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This season, Instacart has your back to school. As in, they've got your back to school lunch favorites like snack packs and fresh fruit. And they've got your back to school supplies like backpacks, binders, and pencils. And they've got your back when your kid casually tells you they have a huge school project due tomorrow. Let's face it, we were all that kid.
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The podcast dedicated to serial killers. Who they were, what they did and how. Episode 140. I am your Norwegian host, Thomas Roseland Weyborg Thun. And welcome to the eighth and final installment of the Robert Hansen Saga.
This has been the longest-running Serial Killer Expo, say, here on the TSK Podcast. It's been quite the journey through hell, and now we are finally approaching the end station. Ultima Thule, so to speak.
In this final chapter, I'll take you, dear listener, along to watch his final acts of depravity before the authorities, after all those years, manage to close their nets around him and keep him forever in their custody. Again, I would like to invoke old Dante Alighieri's Divina Commedia.
Dante and his guide Virgil stand on the frozen lake at the very bottom pit of the nine circles of hell. The ultimate inferno turns out to be a frozen ground. Before them rises a beast, whose influence they have felt for the duration of their terrifying journey. I quote, Before us rises royal banners.
Therefore keep your eyes ahead and see if you can make him out, the emperor of the despotent kingdom so towered from the eyes, how every sorrow has its source in him. Enjoy.
As always, I want to publicly thank my elite TSK Producers Club. This club includes 27 dignified members of exquisite taste, and their names are: Anne, Anthony, Brenda, Brian, Cassandra, Kristy, Cody, Colleen, Corbin, Fawn, Floyd, James, Jennifer, Kathy, Kylie, Libby, Lisa,
Lisbeth, Mark, Mickey, Monica, 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 support the show, you can do so at patreon.com slash the serial killer podcast link in the show description. There is a brand new bonus episode available there. So to join the TSK producers club costs $15 to access all bonus material. It costs $10. So don't miss out and join now. Oh,
Sue Luna had come up to Anchorage in May 1982. She had grown up in Seattle, married at 17, and with her husband in prison for assault and battery, she was struggling alone to raise their four-year-old daughter, Liz.
When Sue's mother-in-law offered to take Elizabeth on a long vacation with her, Sue took the opportunity to fly to Anchorage for a six-week dancing stint, the booking arranged by a quote-unquote talents agency.
She was looking forward to the money she was promised and the chance to visit her older sister, Bobbie, who ran a restaurant with her husband in Chugiak, 15 miles north of Anchorage. Bobbie Moorhead didn't know her sister was in Alaska until Sue called her three days after she had arrived in Anchorage. Sue was a little sheepish about telling her sister that she was dancing at the Good Times Lounge.
She knew Bobby wouldn't be pleased about that. But it turned out that Bobby was delighted that her sister was in Alaska and asked her when she would have her first day off. When Sue answered, tomorrow, Bobby told her she would drive down to Anchorage and pick her up. Sue was more like a daughter than a sister to Moorhead. When Bobby was a teenager, Sue viewed her as her very own little girl.
She took her to all the Disney movies, to the park, all the fun things. Susie, as Sue was called, had been afraid of the dark, and if her little sister came into her room at night, sucking her thumb and dragging her blanket, Bobby would let Susie crawl in with her. Bobby found out her sister had been dancing in Seattle for quite a while, but was planning just a short stay in Anchorage.
Bobby had read about the missing dancers and warned her sister about the danger. She pointed out to Sue that down in Seattle she had the protection of their two brothers, who played in the band where she was dancing. She wanted to give Sue a small .25 caliber handgun to keep in her purse for protection, but her sister declined, saying that she was scared to death of guns.
The last time Bobby Moorhead saw Sue, they had gone horseback riding in Chugiak. Bobby saddled a horse named Geronimo for her sister to ride, but Sue was reluctant as she had never been on a horse before. Bobby assured her that the horse was very gentle. Finally, Sue crawled up into the saddle and the sisters rode out of the corral, Bobby riding her own horse bareback.
The sisters had truly enjoyed that day together, laughing and giggling as Susie clumsily tried to steer her horse and sharing small talk the way just sisters can. It was an idyllic experience, and it was the last time Bobby saw her sister alive. A few nights after the horseback ride on the 24th of May,
A customer at Good Times offered Sue Luna $300 for a photo session. She agreed to meet him at Alice's 210 the next morning around 11. For her appointment, Sue dressed in jeans, a black and white sweater, backless high-heeled shoes, and a brand new white leather jacket. Her roommate, Robin, handed Sue some letters to mail for her when she was out.
Robert Hansen sat in a car down the street from Alice's Café. He had gotten everything taken care of at his bakery for the day. His help knew what to do. He had been sitting in his parked car since around 10 a.m. He was always careful to make sure he was at the rendezvous address at least half an hour ahead of time. He would wait where he knew his intended victim couldn't see him.
If someone drove up with her and stayed, letting her out and then pulling into a parking spot and sitting there, Hansen would take off and not keep the appointment. That morning, Robert Hansen did not leave. In the kitchen at Alice's, the cook glanced up from the grill and saw a woman in a white leather jacket sit down in a booth by the window.
A waitress brought her order in. He'd seen her come in several mornings the past couple of weeks. She was becoming a regular. Several minutes later, the cook noticed the woman get up from her half-eaten breakfast and walk outside to a car that had just pulled up. A light-haired guy wearing glasses got out and talked with the woman. He handed her some money, and she brought it into the restaurant to pay her tab.
Leaving her unfinished breakfast behind, she went back outside and got into the car as the man held the door for her. That May morning was the last time the cook saw the attractive 23-year-old strawberry blonde. When Sue didn't show up for a scheduled visit at Shugiak, Bobby was worried.
She became even more alarmed when Sue's roommate, Robin, told her that Sue had failed to return from a date she had with a photographer. Bobby called the police.
The Anchorage police had been investigating the disappearances of missing dancers. They had discovered that many dancers had been shuttled on a circuit of bars that encompassed Hawaii, Seattle, Anchorage, Kodiak Island, and some Pacific Northwest states. They suggested to Bobbie Moorhead that her sister might have been transferred to one of those locations on the spur of the moment. Bobbie did not buy it.
She knew her sister would have let her know if she had to cancel her visit. Robin told her that Sue was supposed to have met the supposed photographer at Alice's 210. At the cafe, the cook told Bobby what he had seen the morning Sue disappeared, and she passed that information on to the police. While she crossed her fingers that the letters Robin gave to Sue to post would show up at their destination,
Bobby ran an ad in the paper, offering a reward for any information as to the whereabouts of her sister. She got one call in response. The voice on the phone was a man's. He spoke with a slight stutter, a hesitation. It was Robert Hansen, but he did not identify himself. He told Bobby he knew Susie and that she had gone to Fairbanks with a black guy.
He wanted Bobby to meet him at a bar to talk about it. She was reluctant to go along with the meeting because the caller said he had known her sister a long time, but Sue Luna had been up in Alaska only a couple of weeks. Also, the cook at Alice's had told Bobby he had seen the strawberry blonde drive off with a white guy. So, they agreed if Susie didn't show up, Bobby would run the ad again.
and the unidentified caller would then call back. She ran it again, but he did not call. Robert Hanson had not planned to select a victim that someone would aggressively search for when she disappeared. Bobby Moorhead's ad surprised him.
He may have contacted Bobby to find out what she knew about the circumstances surrounding her sister's disappearance. Certainly, the ruse about the black man taking Sue Luna to Fairbanks was either an attempt by Hansen to throw her off the track or a ploy to see if she had a description of the man who had met Susie at Alice's Café. Or there could have been another, far more sinister motive behind Hansen's call.
Perhaps Bobbie Moorhead saved her own life by refusing to meet with him. The date was the 13th of September, 1982. Out along the Kenick River, two moose hunters were waiting for the Alaska State Troopers. The hunters had discovered what looked like a jumbled pile of bones with rotting flesh hanging off in tendrils.
They were experienced enough to realize they had not come upon a carcass of some wild animal, but rather a shallow grave in which a human being had been buried. Officers from the AST's Criminal Investigations Bureau met the pair of hunters on a rugged back road near the river. The troopers realized from examining the remains more closely that it was the corpse of a woman.
They took the remains to Anchorage for an autopsy and, hopefully, an identification. When Sue Luna's sister, Bobbie Moorhead, read about the woman's body found along the knick, she contacted the troopers. When she was told the corpse was that of a short, blonde woman, Bobbie arranged for her sister's dental records to be sent from Seattle.
Moorhead asked the dentist not to let her parents know what was going on. The body wasn't Susie's. She did not want them to be any more upset than they already were. Sue Luna's disappearance had dramatically affected her family. Bobby and her husband had put down money on a house in Seattle the week Susie vanished. They had cancelled their move and forfeited the contract money.
Bobby wasn't going to leave Alaska with her sister missing. And down in Seattle, Luna's parents not only faced their own anxiety, they faced the questions of their granddaughter, Elizabeth. They kept telling the sad four-year-old, Mommy will be home soon. As time passed, and her mother didn't return, it was difficult to know what to say to the girl.
The dental records did not provide an answer for Sue Luna's family, only that the body found was not hers. For several days, Bobbie Moorhead rode her horse along the bank of the Canick River, searching its pebbled shoreline and scrub-brush flats for a clue to her sister's fate.
Eventually, the body found by the moose hunters was identified as Sherry Morrow, the dancer from the wild Sherry missing since November of 81. The autopsy showed she had been killed by a .223 caliber bullet, a spent shell casing of that caliber, and some ace bandages had been found mingled with her remains.
Now aware of the Anchorage police investigation of the missing dancers, the state troopers returned to the K'nick area and searched to determine if there were any other bodies of missing dancers in the proximity of Morrow's Wilderness Grave. Not knowing where to look on the vast landscape, they found nothing.
In the first dark days of 1983, a blue and white supercub made several trips into the Hawk Lake area north of Anchorage. Hansen burglarized several cabins on the lake, stealing a variety of firearms, hunting trophies, power equipment, CB radios, cassette players, even a propane gas cylinder.
He had to hit full throttle to lift the plane off the frozen lake. The aircraft's heavy loads caused the plane to leave deep ski tracks in the snow, and he continued his deadly hunt. 24-year-old Angela Fedden had grown up in Edmonds, Washington, and found that her path in life led to Anchorage, Alaska. She vanished off 4th Avenue in February 1983.
but she was not reported missing until May. Angela left behind a five-year-old daughter in Fairbanks and a mother in Seattle. Robert Hansen's violence affected several Seattle residents and families. When Vern Peterson came to Alaska in February of 83 with his ex-wife Judy and her husband Gary Vigoren, it was a trip he would never forget.
While Judy and Gary lined up projects for their steel construction business, he walked the snow-covered sidewalks of the Tenderloin district, searching for information about his daughter Tommy's disappearance or present whereabouts. Having worked in credit collections, he was experienced in dealing with people at cold contact.
Peterson carried five by seven photos of Tommy, passing them out to persons he talked to and leaving her picture with bartenders and doormen at the clubs. He was staying in the Anchorage home of a friend who was out of town, so he put the phone number on the back of the photos, but not the address of the house. Vern got a few phone calls from persons who thought they had some information about Tommy.
He went to the Spinard bowling alley to talk to an ex-biker, and the former Brothers MC Club gave him some names of persons to check with. Captain Ahab's had been closed down a few months earlier by the Alcohol Beverage Control Board, but Pedersen tracked down its bookkeeper who was living in an Anchorage trailer park and still had the bar's records.
Tommy's father was able to look at his daughter's final paycheck. It was made out to Peter's son, Verne recalled, but it was endorsed Peter's son, and it didn't look like Tommy's signature at all. Someone had forged a signature to get her hands on Tommy's last vagaries.
In his search for his daughter, Peterson crossed paths with Bobbie Moorhead, who was trying to find her sister, Sue Luna, and the two exchanged notes. While neither had specific information to help each other out, there was at least a residual feeling that they weren't alone in their searches.
but the cold short days and long nights in the harsh street culture of the tenderloin district were taking a heavy toll on tommy petersen's father he had grown up in minot north dakota but had been around enough to consider himself a worldly person
Nothing in his life, however, had prepared him to consider that someone he loved and cared about would end up in an environment like Anchorage's Fourth Avenue. He was becoming very depressed. Then Verne received a phone call from a woman who refused to identify herself, but gave him a phone number and said firmly, and I quote, "'Call the guy at that number. If anybody can help you, he can.'"
She hung up. The guy he ended up talking to talked very confidently. He said he knew everyone and everything about the clubs, the streets, and even the biker club called the Brothers. He said he was concerned about all the dancers and made sure they were okay. He could not give Vern any information about Tommy, though. Apparently, the man, who called himself Frank—
did have a lot of influence in the Tenderloin, and he took Vern on a trip to all the strip joints in the area to investigate what they could about Tommy's disappearance. But even though they visited all the bars and clubs, even a secret illegal one, no new info of Tommy's surfaced.
After he came home, Vern felt the last little hope had slipped away, and he was certain he was never going to see his daughter alive again. For a moment, his thoughts escaped their morbid despair as he remembered a smiling six-year-old Tommy bounding towards him, with the movement in her blonde hair echoing the bounds of her gate and her big blue eyes full of happiness and life.
But the vision faded quickly, and Vern rested his face in his hands and wept. Twenty-two-year-old Teresa Watson worked as a prostitute in California and did the same in Alaska after she arrived in Anchorage in January 1983. On the 25th of March, she kept a fatal appointment with a customer.
Robert Hansen took her to Scenic Lake in his airplane and landed on the ice. The details of what happened there are not known, but Hansen murdered her. The snow-covered ground was still frozen, so he could not dig a grave. He left Teresa's body where it fell. By the time it would be recovered, just a little over a year later, it would be half eaten by animals.
In the following month, April, Robert Hansen murdered at least two more women. He flew 20-year-old blonde Delinne Frey out to the wilderness along the Coneg and killed her. Frey's disappearance was not reported until after the body of Hansen's other victim that month, Paula Goulding, was found on the 2nd of September. But something was different in Alaska as the fall of 1983 approached.
with Anchorage Police Officer Greg Baker's determined action having given a focus to a now beefed-up trooper investigation of the missing dancers. A twelve-year scenario had been reversed. The Hunter was becoming The Hunted.
I don't know.
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But it's good to have some things that are non-negotiable. For some, that could be a night out with the boys, chugging beers and having a laugh. 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.
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Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash serialkiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash serialkiller. The Alaska State Troopers, the AST, walked along the Canick River canvassing all they could, but it was very much like searching blind.
They had no knowledge where any new potential body could be found, or where any physical evidence might show up. Even though they tried, they fell short of finding anything. They would have to move with what they had to ferret out their suspect. And who was that? Well, there was only one man who had been arrested numerous times for abduction and rape.
Only one man who had been caught stealing valuables and supplies from cabins throughout the wilderness surrounding Anchorage. That man was Robert Hansen. Of prime importance was to have a material witness to Robert Hansen abducting women from downtown Anchorage. Cindy Paulson, the prostitute I introduced you to in episode one in this series, was that person.
better yet she could also establish a rape case against hansen that would if murder charges could not be put together at least get him off the streets for a while but the troopers had not been able to locate
When Sergeant Haugsman told the troopers that Anchorage Vice Detective John Gentile would be the guy who could find her if she was in town, Sergeant Flothe sent a request through command to APD that Gentile should be assigned to the task. Anchorage Police Officer John Gentile came through and brought Cindy Paulson to the troopers. Cindy was an emotional young woman.
When told the troopers suspected Hansen of murdering Sherry Morrow and Paula Goulding, and probably other women, she became semi-hysterical and suffered a minor mental breakdown. It was evident that it was useless to try to get a sensible statement from her in that condition.
Cindy had a mother in Seattle. It was decided she would fly down to Washington to visit her. That would give her time to calm down and get herself together before making a statement. After a few days at her mother's, Cindy returned to Anchorage.
And so it was that on the 27th of September, she made a one-and-a-half-hour statement about her experience at the hands of kidnapper rapist Robert Hansen, that preceding Jew. Looking at the FBI firearms identification manual, she picked out a .357 caliber Magnum that she said her assailant had pointed at her head.
Officers began taking statements from the peripheral witnesses in the Paulson case. By now, the troopers were confident that the man who had given Hansen his alibi for his whereabouts on the 13th of June, John Henning, would change his tune when under oath and confronted with the corroborating evidence against his friend Bob.
Plans were made to interview dentist Ward Hulbert and other cabin owners at Hawk Lake about break-ins which, according to APD records, Hansen had been accused of. Also, from Cindy Paulson's and Greg Baker's description of the content of Hansen's den, troopers suspected that Robert Hansen had committed insurance fraud by alleging his hunting trophies were stolen.
The State Farm Adjuster and the claims file would also have to be tracked down. The suspect is probably around 40 years of age. A thrill killer who may well be a stutterer. He is probably an upstanding and respected member of the community and a person who was rejected as a youth. And five will get you ten. He has been involved in arson, shoplifting or both at one time or another.
End quote. This was no generic profile that would fit half the male population as profiles often did. That profile came over the phone to Glenn Flothe from several thousand miles away after he had just spent a few minutes describing crime scene information in the Missing Dancers case to an agent at the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit in Quantico, Virginia. You know,
The unit featured in Netflix's amazing series Mindhunter. The profile fit Robert Hansen to a T. Immediately, arrangements were made for FBI agents to fly to Anchorage to consult on the case. The agents recommended that Hansen be put under 24-hour surveillance as soon as possible.
FBI agent John Douglas began to emerge as a major figure in violent criminal profiling in 1981, with his contributions to the investigation and conviction of the Atlanta child murderer Wayne Bertram Williams. Since that time, he was, and would continue to be, involved in many other notable serial killer cases.
the list of which could figuratively be described as a litany from hell. Robert Hansen's name went on that bloodied scroll. The trip to Anchorage coincided with going to Seattle to consult on the Green River Killer case. Douglas was one of the cadre of nine FBI agents labeled, yes, they actually were called this, the Mind Hunters.
These were the men who planned, and then in late 1983, implemented the FBI's violent criminal apprehension program, the abbreviated VICAP. Do you, dear listener, remember me talking about the novel and film The Silence of the Lambs?
Agent John Douglas was one of the FBI agents used in a composite that was author Thomas Harris' basis for the character of Agent Jack Crawford in the book and movie of that name. I would not exaggerate when I state that he is a personal hero of mine.
Few people have done more than Agent Douglas to further the work to understand and stop psychopathic serial killers. In preparation for securing search warrants, Agent Douglas wrote an affidavit that included the statement, and I quote, "...serial rapist killers commonly keep mementos of their acts and kits of tools used to accomplish their crimes."
Such items would not likely be destroyed and would be retained for a long time. End quote. The following day, the FBI agents coached the AST on how to interview their suspect and where and what to look for when they searched Robert Hansen's property. The troopers tightened the loose ends on a variety of charges they were going to include in requesting warrants against Hansen.
These consisted of the kidnap and rape of Cindy Polson, the cabin break-ins at Hawk Lake, the insurance fraud with the hunting trophies, and felony possession of sidearms. To go for it all and aim for evidence that would link Hansen to the disappearances and murders of the dancers, a local expert was recruited to fortify the FBI affidavit profiling Hansen as a probable serial killer.
Fairbanks psychiatrist Dr. Irvin Rothrock, whose 26 years of psychiatric practice included testifying in more than 200 Alaska court cases, went on record stating that Hansen fit the pattern of a person who might be involved in the missing dancers case.
Rothrock saw Robert Hansen as an impulsive actor, reflected in his kleptomania and the arson in his hometown. Also, he saw the suspects as picking victims he would view as inferior to himself, and that serial killers often are avid hunters. The clinching statement he made was that people who commit such crimes keep mementos of their criminal deeds.
On the 26th of October, 1983, Sergeant Glenn Floth went before Judge Victor Carlson with a 48-page affidavit and secured eight search warrants to be executed against Robert Hansen and his property on the following day. The noose was beginning to tighten around Hansen's neck, and he had no idea it was happening.
The next morning, he was picked up by troopers as he was getting out of his car outside his bakery. As he was driven to be interrogated, officers executed the search warrant of his house on 7223 Old Harbor Avenue. In the interview room, Hansen admitted he had pulled a gun on Susan Hepburn in 1971 and that he had never really suffered any memory blackout in his life.
He knew that, at this late date, he would not face any consequences for those admissions. He said he had been picking up dancers and prostitutes since the early 70s, but denied ever forcing them to do anything by putting a gun to their heads. He maintained he became angry when the women tried to raise their prices, but denied ever threatening them.
Hansen refused to admit he had threatened Fields, that he told her he would harm her baby son and parents, and feigned ignorance about the piece of paper with the names on it which had conveniently disappeared from his wallet while he was being booked for the kidnap assault. Several times during the interview, Floth left the room to talk by telephone with Lyle Haugsman, who was conducting the search warrant.
Haugsman informed Floth they had found an aviation map behind the headboard of Hansen's bed. It had several marks by the Knick River and over a couple of dozen marks all over the chart. The search of the house also uncovered several handguns. A .223 Ruger Mini 14 was found under insulation in the house's attic.
They also found several rolls of ace bandages all over the house. Back at the station, the troopers assumed more control of the interview. According to plan, they had given Roberts a free rein to talk about the past. Now it was time to focus on current matters, particularly the missing and murdered dancers. Here is an excerpt from the interview. Flother, what do you use ace bandages for? Hansen.
To have if I throw out either knee. I have ace bandages around my house by the millions. Flothe. Do you keep them in your airplane, too? Hansen. Sure. Flothe. Where did you purchase your Mini-14? Hansen. National Guard Armory down by Madril. Flothe then moved Sherry Murrow's picture in front of Hansen. Hansen. Who's that? Flothe. Sherry Murrow.
She was found in a shallow grave by the Canick River with an ace bandage around her arms, or anyway, what was left of them. There was a .223 shell casing found in the grave with the remains, and it's from the same gun as the shell casing found in Paula Goulding's grave. Bob, do you see where we're coming from on this?
Hansen, by now squirming in his chair, looking extremely uncomfortable. Uh-huh. Yeah. Floth. Do you know where that puts you, Bob? Hansen, now clearly on the defensive. Angor crept into his voice, just like in the film Frozen Ground. I quote, You're saying it's out of my gun? Bullshit! It's not! End quote.
The interviewers felt that they gained more and more control over their suspect. Flod was again called by the search party and was informed by phone that they had found a disguise kit and several stolen articles, including the inventory of Hansen's insurance claim for his hunting trophies. Still, Robert Hansen denied everything.
Unsurprisingly, Hansen's earlier alibi, John Henning, called Lyle Haugsven the 27th of October, telling him he had been roped into providing an alibi for his friend Bob. Haugsven immediately called Floth, telling him that Hansen's alibi and the Paulson case just had been blown. The .357 caliber magnum that Hansen had put to Cindy Paulson's head was found as well.
Further, business cards with women's names on them, including the Lynn Freys, who had been reported missing six weeks before, were found in Hansen's garage. When confronted with this latest news, Hansen said, and I quote, I think this is becoming serious as hell. I think I want to talk to an attorney. End quote.
At this point, the interview was ended and Hansen was put under arrest. His bail was set to $500,000. On the 3rd of November, 1983, an Anchorage grand jury returned four indictments against Hansen. First-degree assault and kidnapping, five counts of misconduct in possession of a handgun, theft in the second degree and theft by deception in insurance fraud.
Investigators were still awaiting the ballistic test results on Hansen's rifle, so the state decided to hold off on charging him with murder. Hansen pleaded not guilty to all charges. Bail was set at a half million dollars. Newton wrote that the ballistic test results finally came in on the 20th of November 1983.
The FBI crime lab in Washington, D.C., determined that the shell casings found at the gravesites had all been fired from Hansen's rifle. The firing pin and the extractor markings were identical. Given the mass of evidence building against him, Hansen realized that the chances of him winning in court were slim.
So, on the 22nd of February, 1984, Hansen had his defense attorney, Fred Dewey, arrange a meeting with Anchorage District Attorney Victor Krum. During the meeting, Krum offered Hansen a deal. In exchange for a full confession, the DA guaranteed him that he would only be charged with the four murder cases they knew of.
and he would be able to serve his time in a federal facility rather than a maximum security institution. Hansen reluctantly agreed to the conditions. After both sides signed off on the agreement, Hansen began describing one of his typical abductions. Whenever Hansen got a victim under his control, he said, he would normally take her to his plane and fly them out to his remote cabin.
According to Hansen, he would brutally rape and torture the women. Afterwards, he would strip them naked, sometimes going so far as blindfolding them, and then set them free in the woods. Hansen would give his victim a brief head start, and then hunt them down with a hunting knife or a high-powered rifle. In describing his hunt to investigators, Hansen said that it was like, and I quote,
Going after a trophy doll sheep or a grizzly bear? As the interview neared its end, Hansen was provided with a large aerial map of the region. He identified 15 gravesites, 12 of which were unknown to investigators. Since it would have been nearly impossible to locate any of the graves going by Hansen's check marks on the map, investigators decided to fly him to each location.
The following day, Hansen accompanied the men to the Anchorage International Airport, where they boarded a large military helicopter. Their first stop was along the Canick River, not far from where Paula Goulding was found. Afterwards, they flew east to Jim Creek and then west toward Susitna. Their final stops were due south at Horseshoe Lake and Figure 8 Lake.
At every stop, Hansen led investigators to the site, now heavily covered in snow, and they would mark the trees with orange paint. By the end of the day, Hansen had revealed the gravesites of twelve unknown women.
According to articles published by the Anchorage Daily News, Robert Hansen pled guilty on the 18th of February 1984 to four counts of first-degree murder in the cases of Paula Goulding, Joanna Messina, Sherry Morrow and Eklutna Annie.
One week later, on the 27th of February, Superior Court Judge Ralph E. Moody sentenced Hansen to 461 years plus life without chance of parole. He was then remanded to Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania.
By May 1984, investigators had found seven bodies at the gravesites Robert Hansen pointed out to them. No other bodies were ever recovered. The summary went as follows. On the 24th of April, Sue Luna, found by Kinnick River, and Malai Larson, found at the parking area by Old Kinnick Bridge. On the 25th of April,
Dylan Frey, found near Horseshoe Lake. On the 26th of April, Teresa Watson, found in the Kenai Peninsula Wilderness. And Angela Federn, found near Figure 8 Lake. On the 29th of April, Tamara Peterson, one and a half miles from Old Kinnick Bridge. And finally, on the 9th of May, Lisa Futrell's body was found south of Old Kinnick Bridge.
In 1988, Hansen was returned to Alaska and became one of the first inmates in the new Spring Creek Correctional Center in Seward, where he would remain for the duration of his incarceration. Hansen would never talk to the media, nor would his family.
On the 21st of August 2014, Robert Hansen died alone at the Alaska Regional Hospital where he had been transferred from prison due to ill health. The cause of death has not been released other than that it was of natural causes. He was 75 years old when he died.
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And with that, we come to the end of the saga of Robert Hansen, the Butcher Baker. I hope you enjoyed listening to me telling it to you.
Next episode, number 141 in number, will feature a fresh new Serial Killer Expo save. I promise, it won't be as long as this one has been. 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 the serial killer podcast by leaving a review on Apple podcasts, facebook.com slash the SK podcast, or by posting on the subreddit, the SK podcast. Thank you. Good night. Good luck.