RedHanded - Episode 11 - The Butcher Baker of Alaska

Episode Date: September 9, 2017

Today we explore one of the most nightmarish cases we’ve covered. Robert Hansen aka The Butcher Baker of Alaska, was a small town family man, quiet and unassuming - but beneath the surface a monster was lurking. He would abduct women off the streets, take them to his secluded cabin, rape them, strip them naked and set them free in the surrounding woods - so that he could fulfil his second passion - and hunt them like game…   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, this is Sinead from the Mens Rea podcast. If you like true crime, and I know you do,

check us out to hear about the guilty minds of Ireland and the UK and the court cases that followed. Available wherever you get your podcasts from. And remember, don't do anything I wouldn't do. Thanks. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed episode 11? Yes, 11. Welcome to episode 11. Today we're covering the case of a killer that is almost the perfect archetype of a serial killer. Small town, family man, unassuming. He even had a stutter. He decided, as many do, that it was for him to rid the world of the plague of sex workers. All sounds very familiar, doesn't it? But when it comes to the case of Robert Hansen,

the butcher baker of Alaska, what really sets him apart is his signature move. Hansen would abduct women off the streets, spirit them away to a shack deep in the Alaskan forests. Here he'd rape them, strip them naked, and set them free. Free to run. Run through the woods in the dark and in the cold. And this is when he would indulge his second favourite pastime, picking up his.223 Mini-14 rifle. He'd stalk and track these terrified women through the wilderness, hunting them like animals. They never stood a chance.

So if you're walking your dog at night time on your own, probably not one for right now. No. This case happens for the most part in Anchorage, Alaska, in between 1971 and 1983. Now before we get going, let's just do a little scene setting. Anchorage at this time, following an enormous oil boom and during the construction of the Alaska pipeline, was very much a frontier town. In the 70s, men came to work here alone. They often had a lot of disposable income and there were a lot of ladies of the night

to keep them company. Lots of strip clubs, lots of young girls. You get the idea. There was a particular area in Anchorage known as the Tenderloin District. Ugh! I know, ugh. Run for the most part by a Seattle mafia boss.

Some of the names of the clubs included the Booby Trap and the Great Alaskan bush company that's my favorite one and between 1979 and 1983 the police responded to 207 disturbances at the booby trap alone there was a lot of crime in the area organized and otherwise and in the late 70s and the first few years of the 80s there were many reports of sex workers and exotic dancers going missing. Some going to meet a trick, some meeting a man in a public place,

some being offered $300 for a photo shoot and simply vanishing into thin air. If somebody is telling you that they'll do a photo shoot for you and they'll give you money, they're lying. Don't go with them. Don't, definitely don't go with them.

Given the nature of the profession of these individuals and the transient lifestyle that comes with it, these reports were not given a whole lot of police time i mean we've heard that yeah absolutely but after a number of unexplained disappearances kept rising even the police had to take notice i think it's important to note that like if you're an adult you are kind of allowed to be missing and people were coming and going all the time yeah like even not just the sex workers and the dancers like the men were coming and going all the time yeah like even not just the sex workers and the dancers like the men were coming and going all the time because they'd go and work on the pipeline for maybe six months a year to make the money and then they just leave again we'd found out during the research that at

this time alaska it was just anchorage in particular it was just such a transient town people came and went and there wasn't anybody in this it wasn't necessarily a place where people came to settle so yes absolutely these people going missing were they disappearing into thin air because they were being murdered, or were they just moving on to the next place? So I guess we can't really immediately jump on the police about this and say that they weren't taking it seriously, because yeah, these people were living transient lifestyles. But things started to get really serious on the 21st of July 1980, when construction workers discovered a badly decomposed body of a woman in a shallow grave near Eklutna Lake, around 20 miles outside of Anchorage.

Police were unable to identify the body due to the severity of the decomposition, but they did create a facial reconstruction. They posted this image all over, asking anyone who knew this woman to come forward. No one ever did. And to this day, this victim has never been identified and is simply referred to as Ekletna Annie. That's always so heartbreaking, isn't it? When like, they're just, they don't even have their name.

I know, that's the saddest thing in that after all that time and the police, they absolutely did an amazing job with this. I mean, to be able to do the facial reconstruction at that time, to pass that image around everywhere. I mean, I've seen the image. It's not, it's not perfect. No, it's not. But they tried.

We'll definitely post it to the Instagram if you guys haven't seen it to take a look. I mean, it's not necessarily immediately recognisable. It looks like one of those, you know those Japanese sex dolls? Yes. That they sell. It looks like one of those.

It's so sad that nobody, nobody came forward to identify. But then again, it was such a transient place. Like, I'm sure no one in the area maybe even knew who she was. She could have been from anywhere. Yeah, so there were no leads and no one to identify the body. So the case went cold. Anchorage was still uneasy.

17 women are missing. And people did, as we said, come and go all the time. And because there was so much illegal activity, people were on purpose hard to track down. Having said that, police interviewed dancers and prostitutes at the clubs, encouraging them to play safe and report anyone suspicious. But given the widespread mistrust of the police, I'm not surprised that the dancers and sex workers didn't take any notice of this.

That's something we'll see is very important in this case as well, is like the inherent mistrust of the police of sex workers and sex workers' inherent mistrust of the police. But actually, this case, once they get going, the police work on this is phenomenal. Later that same month, another body, again in a shallow grave, this time in a gravel pit, was found in the Kinnick River area, about 30 miles north of Anchorage.

This was later identified as Joanne Messina, a 24-year-old exotic dancer, and it was unknown how long she'd been missing for. In September 1982, two off-duty cops, John Daly and Aldi Holloway, were fishing in the Kinnick River and they saw a boot sticking out of a sandbank. Can you imagine? Yeah, it's horrifying. It's like beginning of a horror movie, isn't it? After some careful excavation, they realised it was another body. Once examined properly by the forensic team, they noticed several harrowing details. movie isn't it after some careful excavation they realized it was another body once exhumed properly by the forensic team they noticed several harrowing details the cause of death was a gunshot

wound but the victim's clothes were free of bullet holes suggesting that she had been shot while naked and dressed after she was killed but before being buried that kind of like playing with the body after death the redressing of it, the putting it into the grave after you've shot it, almost like cleaning them up and dressing them and putting them back in. That's so, do you know what I mean? It's so like up close and personal. It's so creepy. And there was a bullet casing near the body, which came from a.223 mini 14 rifle, very popular with big game hunters. This is really setting the scene for what's about to unravel into a horrifying realization for the police but really coming back to the context of the town you can see this was just like a rife picking ground for someone who wanted to be a

serial killer oh totally a lot of people living very high risk lifestyles a lot of people who wouldn't be missed obviously we're not at all saying sex workers should be murdered but they do sadly make for such perfect victims and serial killers are nothing but excellent profilers they know exactly who to go after it's really heartbreaking what's about to unfold here and the body that the the two police officers found was identified as 23 year old exotic dancer sherryorrow, who had been reported missing by her boyfriend almost exactly a year prior. There was a golden arrowhead necklace found with the body, found to be Sherry's, which she never took off. So by September 1982, we have

three dead women, all buried in shallow graves, all within 30 miles of Anchorage, all dead from gunshot wounds, but nothing to link them. bodies in alaska now isn't hugely unusual a few times a year a novice hiker would get lost and succumb to the elements but the body of sherry morrow and joanne messina were found in an area that at that time had only been accessible by boat or plane so they can't be hikers they can't be people who've just got lost someone's put them there on purpose oh my gosh that's terrifying just how inaccessible it was where they were even found it again just gives such you know sets the scene for how hopeless their situation was there was no way they were going to escape where they were taken and on the 13th of june 1983 a barefoot handcuffed partially

dressed 17 year old cindy poulsen flagged down a truck on the side of 6th Avenue in Anchorage, Alaska. Robert Yount, 37, alarmed by Cindy's hysterical demeanour, appearance, and the fact that he saw a man running in the opposite direction, stopped to pick her up and drove her to nearby Mush Inn. Once inside the inn, Cindy begged to be able to call her boyfriend at the Big Timber Hotel nearby. Robert Yount continued on his way to work, boyfriend at the Big Timber Hotel nearby. Robert Yunt continued on his way to work and on his way he rang the police. Side note, it wasn't actually her boyfriend. He was her pimp that Cindy had been so concerned with calling. In the film about this case, Frozen Ground, their pimp is paid by 50 cent. Who knew? I actually think I might have seen this film. I can't

remember. I might be getting it confused with another one. I definitely haven't because I'm allergic to Nicolas Cage. Like I just refuse. He's just so gloriously mad in his movies. The killer in Frozen Ground is played by John Cusack. Yes that's why I do think I have seen it. I have seen it. Yes I remember John Cusack. Yes, that's why I do think I have seen it. I have seen it. Yes, I remember John Cusack as the murderer. You're right. Back to the case. The Anchorage Police Department found Cindy at the Big Timber Motel, still handcuffed and alone, and they took her statement. Cindy was a prostitute and she was 17. A man had offered her $200 for oral sex, so she got in his car. Once in the car, she began her business and he threatened her with a wood-handled revolver, handcuffed her and drove her to the basement of his house. There he chained

her to a beam by her neck and proceeded to rape and torture her for hours. Paulson even recalled that he had used a hammer to violate her. And then he just had a nap in full view of her on a sofa like it was nothing. That's such classic psychopathic behaviour, isn't it? It means absolutely nothing to them. Those kind of violent sexual sadists, those kind of people inflicted with that depravity. Was it you and I that were talking about that FBI agent who was talking about David Parker Ray, the toolbox killer, and in that the FBI agent said that he was obviously a violent sexual sadist,

one of the worst, and that the way he would have felt about his victims, because he'd keep them locked up, chained up in his little toolbox, and then he'd go to work, go about his business. The FBI agent said, imagine you wake up in the morning, you blow your nose on a tissue, you throw the tissue at the bin, but it misses and it falls on the floor. You go to work. Do you give that tissue a second thought all day? No, because it's absolutely inconsequential. You can deal with it when you're back. And for these guys, that's exactly how they see their victims. So when he woke up from his nap, he told Cindy he was going to take her out to his cabin. He didn't really have a cabin cabin. I'm just, he had like a shack. Yeah, I read it was like a meat shack. So he

bundled Cindy back into the back of his car and drove off to Merrill Field Airport near downtown Anchorage, where he kept his plane, a Piper Super Cub. They arrived at the airport and Paulson waited until her attacker was loading the cockpit to make a break for it. She even left her trainers in the car as proof that she had been there and ran for 6th Avenue. That's so smart. She's very smart. She knows where she is. She knew where to run to. She's not lost.

So she had her bearings about her. She knew Sixth Avenue was over there. That's where I'm going. One police officer in particular, Greg Baker, who will turn out to be the absolute hero of the piece, found Cindy to be an extremely credible witness. She gave detailed descriptions of the places where she had been, particularly the basement of the house,

remembering that it was adorned with animal heads like hunting trophies how terrifying even just the scene of that like the walls are covered in animal heads and you can see pictures of that now Paulson also gave a detailed description of her attacker and of his plane saying that he was a slight man about six foot wearing glasses with a stammer officer Baker took Paulson to the hospital where it was confirmed that she had shackle marks on her neck and a bruised vagina. Baker then accompanied Paulson to Merrill Field Airport. There are now two versions of what happened here. Either Paulson identified the Piper Super Cub or a security guard approached the police stating that there had been a car at the airport late at night which he had found suspicious and he had written down the plates. Good, good, good man.

Well done, security guard. That's what you do. If there's a suspicious car, write down the license plate. You never know. Maybe it's because we're doing this podcast and we spend so much time researching it. If I'm like on the underground

and I see someone like run past looking really shifty or scared, I try to like remember what they're wearing and what they look like just in case I have to like give evidence to the police about it. Is that weird? Oh my god, I do that all the time. Oh my god, what's happened? So whether it was the car or the plane, so whether it was the car or the plane, it wasn't difficult to trace who Paulson was accusing of her abduction, rape and torture. Paulson identified a local Anchorage man, Robert Hansen, easily picking him out of a line-up. When questioned, Hansen gave

corroborated alibis from his friends John Henning and John Summerall. They stated that Hansen had been with them fixing an aeroplane seat until the early hours of the morning and then drove it to the airport. So he drove it on his own, they were just with him up all night for some reason. For some reason fixing a seat. Whatever. Oh, fuck off. Hansen was extremely calm, stating that his family were away in Europe. Where were they?

Were they in Paris? Were they in Minsk? We don't know. We'll never know. He admitted that he had been with Paulson, but she was attempting to extort him for money and he shrugged it off as a blip. He's not stressed about this at all. He even consented to a search of his house.

Nothing was found, but it was exactly as Paulson had described. Cindy Paulson's profession did not particularly lend itself to spending a lot of time with the police, and Cindy refused to take a polygraph test. Fair enough, they're useless. So no charges were pressed and the case went cold. So who was Robert Hanson and why wasn't this case pursued? Hansen was born on the 15th of February 1939 in Esterville, Iowa. His dad was a Danish immigrant who ran a bakery. He was also incredibly strict and even as a child Hansen worked long hours in the family bakery. Hansen struggled to socialise, suffering with severe acne. He also had an incredibly severe stutter which was made worse from the stress of being left-handed but being forced to use his right hand. Such a weird and pointless thing that they

did. Like, why? That happened to my dad. Very common. There's a paper called The Anthropology of Left and Right. In almost all cultures, it's seen as wrong because the majority of people are dominantly right-handed. So it's just making you like everyone else so obviously hansen had a terrible time at school and he was a bit of a loner he was really hurt by the rejection of pretty girls at his school and this is just so classic i mean there's that great quote women are scared that men will kill them and men are scared women will laugh at them that rejection even at such a young age like how much it impacted him, his inferiority complex, and just how that balled up and escalated to the monster that he turned out to become.

But when he graduated high school, I mean, this is just so sad, they spelt his name wrong in the yearbook. When I found that in the research, I like, my heart did break a bit. Like, I know he's an awful human, but that is really awful. But absolutely. But at this point, he's just a bit of a weird loner kid who's bullied at school the girls don't like him his dad's a piece of shit also it's not a really difficult name no I know this is the thing like your own school spells your name wrong yes if anything this was compounding compounding further

compounding his inferiority to himself yeah you can see why this went the way it did maybe he spent 1957 in the military and after that he volunteered as a drill sergeant at the police station when he moved to pocahontas iowa i want to live in pocahontas pocahontas iowa brilliant but also this again this idea of like being attracted into the military as a drill sergeant. Obviously we're not saying everyone in the military is a psychopath, obviously not. There are incredibly brave people fighting in those situations but what I mean is people like BTK, like Edmund Kemper, like Robert Hansen, they're drawn to positions of power like that because it's like the power and the control they never had in their own lives and then it's the uniform it's the respect that they get with that the ability to control it's

again really fits with how much of an archetype of a serial killer Robert Hansen is. Hansen then first hits the police radar in December 1960 and again why he hits their radar and comes into view for them is another classic, classic early killer indication. He was 21 and he was out for revenge for all of the injustices he felt he'd suffered. He was furious with the people of Pocahontas for not accepting him and then he convinced a 16-year-old employee at his family bakery to burn down a school bus garage with him. The kid had then had a change of heart though and turned them both in. Hansen was sentenced to three years in prison and his newlywed wife divorced him while he was inside

and he ended up serving just 20 months. That has to be the turning point. They were only married six months and she divorced him. But then to be honest, if I married a guy and then six months later he burned down a high school garage with a 16 year old, I would be out of there too, definitely. I would be out of there like a fucking shot mate like there is no way but again this is just so typical isn't it this fire setting as a early indication it always escalates from like petty crimes peeping tom arson escalating to where this inevitably heads. But again it really indicates his fury and his anger

at these people because they're wrong that they won't accept him and so again his wife leaving him definitely is not going to have helped his view of women or his view of himself. But whilst in prison Hansen was also diagnosed with an infantile personality. This characterizes itself in a number of ways, thriving on attention, yearning for unconditional approval and being hypersensitive to rejection. In a later interview Hansen said, Going back on my life, I was, I guess what you might call very frustrated. I would see my friends and so forth going out on dates and I had a tremendous desire to do the same thing.

From the scars and so forth on my face, you can probably see, I could see why girls wouldn't want to get close to me. During my junior high or high school days, I could not control my speech at all. I was always so embarrassed and upset with it from people making fun of me that I hated the word school. Having a speech impediment,

especially something like a stammer, it's completely out of your control. My brother used to have one. And it's heartbreaking because you know what they want to say. But watching someone having to struggle with speaking, it's so hard. And especially that thing of it is absolutely compounded and increased by stress and by anxiety.

So the more the kids would have bullied him about it, the worse and worse it would have become. And again, it just lends itself to that feeling of this is out of my control. I can't control this. I can't do anything. It's controlling me. And that's why we see in people who obviously have the other connections with psychopathy, etc, going on to finding any way in which they can control other people and control those people that they feel are the ones that have laughed at them, that have wronged them. And again, with the acne, it is out of your control. If it takes hold,

there's so many things you can try and you can do, but it is incredibly frustrating. So get this, the Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you a profile. Her first act as leader, asking donors for a million bucks for her salary.

That's excessive. She's a big carbon tax supporter. Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here. She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah, higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive.

Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher

Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. You don't believe in ghosts?

I get it. Lots. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness.

And inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast Haunted Canada as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. I also wonder whether him having a stammer made him seem quite non-threatening. Yes. And because he was slight as well. They always said that he was very slight, didn't they? Yeah, it really seemed like Hansen wasn't getting unconditional approval that he so desperately needed from anywhere.

So his infantile personality disorder manifested in an all-consuming obsession with getting even. Within months of his release, Hansen was married again, and perhaps missing the thrill of his arson days, started stealing. And he was nicked for this on multiple occasions, but no lengthy sentences were carried out. I think it's literally just like a night in the cells. It's not like an enormous thing. In 1967, Hansen and his wife made a new start in Alaska. Always interested in hunting, it was in Alaska that Hansen really honed his skill. His weapon of choice?

A fucking crossbow. And between 1969 and 1971, Hansen had four animals entered in the Pope and Young record book. This book is pretty fucked up. I think if you're hunting for something that you're going to eat, fine. If you are hunting just so you can get a picture of yourself in a fucking book, no thank you. This is exactly the kind of book for those people. And on their website, they say that they are first and foremost honoring the animal. Fuck off.

But essentially, oh exactly, essentially it's just a massive dick-swinging contest of who can kill the largest North American big game. I mean, why don't you honor the animal by just leaving it the fuck alone?

I hate it. I hate it. In 1971, Hanson was driving in a nearby town of Spinnard. Again, there are two versions of this story.

So, number one, Hanson stopped at a light, saw a woman in an adjacent car who smiled at him Hansen pointed his gun at her, demanded that he come with her I mean, I find this one difficult to buy

As she was in her car Why wouldn't she have just driven away? Surely, if you're like at a red light And you catch the eye Of the person in the car next to you You do sort of smile out of Awkwardness more than anything else Especially if it's a man staring at you But do sort you sort of smile out of awkwardness more than anything else especially if it's a man staring at you but then imagine you're staring at you smile at him he's staring

at you and then he pulls a big gun out do you drive the fuck off yeah exactly so i do find that one quite hard to believe and so either that or version two was that she smiled at him he's immediately attracted to her and he follows her home there he pulls out a gun on her and she calls the police. So while awaiting trial for this charge of attempted sexual assault he was then arrested again for the kidnapping and rape of an 18 year old sex worker that he picked up outside a bar in Anchorage. Hansen very much viewed sex workers, prostitutes, exotic dancers as lesser beings stating to police you can't rape a prostitute, can you? But the case was eventually dropped because this young sex worker failed to appear in court. Now, there is some speculation that this is because she was a school teacher moonlighting for some

extra money and didn't want any of the extra attention. I mean, that's so sad. How much are they paying their school teachers if she's having to go out and, you know, work the streets at night? But the Superior Court judge, James Fitzhansen, sentenced Hansen to five years, but he only served six months before being released to a halfway house. Here, he then served a further six months and underwent psychiatric treatment as a condition of his parole. After his release from the halfway house, Hanson became a permanent fixture in the Tenderloin district. Dancers and sex workers, they all knew his name and didn't find him particularly threatening at all for the most part. He was a family man after all.

However, in 1975, an Anchorage sex worker reported Hanson for being aggressive and having rape fantasies to a rape crisis centre. The centre reached out to the police police but nothing was done. In 1977 Hanson is caught trying to shoplift a chainsaw. Literally, how? I don't know. How do you

Are you shoving it up your jumper? Like how? I don't understand. So due to his previous offences, he was given a heavy sentence of five years. This was almost immediately overturned on appeal and he served just one year. That is right, ladies and gentlemen. He got more time for shoplifting than he did for armed attempted sexual assault.

I mean, that's sexual battery, isn't it? This is not working against his notion that women aren't very important. And this stint on the inside saw Hansen diagnosed as bipolar and his release was dependent on him taking lithium. In 1978, Hansen applied for a pilot's license, which was denied due to his admission that he was taking lithium. However, like literally months later, he made a subsequent application, omitting his lithium prescription, and he was given his pilot's license in January 1979. It's just that easy.

So yeah, no, you can't have it because you're on lithium. Oh, okay, I'll come back in a few months. I'm not on lithium anymore. Oh, okay, here you go. Lithium is a hell of a drug. Like if you're on lithium, it's a big deal. It's not something that you can get rid of in months. Exactly, this is the thing.

It's like, oh, well, you're not on lithium anymore. Sure, you can have a plane. No one's concerned about why he was on of in months. Exactly. This is the thing. It's like, oh, well, you're not on lithium anymore. Sure, you can have a plane. No one's concerned about why he was on lithium in the first place. 1980, Hansen claimed on his house insurance after a break-in in which all of his hunting trophies had been stolen. And he used this insurance money to open his own bakery and buy a Piper Superclub airplane. So all of these alarm bells, like this,

he has a history of like incrementally more dangerous behavior. And he's still seen in Anchorage as an upstanding family man with his wife and two kids running a bakery and they go to church every Sunday. But not for our super cop, Greg Baker, who remains suspicious. He knew Hanson's a hunter. He's going to have one of these big rifles. He knew that he had that particular plane that Cindy had identified and he knew that Hansen's favourite place to hunt was the Kinnick River. He also knew that 17 women in Anchorage were missing and three

had been found dead and they were all dancers and sex workers. But due to the lack of concrete evidence, Hansen could only remain a person of interest in the investigation. And in September 1983, the body of 17-year-old Paula Golding was found in a shallow grave near the Kinnick River. She had also been shot, but her clothes had again no bullet wounds, again suggesting that she had been murdered while naked and redressed after death. Paula Golding was an exotic dancer, and she had been missing for five months. The body was badly decomposed but they found a shell casing nearby from a.223 mini-14 rifle, the same that had been found near the body of Sherry Morrow the year before. The police have

to tie these cases together now, they're just too similar and so they call in FBI criminal profiling superstar John Douglas. Douglas was called in to create a profile of whoever was killing these women and what he came up with was truly remarkable. Also very important to mention here that this is the first time in United States legal history that a psychological profile was used as main evidence for a search warrant. They were only going on the hunch of Greg Baker and the profile from John Douglas. After reviewing the evidence presented to him by the Anchorage Police Department, Douglas reported that the killer would be small, mild-mannered person with physical characteristics

that would cause him extreme anxiety, confidence and anger issues, either a lisp or a stammer, but he would be an outdoorsman who saw his weapon as an extension of himself due to feelings of inadequacy he would never throw his weapon away and he would keep trophies from his kills i mean isn't that the most incredible profile it is it's fantastic work and i think again profiling is just such an interesting science and an interesting art as well obviously with these police cases it it can't really tell you oh oh, this is the person to go for. But it helps police so much to narrow things down. But again, I'm thinking, in Alaska, would this not have, like, pointed the finger at quite a few men in the area, though?

It's the stammer, though. And so finally, a search warrant was granted on October 27th, 1983, and the police arrested Robert Bob the Baker Hansen at his bakery whilst they carried out a search of his home. It was their one shot they had to get it right. And in his home, behind an insulation panel, they not only found the.223 Mini-14 hunting rifle, but the pistol described by Cindy Paulson. They also found newspaper clippings, driver's licenses matching some of the victims, and an array of jewellery, including a fish necklace that had been custom made for Andrea Altieri, an exotic dancer

who had been missing since December 1981. She had last been seen taking a cab to go and meet a man for a photo shoot. What I don't understand is they are convinced at this point that there has to be more than the four bodies they already have i haven't come across anything that so they have ids they have driving licenses why aren't they looking at them being like oh well this girl why would he have her driving license she must be one of the victims as well like i don't see

any of that which is odd that is strange i'm not saying they didn't i just said i haven't yeah it's not like oh and we had these driving licenses so then that we were hot on the trail of this you know they also found in this hidden panel the hunting trophies that hansen had claimed were stolen in his insurance claim in 1980 so the bakery he opened was in fact a fraudulent bakery of lies that's what you should have called it when he was questioned about these trophies hansen said that he had found them in his garden when he was questioned about these trophies hansen said that he had found them in his garden and he just forgot to tell the insurance company fuck off like you staged the break-in you hid them and it wasn't a small sum of money he was able to start his

own business and buy a fucking plane with it you know how much are hunting trophies worth that's crazy quite a lot i think most importantly this is horrendous in hansen's bedroom they found an aviation map dotted with crosses accounts differ as to how many there were but there were somewhere between 20 and 37 x's marking the spot you may have already guessed that four of these crosses corresponded with the sites at which the four discovered victims had been found. During the search of Hansen's property, one of his neighbours, the wife of one of the two alibi Johns, came over. She came over to the police and admitted that her husband had lied

and had not been with him on that night, on the night Cindy Paulson had reported, and that he thought he was covering Hansen for something much less important. If someone asks you for an alibi, you just don't know. Sorry. What did they think he was needed an alibi for? And I feel like they must have known. She was accusing him of abduction and of rape and sexual assault

and trying to kidnap her, take her somewhere else in this plane. As if they didn't know what they were giving him the alibi for. I don't buy that. If somebody says, was he with you? Well, maybe. Would they just say, we can't disclose why? In that small town? At this point, Hansen is well and truly

fucked. They have the murder weapon, they have the trophies, and most importantly, they have the map indicating that there are many more victims. And he's got no alibi anymore. His alibis have cracked. Hansen was charged with assault, kidnapping, weapons charges, fraud and theft on November 3rd, 1983 and pled not guilty to all of them. His bail was set to half a million dollars

and he had absolutely no hope of making it. He was in custody long enough for police to ensure that they had enough evidence to charge him with all four murders. The rifle found in his home was proven by ballistics to be the exact one that fired the bullet casings found by the bodies of Sherry Morrow and Paula Golding. The police didn't give the game away up front though. They bring Hansen in for questioning and leave him in a room covered in pictures of his victims and files pertaining to his previous convictions and files with his family members names on, leaving him in there to stew.

It's at this point the police found out how depraved Hansen really was. He revealed to them that he would pick up exotic dancers and sex workers in the Tenderloin district, but they would have to make the first move and offer him sex for money. In Hansen's eyes, this meant that they weren't good girls, like his wife, and he could do whatever he wanted with them

with no moral consequence. It is that thing thing of like i'm going to justify this because she came over and offered me sex for money therefore absolutely fair game i'm gonna go for this and he admitted that he went to sex workers for what his good girl wife wouldn't give him. Blowjobs, right? That his wife couldn't possibly give him a blowjob. That's disgusting. It's such that like Madonna whore complex. Oh, 100%. Yeah, like my wife, she's a good woman, like pure, pure and virginal and all of this.

But these women, they're whores. I can do what I want with them. He would tempt them. So once he's identified this woman, she's come over, offered him sex for money. He would tempt them with more money, maybe a photo shoot in exchange for sex, take them in his car, take them to his car where he would handcuff them just as he did with Cindy Paulson. He would then drive them to his house where in the basement den he would torture and rape them. Then he would drive them out to Millerfield Airport and take them on his plane out to his favourite hunting ground, the Kinnick River. While his

victims were naked, blindfolded and handcuffed in the wilderness, he would force them to run. He pursued them with his.223 Mini 14 rifle, stalking them at close range. Sometimes he would even let them think that they had escaped before closing in for the kill. Once they were dead, he would redress them and bury them in a shallow grave, often near water so the bodies would decompose at an accelerated rate. That psychological torture as well, physical torture of the rape and the torture in the basement, then the plane taking them somewhere. Absolutely, they know there's no hope now. If it's only accessible by plane or boat, they can't even make a run for it. And then, naked, setting them free into the wilderness, letting them even think

that maybe they've lost him and they've got away, before he closes in for the kill. What a piece of shit. After consulting with his lawyer, Hansen agreed that he would tell the police where the bodies of his other victims were buried, in exchange for only being charged with the murders of Aklukna Ani, Joanne Messini, Sherry Murrow and Paula Golding. With Hansen's help, the police recovered the bodies of a further seven women from shallow graves in and around the Knick River area. Lisa Futrell, who's 41, Malay Larson, who is 28, Sue Luna, who's 23, Tamara Pedersen, who's 20, Angela Fadun, who's 24 and Teresa Watson. who's 20 Angela Fadun who's 24 and Teresa Watson

I wasn't able to find out how old she was and there was one more woman he led them to who's simply known as Horseshoe Harriet because she was found near the Horseshoe Lake she has never been identified in 2014 the Anchorage Police Department made her DNA available in the hopes that a family member

would come forward with a match but as yet nothing has been found Hansen also took the police to sites where there were no bodies, but this doesn't mean that there were never any there. There are a lot of wild animals in the Alaskan wilderness. He also admitted to the murders of Andrea Altieri, the owner of the unique fish necklace found at his house, and Roxanne Eastland, 24, but their bodies were never found.

The murder of Daylin Fry was also acknowledged by Hansen. That body was found later in 1985 by a pilot on a sandbank of the Kinnick River. Hansen also admitted to the rapes of 30 women, who he took back to his cabin, but as they cooperated with him, he returned them to Anchorage. Most of these went entirely unreported. Celia Beth Van Zanten had gone missing in December 1971. She was not a prostitute, nor an exotic dancer. She was 17, and she had been on her way to a convenience store on the 23rd of December. Her body was discovered on Christmas Day the same year. She was naked, had her hands tied behind her back, was blindfolded, and her back had been slashed with a knife.

This was not in Anchorage, but it was in a nearby town of Seawood. Police deducted that she had escaped her attacker and frozen to death. Two other Seawood women had gone missing over the 12 years of Hanson's murders. In July 1973, Megan Emmerich, a 17-year-old student at the Seawood Skills Centre, went to the laundry room. She left when she was finished and was never seen again, leaving all of her possessions in her dorm room. In 1975, 22-year-old Mary Thill was dropped at a bakery on a Saturday and was seen later that day at a waterfall, but she's never been seen again. There are two unexplained crosses on Hansen's map just north of Seawood and they're unreachable due to water. Are these girls buried there? Why are these two crosses the ones that he wouldn't

admit to because they were good girls in his eyes surely i think that's got to be it he was like he said he was able to dissociate it in his mind wasn't he you can't rape a prostitute can you so what if i murdered this woman he knew it was he knew he'd get in trouble for it that's why he hid them but i don't think that he felt any shame in talking about the women the sex workers that he killed but i think he wouldn't talk about these two girls he said they were good girls and that would make him the monster no one thinks of themselves as the monster there's another thing which really speaks to him just being so cold and calculating joanne messina after hansen killed her he went to her house and shot

her German shepherd because he was worried that the dog would lead people to her shallow grave. Leave the dogs alone. Oh, fuck off. Always the dogs, man. It really gets me. Fun fact, Hansen's trial lasted two and a half hours. That's not jury deliberation. That's the whole shebang. And Judge Ralph E. Moody sentenced Hanson to 461 years plus life with absolutely no possibility of parole on February 27th, 1984. In 1986, his wife and kids left town. She wouldn't divorce him for another 17 years, but she eventually did. Why? What happened in that 17 years that she was like,

now he's crossed the line, now that's too much? I have no idea. What? 17 years that she was like, now he's crossed the line. Now that's too much. I had no idea. Yeah, so he died in 2014 at 75 years old of natural causes. It's like a lingering undisclosed illness and he showed absolutely no remorse for his crimes. Also note, this riles me up like nothing else. After Hansen was convicted of being a legitimate serial killer, hunting his victims in the same way he was hunting big game animals that was lauded in this pope and young book pope and young did not omit his prize-winning entries instead they released a statement claiming that his crimes did not invalidate his bow hunting achievements fuck right off oh my god what i mean seriously can we just like

just because he murdered all these women it doesn't undermine or invalidate his bow hunting skills are you fucking serious maybe it would be a bit different if he was if he was killing them in a different way he was killing them in the same way he was he was killing these animals to be fair to them they have now removed them that was not their initial response their initial response was like no we're keeping them in the book that's absolutely shocking but then maybe that was gonna sell more people it broadens your appeal come by the book that's got the bow hunting expertise of the crazy brutal serial killer that hunted his victims like prey maybe it was just a marketing thing i mean maybe but then they'd have to change the line on their website saying it's first and foremost about honouring the animal.

Yes. Oh my God, don't. That's horrendous. So yeah, that is Bob the Butcher Baker. Thank you so much for listening. Don't have nightmares. Please rate, review and subscribe to us. Your reviews on iTunes really make a difference. Thank you so much for everyone who's done that. And if you haven't yet, please just take two seconds to go do that. And we really, really appreciate it.

And also we've started now a Facebook discussion group so come join us there where we can, you know, dig a little bit deeper into these cases and we'd love to hear your theories. Yeah, and follow us on Twitter and on Instagram at RedHandedThePod and we will see you next time. Bye. See you later.

They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near LA in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lanie Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry,

but things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now,

exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding. And this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy.

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