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I am your Norwegian host, Thomas Roseland Weyborg Thun, and welcome to the fourth installment of the Robert Hansen Saga. Some of you have expressed that they do not appreciate these long-form exposes covering serial killers in several episodes.
Well, to you I have to simply say sorry. But in order to do these cases justice, I cannot simply do a Wikipedia-esque stand-alone summary episode. Serial killers are extremely complex, and I have learned so much from studying them in detail these last few years.
When I began the show back in 2016, I had very little knowledge on how to write an expose, let alone how to make it into a coherent podcast. All I could do was to take my experience from reading books, articles, etc., as well as copious amounts of documentaries, and try to make my own show.
As the years have gone, I feel I have gotten better at properly giving serial killer cases the time and content they deserve. And for most cases, that entails several episodes per case. I'm not saying I will never again give you standalone episodes. Far from it.
Many serial killers are so obscure and unknown to the public that to even be able to make a full 30-60 minute episode about them is extremely challenging. So, for those of you that do appreciate the content I create and offer you, stick around. As we travel alongside our frozen-hearted villain in the last frontier state,
The crimes become darker and more extreme the older Robert Hansen got. As this episode is released, we are very close to Christmas time, and tonight we join our subject as he too was preparing for the festive holiday season. Admittedly, his preparations were different than most folks were. Enjoy.
As always, I want to publicly thank my elite TSK Producers Club. This club includes 23 dignified members of exquisite taste, and their names are Anne, Anthony, Brenda, Cassandra, Christy, Colleen, Corbyn, Evan, Fawn, James, Jennifer, Kathy, Kylie, Lisa, Lisbeth, Mark,
Mickey, Russell, Sabina, Samira, Skortnia, Trent, William, and Zarsha. You are the backbone of the Serial Killer podcast, and without you, there would be no show. You have my deepest gratitude. Thank you.
If you want to donate to the show, you can easily do so at patreon.com slash the serial killer podcast. You can choose from many different tiers, ranging from $1 to as much as you would like. Bonus episode access starts at $10, while the TSK Producers Club starts at $15.
In addition to the new bonus episode, there is now a brand new feature published as I am writing this episode. It is an exclusive AMA Ask Me Anything on Patreon, where all my Patreones that have pledged $5 or more can participate.
Comment on the AMA post on patreon.com slash the serial killer podcast and I promise to answer any question. So don't miss out and join now. I get home on Christmas Day
I want these soft words to say I miss you and I can still watch You'll see it in my eyes when I smile You're home before you are still Sleeping tight, I'll take you with my arms
Imagine, if you will, the Alicenna. Anchorage, six days before Christmas, 1971. Next to you sits Robert Hanson. He has glasses on that reflects the glare from passing motorists, so it's hard to make out his eyes. His silver-blue-colored Pontiac is driving slowly along the almost deserted streets.
Outside, it is very cold. There's no daylight, and there is a lot of snow lying along the streets and up against the dark buildings. There's Christmas decorations hanging in most of the various apartment building windows, shop windows, and a few are put up between the streetlights by the city officials. Glancing at your watch, you take note of the lateness of the hour, 3.55 a.m.,
Hansen has been out in the streets for several hours, prowling for something that can make the angry need deep inside sated. Then he notices her. Just across the street is a small café called the Nevada Café that is open at all hours. A small car pulls into the parking lot in front and out steps a beautiful creature.
The girl is petite, just as he likes them. Inside the cafe, 18-year-old Barbara Fields, on her way home from her part-time job and looking forward to getting some sleep, orders a hot cup of tea. She is freezing, and her car takes forever to get warm during winter.
She almost smacks herself in her face when she realizes how silly she is. Even though she could get warm in the café, as soon as she leaves, her car will be totally frozen again, and she would have accomplished nothing. So, she tells her waitress, a tired-looking black woman,
to let her cup of tea stand where it is, as she just needs to fire up her car so it doesn't completely freeze. As she walks out, she briefly notices a silver-blue car pull up close by and somebody getting out. She doesn't pay it any attention. She focuses on getting her car started again.
Engine sputtering to life again, cabin heater on full effect, she leaves the keys in the ignition, closes the door and heads back towards the cafe entrance. However, there's a man there, in her way. She tries to gently shimmy past him, but instead he starts talking to her.
He says something along the lines of, "'Hi, you're very pretty. Perhaps you and I could go someplace for the night?' Being very attractive, Barbara is no stranger to strangers hitting on her, but she has no time for such shenanigans at four a.m. in the morning, in the dead of winter. She curtly dismisses him and tries again to push past him. The man does not move."
Instead, he pulls out a gun and sticks it into her stomach. He says to her, and I quote, Don't scream or I'll have to kill both you and the people inside. You wouldn't want that, would you? Barbara can't speak. Certainly not scream. She is in shock. The man, Robert Hansen, forces her backwards and towards his own car.
Once she is in the passenger seat, he gets in and they drive away. As the car pulled out onto Gamble Street and headed south, Barbara looked toward her captor. The glow of the dash lights revealed he had a pockmarked and almost rat-like face. Taking Fireweed Lane, then heading south again on Arctic Boulevard, they met a police car.
As the cops drive past, Hansen smiles and tells her, and I quote, There goes your help, driving away. Look, if we do happen to get stopped by the cops, don't do or say anything, or I'll have to shoot them and you, end quote. Barbara just looks at him, terrified. Hansen suddenly hits her in the face, raising his voice, saying, Understand?
Barbara moves her head up and down mechanically. Hansen seems to relax at this and tells her he is going to tie her up. They are in a secluded area, and he pulls the car over to the side, next to a snowbank. He takes some leather shoelaces out of his coat pocket and makes Barbara kneel on the passenger seat as he ties her hands very tightly behind her back.
As the pain from the constraints hits her nervous system, Barbara manages to make a sound. She half cries out that the bonds are too tight. Instead of easing the bonds, he simply hits her face again and tells her to shut up. Next, he forces her to lean forward so that he has access to her ankles. Barbara is wearing knee-high leather boots and a miniskirt. He pauses to enjoy the sight of her bare flesh.
before he tightly binds her ankles together. Driving across Campbell Creek, Hansen then cut a left onto Diamond Boulevard, then a right onto the Seward Highway to head for the Kenai Peninsula. The Kenai Peninsula is a large peninsula jutting from the coast of south-central Alaska.
The peninsula extends about 240 km southwest from the Chugach Mountains, south of Anchorage. It is separated from the mainland on the west by Cook Inlet and on the east by Prince William Sound.
The glacier-covered Kenai Mountains, rising 2,100 meters, run along the southeast spine of the peninsula, along the coast of the Gulf of Alaska. It is a place of unprecedented natural beauty and splendor, and it is also dotted with many small cities, towns, and cabin areas.
The Kenai Peninsula is commonly known as Alaska's playground. Robert Hansen loved it. As the pair was leaving Anchorage city limits, Barbara was starting to really feel the strain of sitting on her legs with her hands tied behind her. She pleaded with Hansen to untie her as she couldn't stand the pain. Hansen just scowled at her.
Asking if he at least could tie her hands in front of her, he replied with a short, no. But he did stop to calm. He got out and walked to her side. He pulled her out and quickly pushed her into the back seat, covering her with a blanket. Laying down, Barbara at least was a bit more comfortable, so she didn't complain.
She looked longingly at a hammer lying on the car floor behind the driver's seat, dreaming that how wonderful it would be if only her hands were in front of her so that she could beat the man's skull in with it. After a while, driving in silence, Hansen turned onto Indian Road, a cul-de-sac, and drove to its dead end. He turned the car around and stopped,
Once the car was parked, Hansen turned around with a greedy look on his face, his gaze drawn to the partially revealed lace of her bra underneath her disheveled blouse. Surprisingly, he politely asked her if he could rip off her bra. Puzzled, she told him that she would prefer not, as it was brand new and had cost her quite a bit of money.
He didn't fuzz at this, simply said, okay, and untied her hands. Growing more confused than afraid by now, she quickly understood as he next told her to take off all her clothes. He nodded his approval as she started removing her clothes, saying, and I quote, "'You see, once naked, out here in the winter cold, you would have no place to run,' end quote."
As she was naked, he quickly tied her hands behind her back again. Before he could drive off again, however, she quickly asked if she could get a cigarette. Again, to her surprise, he agreed, telling her that she had been a good girl so far, so he would get her a cigarette at a nearby café.
True to his word, at the nearby Portage Café, Hansen parked well away from the entrance and ran inside to buy cigarettes. By now he had moved her to the passenger seat again, and she was tied to the door handle. After a few minutes he returned, untied her, and let her smoke a cigarette.
Now, dear listener, before you get all confused and think that Hansen had a soft spot for Barbara, remember that what he did here was Manipulation 101.
by easing her bonds, moving her to a more comfortable position in the passenger seat, and letting her smoke, he made sure she wouldn't cause a scene, wouldn't scream, try to run, or go completely hysterical. If she had done any of that, it would probably have resulted in him killing her outright, without getting the sexual satisfaction he craved.
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For others, it might be an eating night. For me, one non-negotiable activity is researching psychopathic serial killers and making this podcast. Even when we know what makes us happy, it's often near impossible to make time for it. But when you feel like you have no time for yourself, non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever.
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Visit betterhelp.com slash serialkiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash serialkiller. Once Barbara was finished smoking, he tied her hands behind her back again, laid her down in the back seat and drove off.
After driving to a distance of about 128 kilometres away from Anchorage, Hansen took Highway 1 west towards Cooper Landing. Barbara was startled out of a daze as he suddenly pulled off on a side road and into an open field. He stopped the car and reached back over the seat to untie her ankles. He freed her hands and told her to get into the passenger seat.
As she briefly got out of the car, still completely naked, the shock of the Alaskan midwinter struck her body like a physical force. Any dreams of escaping on foot was quickly frozen and crushed. She quickly got in the front passenger seat. There, Hansen wasted no time in starting his sexual assault on her. He took his time.
For fifteen minutes, the ugly, rather small man groped her breasts, kissed her, put his fingers inside her vagina, and licked her body. Barbara was terrified and completely disgusted. She almost threw up in revulsion as he was kissing and licking her, but she managed to swallow it away.
Suddenly he stopped and had her put on her underwear, nylons, boots and an overcoat. Then he bound her hands behind her back again, started the car and drove off. Driving west a few kilometers, Hansen pulled in at the Kenai Lodge to rent a cabin. Being a very popular time of year for holidaying, none were available. So he drove east, recalling that they'd earlier passed the Sunrise Inn.
Stopping at the rest area, he re-tied Barbara's hands to the door handle, then hit her face again. He told her, and I quote, Now, at this next place, don't cause any trouble or people will get hurt. End quote. The Sunrise Inn lies almost in the dead centre of the Kenai Peninsula, exactly 158 kilometres from Anchorage.
It still exists today and looks like a lovely place. It is built of logs and surrounded by picturesque woods and a great view over the nearby Kenai Lake. A standard room costs $139 per night for two people. At the Sunrise Inn, he parked well away from the office, took off his glasses, pulled a knit cap low over his face, and went in to rent a room.
The Sunrise Inn is a motel, so one can park directly in front of one's room for easy access. This is exactly what Hansen did as he parked in front of room number four. Once there, he untied Barbara from the door handle, draped her dress over her wrists to conceal their bondage, untied her ankles and handed her purse to her.
As soon as they were in the room, Barbara asked if she could go to the bathroom. Unlike in the movies, where the trope is that the damsel in distress manages to get to the bathroom, pry the window open and escape, this was real life.
Before Hansen would let Barbara do anything, he personally checked that the windows were completely frozen shut from the outside, and that there was no objects in the bathroom that she could use as a weapon against him. Once he had ascertained this, he let her relieve herself. He also made her keep the door wide open, so that he could have front-row seats to her activities in the bathroom.
Barbara knew very well that Hansen probably wanted to rape her, so she wanted to stall for a time as much as possible. "'I'm frozen stiff, mister. Can I please take a warm bath?' The notion of watching his intended victim bathe completely nude aroused Hansen, so he acquiesced.
He sat in silence, with a small smirk on his face, as Barbara eventually had to get out of the bath and completely naked walk towards Hansen. As she stood before him, Hansen too took off his clothes. He kept the gun, however. Barbara could see that by now Hansen was very much eager to start raping her as he had an erection. However, there was something odd about his penis.
She knew very well the difference between a circumcised and uncircumcised penis. This was something else. The end of his penis was either deformed or mutilated somehow. She didn't get a lot of time to contemplate it, however, as he quickly moved to tie her arms to the bedposts. Now he finally had her completely under his control.
He was in charge of her in all ways, just the way he fantasized about. He raped her repeatedly, but she knew that if she struggled, screamed, or in any way ticked him off the wrong way, he was absolutely going to murder her. So she bravely kept her mouth shut and endured his repeated sexual assaults. They grew more and more brutal for each time he climaxed.
He also forced her to be active in her own rape, telling her that if she didn't try harder to please him, he would put her in the hospital or worse. The ordeal lasted for what Barbara felt like was an eternity. Finally, Hansen was completely spent. He tied her up, hands and feet, and went instantly to sleep.
He didn't sleep for more than an hour, though, and as soon as he awoke, he told her he was taking her back to Anchorage. By now, Barbara was beginning to have a small sliver of hope that the man actually intended to let her go, that he was a degenerate rapist and abductor, but no killer. She was still plenty scared, and when Hansen suddenly, after a few minutes on the road towards Anchorage, made a U-turn,
Her stomach fell. In a small, scared voice, she asked him why they were driving the opposite way of Anchorage. His answer was that he had a cabin up in the mountains where he had brought girls before. It was a really nice place and he wanted to show it to her. He also wanted to have some more sex with her there before he could let her go. By now, Barbara was stiff with fear.
She knew in her heart that once at this cabin, she would never leave the place alive. The road up to his cabin was the small private road up towards Cooper Lake, a beautiful lake surrounded by vast stretches of wilderness. However, Hansen's car didn't manage to get more than a few kilometers up the road before it was clear that the road was completely unpassable.
There was simply too much snow, and there hadn't been any plow trucks there for days. Probably wouldn't be either, until after New Year. Now, let us pause here for a brief moment, dear listener. Remember that this was the year 1971.
Hansen didn't hit the headlines until the 1980s, and he had no reason to tell Barbara that he had brought other girls to his cabin if that was not true. And I highly doubt that any girl he brought up to his wilderness cabin, if there even was such a place, was left alive by him. So, already by 1971, Hansen was highly organized,
was going after high-status victims and probably had several kills under his belt. And it was only going to get worse. As Hansen was turning his car around in defeat, his face was showing clear signs of irritation and anger. Things had not gone according to his plan, according to his fantasy. To him, this simply wouldn't do.
After a few minutes driving down the mountain, before they reached the main road, Hansen suddenly stopped the car. He told Barbara to get out. By now, she was trying to come to terms with these being the last moments of her young life. She only had on a miniskirt, thin blouse, leather boots and a light coat. Outside it was freezing, and the winter sun didn't supply her any sort of warmth. Hansen stood next to her.
took out his gun and cocked it. Then he said, and I quote, you better start running. And here we have perhaps the only eyewitness account of Hansen's modus operandi that exists. He would drive or fly into the wilderness, take his victim outside, release their bonds, then tell her to start running. After a few minutes, he would hunt them down and kill them.
Well, Barbara had no intention of running into the frozen winter landscape. For one, doing so would only be a death sentence, as she wouldn't last more than an hour tops in her skimpy clothing. Second, by cocking his gun, his intentions of hunting her down seemed quite obvious. Instead,
Barbara fell on her knees. She started talking and telling him all the things she could think of would make his frozen heart warm a little. She told him he was great in bed, that she loved his cock, and that she wanted more of it. She told him he was handsome, a great guy, and that if only he let her live, perhaps they could be together. She told him she had a baby boy, and that the boy needed his mother.
As he stood over her, gun in hand, it seemed that something suddenly snapped off inside his head. He told her to get up. He looked at her and in a doubting tone said that she had to understand that he couldn't simply let her go. He was no dummy and knew that she would go to the police as soon as he let her go.
She pointed out calmly that she had cooperated up to that point and assured him that she wouldn't call the police. She told him to get her name and address as a kind of insurance. To assure him of her compliance, she told him to check her purse for her license so that he would know who to look for if she broke her promise. But Barbara wanted to take those words back as soon as she had said them.
Some of her dad's business cards were in her purse, and he was a police state trooper. She felt sure that Hansen would kill her if he found out her dad was a cop. Luckily, he didn't run across one of those cards, but did find some papers that said her parents had custody of her son until she could support him financially. He wrote down their names and address on a piece of paper and put it in his wallet.
As he did so, he looked at her and told her that she knew what would happen to her family if she told anyone what he had done. She nodded and assured him again that she wouldn't tell a soul. He put his captive back in the car and headed for Anchorage. The sun was low in the south, behind a fine mist when they reached Portage. Hansen stopped at the café to buy some soda and candy, then drove on.
The rest of the way, he kept threatening Barbara that if she did go to the police, he would hurt her baby or her parents or both. They got back to Anchorage around 2 p.m. Hansen left his victim a block from the Nevada Café, the place where he had abducted her to begin with, and drove off. Barbara walked to her car. It wouldn't start because it had idled itself out of gasp.
She telephoned her father, and fighting back tears, described what had happened. He told her to hold tight. He and her brother would come to get her.
Whoa, easy there. Yeah.
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And with that, we come to the end of part four of the saga of Robert Hansen, the Butcher Baker. I hope you enjoyed listening to me telling it to you. Next episode, number 137 in number, will detail what happened directly following Barbara's ordeal. So as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned. Finally, I wish to thank you, dear listener, for listening.
If you like this podcast, you can support it by donating on patreon.com slash theserialkillarpodcast, by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, facebook.com slash theskpodcast, or by posting on the subreddit theskpodcast. Thank you, good night, and good luck.