yeah, I find it fascinating. Robert had been 19 at the time of her death and was living on the streets of Anchorage in the early 80s. There was no record of her missing. Relatives told troopers they didn't know for certain why her parents, who are now unfortunately deceased didn't report her missing. I mean, it could be, you know, she maybe had a transient lifestyle.

She was maybe in the same profession as some of these other women, so maybe they just disconnected after a while. Nobody really knows. And as for occluded Annie, she unfortunately has still not been identified. Robert confessed that she was his first victim in recent years. You know, her face has been reconstructed in 2D and 3D, and her latest facial reconstruction was made in September 2020. Shout out National Center for Missing Exploited Children.

Yeah, neckmack. Amazing technology they have over there, by the way. Yeah, and, you know, if you want to take a peek, I know this is audio base, but if you want to go take a peek at her photo, who knows, it could spark something in someone and some of our listeners. So you can go take a look at her. She had been found with a hammered copper bracelet with turquoise stones, a beaded necklace with a turquoise shell,

and a heart charm, gold hoop, earrings, a gold ring with a white stone, and a timex wristwatch with a gold chain. Investigators still hope that one day these advances in genealogy will also help identify her. But if you end up recognizing Eklutna Annie, you can call Alaska State Troopers at 800-478-9333 or 907-269-5038. And yeah, just a note on it. I mean, a lot of these cases, Like some of the most tragic parts of these cases is to have these people who are unidentified. It's a, I mean, there could be someone out there who just never got closure. I mean, it has been an exceptionally long time since her body was found.

But who knows, you know, again, just go take a peek if you're curious. And maybe can I help identify her? I think it is really reassuring, one with the technology that we have in the advancements, But also if you look at her in particular, she doesn't have any family that we know of that's looking for her or anyone who's pushing for this to be found. But still investigators are. I mean, if they reconstructed this in 2020, someone is still looking at this and saying, we need to find her. So hopefully with people still interested in her case and finding out there will be closer for someone out there because someone's looking for her. And even though this was the 80s, and times passing and as time passes, there's less and less people who will be able to verify this. It's still not that far. It's still pretty recent,

and there's probably family members who, whoever she is, is still wondering what happened. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think there's, I think with the advancements in technology, genealogy, DNA, I think we're going to see hopefully more of these victims identified.

And again, we'd even go, you know, we're able to go over every single victim as we, you know, with most of your, killer cases, I mean, sometimes there's not enough information around their story or who they were, but we are going to, you know, put their names up there on the screen for you, just so that, you know, we can, you know, always remember them. I mean, it's important to remember all the

victims, especially when it comes to serial killers, everybody affected by this evil, evil man and, you know, the families that are still suffering the losses of their loved ones all these years later. But before we go out with a little bit of tribute, I just want to thank you guys so much for being here today. This was, you know, a lot of fun. Yeah. Obviously. A weird word to use for this topic in,

part of me is like, man, we should have done like a Bigfoot episode or something like that in hindsight. But nevertheless, still in a very important topic to cover and appreciate you guys, like, jumping on this with us. Yeah, it's always great to. collab with other podcasts and yeah you're welcome back anytime yeah thank you i was just going to say thank you for having us i mean we've heard it i remember seeing lights out on the charts like years ago and being like wow what's that at first your cover art caught me i was like what is this so it's

cool to meet you guys in in person and to be here in Colorado and thanks for having us here today for this yeah it was a lot of fun you know like we said in a weird way and i appreciate it i know for our listeners, this was a very front-loaded conversational episode. I was laughing in my head when Cassie found the segue into starting the script. I was like, we could have sat here for another hour to just talking. I know. And I mean, we were at, you know, breakfast for almost two hours talking beforehand. We're like, we could have just did a free freestyle episode. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny because I looked at the time, it's 4.30 p.m. And we've been all together since 10.30 this week.

Yeah. Hey, that's a good thing I'd say. Yeah. Great conversation. New friends. Yeah, welcome camping with us, hiking with us. Yeah, I can use some refreshers for sure. And you guys have a ton of fun out there in the Colorado wilderness. Thank you.

Report back if you have any strange encounters out there. Yeah. Hoopers apparently see a lot of hate. aliens out there. I'm going to the watchtower, for sure. And I've been wanting something to happen to me for my whole life. She's been begging for it. Me too. I literally, he says it's like say a prayer every time.

Please. Be me up. I will gladly be experimented on. Yep. I think it's the people who want it the most. It doesn't happen to. Yeah, I've learned that too with the paranormal. Like I can literally cry and beg.

And I swear these spirits are just laughing at me. And they're like, yeah, dude, whatever. And then it's always the unexpected moments when something happens or you're not expecting it. Exactly. Yeah. So we're aligned on that. Yeah. But yeah, this was great. We loved coming here and being able to record in person.

I mean, Cassie and I have been doing the podcast for over four years now and have recorded like twice in person for our own show. So it's just a different dynamic. It's fun. And it's cool to be here. So thank you again. Yeah, of course. And in the description, show notes, links for all shows links below. If you want to check it out, whether you're listening to us over on NAPD or you're listening to us here on Lights Out, Share the Love.

You know, we've all got great, great content. So be sure to go check out whichever show you haven't listened to before because we can attest. These are some top-notch podcasters over here. Right, Pac-out you guys. Yeah, you guys are killing it. And we, we collabed on this episode as well. We both kind of half researched it. And so it was fun. We've never kind of done it this sort of way with another show before. So yeah, I was a little worried because I was like, what if they're research is crap or something? But it ended up being great. Well, thank you for that.

Thank you. Well, as far as for our end and listeners that may not have listened to your podcast or familiar with your catalog, we're just talking about we have hundreds of episodes each, if you had to recommend a episode to start in or start at your catalog, what would be your recommendation? I don't know. Daniel, do you have a recommend that? No. Here's what I would say. If you're a paranormal listener, because really the show's built off of 50% paranormal, 50% true crime. And say if you're a paranormal lover, then our Warren files is kind of what we called it, the Warren file. So this is all of the paranormal cases and investigated by Ed and Lorraine Warren.

We've literally covered them all in great detail, all the things that you wanted to know about those cases, or maybe you've seen the conjuring movies, Annabel, whatever it may be. We've covered all those in great length along with a ton of other places. But then we've got a lot of niche stuff too that kind of a little bit more crossover with you guys, like wild animal attacks. We've got workplace disasters. We've got deadly vacations. So we kind of have a variety of different.

different topics. Of course. Think of like a single one. Yeah. It's a hard question. We get asked a lot. So I wanted to share the love. So do you guys have one to recommend to our listeners?

What's your, it seems like you have one loaded. Our most traumatic would probably be the night of the grizzlies. Although full warning, it's one of our early episodes and our audio is not as good as it is now. But it has definitely been a listener favorite since we started. Yeah. scarred a lot of people. I know a listener favorite for ours. Which one? Poop crews. That's a personal favorite of mine too. We did like worst vacation disasters. Yeah. And we had some like really sad ones towards the beginning forewarning, but the end it with poop cruise. Isn't there a Netflix?

Yeah, Netflix just came out. No, I just watched it. Oh, it's already out. It's out. It's out. I saw it. I'm the recommended to you. I'm like, why is this? It's very good. Yeah. It's like in the top 10. Yeah. You should watch on Netflix right now. Because that one's fun. Nobody dies in that one. And then we kind of left that episode off with the bang. I mean, it took up a huge chunk of the episode.

And we were just laughing through the whole thing because it's so ridiculous, like, just the poop everywhere. Yeah. I felt like I was 15 again making poop jokes constantly. Yeah, it was, uh, that one was a really good one. Yeah. Chillingham Castle is another. I like that one, too.

If you're interested in like a paranormal location with like pagan history. Yeah. Yeah. cultists and all sorts of wild stuff that happened there. Yeah, that's a good one. So it's really a good mix, though. If you're into paranormal, true crime, we also have done a number of it. We've almost done all the UFO abduction stories out there over the years.

Okay, sorry, we've been talking for like five hours, but I have to ask you, what is your favorite UFO abduction story? Ooh. Of the big ones, you know, that are always kind of. Yeah, yeah. I tend to go back to Travis Walton quite a bit. It's a good one. Yeah. I just believe that guy.

I was going to say, I just like feel like he's so consistent over the years. He doesn't try to like, you know, make it more elaborate and, you know, he's very like, he has a like, I don't give a shit if you believe me attitude, which I think helps his case. Which makes you believe him even more. Yeah. Yeah. And he hasn't, like, of course, fire in the sky. was developed into a film and all that, but it feels like it was kind of out of his hands. Like he was just kind of like, this is what happened to me.

Nothing more, nothing less. Yeah. And it is what it is. I don't know what to tell you, you know, and that just adds to the validity. And of course, he just seems like kind of a good guy, you know. Yeah, he was just out there moving wood around and, you know, this all. Snowflake Arizona. Yeah, yeah.

It's like the most random of places. And then also another one that I find really interesting. too. And also, it's funny because Netflix has been, I feel like they watched what the podcasts are doing and like what does well, because I swear we have so many episodes where I'm now seeing Netflix documentaries come out. So there's the Manhattan Abduction. Linda Napolitano, I think, is her name. That's another interesting one that's got kind of a government

conspiracy spin to it. But I would say like one of one of the cases that still sends chills down my spine is is the Elisa Lam episode or that that case is just absolutely insane. I don't know if you've seen that Netflix documentary. Yes, it was on Unsolved Mysteries as well. Yeah. I'm in that episode on Netflix.

Oh, right, yeah, yeah. I have like a little cameo, a little clip from Lights Out in that Netflix documentary from way back in the day. But that case is absolutely insane because there's a paranormal element to it, but then it's also maybe it's not that at all and just somebody put her in the water tank on the on the hotel yeah all very strange but

yeah um i think my favorite is at least yeah i think it's at least the most fun uh the one we did with dan cummins the stan romanek i thought that was the most ridiculous case have you guys talked about stan romano no we haven't it's ridiculous it's it's like at no point do you believe this guy maybe you know like the first instance you're like huh you might have something here that's that is weird he caught video footage of this UFO in the sky. But as the story goes on, you're like, this is insane. He claims to have had an alien show up at his house and he's got footage of it. And it's just...

Okay. So it quickly... It's so manufactured. Yeah. And then when you find out what Mr. Stan was up to... Yeah, he's a pedophile. Yeah. So that part wasn't fun. But it was at least knowing, seeing this guy who was just a total hack, then going... get, you know, rated by the FBI at the end and thrown in prison, you're like, good, I'm glad. But I think

he's out now. Oh, yeah, he's out. Yeah, he's been out. Which is weird. And apparently he's from this area. Yeah, he's from Colorado. So he's kind of float around here. Yeah, well, you should look into the Al-Gash for if you haven't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's in my neck of the woods. Yeah. And I mean, I like that story too. And it's a good one. Yeah, we don't do a ton of UFO stuff much to my dismay because I want to be abducted so badly. But the ones that we do cover are, like, big ones that have stuck with us for a while. So I'll have to go through your catalog for my fix. There's a lot, actually, surprisingly.

Yeah. Some are more believable than others. Some we intentionally choose because they're so ridiculous. Some of them are... What was that one guy who was like, you kind of believe him at first? Chris. Yeah, yeah. What was his last name?

That one's rough because we actually got... We had a lot of people that were upset with us. Really? Because they didn't believe. We didn't believe his story as much as we should have, I think. He did a lot of hypnotic regression therapy. Well, you know what? Listeners, I still don't believe that guy.

He's doubling down. He goes into this, he meets like, was it the Virgin Mary or something came to him? Or something like that. Alien encounter turned into like a spiritual. A biblical thing. A religious awakening. Something I've never heard of before. Yeah.

Maybe it happened. I don't know. But, and he was healed from, like, ailments and things like that. It was very interesting. Yeah, he had a chronic illness. That he was. Blood so, yeah, that was it. Yeah, he had a chronic digestive illness or something.

Did he have Crohn's? I think it has. Yeah, it was something. And he claimed that he saw, like, a huge UFO come over him or something, and then he was healed. Okay. A miracle. Yeah. Hey, Tweed.

I can't confirm or deny. I wasn't there. So maybe it did happen. We always say that. We weren't there. Yeah. We're just sharing the information. Yeah.

But yeah, thank you guys so much again for coming on. Welcome back anytime. And if we ever find ourselves out on the East Coast, we'll definitely hit you guys up. Please do. Whether it's Maine or Vermont or Boston, wherever it may be. I don't know.

I probably won't be in Maine for that long. So. Don't go to Maine then. Okay. Yeah. come for the foliage and then we'll find somewhere else to go. Well, thank you everyone for listening and we will see you next week. In the meantime, enjoy the view.

But watch you're back. Bye. Bye. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you love National Park After Dark and want to hear exclusive bonus stories, join us on Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Patreon subscribers have access to our National Park After Dark Book Club, live streams, discord, and much more.

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