[chris]

Alaska is one of the last great frontiers - greater than France, Germany and Britain combined, but with a population smaller than Luxembourg. Anchorage is one such city within these thousands of square miles of wilderness that has a notorious Red Light district. Ever since the late 1970's police had been receiving steady reports about missing prostitutes and topless dancers. Initially these disappearances caused little concern, as such girls were notorious for leaving at a moments notice, usually without telling anyone where they were going. However, police had grown concerned by the sheer number who had left high earning jobs mysteriously without a trace.

On 13 June 1983 a nineteen year old Anchorage prostitute named Cindy Paulson was touting her business on a street corner when she was approached by a pock marked, nervous looking small man who had a terrible stammer. When she agreed on a price with him, he asked for oral sex and she got into his pick up truck. As she was in the process of satisfying her client, she looked up and saw the barrel of a .357 magnum looking down at her. The man then produced a pair of handcuffs from underneath his seat and snapped them on to Cindy's wrists. He then drove off through the leafy suburbs of Anchorage.

The truck eventually pulled up outside a large, blue-grey ranch style house, and the girl was forced inside. She was dragged down to a basement, and once down there, was confronted with a menagerie of icy stares. The basement walls were covered with sporting trophies. The man was a hunter. Cindy was handcuffed naked to a pillar in the centre of the room, and was repeatedly raped and sodomised for hours. The hunter then lay back on the sofa and fell asleep. When he finally awoke Cindy was made to dress, was re handcuffed and driven to the Merrill Field airport, where the truck pulled up alongside a small blue and white aircraft. On the way the hunter had told Cindy that they were going to fly up to the hunters cabin in the Alaskan wilderness. He boasted that he had taken lots of girls up there, for fun. Cindy saw her chance to escape as they arrived at the plane, and the hunter got out. She pushed through the drivers door and ran towards the lights of Fifth Avenue. As she ran she could hear her captor shouting, Stop you bitch! Stop or Ill kill you. Cindy never looked back. As she reached the road she saw a trucks headlights approaching her, and waved it down with her manacled hands. The driver, 36 yr old Robert Yount, slammed on his brakes, and Cindy clambered to safety.



Upon informing the Anchorage police, Cindy was taken to the Anchorage Humana hospital for an examination. The examination revealed vaginal bruising and shackle marks around her neck and wrists, corroborating her story of being abducted. She was then taken to Anchorage police headquarters to be interviewed. Cindy managed to give the police detailed descriptions of her assailants house, car, plane and looks. It did not take the police long to identify the man as 40 yr old Robert Hansen, a married baker who owned a thriving business in Anchorage.

Less than 2 hours after Cindy had made her escape, police arrived at Hansens home, and were confronted by a man who matched Cindys description exactly. The police informed Hansen of the nature of the allegations that had been made against him. He looked astonished and readily agreed to accompany the police to the station. Hansen was interviewed there by Officer William Dennis of the Anchorage PD Sexual Assault Unit. He was co-operative, polite and did not demonstrate any characteristics that suggested his guilt, although he was strangely calm for someone falsely accused. Hansen gave a detailed account of his movements, claiming that his wife and family were away in Europe and that he had been with two friends, John Sumrall and John Henning, at the time he was accused of raping Cindy. Both men, when interviewed, backed up his story. Hansen readily agreed to police searching his house, car and aeroplane, and signed waivers agreeing to this.

When police searched these, it became clear from Cindys detailed descriptions that she had been inside the house and car at some time. However, it came down to the word of a respected local businessman with an alibi against that of a prostitute with a police record. It was Cindys refusal to take a lie detector test that convinced William Dennis that she was lying, and he closed the case. Officer Greg Baker, the policeman who had taken Cindys complaint though, was sure that Cindy had been telling the truth. However, it was not long before police took a more serious look at the Cindy Paulson case.

In July 1980, building workers discovered a shallow grave on Eklutna Lake Rd. It contained the half eaten body of a young woman, and police suspected that it may be one of the missing girls, but due to the appalling conditions of her decomposed body, positive identification proved impossible. Police made a facial reconstruction and it was widely publicised, but the victim was never identified. She became known to investigators as Eklutna Annie. On 12 September 1982 hunters found a second shallow grave on the banks of the Knik River, which borders Anchorage. The remains were identified as that of 23 yr old topless dancer Sherry Morrow, who had been reported missing a year earlier. She had been shot in the back 3 times, and cartridges found near the body suggested that she had been shot with a .223 Ruger Mini-14 hunting rifle. An odd feature was that although the body was found fully clothed, there were no bullet holes in the clothing, suggesting that Sherry had been naked when shot, and had been redressed after death.



A year later, 2nd September 1983, 3 months after the rape and kidnap of Cindy Paulson, a third grave was found on the banks of the Knik River. The victim was identified as another of the missing topless dancers, 17 yr old Paula Goulding. She had been murdered in exactly the same way as Sherry Morrow, and had also been redressed after death. Anchorage police now had to face the fact that they had a serial killer in their midst.

Officer Greg Baker, the policeman who had investigated the Cindy Paulson case, had always harboured suspicions about Robert Hansen, and began a detailed search into Hansens background and personal life. At first, nothing was to be found. Eventually, it surfaced that Hansen had served sentences twelve years earlier, in 1971, for kidnap rape and assault with a deadly weapon. A report detailing Bakers suspicions and a copy of Hansens criminal record was sent to Sgt Glenn Flothe of the Alaska State Troopers, who was heading the topless dancers taskforce. Flothe agreed that Hansen should be considered a suspect, and he began his own investigation into Hansens background. The more he learnt, the more he became convinced he had found his killer, and Flothe decided to reopen the Cindy Paulson case, in an attempt to obtain evidence against Hansen.

Flothe reinterviewed Hansens friends Henning and Sumrall about Hansens alibi and informed them that he was threatening to charge them with perjury. The threat worked and both men admitted they had lied to help Hansen out of what they thought was an embarrassing domestic situation. When both men had retracted their statements, an order was issued for Hansens arrest.

At 8am on the 27 October 1983, Robert Hansen was arrested at his bakery and was taken to the Anchorage trooper station. There, Flothe had stage-managed an interview room following pointers from the FBI. Hansen was placed in an interview room that had been carefully set out. There were maps of the Knik River along the walls, pictures of the grave sites, the victims, on the desk. There were files and folders with the names of Hansens family, friends and acquaintances on them. He was left to sit in here alone for a while, in an attempt to make him stew, and was watched by Flothe through a two-way mirror. Hansen appeared more intrigued than concerned. A few minutes later Flothe and Sgt Darryl Galyan entered the room, and began an interview with Hansen that was to last 5 hours.



Whilst Hansen was being interviewed, a team of officers was searching his house. Behind wooden panelling in his trophy room police found items of cheap jewellery that was later traced back to the dead girls. Police also found a Ruger Mini-14 hunting rifle hidden under floorboards, which was later matched by ballistics as being the weapon that had killed Sherry Morrow and Paula Goulding. The most telling item found was an aviation map of the Anchorage region, which was dotted with 20 drawn on asterisks. Two of these corresponded with sites where bodies had been found, and a third indicated the spot where the body of Joanne Messina, a 24 yr old prostitute, was found in July 1980. Investigators later discovered that she had last been seen with a small, stammering man, with a pockmarked face.

Hansen initially denied any connection with the murders, but when confronted with the wealth of evidence against him, decided to confess. He admitted that the asterisks on the map were grave sites of prostitutes that he had murdered. Hansen claimed that he had not killed every girl he had taken up into the wilderness. He claimed that he only wanted oral sex, and if the girls complied, they were flown home. If they resisted, he would force them to strip at gunpoint, and then make them run. They would usually be given a head start, and then Hansen would stalk them like an animal. Chillingly, he would sometimes allow the victim to think she had escaped, but would then track her down and make her run again. This would continue until the victim was too cold and exhausted to continue running, when the victims would be shot. The redressing, Hansen claimed, was to satisfy his need for control and he likened it to a trophy.

On 27 February 1984 Robert Hansen was brought before Superior Court Judge Ralph Moody at the Anchorage State Court House. Hansen had pleaded guilty to four murders, and 13 others that he had not been formally charged with. Judge Moody sentenced Hansen, who had not shown a flicker of remorse, to 461 years plus life, without the possibility of parole. Hansen was then taken down. In less than 3 hours Hansen had been convicted and sentenced for his years of horrific crimes.

[Mutilatedmind]

Prick.

[stevus_maximus]

Wow. What a fucking nutjob.

[annmarie]

Originally Posted by Mutilatedmind ↗

Prick.

my sentiments exactly

[Stalker420]

Frozen Ground was a pretty good movie that was made about this fuck.

[AussieAngel]

Originally Posted by stevus_maximus ↗

Wow. What a fucking nutjob.

Totally agree! I just can't imagine the fear those women must of felt. Imagine the elation of thinking you've gotten away only to find out they were going to kill you anyway. Only a fucking crazy nut job could do that!

[Hotsauce]

I thought that Cindy was only kidnapped and raped??? Did she not survive ???

[sancatz22]