The Butcher of Alaska
ROBERT HANSEN HUNTED HIS YOUNG FEMALE VICTIMS DOWN FOR SPORT
Between the years of
1971 and 1983, the city of Anchorage in Alaska was gripped by fear. Young women were going missing at an alarming rate, and it was clear there was a killer at large. Now known as the “Butcher Baker”, Robert Hansen committed the worst crimes in the state’s history.
Hansen was born in 1939 in Estherville, Iowa. His childhood was lonely, he had few friends and was very shy. He suffered from a stutter and was permanently scarred from his chronic acne. His hatred for women started at an early age, apparently due to the fact he was ignored by them. He developed a silent loathing, and held twisted fantasies of revenge that involved torture. He had a complex relationship with his parents – his father was a Danish immigrant who ran a bakery, which would inspire Hansen’s later career. Domineering and controlling, Hansen’s father was a looming threat over him through his adolescent years. The boy sought refuge in his hobby of hunting. Hansen was a keen archer and honed his skills in the Iowan wilderness – abilities that would be used to deadly effect later in his life.
LUST FOR REVENGE
Hansen enlisted in the US Army Reserve in 1957, and served a year before being discharged. He went on to become a police academy drill sergeant in Pocahontas, Iowa, where he met his first wife. They married in summer 1960, but the relationship came under strain when Hansen was arrested for the arson of a school bus garage, said to be in retaliation for his “mistreatment” as a highschooler. He was given a three-year prison sentence, of which he served just over half. W hile incarcerated, his life would change dramatically. His wife filed for divorce, and Hansen was evaluated by a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with bipolar disorder. The doctor also stated that he had an “infantile personality”, possessing
a childlike fixation with getting revenge on anyone he felt had wronged him. This conclusion would prove to be scarily accurate, as Hansen was to embark on a crusade against the entire female gender, completely obsessed with exacting pain on his “enemies”.
After his release from prison, Hansen married second wife Darla almost immediately. A devout Christian, she was fully aware of her new spouse’s chequered past, but believed that – through faith – she could change her husband and they could lead a peaceful life together. After their wedding in 1963, the couple moved to Anchorage in 1967. The change of scenery may have been somewhat forced, as Hansen was convicted of a string of petty thefts, and did several more stretches of prison time. Still, Darla stuck by her husband, convinced a life of devotion could make him repent his sins.
After relocating to Alaska – known for its cold climate, and large swathes of snowy wilderness – the Hansens began a new and improved existence. The family settled in well, and the bakery Hansen would later become so notoriously tied to was established. Darla got pregnant with children twice in this time, and the family of four was well known and well liked in their neighbourhood. With chilling irony considering what was to come, Hansen even won several local hunting competitions and set multiple records.
Outwardly, Hansen’s misdemeanors seemed firmly in the past. He ran a successful business, was a new father, and a pillar of his community. But his dark side inevitably resurfaced. In December 1971, he was arrested after attempting to kidnap a young housewife from her Anchorage apartment at gunpoint. He was also convicted of raping a sex worker soon after. As part of a plea bargain, Hansen received just five years for assault with
‘HANSEN SEEMED LIKE A PILLAR OF THE LOCAL COMMUNITY’
a deadly weapon against the housewife, and the attack on the other woman was dropped altogether. Despite now being a known sex offender, he was released just six months into a 60-month sentence and placed into a work release programme. Five years after this, Hansen was once again arrested, this time for the theft of a chainsaw from a department store. As was becoming a disturbingly common theme, he was set free just months into an extended sentence.
KILLINGS BEGIN
Hansen’s escalation in behaviour should have been an indication to law enforcement that something more sinister was on the horizon, but he continued to fly under the radar. His killings began around 1971, although the exact date is unknown. He would routinely pick up sex workers in the city before driving them to his cabin on the
outskirts of Anchorage. There, he would rape and torture the women, sometimes for days at a time. Finally – horrifically – he would fly the women in his private plane to remote areas of Alaska, where he would release the terrified victims and hunt them for sport. Hansen’s killing spree might have gone undetected for years longer if it were not for the escape of an intended victim, Cindy Paulson.
Aged 17, Cindy was working the streets of Anchorage when she was approached by Hansen in 1983. He followed his usual MO, kidnapping the young woman and driving her to his home in Muldoon. She was subjected to horrific abuse while in Hansen’s captivity, before he drove her to an airfield. His plan was to fly to a shack on the Knik River, his favourite hunting ground. While Hansen prepared his plane for the trip, Cindy spotted her chance and dived out of the car. Still handcuffed and barefoot, she ran to a nearby road and flagged down a truck. Cindy, whose story is the subject of the film The Frozen Ground, described her ordeal to officers at the Anchorage Police Department. She described her assailant in detail and gave information about his home and car. Hansen was taken into custody, but his mild-mannered appearance and a bogus alibi from a friend meant he was released without charge.
The case dried up after this, with no other suspects fitting the description. However, Detective Glenn Flothe continued to investigate, after three bodies were found in the Seward area near Anchorage, close to where Hansen was known to hunt. Due to the possibility of a serial killer
‘STILL HANDCUFFED AND BAREFOOT, SHE DIVED OUT OF THE CAR’
Cindy’s testimony allowed police to obtain a search warrant for Hansen’s home, where several key discoveries were made. Jewellery matching those of the missing women was found hidden around the house, as well as a stash of firearms. Most noticeably, there was a map hidden behind Hansen’s headboard, with marks placed in the exact locations of many burial sites known to police.
Confronted with the evidence, Hansen confessed, laying out his years of abductions and killings to horrified officers. He admitted his early killings were usually teenagers, before progressing to murdering sex workers he met on the street.
After cooperation from Hansen and the use of the map recovered, he was found to have assaulted at least 30 women and murdered 17. However, Hansen entered a plea deal in which he would only be tried for four of the murders, and would serve his time in a federal prison. In return, Hansen led police to 12 gravesites that were previously unknown to them, and provided names of the missing women. In the end,
Hansen was given
461 years plus life by a jury, meaning he would spend the remainder of his days incarcerated. His time was spent in Pennsylvania originally, before being moved around several prisons in Alaska, including Juneau and Seward. His final months were lived out in Anchorage Correctional Complex, where he succumbed to a variety of health problems, dying in August 2014 at the age of 75.
Hansen’s terrible killing spree shocked the Alaskan community and the world at large, and his complete lack of empathy and cruel disdain for women remain his grim legacy.