Prime Crime: Solved Murders - Three in Chicago Pt. 3: The Pieces Come Together

Episode Date: November 16, 2022

By the early ‘90s, the case of Helen Brach was heating up. But to get answers, police needed to go deeper into Chicago’s cutthroat Horse Mafia. As agents worked their informants, the pieces of two cases, decades apart, finally came together. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this murder case, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of violence, sexual assault of minors, kidnapping, abusive animals, and murder. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. In 1991, Chicago was a city full of unsolved mysteries. No one could be sure who killed John Schuessler, Anton Schuessler, and Bobby Peterson in 1955. and it wasn't clear what happened to Helen Brock, the eccentric Candidieris who vanished in 1977.

For a while, it seemed like these two cases had nothing in common. Separate tragedies that just happened to take place in the same city, and that wouldn't be so strange. Chicago was big, and like any large metropolis, terrible things happened every day. Plus, by the 90s, Chicago was a very different place than it had been in the previous four decades. This was a post-John Wayne Gacy, Chicago,

a city contending with its complicated relationship to crime. The missing heiress, the three murdered boys. In some ways, those cases seemed like small potatoes compared to what had come afterwards. But in 1991, everything was about to change. Now, that doesn't mean that each of these stories had a happy ending, far from it. There are still certain mysteries that may never be solved. But one thing was for sure. That year, both cases were going to collide, overlapping in ways

no one could have imagined. Decades-old secrets were going to be revealed, sending the investigation running after a killer who had been hiding in the shadows this whole time. Welcome to Solved Murders, True Crime Mysteries, a Spotify original from Parcast. I'm your host, Carter Roy. And I'm your host Wendy McKenzie. Every Wednesday, we step into the world of true crimes, most fascinating murder cases, and tell the tale of how real-life detectives close the case.

You can find episodes of Solve Murders and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free exclusively on Spotify. This is our third and final episode about the murders of John Schusler, Anton Schusler, and Bobby Peterson. After decades of dead-end leads and clashing egos, the truth finally comes to light. But it doesn't come easy. We have all that and more coming up. Stay with us. By 1991, Chicago police were up to their ears in new information.

Suddenly, the notoriously secretive world of horse breeding had cracked open. It was as if everyone wanted to talk to the cops. And not just that, they were willing to name. names. The investigation had surged so suddenly that it warranted the help of a much larger federal organization, the Chicago branch of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. For the team of investigators working on the Helen Brock case, this was both a blessing and a curse. More information and more manpower could hopefully lead the police to what they really wanted, a link that connected the horse mafia to Richard Bailey,

the man who scammed Helen out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in shoddy horse sales. A mix of veteran investigators joined by newcomers pursued new leads in the Brock case. State police investigator David Hamm had been tied to this investigation from the beginning, but by this point, he was ready to retire. FBI agent Peter Cullen took his place and was joined by ATF. agent Jim Delorto, an assistant U.S. attorney Steve Miller. For months, these men continued chipping away at any potential lead that could bring them closer to nailing Richard Bailey. They knew the groundwork was already there.

Richard Bailey had a history of scamming wealthy widows into buying shoddy horses at an inflated price. Bailey was also known to work with Silas Jane, the de facto dawn of the Chicago Horse Mafia. Silas had his own reputation for violence and intimidation, and Bailey's proximity to him seemed suspicious at best. This feeling only grew stronger the more the team spoke to people in the Chicago horse industry. One unexpectedly helpful interviewee was Kathy Jane Olson, the great niece of Silas Jane.

In an interview with Steve Miller, Kathy explained that she befriended Helen Brock while she was working at a stable owned by her father, Frank Jane Jr. It was an open secret that Frank Jane Jr. was involved in the horse mafia. As Frank's daughter, Kathy was likely expected to fall in line and play along with the schemes that her father ran. But Helen was kind and generous. And Kathy couldn't stand by and allow her new friend to be swindled. So in 1977, a year before Helen's disappearance, Kathy told Helen the truth that the mares she had purchased were completely worthless. Somehow, Frank Jane, Jr. found out about this and beat Kathy for her betrayal to the family. Though that didn't stop Kathy from confiding in Helen even more as she warned her against any more purchases.

But this wasn't all that Kathy had to offer the investigators. She explained that two weeks before Helen Brock disappeared, she overheard a conversation between her father and unknown policeman and Richard Bailey. Kathy couldn't make out the whole conversation, but she caught some alarming pieces. Allegedly, one of the men had said that Helen knew too much, and that her father responded that someone needed to, quote, shut her up. Steve Miller pressed Kathy to remember any other details from this period, and after a moment, Kathy added that she remembered another conversation, likely after Helen Brock had disappeared.

From the other room, Kathy heard the policeman tell her father that everything was fine now that Helen had been, quote, shut up for good. To Miller and the rest of the investigators, this information was a massive step in the right direction. It put Richard Bailey in the same room as men who seemed to be conspiring to kill Helen Brock. But still, Kathy's admission wasn't quite enough and seemed almost too good to be true. As an attorney, Miller knew that the investigation couldn't hang their hat on Kathy's information alone. They needed corroborating testimony to really prove Bailey's guilt. and one day in 1992, an unexpected call would point them in the right direction.

Detective Miller, I've got someone in custody who you might want to talk to. We just nabbed him for a horse swindling charge and he's got ties to Chicago. The name's Joe Plemons. The story of Joe Plemons was similar to countless other men in the horse business in Chicago. By the time he entered the industry, he was already a skilled criminal. In his younger years, Plemons had sold drugs and regularly scammed people out of money through faulty business dealings. But as he explained to Steve Miller, a friend of his got him into the horse business. Kenneth Hanson is one mean no good guy.

And has he got a temper on him, I'll tell you what? But what can I say? He was practically a father to me. He introduced me to Silas Jane, got me in with a big guy, so to speak. Plymouth spent years rubbing shoulders with the so-called Jane Gang, becoming a skilled con man within the horse industry. He'd sell horses with forged pedigree papers and make deals with fake checks. Around Christmas time in 1977, Kenny calls me up and asks if I want to get lunch with him and Richard Bailey.

I went. I knew Bailey was pulling that scheme with Helen Brock, and frankly, I was a little peeped didn't let me in on the grift. But anyway, off we go, we meet Bailey, have some. small talk and all that, but then Bailey switches subjects, talking about some candy lady who he's having problems with. I'm not an idiot, so I get what that means. He wants to get rid of her, but Bailey goes farther than that, says he wants to make sure nobody finds her. Plemons explained that Bailey offered him and Kenneth Hansen $5,000 to murder Helen Brock, but both men refused, saying they'd never kill an old lady.

especially for so little money. And according to Plemons, that was that. Now, this was the kind of information that Steve Miller and the rest of the team were desperate to find. Plemons' statement could prove that Richard Bailey was soliciting the murder of Helen Brock. It could break the case wide open. With his excitement mounting,

Miller asked Plemons if Kenneth Hanson would corroborate these statements. But suddenly, Plemons' mood changed. There's no way. Absolutely not. Didn't I say Kenny Hanson is a bad guy? He's pretty much the most terrible person in the world. Just leave him out of this. Steve Miller pressed more, asking why Plymonds would say that about a man who was apparently his friend. But Plemons wouldn't budge. He told Miller to forget it, that he didn't mean anything by his comment. that didn't seem to make much of a difference. Whatever was going on between Plymins and Hanson was likely none of their business. Plus, Miller and his team had gotten exactly what they wanted from Plemons,

someone who could prove that Richard Bailey wanted to kill Helen Brock. Now the investigative team was more confident than ever before. Sure, they'd have to follow up on the details of Plymouth's statement and make sure that it could hold up in court. but that seemed like nothing more than a formality. The lawman had Richard Bailey in their sights, and one way or another, they were going to take him down. Coming up, an unexpected phone call changes everything.

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Back to our story. October 1992, the Helen Brock case was in full swing. Joe Plemons' shocking confession suggested that Richard Bailey had been soliciting someone to murder the eccentric heiress. And now, it was just a matter of making sure that this statement could hold up in a court of law. In the six months following the interview, the investigators fanned out, asking anyone and everyone in the horse business if they could verify Plymouth's statement. And amazingly, it all checked out. Joe Plemons had been telling the truth when he spoke to the police about his run-in with Richard Bailey. But that wasn't all the police discovered.

Through their investigation, the team was able to reconstruct Bailey's entry into the world of Chicago crime, tracing it back to a chance meeting with Silas Jane in 1970. Bailey had actually been the victim of one of Silas's scams, having purchased a whole. course from the swindler at an alarming markup. But Bailey wasn't angry. He was just impressed and decided that he wanted a piece of the grift. So after that fateful con, the two men began working together, establishing a blueprint for a specific kind of fraudulent scheme.

And it was Silas who first suggested who, exactly, should be the target of these plans. We want to find old, lonely ladies, widows, heiresses, the kind of women who have more money than they could possibly spend. And you've got a good face, Rich. Sweet talk, these old brads. Then mention the horses. Something about these brons, they just love horses. Oh, to see these beautiful animals galloping along, and one of them's mine! I'm telling you, they'll be like.

putty in your hands. And Silas was right, for the most part. Bailey was pretty much the perfect person to lure elderly, lonely women into these shoddy schemes. By 1970, he had developed a knack for that exact kind of thing, showering lonely widows with compliments, attention, and on occasion, physical intimacy. And the police already knew what happened if or when one of these women suddenly got wise to the whole operation. The investigative team hadn't forgotten the details shared by Carol

Kirstensen, another widow who had lost virtually all of her savings to Bailey's bogus horse sales. Not only had she been conned, but she was threatened with physical violence when she tried to go to the authorities. All of this information put Richard Bailey in a suspicious light. Still, the investigation had to be somewhat delicate with this growing case against Helen Brock's former gentleman friend. Without a body, it would be difficult to prove for sure that Bailey had a hand in her death. So the team of lawmen took another route. This growing pile of evidence might not be able to prove that Bailey was a murderer,

but it did fit within the parameters of a RICO case. RICO stands for the Racketeer-influenced and corrupt organizations act, and it's a type of case with specific requirements. Investigators had to prove that Richard Bailey was part of a larger scheme involving multiple people, that he committed several related crimes, and that these crimes had taken place over a long period of time. The years of work with Silas Jane and Frank Jane Jr., plus the string of traumatized women left in Bailey's wake,

each of these elements was essential to making a RICO case. And by the end of the year, it seemed like the team of office, finally had them. Perhaps that was what ATF agent Jim Delorto was thinking as he poured over the paperwork in his office on one gray October afternoon. The officer was certainly deep in thought as he paged through the stacks of interviews, case files, and background information that the team had gathered over the last few years. After so much time hunting down leads and connecting scraps of information, it seemed like things were finally on track. Of course, the work wasn't over.

There would be a trial and hopefully a conviction. And to make sure that happened, DeLorto knew he had to go over every line, every page of information. Any loophole that the defense team could find, he had to find it first. The sun had long since dipped below the horizon, and Delorto settled himself in for a long night of work. The office was quiet until suddenly. The phone rang. On the other side, a gravely male voice greeted him. With a sense of surprise, Delorto recognized the caller. It was an FBI informant he had worked with years ago, back in the 80s. William we met,

known more casually as Red. Red had been an especially helpful source of information when it came to the Chicago Mafia. In fact, Red had helped put away one of the outfit's most notorious leaders, Frankie the German Schweiss. But Delorto hadn't talked to Red since 1987. In the midst of that operation, the agent had no idea why this man would call him now, so many years later. After all, Red's name was nowhere near this investigation.

But Red wasn't an avid talker, and this call was no exception. He mentioned how he had heard about the horse mafia investigation and said he had an unexpected connection to it. In an excited tone, he told Delorto that a while ago he met Helen Brock once. Delorto was shocked. How in the world could that be? But Red was on a roll.

He explained that he had worked at a stable back in the 70s and he had seen Helen arrive there in a huge black Cadillac. Red continued on, saying how two other men were present during that chance encounter, Richard Bailey and Frank Jane. Something seemed fishy, Red explained, and he believed that the two men were somehow plotting to scam Helen Brock. Delorto's initial excitement seemed likely to wane by this point as he listened to a tale that didn't suggest anything that the agent didn't already know. Still, Red continued chattering on about his relationship to the horse business.

He explained that he was working at the stable at the time because his friend, Kenneth Hansen, had helped him get into the business. But at the mention of Kenneth Hansen, Red's demeanor changed. Just like Joe Plemons before, it seemed like speaking that name worked a kind of magic over him. Suddenly Red's voice faltered and he grew more quiet. It was almost as if he was worried someone could hear him. Delorto noticed the change in tone, and he pushed for more. Red nervously explained that he lived on the same ranch as Hansen for a few years

when he was 18 years old, and that the pair had gotten close. Red seemed to be building to something, but Delorto couldn't figure out what it was. Clearly, Red was anxious, speaking quickly and nervously, as if he was. was trying to trick himself into reaching the conclusion of his long, meandering monologue. Red began talking about Hansen's attitude, that he was violent, dangerous, an all-around bad guy. Delorto already knew all of this and was likely starting to wonder how to get out of this seemingly pointless conversation. But then suddenly Red blurted it out. One night, when Kenneth Hansen was drunk, he admitted to something terrible. Back in 1955, he killed three little boys.

It was as if the world stopped spinning for Jim Delorto. He shot back, asking Redd, what kids? When? What in the world was he talking about? Red elaborated. He said that while Kenny was drunk one night, he admitted to killing some kids all those years ago. Red even remembered one of the victim's last names, Peterson. Just like that, the memories rushed back to Jim Delorto. He wasn't an ATF agent in 1955. He was nothing more than a boy himself at the time, but he certainly remembered the photographs that ran in the newspaper,

the bodies of three young boys naked, found in a ditch near a forest preserve. By this point, it had been over 35 years, since the Peterson-Schusler murders had gone cold. Not in his wildest dreams did Jim Delorto think that the Helen Brock case would take him here to a mystery that had laid dormant for decades. Meanwhile, Red was still rambling on. He explained that Kenny said he didn't want to kill those kids, but that he had to.

Questions swirled around DeLorto's mind. What did that mean? Did this have anything to do with the Brock case? or to Richard Bailey? Red didn't seem to understand the gravity of his words, but Delouto knew this confession was a game-changer. It could hold up in a court of law. Delorto and Red agreed to talk again soon and got off the phone.

In his office, the papers still strewn across his desk, Delorto sat in shock, reeling from this new information. Helen Brock, the three dead boys. It all passed through his mind in a flurry of half-completed thoughts. Delorto sat in his dark, quiet office knowing that in a matter of minutes, everything had changed. Coming up, two investigations collide, and an unsolved mystery is finally put to rest. You thought this was your run club era. Turns out, it was more of a thinking about run club era.

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This should be tons of fun. Marvel television's Daredevil, Born Again, now streaming only on Disney Plus. And now back to the story. Over the course of one phone call, the entire Helen Brock investigation had been turned on its head. ATF agent Jim Delorto was now carrying

a shocking piece of information that Kenneth Hanson, might be the killer of John Schusler, Anton Schusler, and Bobby Peterson. FBI informant Redd We Met was the one to relay the news, effectively throwing a bomb into the entire case. Up until that point, Kenneth Hanson had seemed like nothing more than a potential witness, someone who could confirm that Richard Bailey was soliciting someone to kill Helen Brock. But now, so many questions remained unanswered.

Delorto had no idea whether this tip was actually right or how it related to the Brock case, if at all. But one thing was for sure. Delo and the rest of the team now had the task of juggling two cases at once. When it came to the Brock investigation, things were looking pretty good. By 1993, the police had traced Richard Bailey's schemes all the way back to Silas Jane, the dawn of the horse industry. Over the years, Bailey had helped the so-called Jane gang in countless schemes,

most of which involved elderly widows. Joe Plemons' statement to the police helped shed light on Bailey's intentions to have Helen Brock, quote-unquote, disappeared. Plus, it had been surprisingly easy to find other women who Bailey had fleeced out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. In short, Bailey was primed to be brought in under RICO charges, and for conspiring to murder Helen Brock. So as the investigative team fine-tune their strategy against Bailey, they also shifted some of their focus to this shocking new lead,

following Kenneth Hanson's trail all the way back to the Peterson-Schusler murders. Reopening that case meant pouring over countless old files, many of which hadn't been touched for over 30 years. And to do that, Delorto needed help. He enlisted several other ATF agents, including John Rotuno and Jim Grady. Delorto divided up tasks to both men. Rotuno would handle evidence gathering and scheduling interviews.

Meanwhile, Grady would work on a larger scale, trying to connect all this evidence to a larger motive for killing those three boys. Together, all three agents were going to try and figure out, how Kenneth Hanson's role within the illegal horse trade could be connected to this decades-old murder. Through the second Brock investigation, the police were able to collect some information about Kenneth Hanson. Like many other men in the horse business,

Hanson had started small and rose through the ranks, eventually owning a few stables of his own. And like many others, he had his own rap sheet. Detective David Hamm remained a quasi-expert, on Kenneth Hansen and was well acquainted with the man's history of criminal activity. Oh, yeah. I mean, the guy was kind of a heavy for the whole Jane family. If Silas needed someone to get roughed up, or if one of the stables needed to, you know,

accidentally burn down, Kenneth was on it. Hanson even got arrested back in the day, now that I remember. He got mixed up in this crazy murder plot against George Jane, Silas' brother. Silas basically got Hansen to help off his own sibling, if you can believe it. Whatever charge Hansen got didn't stick for long, clearly. Nope. Hanson's one slippery guy. Before Red's illuminating confession, all of this info likely fell into the background.

Just more evidence of criminal activity in the horse world. But now, it was being examined in a totally different light. The trio of ATF agents were especially interested. in Hansen's history of barn burnings. Like Silas Jane, many of Hansen's stables had a tendency to burn down under suspicious circumstances, and the investigators figured that if they could nail Hansen on an arson charge,

they could keep him in custody while they smoothed out the details about the murder case. Luckily, Hansen didn't seem to have many friends willing to protect him, one of his own stable hands, a man named Roger Spray, was eager to speak directly about his involvement in these acts of arson. More specifically, Spray told the police about how Hansen had ordered him in another man to burn down Forest View stables, the property of a competitor who threatened to steal away Hanson's customer base.

For the three investigators, this confession could be enough for that much-desired arson charge. but interestingly, this wasn't the only thing that Roger Sprye had to offer. By 1993, the police had learned some interesting details about Hansen's reputation. In fact, rumors seemed to swarm around Hansen like flies. He was violent. He abused his animals. All of this seemed like par for the course for any man working in the horse industry. After all, the horse industry was known to hire people from the fringes of society. society who wanted to fly under the radar.

But the most persistent theory about Hansen was particularly alarming. He seemed to be especially interested in spending time with young boys. Kenneth Hanson's son, Mark, would later tell the authorities of shattered sense of innocence that his dad, quote, took in guys that needed help. And in a way, that was true. Hansen would often find young boys who are homeless or otherwise in need of food, a job, and a place to sleep. He'd invite them to his stables where they'd work with horses and learn how to ride. It seemed like a perfect life for these boys, a happy escape from a life on the street.

But as these three investigators soon learned, things didn't usually stay that way. Roger Spry had been taken in by Hansen in 1959. when Spry's own parents seemed unwilling to care for him. At first, Hansen's stables must have seemed like the opposite of his harrowing childhood. But as Spry spoke to the investigators, he painted a portrait of Hansen as a predatory groomer who would punish any boy who dared to refuse his sexual advances. Spry himself was forced to sleep among Hansen's Dobermans until he, quote,

came around to Hansen's demands. Spry remained at Hansen's ranch for decades well into the 1970s, and during that time, he witnessed firsthand Hansen's persistent needling of young boys, slowly wearing them down until they would succumb to him. By the summer of 1993, the investigators had interviewed Roger Spry multiple times. His information about the 1970 arson would be enough to charge Hansen for it, which fit with the ATF's plan. If he could be brought in for that crime, then it gave the team much more space to finalize a murder charge. But Spry wasn't done yet.

When the investigators asked about the Peterson-Schusler case, Spry revealed something truly unbelievable. Just as with Red we met, Spry said that Hansen told him everything. What Spry told the police in this interview would form the background of the case against Kenneth Hansen. In 1955, Kenneth Hansen was working on one of Silas Jane's properties, the idle hour stables. And on the night of October 16th, Kenneth picked up three boys on the side of the road. 14-year-old Bobby Peterson, 13-year-old John Schusler, and his 11-year-old brother Anton.

From the initial investigation into the murders, the investigators knew that on that night, the three boys had been meandering home from a movie in downtown Chicago. After leaving the theater, the trio had hopped from bowling alley to bowling alley, shirking their 8 p.m. curfew. By the time Hansen spotted them, the boys were probably soaked from the rain, sick of walking around and ready to go home to Jefferson Park. But clearly, Hansen had other plans. Instead of taking them home, Hansen drove to Idol Hour, possibly under the pretense of letting the boys see the horses. But as Spry explained to the police, Hansen's real intentions were sex. Apparently, this was a fantasy he had harbored for some time.

So once Hansen brought the children to the stables, he led them to one of the barns on the back of the property. There Hansen distracted Bobby Peterson with some kind of stables. table hand chore so he could try to assault the two Schusseler boys. But apparently Bobby didn't leave. Maybe he could tell that something was wrong, or he may have even tried to attack Hansen in order to protect his friends. Regardless, things quickly went from bad to worse. Hansen grabbed Bobby by the throat, allegedly trying to keep his other arm free to keep the two Schusler boys from escaping. By this point, all three children were screaming,

and Hansen was beginning to panic. Bobby Peterson was screaming the loudest of them all, so Hansen secured his grip on the boy's throat and squeezed. Hansen told Spry that he didn't mean to kill Bobby, but that he had, quote, no other choice. After Bobby Peterson was dead, Kenneth probably felt that he had to kill the other boys. in order to guarantee his safety from the cops.

One after the other, he strangled John Schusler and Anton Schusler to death. Exactly how the three bodies wound up in the Robinson Forest Preserve was a topic of debate. Roger Spry told the police that Silas Jane personally helped Hansen load the three boys into a truck, drove to the woods, and dumped the bodies in a ditch. But after this interview, investigators heard conflicting statements from other men who worked with Silas Jane back in the 50s. Horse trainer Bob Breen was certain that Silas had no knowledge of these murders taking place on his property. And that if he did know about Hansen's activity, Silas would have, quote, shot him dead. Regardless, the trio of investigators had just hit the jackpot.

Not only had Roger Spry given them a number. enough evidence for an arson conviction, but he also gave them proof that Hansen had confessed to the 1955 murders. For the rest of 1993 and into the following year, investigators worked to finalize both the Hallen-Brock disappearance and the Peter Schuster murders. Jim Delorto bridged both investigations, working all-nighters to make sure that everything was prepared for court. Richard Bailey proved to be the most straightforward case of the two. In July of 1994, he was indicted for 29 crimes, including money laundering, racketeering, and conspiring to kill Helen Brock.

And Bailey's indictment ran alongside 22 other people from the horse industry who were charged for animal cruelty, fraud, and arsonist schemes. But even this didn't quite quite. offer Helen Brock a happy ending. The lack of a body made it virtually impossible for the authorities to positively charge Richard Bailey with murder. It still isn't clear exactly how Brock was attacked, murdered, and disposed of, and to this day, her death remains unsolved.

And the Kenneth Hanson case was its own complicated affair. Only a month after Richard Bailey was charged, police swarmed Hansen's home. Officially, he was charged with the 1970 arson of Forestview Stables, with the plan to charge him later for the three murders. In custody, Hansen was surprisingly candid, but he stopped short of admitting to the crimes. Sure, I've spent time with many younger boys, but a murderer, I am not. This is all just a huge misunderstanding.

Old lovers, I mean, they get jealous. They'll say anything just to hurt me. But Hansen's attempt at deflection did nothing to stop the case building against him. Shortly after the arson charge, Delorto and Rotuno prepared to charge him for the three murders. But they had one other thing to take care of first. Before the story got splashed across the Chicago Tribune, the two agents knew they had to track down the Peterson and Schusler families. what was left of them anyway.

So many decades had passed that many of the people who would have remembered that first investigation were long since dead. Still, Delorto and Retuno were anxious when they approached the front door of Malcolm Peterson,

Bobby's father. After all this time, the agents weren't sure how this man would react to being reminded of that terrible tragedy. But Mr. Peterson was about to surprise them. After the two men introduced themselves and explained why they were there, Mr. Peterson spoke five simple words.

What took you so long? And it seemed like the entire city of Chicago felt the same way. As the Kenneth Hanson trial began in 1995, the whole region was reminded of that botched investigation all those years ago. Clashing egos, political posturing, and a thousand. and leads that went nowhere. But finally, exactly 40 years later, those wrongs were being righted. Kenneth Hansen was eventually convicted of three counts of first-degree murder. This earned him a 200-year sentence, effectively ensuring that he would never walk free again.

In 2007, he died in prison. For some, Hansen's death was the last piece of closure in a tragedy. that had spanned multiple decades. For others, it was practically frustrating. Before his conviction, Hanson had been able to live life as a free man for 40 years, despite the fact that he had deprived three boys of a life beyond childhood and molested countless others. Frankly, these kinds of stories don't really have winners, or happy endings,

or a full sense of closure. That is almost certainly true for the people who knew Helen Brock. To this day, the grave bearing her name sits above untouched ground, with no coffin buried underneath. There will always be unanswered questions. Here, the investigators were at least able to answer some of them, and that sometimes has to be enough. Thanks again for tuning into solved murders. We'll be back next Wednesday with a new episode. For more information on the murder of John Schusler, Anton Schusler, and Bobby Peterson.

Amongst the many sources we used, we found the book Shattered Sense of Innocence by Richard C. Lindbergh and Gloria Jean Sykes extremely helpful to our research. And for more information about Helen Brock's disappearance, we found Hot Blood by Ken Englade, very helpful too. You can find all episodes of Solved Murder. and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. We'll see you next time. Solved Murders True Crime Mysteries is a Spotify original from Parcast, executive produced by Max Cutler. Our head of programming is Julian Bois-Roe.

Our supervising sound designer is Russell Nash, with Nick Johnson as our head of production, and Trent Williamson as our senior production specialist. Stacey Nemick is our supervising. editor and Derek Jennings is our writing lead. This episode of Solve Murders was written by Georgia Hampton, edited by Giles Hofseth, fact-checked by Mary Mathis,

researched by Mickey Taylor, produced by Freddie Beckley, and sound design by Michael Langsner. It stars Joe Hernandez, Cameron Nicod, and Charlie Wes. Our hosts are Wendy McKenzie and me, Carter Roy.

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