Alaskan Woods Butcher Baker — True Crime
Robert Hansen is listed among the most prolific serial killers in the United States, yet many people have never heard of him — those who have know him as the Butcher Baker Killer.
Hansen might have been the only killer known to have flown women into the wilderness to be released and hunted down. A lot of that came down to a few things. First, he targeted women that he was banking on people, not reporting them missing right away. Then, after being caught, he did everything to avoid the spotlight, including pleading guilty to avoid a trial. And once behind bars, he did nothing to get the outside world’s attention. After being found guilty in 1984, he didn’t make an appearance in the media until 2006, when he declined an interview with the Associated Press by writing this note. “I do not care so much for myself, but you journalists have hurt my family so very much.”
After Hansen’s death by natural causes retired, Sgt Flenn Flothe, who hunted down the serial killer hunter, said this to the Alaskan Dispatch. “This world is better without him.”
So you might be asking, why? Why is there another article being written about Robert Hansen? It’s not for him. It’s for his victims. It’s for those who worked diligently to bring this killer to justice. It’s for all of the people who have been through hell but chose to rise above it and not create more evil in the world.
Robert Christian Boes Hansen was born in Estherville, Iowa, in 1939. His father was a Danish immigrant who ran his own bakery. Young Hansen was known for being skinny, shy, and afflicted with not just a stutter but severe acne. He said he was shunned by the attractive girls in school and had a dysfunctional relationship with his overbearing father. Being bullied in school caused him to retreat more into himself. His only salvation was finding that he enjoyed hunting.
Like many people who can’t make it in the world, he was discharged from the military after only one year of service. He worked as a drill instructor at a police academy in Pocahontas, Iowa. While there, he married his first wife, which ended with his arrest shortly after.
This first arrest was for burning down the Pocahontas County school bus garage. He had forced a 16-year-old boy who worked at the bakery with him to help him burn the building down. After the boy felt terrible about the crime he had been forced to commit, he reported it to the police. Hansen got off easy, some would say. He only served 20 months for the three-year sentence. A psychiatrist who examined him before he was released said he suffered from an “infantile personality.”
In the American Journal of Psychiatry, an article “Infantile Personalities’ published by Lewis B. Hill, M.D., describes this disorder.
“We designate as infantile personalities certain human beings who are not feeble-minded, not grossly psychotic nor psychoneurotic, yet who fail to mature in their general attitudes and manners or in their techniques and aspirations.”
“The Clinical picture of the infantile personality is that of functioning like a child.”
He would serve more time for petty theft in the years to come before moving to Alaska with his second wife, whom he married months after being released from prison. Things seemed to be well with the Hansens as he and his wife and two children settled into Anchorage. He started setting local hunting records and started a bakery in a downtown Anchorage mini-mall.
Things weren’t going well, though. In 1972 Hansen was arrested for the rape and abduction of a housewife, who luckily had been able to escape him. For this revolting crime, he served only six months in prison. Charges were also brought against him for the rape of prostitutes. In 1976, he got caught shoplifting a chainsaw and got his most severe sentence yet: five years for larceny. But unfortunately, for all of his victims to come, this would be overturned on appeal. The Alaska Supreme Court said his sentence was “too harsh” as they overturned the verdict, sending him home. During this stay, Hansen would be labeled as bipolar and needed to take meds, but he wasn’t ordered.
The Mayo Clinic gives an overview of Bipolar Disorder as:
“. . . a mental health condition that causes extreme mood swings that include emotional highs (mania or hypomania) and lows (depression).
. . . bipolar disorder is a lifelong condition.”
While all of these crimes were going on, Hansen was in the middle of his serial killing spree. If he had been jailed for any of the previous crimes, numerous lives could have been saved. Instead, he went about killing. His M.O. was to find a young girl, usually a dancer or prostitute. He would offer them money for sex, then drive them to his home, and sometimes also by his private plane to a cabin he had on the Knick River, northeast of Anchorage.
After raping and torturing the women, usually in his den at home, he would transport them to his cabin, where he would continue to rape them before making his decision. The decision would be to take them back to town and let them go. These were the ones he deemed they wouldn’t report him to the police for the rape and kidnapping. The others, he would strip them down and set them free. Free into the woods, where he would then hunt them down with a Ruger Mini-14 and other weapons, including knives, before killing them. Then, bury their bodies in graves he marked on a map.
Most of Hansen’s victims had been drawn to Alaska due to the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline. The pipeline and money had brought in men from all over with cash to spare. Anchorage was a very transient town during this period, with new people coming and going every day, so it wasn’t always noticed when someone just disappeared. It was figured they moved back to wherever they came from, and no police report was filed.
Girls were lured to Anchorage with dreams of making money by dancing. The big clubs at the time were called things like Wild Cherry, Arctic Fox, Booby Trap, and the Great Alaskan Bush Company.
During this time in Anchorage, it became extremely rough in certain areas, such as the Tenderloin District. Where most girls, money, and crime happened, those in the know said that Seattle mob boss Frank Colacurio was running the area. There was more violence than the police could handle in just one small area of town, with beatings, armed robberies, firebombs, and murders occupying most of their time. A news report claims that between 1979–1983 207 calls were made to the Booby Trap alone.
There are two major players in this story when it comes to saving future victims from the hell that all of the others had to go through at the hands of the Butcher Baker killer. The first person we’ll look at is Cindy Paulson, the victim who got away and was brave enough to help the authorities find the man she knew was going to kill her.
Cindy Paulson, who was only 17 years old then, would not give up without a fight. Hansen used his usual rouse on the young girls as he did with Cindy. He offered her $200 for oral sex, but he changed the stakes once she was in the vehicle and performing oral on him. She looked up to find a .357 magnum pointed at her, then Hansen handcuffed her. He took Cindy home, which he shared with his wife and two children. There, in his basement, which I’m sure seemed more like a dungeon to his victims, he raped, tortured, and assaulted her repeatedly. He needed a nap on the couch, so he chained Cindy naked by her neck to a post in the basement.
After he woke, he unchained Cindy and took her to his car, where he drove them to the Merrill Field airport, where his private plane was located. He told her that he was going to take her to his cabin, which was located on the Knick River. He said he usually kept his victims for a week, still making it out that he wouldn’t kill her, but she sensed otherwise. She was handcuffed and told to wait in the car’s back seat while he got the plane loaded. She knew that she only had one opportunity, and she took it. While Hansen was busy with the plane, she crouched down, opened the driver’s door, wedged herself out from the back seat, and ran.
The airport wasn’t far from Sixth Avenue, where Cindy hoped to find people or a business she could get into and call for help. Before leaving the car, Cindy slipped off her blue sneakers, leaving them in the back seat to prove she had been there, she later told authorities. As she sprinted towards Sixth Avenue, I’m sure her heart was pounding, hoping she could find help. Hansen saw her running and started chasing her, screaming for her to return to him. “Stop, you bitch! Stop, or I’ll kill you!”
Robert Yount was heading to work when he saw Cindy flagging him down. She hopped in his truck, and he noticed how disheveled the poor girl was, not to mention she was barefoot and handcuffed.
When they got to the Mush Inn, she jumped from the truck and ran inside, begging the clerk to call the Big Timber Motel, where her boyfriend was staying. The good Samaritan who had picked her up continued on to work. Still concerned about the situation, he called the police and reported what had happened.
She was gone when the Anchorage Police officers arrived at the Mush Inn, where Yount said he had dropped the girl off. The clerk told the officers the young woman had taken a cab to the Big Timber Motel. After a drive there, the officers found Cindy Paulson still handcuffed. They convinced her to come with them to the police station to give a full statement of what had happened to her.
Cindy, whose ordeal had started how many hours ago, now sat down and told the horrible tale to the Anchorage police. She gave them all the details, including descriptions of the house, car, plane, and the man who had done this to her, Robert Hansen.
Armed with all of this information, the officers paid a visit to Hansen’s home. The same home Cindy had just told them was used to hold her captive. Only two hours after Cindy had escaped him, Hansen answered the door and was polite and calm as he denied the girl’s accusations against him. Hansen then said Cindy was doing this to cause him trouble because he refused to pay her extortion demands. He gave two names of men he was with that evening who could alibi him, John Sumrall and John Henning. When police questioned them, they both lied for Hansen and said they were with him.
Before going to Hansen’s house, they did their due diligence and checked his background, where they found that he had a record.
Around this time, an Alaska State Trooper, Detective Glenn Flothe, had been working on discovering the identities and what happened to several bodies that had recently been found. The first was a body that was soon referred to as “Eklutna Annie” after construction workers found her near Eklutna Road. Next would come the body of Joanna Messina, who was found in a gravel pit. As the third body was found in a shallow grave close to the Knik River, Flothe knew they were searching for one killer. But no one at that time could have even started to imagine how big this would be.
As the investigators were trying to figure out the identities of these young women, who unfortunately had their bodies mauled by bears after being buried, making identification even harder, Hansen was busy finding more women. He ran ads in singles newspapers around this time, trying to entice women to meet with him. “Join me in finding what’s around the next bend, over the next hill.” Unfortunately, they didn’t realize it was rape, torture, and death.
Flothe, having three bodies on his hands, called the Federal Bureau of the Investigation Special Agent Roy Hazelwood to help with a profile. Hazelwood examined the three cases of the three recovered bodies and came up with a very accurate profile of the killer. He said the killer would be an experienced hunter, suffer from low self-esteem, and have been rejected by women throughout his lifetime, and he believed the killer would keep souvenirs from his kills. One very eerily distinct part of the profile was that the killer might have a stutter.
Using the FBI profile, Flothe started narrowing down suspects until he was confronted with Hansen. He fit the profile, and they soon found out Hanen had a plane, which would be needed to access some of the remote spots where they had found the bodies buried. Returning to Cindy’s statement and factoring in the FBI profile, they got a search warrant for Hansen’s plane, cars, and home. The search uncovered damning evidence against Hansen. Among the things found were jewelry that belonged to the missing women and firearms tucked into the attic. The biggest clue that they were onto something much larger than the three bodies and attack on Cindy would come from Hansen’s bed. Behind his headboard, they found an aviation map with “X” marks on it.
After Hansen was pulled in, he did what so many before him had done: deny. He stuck to his lies and returned to his usual ‘It was the woman’s fault,’ which he had used before. But no one bought it, and the investigators continued pulling evidence against him. Finally, as all the pieces started to line up and paint the picture of a serial killer, Hansen gave in and began to confess. It would take more evidence for him to plead guilty, but it would come eventually.
Robert Hansen was charged with assault, kidnapping, numerous weapons offenses, theft, and insurance fraud.
Investigators uncovered the insurance fraud charge during the search of Hansen’s home. Previously, Hansen had claimed to police and his insurance company that burglars stole some of his trophies. He was paid out for them, using the money to buy his Super Cub private plane used in his serial killings. When confronted with the trophies in his house, he said he found them later in his backyard but forgot to tell the insurance company.
Hansen acted as if he was around the fire, telling stories of a great hunting trip he had been on as he retold the horrors he put his victims through. One particular victim, Paula Golding, seemed to excite Hansen as he retold it. Hansen talked about how after he was finished raping, sodomizing, and torturing her, he just opened the cabin door and let her escape. Hanson wanted her to run so that he could hunt her. She was naked, scared, and freezing as she ran for her life. All while Hansen casually followed behind with his hunting rifle.
He talked excitedly as he told of how barefoot she ran across some sharp rocks and cut her feet. This injury caused her to try and hide from him in some bushes. He crept up on her and then called out her name. He told how she jumped up and ran, being frightened by him. He smiled as he said she ran to open ground, and he took his shot.
“It was like going after a trophy, Dall sheep, or a grizzly bear.” That’s how Hansen thought of these women that he hunted, that they were wild game.
It would take the ballistics test results that proved a match between bullets found at the crime scenes and Hansen’s rifle for Hansen to enter into a plea bargain. Through the deal, he pled guilty to four murders that the police had the strongest evidence on, which were for Sherry Morrow, Joanna Messina, Paula Goulding, and the unknown Eklutna Annie. Besides the four murders, Hansen pled guilty to the kidnapping and rape of Cindy Paulson. Also, he had to provide details on his other victims to help bring closure to those families and recover the bodies, which included deciphering the map the investigators found. What he got in return was that he wanted to serve at a federal prison, and he wanted no publicity in the press.
Through deciphering the aviation map, Hansen showed the police seventeen gravesites, twelve of which they hadn’t found yet. But still, there were some marks that he refused to give up the information on, including three “X”marks in the Resurrection Bay area. The authorities believed that two of the marks belonged to Mary Thill and Megan Emrick; both Hansen denied killing. After exhuming the twelve new graves that Hansen pointed out to them, they were able to return the bodies to the families.
In the end, Hansen was sentenced to 461 years plus life in prison, with no possibility for parole. Initially housed in a federal prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, he was later moved back to Alaska. At the age of 75, Robert Hansen died in 2014 from lingering health conditions at the Alaska Regional Hospital in Anchorage.
The Alaskan victims ranged in age from 16 to 41, and he hunted them from 1971 to 1983. We might never know the true count of his victims, but we do know that he raped and assaulted over 30 women and killed at least 17.
The victims couldn’t be saved, but because of the efforts of the authorities and the braveness of Cindy Paulson, there will be no more lives taken by Robert Hansen, the Butcher Baker Killer of Alaska.
Lisa Futrell 41 (Hansen acknowledged, body recovered with Hansen’s help)
Malai Larsen 28 (Hansen acknowledged, body recovered with Hansen’s help)
Sue Luna 23 (Hansen acknowledged, body recovered with Hansen’s help)
Tami Pederson 20 (Hansen acknowledged, body recovered with Hansen’s help)
Angela Feddern 24 (Hansen acknowledged, body recovered with Hansen’s help)
Teresa Watson (Hansen acknowledged, body recovered with Hansen’s help)
DeLynn “Sugar” Frey (Hansen acknowledged, body found by a pilot in the area on August 20, 1985)
Paula Goulding (Hansen acknowledged, body recovered)
Andrea “Fish” Altiery (Hansen admitted, the body never recovered)
Sherry Morrow 23 (Hansen acknowledged, body recovered)
Eklutna Annie (Hansen acknowledged, body found by construction workers, identity still unknown)
Joanna Messina (Hansen acknowledged, body found)
Horseshoe Harriet (Hansen acknowledged, body recovered with Hansen’s help, but her identity has never been found)
Megan Emerick 17 (denied, but suspected of one of the “x” marks Hansen refused to talk about, body not found)
Mary Thill 23 (denied, but suspected of one of the “x” marks Hansen refused to talk about, body not found)
The Alaska state motto is North to the Future. Let’s hope that with Robert Hansen gone, this motto will indeed happen for the rest of the women in Alaska.