Serial Killer Let Victims Go & HUNTED Them For SPORT

Alaska has always been a land of extremes, endless forests, brutal winters, the silence feels heavier. The cold feels a little sharper and the wilderness stretches out for miles and miles without ever meeting a single soul. It's beautiful but unforgiving and for over a decade it became the perfect hunting ground for the most evil and sadistic serial killer that the state had ever seen. Who would target young vulnerable women abducting them, subjecting them to hours and hours of torture? And when he was done he brought them into the isolated wilderness deep into the cold where no one could hear them scream. Bound blindfolded and disoriented he would unclip them from the restraints and he would tell them to run. I could see each and every one of those women how they died probably hunted down like the dogs wounded and then hunted more. And there in the freezing Alaskan wilderness he would hunt down these young women like animals before returning home and going back to being a husband, a father baking pastries at the local bakery. This is Robert Hansen, the butcher baker and my name is Brianna and I'm hot on the case. Robert Hansen was born on February 15, 1939 in Esterville, Iowa to his mother Edna and his father Christian Hansen. His father Christian did go by Chris Hansen, but obviously not to catch a predator. Chris Hansen. Robert was the oldest of two children. The family all packed up and moved to California near the San Francisco area for a few years before returning to Iowa and settling in in the sleepy small town of Pocahontas, Iowa where Robert's father Chris Hansen opened up his own bakery which did end up being quite successful. Robert's father was said to be a very short tempered, aggressive man and parent. For most of Robert's life even as a very small child he was forced to work in his father's bakery and using his young son as free child labor seemed to be his father Chris's meme priority as a parent especially when it came to parenting Robert. It seemed like in Chris Hansen's mind Robert was his employee first and then second he was a child and his son. He forced the young boy to work long hours at the bakery like I'm talking shifts that started at 2 a.m. and ended when it was time for Robert to go to school which left Robert exhausted. He would fall asleep in class and then his grades really started to suffer and while working at the bakery young Robert was expected to never make mistakes and if he ever did he was verbally berated for it. Chris Hansen had extremely high standards and really high expectations for his son. He definitely expected perfection even in like the weirdest tiniest ways like Robert who was born left handed was forced by his father to only use his right hand and experts believe even though I'm pretty sure this theory is discredited disproven now but experts at least used to believe that it was a mixture of being forced as a left handed person to use his right hand and also a mixture of the pressure and stress from his childhood that caused Robert Hansen to develop a life long stutter. Robert was then kind of scrawny. He had red hair, big glasses. He had really bad acne when he was a kid. He actually said that his face was almost like one big pimple and this actually left him like really bad acne scarring all over his face even into adulthood. So his physical appearance in addition to his stutter unfortunately made Robert Hansen the target for vicious bullying all throughout his school years. Robert became extremely withdrawn. He never put himself out there. He would never speak because he had this stutter and if he ever did try to speak he would be so nervous that he couldn't get the words out because of his stutter. Robert was definitely interested in girls and interested in dating but he had little to no luck with the ladies at his school and because he had little to literally any positive interaction with any of his classmates and he never had any time to hang out with anyone outside school because he was always working at his father's bakery. Robert really lacked social skills and he became a huge loner. In his free time he just did activities that he could do by himself. He got really into outdoor activities like camping, fishing, archery, hiking and hunting. Fresh out of high school Robert joined the United States Army and this was the first taste of freedom that Robert ever had away from his overbearing father. He spent about a year in the Army before being discharged and while at Fort Dix in New Jersey during training Robert had his first ever encounter with a prostitute which Robert said he did not really enjoy because he felt like he was not the person in control during this encounter and this was likely Robert's first ever intimate experience with a woman. So the fact that he already has this immense desire to have control over his intimate partner so much so that he's not even enjoying himself during his first probably interaction with the woman is really really concerning. After returning from the Army Robert went right back to working at his father's bakery his parents were extremely religious so Robert was definitely expected to take on a big membership role in their church and it was at their church that Robert met and started dating a younger girl and this was his first ever serious relationship. Robert also began teaching classes at the local junior police program as well as became a volunteer fireman. So at this point Robert has a pretty good life paved out in front of him you know he had a difficult time growing up he was bullied in school like so many people are but he's overcome it he went to the Army he had life experiences away from his hometown he has a good job he has a girlfriend that really likes him he's doing things in his community in front of him he has the opportunity to have a really nice life but the thing about Robert Hanson is he lived in this perpetual victim mindset he was an outcast at school he was viciously bullied as a kid and this turned Robert into a resentful and rageful adult with this obsessive need to get revenge and he would seek out revenge against people that literally he never even met he would seek revenge against people that never even wronged him in the first place. Robert Hanson is like a textbook serial killer bad childhood jerk of a father was bullied in high school couldn't get a date so he would take out all that anger out on women that literally did nothing to him these were strangers to him so at this point Robert Hanson is 21 years old okay he's been out of high school for quite a few years now but he still can't get over how mistreated he was while he was in high school so even as an adult he feels the need to seek revenge against his old high school and on December 7th 1960 with the help of another employee from his father's bakery Robert set the Pocahontas school district garage where they stored the school buses ablaze while the majority of the small town was distracted by a high school baseball game the flames quickly destroyed like every school bus in sight Robert returned home changed into his firefighter gear and returned to the scene of his own crime to help put out the fire that he started the fire was quickly determined to be arson and it's very likely that Robert would have gotten away with it but about four months later his accomplice you know started to have loose lips he started talking he was bragging about how he started this fire and got away with it and one of the kids that is a accomplice heard him bragging about well he went to the police and reported this so the now 22-year-old Robert Hanson was arrested for the arson and he was released on bail he was very adamant that he was innocent and that he was being framed and while out on bail he married that girlfriend that he had because his now wife truly did believe that Robert was innocent and was being framed. And not only did Robert's new wife believe that he was innocent, but so did his parents, and honestly, a large majority of the small community believed that Robert was innocent. It was the 1960s. People at the time had an almost cartoonish idea of what a bad guy looked like. Robert was the young son of a successful business owner. He was a quiet loner kid who went to church. He came from a good church family and had this new good church wife. Robert insisted that he was being framed, but he pled guilty in hopes that he would receive a lighter sentence. And he was sentenced to three years in a state reformatory correctional institute. And at the time, his father, Chris Hansen, who had been hard on him his entire life, really did believe in his son's innocence. So much so that he started a petition, got a bunch of signatures claiming that his son was innocent and demanding that his son be released from this correctional institute. But then six months later, Robert actually admitted that he was in fact guilty of the arson. And this isn't confirmed anywhere, but I wonder if he admitted guilt in a sick sort of revenge against his father for his poor childhood because his father really was a respected member of the community and his father always expected such perfection from him. I wonder if like admitting that he committed this crime against the community after his father was going around with a petition was kind of a way to like get back at his dad and bring like shame to his father. After admitting guilt, his wife divorced him and his father was so embarrassed over the shame that his son brought to the family that he sold his bakery and him and Robert's mother Edna actually moved out of the entire state. They moved to Minnesota where they opened up their own hotel on leech lake. While in state reformatory, Robert spoke with a psychiatrist that he was actually really open and honest with surprisingly. He told the psychiatrist that he had this deep intense desire to get back at those that wronged him like his high school bullies or the girls that rejected him. And he would often fantasize about getting revenge and these fantasies were often very violent fantasies. And because he was so open about, you know, having this desire to be violent against people when it came time for his first parole meeting, he was denied parole. So Robert learned now that being honest about, you know, his dark thoughts got him nowhere. So from here on out, he started lying and saying that he didn't have these fantasies anymore even though he absolutely still did. But because he continued to say that he was rehabilitated, Robert was released on parole after serving 22 months of his three-year sentence. And even though their oldest son shamed them so much that they had to flee the entire state, when Robert was released on bail, his parents did allow him to come and live with them in Minnesota. And this is when Robert was essentially starting at square one again. And he was back working for his father. But now he was working at this resort that his father opened on this lake. Their Robert would help assist some of the guests with different outdoor activities that they'd want to do, near at Leech Lake as well. It's just like worked as an overall handyman. And it was while he was working here that Robert met and started dating one of the maids at the hotel and her name was Darla Henrichsen. I find it very interesting that Robert claims a lot of his early trauma came from his father forcing him to work at his bakery because Robert really follows in his father's footsteps in a lot of ways. Spoiler alert, Robert goes on to be a really bad father, like verbally abusive, completely absent, as well as open up his own bakery. But yeah, at this point him and Darla they're together, they're in love. They moved to Minneapolis where Robert starts working at a bakery and Darla enrolls at the University of Minnesota taking classes to eventually become a teacher. She does eventually go and get her master's degree in education and the two get married. So once again, Robert finds himself at a crossroads. You know, he had a pretty stressful upbringing. He was bullied in school. Times were quite tough for him and then he went and got himself in trouble with the law. But he's really turned his life around. He has a good job. He has moved away from his hometown and his high school bullies were likely still living in that small town of Pocahontas. He's got himself a really good girl who's got a good head on his shoulders. Okay, Darla really did love him and he could have chosen to live this great life. But he chose the other option. Robert still had these dark fantasies and he had these dark impulses and to feed those impulses, he continued to live a life of crime and he started with like petty thievery. In February 1965, he was arrested for stealing fishing lures from a sports equipment store. He was then caught breaking into the office of the bakery that he worked for and then he was arrested for stealing a softball from a department store. For all of these instances, the charges were either dropped or the crime was not reported to the police. When Darla graduated in 1967, the couple looking for a fresh start packed up once again and they moved to Anchorage, Alaska. There's something about Alaska that feels like the edge of the world, especially back in the 1970s, 1980s when the state was still this rugged frontier, chilly, remote, isolated and wild in ways that most of the people that lived in the lower 48 states couldn't even imagine. The winters are long and unforgiving. The nights stretched on for what feels like forever and the silence had this eerie weight to it like the land itself was listening. During this time, Alaska was also in the middle of this massive economic boom where a bunch of young men poured in from all across the country chasing oil money, pipeline jobs and the promise of quick cash. It created this huge imbalance between the genders where there were a lot more men living in Alaska than there were women especially in cities like Anchorage. bars, truck stops, motels, any place with heat and light were packed with workers passing through, women on the other hand were few and far between and often isolated, which made them really vulnerable. This is the kind of environment where someone dangerous could blend in effortlessly. A place where strangers came and went where no one asked too many questions and where the darkness, both a literal and human felt a lot more dangerous than anywhere else. And it was here in Anchorage, Alaska that Darla started teaching the couple bought a house. Robert got really into outdoor activities again like he did when he was a teenager. In 1971, Darla and Robert got pregnant with their first child a daughter and it was after the birth of their daughter that Robert became extremely distant and would find more and more excuses to spend more and more time doing those outdoor activities that he loved so much. His wife has just given birth. Robert has a newborn daughter at home and this is what he's doing instead. On October 15, 1971, Robert was out driving around downtown when he passed a pretty young woman driving home. So Robert began following her. Mind you, Robert is 32 years old and this young woman, Susie Heppard, was only 18. When Susie arrives at her apartment, she starts getting ready to take a shower when she hears a knock at her front door. So wrapped up in only a towel, she goes and answers the door and there standing on her front doorstep was Robert. He asks if he could come in and use her phone book and Susie reluctantly agrees to let him inside. This stranger pretends to flip through her phone book looking for a phone number that he needed and while he's doing so, he asks the 18 year old Susie out on a date. Susie rejects him. She says that she's engaged and the weird, strange man leaves her apartment only to return two days later. Robert returned to Susie's apartment parking lot and he sat there and waited for her to return home when she got out of her car. He ran up on her with a gun and at gunpoint tries to force her into his car and threatened to kill her if she screamed or tried to run away. But luckily, Susie does scream for help and she screams and screams until a roommate hears her and calls the police. At gunpoint, Robert does eventually get Susie into his car but not before the parking lot was swarmed with police. Robert was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon and was once again released on bail. And while out on bail, Robert attempts to kidnap another young girl, but this time he was unfortunately successful. On December 19th, 1970. 71 Robert abducted 18-year-old Patty Roberts while she was walking to the local cafe. At gunpoint, he forced her into his car and then drove her out of Anchorage far out of Anchorage to a little motel, where he sexually assaulted her for hours. He then brought Patty into the woods, where he planned on killing her, but Patty begged for her life. And she repeatedly promised Robert that if he let her go, she wouldn't tell anyone and she would never go to the police. And Robert actually did agree to spare Patty's life, but first he went through her wallet. He took out her ID, he wrote down all of her personal information, her address, her name. He also forced Patty to give him all of her family and loved ones, personal information, like their names and their addresses. And he promised her that no matter what with this information, he would be able to find her. And if she went to the police, if she told anyone, he would kill her and all of her family. He told me, of course, if I called the police, that he would hunt me down and kill me. He told me he was a fine, outstanding businessman. He had never mentioned at any point during the rape time or before or after that he was married, but he said he's a fine, outstanding businessman and that I was just a kid and nobody would believe me. He then dropped Patty back off at the cafe that he abducted her from. And out of fear, the young Patty really did intend to keep her word and not go to the police. But she changed her mind only a few days later when she saw on the news that a young woman's body was found in a ravine murdered. Celia Van Zanton vanished while hitchhiking in three days later. Her body was found at the bottom of a ravine. She wasn't wearing anything, her hands were tied behind her back and her chest was cut open. Autopsy found that she was alive when she was either dumped or fell into this ravine and she actually managed to climb about 20 feet back up before she froze to death. And after Patty saw the news that there was another young woman from her area that was found murdered, Patty knew that it was the same man that kidnapped and sexually assaulted her that killed Celia. So she bravely went to the police to report her kidnapped and assault. The police went to the motel that Patty said her attacker brought her to and the clerk identified Robert Hanson as the individual that booked the room. Robert was once again arrested. And at the police station Robert was asked to remove all of the contents of his wallet and inside of his wallet was the piece of paper that he used to write down all of Patty's information and all of her family members' information, which directly confirmed Patty's entire story. So this is like pretty big evidence. Robert tried to play dumb like he had no idea how this paper got in his wallet. Sadly before they were able to take this piece of paper into evidence they had to get a warrant. So in the meantime Robert was booked into jail. And as one police officer was inventorying the property that Robert had on him when he was arrested, Robert told the poor rookie officer that the paper in his wallet was the contact information from the person that was going to pay his bail and asked if he could have it back. So the officer gave that slam dunk piece of evidence back to Robert. And it was never ever seen again. And without that like slam dunk piece of evidence the trial would just be like a he said she said kind of thing. And the defense was able to like dig into Patty's background and planned to paint her unfavorably into the jury so the prosecution offered Robert a plea deal. Mind you, at this point, he still hasn't gone to trial for the attack on Susie. So he pled no contest to those charges, but the charges of kidnapping and assaulting Patty were completely dropped. Robert was sentenced to five years in prison and was released on parole three months later. While driving pass downtown Anchorage to go visit his probation officer, Robert would drive pass a bunch of strip clubs and prostitutes and this gave Robert an idea. Since there were so many more men than women in Anchorage Alaska at the time and these men were here for work often lonely away from family, sex work became a pretty lucrative business for young vulnerable women to get into. So this is when Robert decides to change his strategy. He still wants to pray on young women, but praying on these young successful college students and housewives was just landing him in hot water, landing him in trouble with the law. And since he still wanted to pray on an assault young woman, he actually thought that he was deserving to do that. He was entitled to assaulting these young women because he was treated so unfairly back in high school. He decided to now change the kind of young women that he was targeting and from here on out, he would pray on mostly sex workers, runaways, young women that were overlooked in society and Robert thought no one would go looking for if they started going missing. He would kidnap them sexually assault and torture them for hours before bringing them into the isolated Alaskan wilderness. Where he would let them go and then hunt them down like animals. I could only imagine that these women were absolutely terrified. I don't know if I could think of a more terrifying, dehumanizing way to go. He would have them handcuffed, blindfolded with their hands tied behind their back. They would be naked or mostly naked. It would be absolutely freezing. I mean it was Alaska and they weren't wearing anything and then Robert would tell them to run. And they would. They would run for their lives but there was no escape. There was nowhere for them to go. There was no one to get them help. And Robert knew that so he would take his time. Sometimes he would track down these women for hours or even days. Sometimes he would watch them from secret, from higher up just for the thrill of the hunt. Or he would get close enough that he could shoot them or slash them. Not enough to kill them but enough that they would be an agonizing pain and he could watch and listen to them in pain and there would be a blood trail for him to follow. And when he eventually would catch up to them he would either shoot them or stab them to death. Robert Hansen has been into hunting his entire life ever since he was a teenager and the girls at his high school didn't want to go on a date with him. Now he's literally hunting down women like their animals. And this way that Robert would kill his victims has gone on to inspire a bunch of fictional characters. There's two instances that immediately come to my mind but I bet there's a lot of movies, TV shows that you yourself can think of because there has been a lot. Two that come to my mind right away is the episode open season from Criminal Minds where a pair of two killers that were really into hunting would kidnap people, let them go and then they would hunt them down. As well as a newer edition, Kurt Caldwell, the fictional serial killer from Dexter Newblood. The show writers did confirm that Kurt Caldwell's character and how he would abduct young women that were runaways or sex workers before letting them go and hunting them down in the snowy remote wilderness was directly inspired by Robert Hansen. And this sick, sadistic, twisted serial killer would get away with these crimes for such a long time. Like I mentioned previously, Robert did end up opening his own successful bakery in Anchorage directly following in his father's footsteps and him and Darla did go on to have a second child this time a son. And again, Robert follows in his father's footsteps because he was a terrible father. He was too busy being the most evil and notorious serial killer in Alaskan history and one of the most evil and notorious serial killers of the 20th century. Because Robert was such a terrible husband and father, Darla would often take the kids back home and visit her family in Arkansas quite a lot, which gave her husband Robert plenty of time to carry out his murders. At one point, Robert buys himself this tiny single engine plane, even though he had no pilot's license to be operating such a vehicle. And he would use this plane to fly out his victims to the most isolated parts of the Alaskan wilderness to ensure that there would be no one there to save them. And between Killings, Robert did continue to be a thief. For some reason, he's caught in 1976 trying to steal a $200 chain saw where he was immediately arrested and once again was sentenced to five years in prison, but was released after serving about one year. For this crime, he was 10 years old. technically released on probation, but he was released without stipulations and without surveillance. On September 12, 1982, so over a decade into Robert being a serial killer, going completely undetected, two off-duty police officers were out moose hunting when they came across some disturbed soil. It looked like someone had buried something. And being police officers, this definitely set off some like red flag signals for them. They thought this was extremely suspicious, and they weren't right, because this was a shallow grave. They found the body of a young woman that had been shot to death. She was found blindfolded. There was a shell casing nearby that belonged to a 223 caliber round. Two weeks later, her body was identified as 24-year-old Sherry Marrow, an exotic dancer from the local club who was reported missing by her boyfriend in November of 1981, almost an entire year earlier. For the past handful of years, people began to notice that there was a string of missing and murdered young sex workers in the Anchorage area. One of them being a female detective, detective Maxine Farrell, that believed that Anchorage had its very own serial killer. Some of the murdered and missing women that detective Maxine Farrell kept a note of were 24-year-old Roxanne Eselen, 24-year-old Joanna Messina, 23-year-old Sue Luna, and 41-year-old Lisa Futrell. A year or so later, on June 13, 1984, police got a report, then the middle of the night around like three or four in the morning, a woman was found running down Fifth Avenue, harshly naked and handcuffed. She was picked up luckily by a man that saw her running down the road and being chased by a man wielding a gun. The man that picked her up and saved her life went to bring her to the police, but this woman refused to go to the police and instead insisted of being dropped off at a motel that she was living at at the time. But once this good citizen dropped her off at the motel, he immediately went to the police. Officers arrived at this motel. It was the big timber motel where they met with the 17-year-old Cindy Paulson. 17-year-old Cindy Paulson was a local prostitute in Anchorage that had been working as a sex worker for far too long, especially considering that she was under age. The officers that got the cuffs off her, they gave her some clothes, and then took down her statement. Cindy said that she was out working the streets when a car pulled up, and the man inside the car offered Cindy $200 if she would perform oral sex on him. And this was a huge offer for young Cindy. $200 in 1983 would be nearly $700 in today's money, so this was an offer too good to pass up for young Cindy. Even though she said at the time, she felt like this offer was too good to be true. She got in the man's car anyways, and almost immediately after getting in his car, he took out a gun and pointed it right at her, and threatened to kill her if she didn't obey him. Cindy described this man as a bit older than her. He was skinny. He had reddish hair, big glasses, and acne scarred skin, as well as a noticeable stutter. This was the 44-year-old Robert Hanson. He brought the 17-year-old Cindy Paulson back to his home. His family was not here at the time. He took her down to his basement/trophy room, which he had completely decorated in the animals that he hunted, killed, skin, and stuffed. There, Robert chained Cindy to a pole in his basement. Not only did he chain her up completely, he wrapped that same chain around her neck four times. There, he raped and tortured her for hours. Before eventually stopping to take a nap, giving Cindy the opportunity to regain some of her strength, as well as to memorize her surroundings. When Robert woke up from his nap, he told Cindy that he liked her very much. So much, in fact, he was going to fly her to his cabin in the woods where he would, quote, "make love to her." One time, and then he would promise to let her go. He repeatedly told Cindy that she had nothing to worry about. That he liked her, he liked her very much, and he had brought multiple women to this cabin before. He actually told her that he had brought seven girls to his cabin before her, and Cindy said in that moment he knew that the seven girls he was talking about were girls that he had murdered, and that he planned to murder her as well. So Cindy, very smart, did her best to make Robert believe that she really, truly wanted to go to the cabin with him. So he would trust her and also relax and let his guard down. And this absolutely worked. Robert loaded Cindy into his car, drove over to the airfield, right up to the hangar where he stored his little single engine airplane. He then began moving equipment from his car into the airplane, including a large hunting rifle. And in that moment, Cindy knew that this was her opportunity to escape. So she took off running. Stale handcuffed, stale pretty much naked. She's just running now through the woods and Robert with his gun starts running after her and he chased her all the way to a road where Cindy was picked up by that car that just so happened to be going by at the exact same time. The officers that took Cindy's statement brought her to the airfield in hopes that she'd be able to identify the plane that belonged to a attacker, which she was able to do. And a worker at the airfield was also able to give the police the description and the license plate number of a car that was parked at that hangar at that plane earlier the day that Cindy was attacked. And the car and the airplane came back to the exact same name. The local baker, husband and father. Robert Hanson was very cooperative with police when they arrived at his home with a lot of questions. Robert even allowed the police to enter his home and do a search of it. The home was exactly as Cindy described it all the way down to the basement and trophy room where she was tortured and sexually assaulted for hours by this man. Robert even agreed to go down to the station to be officially questioned in connection to the kidnapping and rape of 16-year-old Cindy Paulson. He denied absolutely anything, said that he had an alibi in fact. He said that that night he was hanging out with a friend and he was still hanging out with a friend the following morning. And both of these men actually did verify Robert's alibi and told the police that he was in fact with both of these men. So the detectives let Robert Hanson go. Robert was saying that the reason that he was being accused of such a terrible crime was that the 17-year-old prostitute was trying to like extort money from him and the detectives and police department actually did believe that Robert Hanson was innocent. You need to remember that it is the early 1980s and obviously it does not make it right but at the time Cindy Paulson who was a woman she was young she was 17-years-old and a prostitute is the one that's accusing Robert Hanson who was a man and adult. He was a successful business owner he was a husband and a father who went to church. So at this time in the 1980s the police department was unfortunately a lot more likely to believe Robert than Cindy. So her case just went cold after this but like I said there were a few really good officers at the police department that felt in their bones that there was a serial killer in Anchorage. Little did they know the man that they were looking for was the same man that they bought their donuts from every single morning. Bob the Baker, the troopers and the police used to go to his donut shop all the time. It was a very popular place to go he was he had a bakery. People knew him he was friendly he was just a hard-working guy. But all those suspicions soon were verified just a few months later. September 2nd 1983 the body of 30-year-old Paula Golding was discovered in a shallow grave near the neck river. She had been killed by a gunshot wound. It was determined that she was killed while she was naked and then her killer dressed her and buried her. This is when a task force was finally formed to hunt down this serial killer that has now gone undetected and uncought in Alaska for over a decade. The task force also asked the FBI to help put together a profile to try and come up with a description of their serial killer. And you would have thought that the FBI profiler that put together a profile on this killer in Alaska had literally met Robert Hanson already and was just describing Robert Hanson in this profile because of how accurate this FBI profile was. The profile stated that the killer they were looking for was an organized killer that he was a man with a family. He had children and he was married to a woman who was likely very religious. This man would blend easily into society. He was most likely a business owner. He's an avid hunter who loves the outdoors and loves guns. He has a low self-esteem and was likely rejected by women all of his life and most likely had a speech. impediment, like a lisp or a stutter. I mean within seconds they knew all along it had really been Robert Hansen. The place arrived at his property and brought him into questioning on October 27, 1983. He continued to deny everything while other officers were at his home doing a search of his property. Hidden away in Robert Hansen's attic were the same guns that he used in all of these unsolved murders. Hunters keep trophies and so do serial killers. Hidden in his home was also jewelry that belonged to these missing and murdered women. But probably the most terrifying piece of evidence that they discovered Robert Hansen's home was a map that was absolutely covered in X's and the detectives and officers that found this map realized that a few of these X's were where they had already discovered human remains. But there were so many X's on this map that were completely unaccounted for. How many people had this man killed? How big of a monster were they actually dealing with? In total it's been said that there were 24 X's on this map with some sources stating that there was up to 37 X's on the map. Any bit of evidence of Robert Hansen was still clicking on to was completely crumbling at the exact same time. Because as officers were doing this large scale search of his home, one of Robert's nosy neighbors saw the police absolutely tearing apart their neighbor Robert's home and she goes over and she asks the police what they're doing is everything okay. And that's when they informed her of the horrors I'd take in place over the last decade and the monster that she had living next door and this woman was absolutely horrified as you can imagine but she was horrified for multiple reasons because it was her husband that had given Robert an alibi just a few months ago when he was accused of kidnapping, raping and attempting to murder 17-year-old Cindy Paulson. So this wife immediately went over and grabbed her husband I bet by like the ear she pulled him over like a child to go speak to the police officers and he confessed to providing a false alibi to the police for Robert Hansen the night that Cindy was attacked. This neighbor claimed that his friend and neighbor Robert Hansen came to him and said that he was innocent but he did not have an alibi that he could give to the police because he had been having an affair with a prostitute and he couldn't tell that to his wife and to the police. So he asked if his neighbor and friend would lie and cover for him. Meanwhile Robert is at the police station and he feels like he's got good hiding places at home. He feels like he has a rock solid alibi that his neighbor has given him and he thinks that he's going to be walking out of this police station any minute now like he had done so many times before being arrested but always just getting a slap on the wrist and walking away but this time Robert Hansen was confronted with all of the evidence the false alibi's the trophies the jewelry the map and this awkward child that grew up to become an awkward pathetic adult crumbled and he confessed the exes were in fact places that Robert had dumped or buried the bodies of his victims he confessed to kidnapping sexually assaulting torturing hunting down and killing so many innocent women over the past 12 years starting all the way back in 1971 although the map showed about 24 exes Robert confessed to 17 murders and raping another 30 women in part of a plea deal Robert would only have to plead guilty to four murders if he insists the authorities in locating his victims bodies in total they found 12 of these young women there were some women's bodies that were found in locations marked on Robert Hansen's murder map that he denied responsibility for like the murder of 18-year-old Cecilia Van Zanton the young woman whose body was discovered on Christmas Day in 1971 frozen to death in a ravine with a large knife wound in her chest like I said Robert likes to get close enough to his victims to harm them either with an unfatal gunshot wound or a stab wound or a slash so he could hear them and watch them be in pain and then he could follow the blood trail as they ran for their lives it is believed that that is what Robert did to young Cecilia but then he eventually lost her trail when she fell into the ravine and later she froze to death Robert denied kidnapping and killing Cecilia 17-year-old Megan Emmerich and 22-year-old Mary Thrill went missing into this day have never been found but because there are x's on Robert's map near the area where they vanished from that have not been linked to any of his other known victims as of right now it is believed that Robert killed Megan and Mary although he denied it other victims of Robert Hansen were 24-year-old Joanna Messina who vanished on May 19th 1980 and whose body was discovered in a gravel pit that July 24-year-old Roxanne Eastland who vanished on June 28th 1980 Robert admitted to killing her but sadly her body was never discovered excellent Annie the name given to the unidentified murdered victim of Robert Hansen whose remains were discovered on July 21st 1980 she was between the ages of 16 and 25 at the time of her death and her body was discovered several months after she was murdered Robert Hansen confessed to stabbing this girl in her back while she tried to flee from her car but sadly to this day she has never been identified 41-year-old Lisa Foutrelle who vanished on September 6, 1980 her body was found years later in May 1984 Malai Larsen who was 28 years old was reported missing on July 10th 1981 on December 24th 1984 her body was found near parking lot with Robert's assistance Sherry Marrow who was 23 years old her body was discovered on May 12 1982 she was reported missing the year earlier Andrea Altari who was 24 years old was last seen on December 2nd 1981 she has not been seen or heard from ever since when the authorities this search of Robert's home several of her belongings were found inside of her home like her fish necklace that she always wore Robert claimed that he met her he threatened her with a gun he abducted her blind folded her handcuffed her and near the nick arm bridge he sexually abused her and then killed her he then weighed a duffel bag with gravel tied Andrea to the bag and then threw her off the bridge her body has never been found Sue Luna who was 23 years old disappeared on May 26, 1982 her body was discovered on April 24th 1984 Tamara Pederson who went by Tammy was only 20 years old she was a dancer at a popular nightclub in Anchorage the last time anyone heard from her was a phone call to her family on August 7th 1982 her body was not found until Robert confessed and pointed out the location of her body on his map and her body was finally discovered on April 29th 1984 Angela Fedorin was 24 years old and was last seen sometime in February 1983 she wasn't reported missing until months later in May her body was discovered on April 26th 1984 with Robert's assistance as part of his plea deal Dylan, Sugar, Renee, Frye was 22 years old and was last seen sometime in March 1983 but was not reported missing immediately she was abducted and killed by Robert Hanson she was buried as a Jane Doe after her body was discovered on August 20th 1985 and it wasn't until 1989 that she was finally identified after a state trooper recognized her jewelry from what was found in Robert's home Teresa Watson was 22 years old and was last seen in Anchorage on March 25th 1983 her body was discovered on April 26th 1984 with Robert's assistance as part of his plea deal Paula Golding was 30 years old when she was abducted and killed by Robert Hanson on April 25th 1983 her body was discovered in a shallow grave on September 2nd 1983 a set of remains were discovered in the area on April 25th 1984 sadly she was left unidentified for decades until forensic genealogy was used to determine her identity in October of 2021 these were the remains of 19 year old Robin pelky there were x's on Robert's map that he refused to confess to and we have no idea why that is only half of the victims that were marked on Robert's map have been recovered meaning that out of all of the confirmed victims of Robert Hansen, there could be double or more out there. Robert pled guilty to four murders as well as the kidnapped and assault of Cindy Paulson. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 461 years without the possibility of parole. His wife, Darla, divorced him, sold their house and bakery and moved her kids to Arkansas to be with her family. And then Robert Hansen died of natural causes on August 21, 2014 behind bars at the age of 75 years old, taking all of the answers to so many questions with him. And that is the life and horrific crimes and death of Alaska's most notorious and sadistic serial killer, Robert Hansen. This was an extremely difficult one to get through. Just thinking about all the fear that these young girls went through before they died, literally sends shivers up my spine. And the fact that there's likely so many other victims of Robert Hansen out there that still have not been given the dignity of a proper burial. So many of his victims that, you know, are left unidentified. It really, really makes me sick. I truly hope that one day all of the family members get answers and all of his victims get the proper burial that they deserve. Really interested to hear all your thoughts and opinions on this case. Have you heard of Robert Hansen before? This is a case I considered covering on TikTok like over a year ago, but I knew that there was way too much information to stuff into a 10 minute TikTok video. So I knew I really wanted to cover this on hot in the case at some point. During my research, I found a lot of conflicting information by doing my best, as always, to compile what I believe to be the most accurate information. If you think I got anything wrong or left out any huge piece of significant information that you think your fellow detectives should now please leave that for me and all of the other fellow detectives in the comments. I always like to read your comments. I literally do read every single one that comes in. So let me know all your thoughts and opinions in the comments section and I will see you guys all next time when we are hot in the case once again.