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The Baker Everyone Trusted Was Hunting Women With an Airplane · FBI Files

0:02
Speaker 1: The dense and rugged Alaskan wilderness provided the perfect cover
0:07
Speaker 1: for a fierce and sadistic killer. He preyed on women,
0:15
Speaker 1: kidnapping them, raping them, torturing them.
0:22
Speaker 2: He hunted them like animals for his own twisted pleasure.
1:01
Speaker 3: In the 1970s and 80s, people went to Alaska looking
1:03
Speaker 3: for a fresh start to reinvent themselves or to disappear
1:07
Speaker 3: for a while. Some of those disappearances weren't by choice.
1:12
Speaker 3: I'm Jim Kallstrom, former head of the FBI's New York office.
1:15
Speaker 3: A serial killer's rampage was exposed when the bodies of
1:19
Speaker 3: young women began turning up in shallow graves that dotted
1:22
Speaker 3: the Alaskan wilderness. The killer was at home in the
1:25
Speaker 3: rugged terrain, but the hunt for him began 3,000 miles
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Speaker 3: away where FBI profile has mapped the criminal's mind.
1:40
Speaker 1: She was a hopeful young model looking for her break.
1:49
Speaker 1: She accepted a job with a man who claimed to
1:51
Speaker 1: be a photographer, but turned out to be a merciless killer.
2:03
Speaker 1: She wasn't his first victim. Or his last. From the
2:35
Speaker 1: 70s through the mid-80s, the wilderness of Alaska became a
2:38
Speaker 1: popular destination. As people flowed north to construct the Alaskan pipeline,
2:44
Speaker 1: the population boomed.
2:49
Speaker 2: On August 13th, 1982, two.
2:51
Speaker 1: Off-duty Anchorage police officers were hunting moose near the Kinnick
2:55
Speaker 1: River in a wilderness about 20 miles from Anchorage.
2:58
Speaker 4: We're not really holding out for us either. Yeah.
3:02
Speaker 5: We're not going to have it.
3:05
Speaker 1: As they made their way through the dense forest, they
3:07
Speaker 1: happened upon partially buried human remains.
3:13
Speaker 2: They left it undisturbed.
3:20
Speaker 1: The next day, crime scene technicians from the Alaska State
3:23
Speaker 1: Troopers arrived at the scene. Crimes out here fell under
3:27
Speaker 1: state jurisdiction. Besides clothing and an elastic bandage, Troopers found a.
3:35
Speaker 1: 223 caliber shell casing in the shallow grave. Dental records
3:43
Speaker 1: identified the remains as 23-year-old Sherry Morrow, an exotic dancer
3:48
Speaker 1: reported missing a year earlier by her boyfriend.
3:54
Speaker 2: Troopers called him in to break the news.
3:57
Speaker 1: Her clothes matched the ones he reported her missing in,
4:01
Speaker 1: but her good luck charm The gold arrowhead pendant she
4:04
Speaker 1: never took.
4:04
Speaker 2: Off was gone.
4:08
Speaker 1: Morrow was probably murdered shortly after she disappeared, giving the
4:12
Speaker 1: killer more than a year to cover his tracks. Finding
4:17
Speaker 1: him would be next to impossible. In the year following
4:24
Speaker 1: the discovery of Sherry Morrow's body, more women began turning up.
4:30
Speaker 1: It's a sad truth that finding bodies in the Alaskan
4:32
Speaker 1: wilderness wasn't all that unusual. Two or three times a year,
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Speaker 1: some novice hiker or hunter would get lost and succumb
4:41
Speaker 1: to the elements.
4:45
Speaker 2: But a growing number of bodies had a different story
4:49
Speaker 2: to tell.
4:51
Speaker 1: During new road construction on September 2nd, 1983, A cool
4:55
Speaker 1: unearthed human skeletal remains, not far from where Sherry Morrow's
4:59
Speaker 1: body had.
5:00
Speaker 2: Been found one year earlier.
5:07
Speaker 1: The bones had obviously been here for some time, yet
5:10
Speaker 1: until recently this area of the Kinnick River was so
5:12
Speaker 1: remote that it could.
5:14
Speaker 2: Only be accessed by boat or light plane.
5:18
Speaker 1: The remains were identified as 17-year-old Paula Goulding. an out-of-work
5:23
Speaker 1: secretary who had moved to Alaska from Hawaii. She had
5:27
Speaker 1: been missing for five months. Like Sherry Morrow, she had
5:31
Speaker 1: taken a job as an exotic dancer to make ends meet.
5:36
Speaker 1: And like Sherry Morrow, a. 223 caliber cartridge was found
5:40
Speaker 1: at the site. For Alaska State Trooper Wayne Van Clausen,
5:45
Speaker 1: the connection was frightening.
5:48
Speaker 6: And that's about when everything started to become kind of
5:52
Speaker 6: scary for everybody because the profile was the same. They
5:56
Speaker 6: were topless dancers from the clubs downtown, but that was
6:02
Speaker 6: certainly when there was the belief that there was a
6:04
Speaker 6: serial murderer out there.
6:07
Speaker 1: Two bodies had been found, but now troopers believed there
6:10
Speaker 1: were more. They began to revisit missing persons reports. Many
6:16
Speaker 1: of those reported missing were exotic dancers, but in Alaska,
6:20
Speaker 1: Their disappearance was not unusual.
6:23
Speaker 6: Missing persons was a relatively low priority. Statutorily, if you're
6:28
Speaker 6: an adult, you have a right to be missing. And
6:31
Speaker 6: there were a lot of instances where these girls would
6:33
Speaker 6: just jump on a plane and go away.
6:36
Speaker 1: Between 1980 and 1983, 12 women had been reported missing.
6:41
Speaker 1: That was only a fraction of the unreported total. Troopers
6:45
Speaker 1: now wondered how many of the missing women were victims.
6:48
Speaker 2: Of the killer. That would be difficult to determine.
6:54
Speaker 1: The Alaska state troopers sent the evidence from the Sherry
6:57
Speaker 1: Morrow and Paula Goulding crime scenes to the FBI's laboratory
7:01
Speaker 1: in Washington, D.C.
7:02
Speaker 2: For analysis.
7:05
Speaker 1: The FBI ran ballistics tests on both shell.
7:08
Speaker 2: Casings to see if they were shot from the same gun.
7:11
Speaker 1: State troopers hoped the results could provide them with strong
7:14
Speaker 1: evidence that the same person committed both murders. The lab
7:20
Speaker 1: results were conclusive. Both women were killed by the same
7:24
Speaker 1: high-powered rifle. There was little doubt. Alaska troopers were dealing
7:30
Speaker 1: with a serial killer. While they began their hunt for
7:36
Speaker 1: him in the wilderness, the Anchorage police were dealing with
7:39
Speaker 1: their own problems. Every city has its dark side, and
7:53
Speaker 1: Anchorage is no different. Except that in Alaska, the nights
7:58
Speaker 1: are longer and darker. In the 70s and 80s, Anchorage
8:04
Speaker 1: was a frontier town. Men came here to work hard,
8:09
Speaker 1: and women followed to ease their loneliness. Some women were
8:14
Speaker 1: lured to the strip clubs, hoping to earn a quick buck. Others,
8:21
Speaker 1: looking for more respectable opportunities, worked in the clubs until
8:24
Speaker 1: something better came up.
8:27
Speaker 2: For many, it never did. And in the city's streets
8:38
Speaker 2: roamed a stalker.
8:42
Speaker 1: He chose carefully. His victims were hardly missed. or in
8:50
Speaker 1: a city made up largely of strangers, it's difficult to be.
8:54
Speaker 2: A missing person.
9:01
Speaker 1: Some of the women who disappeared from Anchorage turned up safely.
9:05
Speaker 1: Some didn't turn up at all. But disappearances weren't the
9:11
Speaker 1: only crimes being reported. On the early morning of June 13th, 1983,
9:15
Speaker 1: Cindy Paulson, age 17, ran down an Anchorage highway.
9:23
Speaker 2: She was partially dressed and in handcuffs.
9:26
Speaker 1: She managed to flag down a passing truck. She was
9:31
Speaker 1: running for her life. The motorist dropped her off at
9:39
Speaker 1: her motel apartment.
9:42
Speaker 2: The desk clerk had called the Anchorage police.
9:47
Speaker 1: An officer removed her handcuffs and tried to calm her.
9:51
Speaker 1: Anchorage police officer Greg Baker recalls the incident.
9:56
Speaker 7: We found her in handcuffs with very little clothes on.
10:00
Speaker 7: She was real credible.
10:02
Speaker 8: She was very scared, she was very frightened, and she
10:05
Speaker 8: told us her story.
10:08
Speaker 2: Paulson, the prostitute, told Baker that she picked up a
10:11
Speaker 2: trick the night before.
10:14
Speaker 1: She described him as wiry, scruffy, about six feet tall,
10:18
Speaker 1: with glasses and a stutter, He was not the kind
10:22
Speaker 1: of person she thought of as threatening. But as soon
10:27
Speaker 1: as she stepped into his car, he handcuffed her and
10:30
Speaker 1: put a wood handle.
10:31
Speaker 2: Revolver to her head.
10:43
Speaker 1: They drove to a respectable residential neighborhood. He pulled her
10:48
Speaker 1: into his house. The place was well kept and full
10:59
Speaker 1: of hunting trophies. He had a chain hanging from the
11:04
Speaker 1: ceiling of his den. He chained her up and stripped her.
11:14
Speaker 1: And there she was tortured and raped. repeatedly for hours.
11:22
Speaker 1: Then he went to take a nap, leaving her there.
11:27
Speaker 1: But he wasn't through yet. He said he was going
11:31
Speaker 1: to take her to his cabin in the wilderness. He
11:35
Speaker 1: said if she tried to get anyone's attention, he'd kill
11:38
Speaker 1: her and them as well. He told her he already
11:42
Speaker 1: had his alibi worked out. His friends were willing to
11:45
Speaker 1: lie for him. No one believe her story. They ended
11:52
Speaker 1: up at the airport. She could see him loading a
11:55
Speaker 1: weapon into a small aircraft. She also saw her chance
12:01
Speaker 1: for escape. Her one chance to save her life.
12:13
Speaker 2: The story sounded outrageous.
12:16
Speaker 1: But her genuine terror compelled Officer Baker to check it out.
12:20
Speaker 8: I had a very street-smart female, scared to death, with
12:24
Speaker 8: a story about being taken at gunpoint and held prisoner
12:30
Speaker 8: at a specific location that she described where it was,
12:33
Speaker 8: so she knew where it was.
12:35
Speaker 7: She described the interior of the location.
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Speaker 8: She described a den, up to and including various animals
12:40
Speaker 8: who were posted on the, mounted on the wall.
12:47
Speaker 1: En route to the hospital for an examination, Paulson insisted
12:51
Speaker 1: on stopping at the airport to show police the airplane
12:53
Speaker 1: she had seen earlier.
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Speaker 2: She positively identified it.
13:03
Speaker 8: While we were in there, we had a security guard
13:06
Speaker 8: stop us and describe the car the same way that
13:09
Speaker 8: Cindy described the car, and in fact gave us a
13:12
Speaker 8: license number. That license number confirmed the address or the
13:17
Speaker 8: area at least, that Cindy had given us regarding where
13:21
Speaker 8: the house was.
13:26
Speaker 1: Police went to the address to speak to the owner
13:28
Speaker 1: of the car. They arrived moments before he pulled up,
13:40
Speaker 1: driving the vehicle described by Cindy Paulson. So far, everything
13:46
Speaker 1: Paulson said checked out, but the suspect had his own
13:50
Speaker 1: story to tell. According to the motor vehicle records, the
14:01
Speaker 1: car that Cindy Paulson was abducted in belonged to Robert Hanson,
14:05
Speaker 1: a baker in Anchorage. Hanson, who fit the description of
14:09
Speaker 1: the man Paulson described, calmly answered questions. He said he
14:14
Speaker 1: was at a friend's house from 5 p.m. to 11.30 p.m.,
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Speaker 1: repairing a seat for his airplane. Afterward, he went to
14:22
Speaker 1: the home of another friend and stayed until around 5.30
14:25
Speaker 1: that morning. Then he went to the airport and installed
14:30
Speaker 1: the seat. Hansen gave police his consent to search his house. Again,
14:40
Speaker 1: his home was exactly as Paulson had described. That only
14:45
Speaker 1: proved she'd been in the house, not that Hansen had
14:47
Speaker 1: raped and tortured her there. They could find no evidence
14:52
Speaker 1: of that. They did notice a loose-fitting wall panel. Behind it,
15:00
Speaker 1: they found a collection of weapons, but that wasn't surprising.
15:04
Speaker 1: Hansen was an avid hunter. They did find a revolver,
15:09
Speaker 1: but it didn't match the one that Paulson described.
15:13
Speaker 2: The gun, the chain.
15:14
Speaker 1: and the blanket she was wrapped in were nowhere to
15:17
Speaker 1: be found. Hanson's car appeared equally clean. Anchorage police found
15:30
Speaker 1: nothing in his car that fit Paulson's story.
15:34
Speaker 7: Those alibis were corroborated and verified. And Mr. Hanson was
15:39
Speaker 7: released after a consent search of his house.
15:43
Speaker 1: Paulson, still shaken from her ordeal, was able to pick
15:46
Speaker 1: Hansen's picture out of a photo lineup.
15:49
Speaker 2: But when given the.
15:50
Speaker 1: Chance to take a lie detector test, she refused. Her
15:54
Speaker 1: occupation gave her an inherent distrust of the police and
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Speaker 1: gave police an inherent distrust of her. She felt she'd
16:03
Speaker 1: never be taken seriously. Soon after, she left town for
16:08
Speaker 1: a while to try to put the nightmare behind her.
16:11
Speaker 1: Anchorage authorities were willing.
16:12
Speaker 2: To let it drop, too.
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Speaker 8: I found out because the alibis were corroborated and because
16:20
Speaker 8: they had a problem with Cindy Paulson appearing and disappearing, and,
16:24
Speaker 8: of course, her lifestyle left a lot to be desired,
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Speaker 8: that the case had been suspended with the Anchorage Police Department.
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Speaker 1: Police had gathered no solid evidence linking her story to
16:34
Speaker 1: Robert Hansen. But for Officer Greg Baker, it wasn't over.
16:40
Speaker 1: He was one officer who believed Paulson's story and.
16:43
Speaker 2: Wouldn't let it go.
16:46
Speaker 1: The predator roaming the streets of Anchorage was still out there,
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Speaker 1: free to claim more victims. Robert Hansen, the most likely
16:58
Speaker 1: suspect in the abduction and rape of Cindy Paulson, had
17:00
Speaker 1: been released for a lack of solid evidence. Officer Baker
17:06
Speaker 1: was still curious. Lately, the Anchorage police had been grappling
17:11
Speaker 1: with what seemed like more than their share of missing
17:14
Speaker 1: persons reports involving prostitutes like Paulson or exotic dancers or
17:19
Speaker 1: women out by themselves. Paulson's assertion that she was about
17:25
Speaker 1: to be put on a plane only reinforced his creeping
17:28
Speaker 1: suspicions about Hanson.
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Speaker 8: He had taken her to the airport where he was
17:34
Speaker 8: going to fly her out with the story that if
17:39
Speaker 8: she maintained her helpfulness that he'd bring her back and
17:43
Speaker 8: let her go.
17:43
Speaker 7: Well, Cindy was bright.
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Speaker 8: Enough to know that she was on a one-way trip,
17:49
Speaker 8: and so was I. And so I kind of just
17:52
Speaker 8: put two and two together and figured that he was
17:54
Speaker 8: a very good suspect for the missing dancers.
18:00
Speaker 1: Baker's supervisor had suspended the investigation into Robert Hansen, but
18:04
Speaker 1: Baker couldn't let it go. Cindy Paulson's nightmarish story had
18:09
Speaker 1: too much detail to not have some basis in truth.
18:13
Speaker 1: But no one except Baker would listen to her. He
18:17
Speaker 1: continued his investigation. On the surface, Baker found nothing in
18:23
Speaker 1: Hansen's record to arouse suspicion. He had moved to Anchorage
18:28
Speaker 1: from Iowa 16 years earlier and opened a bakery. It
18:32
Speaker 1: was a huge success. He had a wife and children,
18:36
Speaker 1: and except for his stuttered, He fit in completely. When
18:40
Speaker 1: he wasn't in the kitchen, Hansen enjoyed flying his small airplane,
18:44
Speaker 1: a Super Cub Piper.
18:47
Speaker 2: Back on the ground, he took to the woods.
18:52
Speaker 1: He was a solid citizen. He just didn't fit the
18:54
Speaker 1: model of a serial killer. There were plenty of others
18:58
Speaker 1: drifting through Alaska more suited to that role. They didn't
19:03
Speaker 1: have businesses. They didn't have families. Hansen did. He had
19:08
Speaker 1: everything to lose. Frank Rothschild was a prosecutor involved in
19:14
Speaker 1: the Paulson case.
19:17
Speaker 5: Bob the baker. The troopers and the police used to
19:21
Speaker 5: go to his donut shop all the time. It was
19:25
Speaker 5: a very popular place to go. He had a bakery.
19:30
Speaker 5: People knew him. He was friendly. He was just a
19:35
Speaker 5: hardworking guy.
19:39
Speaker 1: Unaware of Officer Greg Baker's local investigation in Anchorage, state
19:43
Speaker 1: troopers were still trying to find their serial killer. Bodies
19:48
Speaker 1: continued to be unearthed in the Alaskan wilderness. Troopers set
19:54
Speaker 1: up a task force to study the similarities between the
19:56
Speaker 1: missing women and the murder victims. They hoped to find
20:01
Speaker 1: a common thread that would lead to a suspect. Until
20:06
Speaker 1: authorities knew more, They did their best to educate dancers
20:10
Speaker 1: and prostitutes about playing safe. For the first time, police
20:15
Speaker 1: and prostitutes were on the same side. According to Rothschild,
20:20
Speaker 1: the goal was preservation.
20:23
Speaker 5: Law enforcement were then, and had been for a time,
20:26
Speaker 5: advising young women who were working in some of these
20:30
Speaker 5: clubs and who were working the streets to be careful.
20:35
Speaker 5: And to advise them, there was a a maniac out
20:39
Speaker 5: there who seemed to be abducting and killing people.
20:44
Speaker 1: A little digging revealed that Hansen's criminal history was extensive.
20:48
Speaker 1: Twelve years earlier, in 1971, he'd been arrested twice for kidnapping.
20:53
Speaker 2: Rape, and assault with a deadly weapon.
20:56
Speaker 1: They were crimes that bore an eerie resemblance to what
20:58
Speaker 1: Cindy Paulson had endured. Baker couldn't bring this information to
21:03
Speaker 1: his supervisor. The Paulson case had been officially suspended, and
21:07
Speaker 1: Baker was bucking authorities. That left him no alternative.
21:12
Speaker 8: At that time, I gathered up all the reports and
21:15
Speaker 8: background that I could find on Mr.
21:17
Speaker 7: Hansen and carried it over to the troopers.
21:23
Speaker 1: When the troopers received the file from Officer Baker, they
21:26
Speaker 1: were optimistic. Paulson's testimony, along with Hansen's police record from Anchorage,
21:31
Speaker 1: made him a prime suspect in the state case. The
21:36
Speaker 1: troopers' investigation dovetailed with Baker's, They were both dealing with
21:40
Speaker 1: the same maniac. Robert Hansen was their best suspect.
21:46
Speaker 6: I think everybody was looking at him real seriously because
21:49
Speaker 6: he made a good suspect when you looked into him.
21:51
Speaker 6: He had a pretty extensive criminal background, including some sexual assaults.
21:58
Speaker 2: The only problem was the proof.
22:01
Speaker 1: Though Hansen was a violent sex offender, his record indicated
22:05
Speaker 1: nothing about being capable of homicide. nor was there any
22:08
Speaker 1: direct link from him to Sherry Morrow, Paula Goulding, and
22:12
Speaker 1: the other missing women. At this point, troopers didn't even
22:15
Speaker 1: have enough for a search warrant. They knew only that
22:20
Speaker 1: three women were dead and 12 were missing. Out there
22:23
Speaker 1: lurked a serial killer. Troopers needed to catch him before
22:27
Speaker 1: he killed again.
22:29
Speaker 2: They needed help.
22:31
Speaker 5: We knew we had a mass murder on our hands.
22:34
Speaker 5: That was not something Alaska had any experience with. Somebody
22:39
Speaker 5: obviously knew that the FBI not only had experience with it,
22:43
Speaker 5: but had set out this unit that was designed specifically
22:48
Speaker 5: to try to assist in discovering who these people were.
22:53
Speaker 1: To catch a killer in their own backyard, the troopers
22:56
Speaker 1: called on help from over 3,000 miles away. Only the
23:00
Speaker 1: FBI had the resources needed to get inside a killer's head.
23:07
Speaker 1: When the Alaska state troopers determined they had a serial
23:10
Speaker 1: killer on their hands, they realized they didn't have the
23:13
Speaker 1: expertise to stop him.
23:15
Speaker 2: But they knew who did.
23:20
Speaker 1: Quantico, Virginia is home to the FBI's investigative support unit. Here,
23:25
Speaker 1: agents attempt to predict behavioral patterns by analyzing a criminal's actions.
23:32
Speaker 1: Retired FBI agent John Douglas helped pioneer behavioral profiling, and
23:36
Speaker 1: still works as a consultant. His profiles are based on
23:40
Speaker 1: 25 years interviewing convicted killers. They taught Douglas how to
23:45
Speaker 1: think like they do. He's learned that serial killers are
23:48
Speaker 1: acting out their fantasies of control and conquest. As Douglas
23:54
Speaker 1: slowly wins their trust, he takes them back to the
23:57
Speaker 1: scene of their crime.
23:59
Speaker 9: You finally get them talking, they start giving you that
24:02
Speaker 9: thousand yard stare. They're back, they're back 10 years ago,
24:05
Speaker 9: 20 years ago when they were perpetrating the crime. And
24:08
Speaker 9: they kind of lock into that thousand yard stare. And
24:11
Speaker 9: their memory is just so precise. And the fantasy is
24:15
Speaker 9: what keeps them going over and over and enables them
24:18
Speaker 9: to survive when they're incarcerated. So I got to tap
24:21
Speaker 9: into that. It takes time, but once I'm in there,
24:24
Speaker 9: I get tremendous information.
24:26
Speaker 1: From these interviews, he distilled a checklist of traits and
24:29
Speaker 1: habits that serial killers share. They start young, with lesser
24:33
Speaker 1: crimes such as arson or cruelty to animals. Over the years,
24:39
Speaker 1: their violence builds. To every new case, profilers bring the
24:44
Speaker 1: knowledge of how killers evolve.
24:48
Speaker 9: To understand the criminal, you must look at the crime.
24:52
Speaker 9: You just want to see if you can come up
24:53
Speaker 9: with an analysis based upon preliminary police reports, crime scene photographs,
24:58
Speaker 9: a profile of the victim... autopsy protocol, reviewing that, review
25:04
Speaker 9: the autopsy photographs, do an analysis of the overall crime,
25:08
Speaker 9: the risk level that the subject took, the victim risk level,
25:12
Speaker 9: analysis of the area, maybe the crime scene, maybe you
25:15
Speaker 9: have multiple crime scenes, and then based upon that, you
25:20
Speaker 9: attempt now to come up with a specific type of profile.
25:25
Speaker 1: By examining every aspect of an unsolved crime, a profiler
25:29
Speaker 1: can determine specific characteristics of that killer, such as age, occupation,
25:34
Speaker 1: and physical characteristics. The troopers contacted the FBI to see
25:41
Speaker 1: if the Bureau could work up an analysis of.
25:43
Speaker 2: The Anchorage killer.
25:45
Speaker 1: They hoped the profile would sharpen the investigation and bring
25:49
Speaker 1: overlooked clues to light. The troopers gave the FBI what
25:53
Speaker 1: they needed to build the behavioral profile. For a scrupulous,
25:58
Speaker 1: accurate profile, they required only facts from the troopers, no
26:02
Speaker 1: analysis or theories. Trooper Wayne Van Claassen didn't want to
26:08
Speaker 1: lose any time.
26:10
Speaker 2: The information he.
26:11
Speaker 1: Received from Officer Baker aroused his suspicions about Robert Hansen,
26:15
Speaker 1: but he needed more information. Criminal records were just beginning
26:23
Speaker 1: to be computerized, and he didn't have access to them
26:25
Speaker 1: all in Anchorage. While the profile was being developed, he
26:30
Speaker 1: went to Juneau to collect Hansen's records from the Superior
26:32
Speaker 1: and Supreme Court archives. In his fact-finding mission, Van Claussen
26:38
Speaker 1: researched every town that Hansen had ever lived in. He
26:43
Speaker 1: found reports on Robert Hansen dating back to 1961. He
26:50
Speaker 1: gathered all that he could carry, sent the rest by truck,
26:53
Speaker 1: then headed home. While he was in Juneau, the FBI
26:58
Speaker 1: had come through with a criminal profile of the serial killer.
27:04
Speaker 1: The fact that the killer was so prolific meant to
27:06
Speaker 1: Douglas that he could function unnoticed within the community. Someone
27:11
Speaker 1: who worked independently, most likely a business owner. The killer
27:15
Speaker 1: would be an avid outdoorsman since the bodies were recovered
27:18
Speaker 1: in remote areas of wilderness.
27:24
Speaker 2: Since he preyed on prostitutes.
27:25
Speaker 1: Douglas concluded the killer had difficulty talking to women, had
27:29
Speaker 1: low self-esteem.
27:31
Speaker 2: And grew up feeling like an outcast.
27:35
Speaker 1: Based on killers with similar profiles, Douglas provided a specific
27:40
Speaker 1: characteristic to explain the cause of those feelings of inadequacy,
27:44
Speaker 1: a feature that bore an eerie resemblance to Robert Hansen.
27:49
Speaker 5: The one that totally blew us all away, I think,
27:51
Speaker 5: is that when they said he's either going to be
27:53
Speaker 5: a stutterer or someone who has a lisp, a speech defect.
27:57
Speaker 5: How do you figure that? But that was one of
27:59
Speaker 5: the things that they suggested might show up.
28:04
Speaker 1: The FBI profile pointed to Robert Hansen, but the depths
28:08
Speaker 1: of Douglas' insight were about to be known. Upon Van
28:13
Speaker 1: Clawson's return, troopers studied the files. The records showed that
28:17
Speaker 1: Hansen had spent three years in a reformatory for setting
28:21
Speaker 1: fire to his old high school's bus garage. Based on
28:24
Speaker 1: their work with previous killers, the FBI profilers said the
28:29
Speaker 1: killer would have a history of arson.
28:31
Speaker 4: You have a boyfriend?
28:34
Speaker 9: Yes, actually, I do.
28:36
Speaker 1: The profile painted the killer as a social misfit. Hansen's
28:42
Speaker 1: court-ordered psychiatric reports from his days at the reformatory bore
28:45
Speaker 1: this out. I'm really busy right now, you know.
28:50
Speaker 4: I don't mean.
28:51
Speaker 2: Anything like it.
28:52
Speaker 1: His stutter was a social barrier that undermined his self-confidence.
28:57
Speaker 1: Whenever he tried to assert himself, he'd be slapped down.
29:00
Speaker 2: I have a lot of work to do, or I'm
29:01
Speaker 2: going to call security on you.
29:06
Speaker 1: He never forgot the sting. The profile said the killer
29:12
Speaker 1: would learn to function as a normal member of society
29:15
Speaker 1: while his perversions festered within. His record showed that in
29:20
Speaker 1: his 30s, Hansen began working at a bakery. He would
29:24
Speaker 1: brag to co-workers about his kleptomania and the sense of
29:28
Speaker 1: power it gave him. He also bragged about his love
29:36
Speaker 1: of hunting. He took great pleasure in exerting powerlessness over
29:40
Speaker 1: his prey, stalking it, then wounding it, and he became
29:46
Speaker 1: good at the kill, winning prestigious awards. In 1967, he
29:53
Speaker 1: moved to Alaska to start a new life and for
29:56
Speaker 1: better hunting. Three years after moving there, his record showed
30:03
Speaker 1: he was arrested for the attempted rape of a young
30:06
Speaker 1: receptionist at gunpoint.
30:10
Speaker 2: He pleaded no contest to assault with a deadly weapon.
30:21
Speaker 1: A little more than a month later, he was indicted
30:23
Speaker 1: for the attempted assault of an 18-year-old woman he'd followed home.
30:27
Speaker 5: As soon as the man got to Alaska, He was
30:31
Speaker 5: involved in theft cases. He was involved in abductions. He
30:37
Speaker 5: had psychiatric evaluations showing him to be really unstable and
30:40
Speaker 5: having all kinds of weird sexual fantasies and the rest.
30:44
Speaker 1: True to the profile, Hansen seemed a respectable citizen, so
30:48
Speaker 1: the courts were lenient. In one case, he claimed to
30:51
Speaker 1: have memory lapses and was given psychiatric treatment and five
30:55
Speaker 1: years in a work release program. He abducted one of
30:59
Speaker 1: his early victims outside a coffee shop, took her to
31:02
Speaker 1: a cabin in the wilderness, and raped her at gunpoint.
31:06
Speaker 2: She was 17 at the time.
31:10
Speaker 4: He told me, of course, if I called the police,
31:13
Speaker 4: that he would hunt me down and kill me. He
31:17
Speaker 4: told me he was a fine, outstanding businessman. He had
31:22
Speaker 4: never mentioned at any point during the rape time or
31:27
Speaker 4: before or after that he was married, but he said
31:29
Speaker 4: he's a fine, outstanding businessman and that I was just
31:33
Speaker 4: a kid and nobody would believe me.
31:37
Speaker 2: And he was right.
31:39
Speaker 1: Everything the profiler said about the perpetrator of the serial
31:42
Speaker 1: killings fits suspect Robert Hansen, a truly dangerous man who
31:48
Speaker 1: was passing as a nondescript face in the crowd. While
31:53
Speaker 1: troopers zeroed in on Hansen, they spread out to search
31:56
Speaker 1: for more victims in the Kinnick River area, where three
31:59
Speaker 1: bodies had been found. They believed that the dancers who
32:03
Speaker 1: were still missing may have been buried close to the
32:06
Speaker 1: other grave sites. But troopers came up empty. The area
32:11
Speaker 1: was too large and remote to cover completely. Despite the
32:17
Speaker 1: compelling FBI profile and the past police records, troopers lacked
32:21
Speaker 1: anything tangible to link Hansen to the killings. His police
32:25
Speaker 1: records were too stale, the evidence too circumstantial to hold
32:29
Speaker 1: any weight in a court of law. Investigators hoped that
32:33
Speaker 1: Cindy Paulson could help. She was the only surviving victim
32:37
Speaker 1: to Hansen's current wave of violence. Perhaps she could remember
32:42
Speaker 1: something else from her ordeal. Paulson gave another statement. But
32:48
Speaker 1: this time she was able to ID one of the
32:50
Speaker 1: guns Hansen had in his possession. Aside from Paulson, Hansen
32:57
Speaker 1: had not been implicated in a rape or abduction for
33:00
Speaker 1: more than 10 years.
33:03
Speaker 2: But in the hopes of.
33:03
Speaker 1: Strengthening their case and establishing a pattern of behavior, investigators
33:08
Speaker 1: searched for another of Hansen's victims from years earlier whose
33:11
Speaker 1: experience matched Paulson's. Although this prior victim no longer lived
33:16
Speaker 1: in the area, Troopers tracked her down and asked for
33:20
Speaker 1: her help.
33:22
Speaker 4: I had gotten a call from Alaska asking if I
33:26
Speaker 4: would like to maybe help with a conviction for Mr. Hansen.
33:34
Speaker 4: They had explained to me that he had killed, to
33:36
Speaker 4: the best of their knowledge, seven women. And they explained
33:41
Speaker 4: to me that the last woman had broken free.
33:48
Speaker 1: She agreed to testify when the time came, but troopers
33:51
Speaker 1: still had a weak case. The troopers felt confident they
33:56
Speaker 1: were on the right track. They didn't have enough to
34:00
Speaker 1: prove that Hansen was a serial killer. According to Anchorage
34:04
Speaker 1: Police Officer Greg Baker, Hansen knew that authorities were on
34:08
Speaker 1: to something.
34:10
Speaker 8: One morning I was driving by, and I needed to
34:12
Speaker 8: get some donuts for the shift.
34:14
Speaker 7: Mr. Hansen was there, and he had a.
34:18
Speaker 8: a window that he stood in and decorated cakes and
34:23
Speaker 8: cupcakes and cookies.
34:26
Speaker 7: And I remember watching him.
34:29
Speaker 8: He kept looking up at me, and you could tell
34:31
Speaker 8: he was nervous, and he kept putting frosting on his thumb.
34:35
Speaker 7: And I liked that.
34:41
Speaker 1: Although investigators had Hansen in their sights, they still lacked
34:45
Speaker 1: the evidence to connect him directly to the crimes. But
34:49
Speaker 1: because Hansen matched the profile so closely, Douglas flew to
34:53
Speaker 1: Alaska to review the case and to brief the troopers
34:56
Speaker 1: and prosecutor Frank Rothschild on how to proceed with the suspect.
35:02
Speaker 1: Douglas was confident that Hansen was their serial killer. The
35:06
Speaker 1: hunter was now the hunted.
35:08
Speaker 9: So the mission was to provide an analysis for them.
35:13
Speaker 9: Does he have the capability to.
35:15
Speaker 7: Commit a crime like this?
35:16
Speaker 9: And the answer was yes. I believe this prostitute, and
35:21
Speaker 9: I believe he's capable of perpetrating these crimes.
35:25
Speaker 1: Douglas' idea was to bring Hansen in for questioning while
35:28
Speaker 1: simultaneously searching his house. To obtain a warrant, investigators needed
35:34
Speaker 1: to list specific items they believed to be in the house.
35:37
Speaker 1: They knew to look for the gun that Cindy Paulson
35:39
Speaker 1: described and the one that fired the bullets found in
35:42
Speaker 1: the graves of Sherry Morrow and Paula Goulding.
35:46
Speaker 2: That wasn't enough.
35:47
Speaker 1: They needed a home run, something that would prove Hansen's
35:51
Speaker 1: guilt in no uncertain terms. They asked Douglas if there
35:56
Speaker 1: was anything else to list.
35:57
Speaker 2: In the warrant.
35:59
Speaker 9: Yes, some of the research findings is we're dealing here
36:01
Speaker 9: with a serial killer. And serial killers, it starts off
36:05
Speaker 9: as fantasies. And one of the things to keep the
36:07
Speaker 9: fantasy going after the crime is, because they're on the
36:10
Speaker 9: hunt nightly looking for victims, is they take some type
36:13
Speaker 9: of memento. We call them either souvenirs or trophies. Something
36:16
Speaker 9: belonged to the victims.
36:20
Speaker 1: Douglas helped prosecutors write the affidavit based on the likelihood
36:23
Speaker 1: of finding mementos mentioned in the profile. Anything from a
36:29
Speaker 1: piece of the victim's jewelry to a driver's license. But
36:34
Speaker 1: a behavioral profile had never been used as the basis
36:36
Speaker 1: of a search.
36:37
Speaker 2: Warrant in the United States before.
36:41
Speaker 1: Rothschild knew he'd need to back it up with more
36:43
Speaker 1: conventional information.
36:46
Speaker 5: Obviously, the district attorney's office wanted this search warrant to
36:51
Speaker 5: be bulletproof. They wanted it to be absolutely, positively, without flaw.
36:58
Speaker 5: because they knew this was a big, big case. The
37:01
Speaker 5: last thing they wanted was to have something wrong with
37:03
Speaker 5: the search warrant and have all the evidence thrown out.
37:09
Speaker 1: The affidavit swelled to 48 pages. The judge granted eight
37:14
Speaker 1: search warrants for Hansen's property. Now they just needed Hansen.
37:20
Speaker 1: They had learned his pattern, knew his schedule. On October 23, 1983,
37:24
Speaker 1: they went to pick him up at his bakery But
37:29
Speaker 1: Hansen wasn't there. He'd gotten off to a late start,
37:35
Speaker 1: unwittingly keeping the troopers waiting 20 tense minutes. When asked
37:50
Speaker 1: to come in for questioning, he didn't resist. The interrogation
37:57
Speaker 1: room was ready for him. The goal was to keep
38:00
Speaker 1: him off balance, hoping to elicit a confession and avoid
38:03
Speaker 1: a lengthy legal case. Douglas helped the troopers design the
38:09
Speaker 1: interrogation room for the biggest psychological impact. Crime scene photos
38:14
Speaker 1: and related materials were strewn everywhere for Hansen to contemplate
38:18
Speaker 1: before his interview. At the appointed moment, the troopers arrived,
38:23
Speaker 1: and the mind game began.
38:25
Speaker 4: Mr.
38:25
Speaker 6: Hansen?
38:27
Speaker 1: The FBI coached Rothschild on how to play it.
38:31
Speaker 5: Ask him questions in a way that would prompt more discussion.
38:37
Speaker 5: So that's game plan number one. Then obviously, we've got
38:42
Speaker 5: all of these cases that have been investigated. And to
38:46
Speaker 5: get him to talk specifically about those, he's trying to
38:51
Speaker 5: search us out. What do we know? So I could see.
38:57
Speaker 5: His game plan was to kind of find out what
38:59
Speaker 5: we knew and play off of that. And my game plan,
39:03
Speaker 5: of course, is to find out what he knew.
39:08
Speaker 1: While Rothschild tried to get Hansen to open up and confess,
39:11
Speaker 1: troopers served the search warrants.
39:16
Speaker 2: Hansen's wife was home. The troopers were extra.
39:21
Speaker 1: Cautious, videotaping the entire procedure. What they were looking for
39:27
Speaker 1: could be anywhere, even in plain sight. Hansen knew the
39:37
Speaker 1: troopers had access to his police and psychological records. He
39:42
Speaker 1: didn't tell authorities anything they didn't already know. He spoke
39:46
Speaker 1: of his painful upbringing, his strict family, his anger. He
39:52
Speaker 1: admitted to picking up dancers and prostitutes in the early
39:54
Speaker 1: 70s and how enraged he became when they tried to
39:57
Speaker 1: raise their prices. But he denied threatening any of them.
40:02
Speaker 1: He admitted nothing. While Hansen told his story and his
40:08
Speaker 1: house was being turned inside out, other troopers headed to
40:12
Speaker 1: his bakery and to the airport to search his planes.
40:17
Speaker 2: Both were clean.
40:22
Speaker 1: The house became the focal point of the investigation. A
40:28
Speaker 1: careful search of the upstairs bedroom finally yielded a curious
40:32
Speaker 1: and eerie discovery.
40:34
Speaker 2: An aerial map of the region, peppered.
40:37
Speaker 1: With 37 Xs. They seemed to be clustered mainly around
40:42
Speaker 1: the area where bodies had been found. but there were
40:45
Speaker 1: dozens more marks than bodies, at least so far. The
40:54
Speaker 1: searchers continued up to the attic. Under insulation, the troopers
41:00
Speaker 1: found weapons. Among the items found were a. 223 Ruger
41:07
Speaker 1: Mini-14 rifle, like the one used to kill Sherry Morrow
41:10
Speaker 1: and Paula Goulding. and a wood-handled revolver resembling the one
41:14
Speaker 1: described by Cindy Paulson. The search team let Van Claussen
41:22
Speaker 1: know the good news. The net was closing on Hansen,
41:29
Speaker 1: and he knew it. But he wasn't ready to talk
41:33
Speaker 1: just yet. The interview dragged on for hours. It didn't
41:38
Speaker 1: seem like a confession was likely.
41:42
Speaker 5: I haven't.
41:43
Speaker 8: Never seen him.
41:45
Speaker 1: While troopers collected the evidence, the case unwound even further.
41:50
Speaker 1: Hansen's friend and neighbor stopped by, curious about the activity.
41:57
Speaker 1: She was stunned by the news, then made a confession
42:00
Speaker 1: that demolished the last of Hansen's story. She told troopers
42:04
Speaker 1: that her husband provided Hansen with his alibi on the
42:06
Speaker 1: night of Cindy Paulson's abduction. He'd lied to protect his friend,
42:11
Speaker 1: not realizing how serious Hansen's charges were. The husband later
42:16
Speaker 1: called police and retracted his statement. Hansen's alibi evaporated. As
42:23
Speaker 1: the search continued, the troopers found the most incriminating evidence
42:27
Speaker 1: so far.
42:28
Speaker 2: Evidence that Douglas knew had to be there somewhere.
42:31
Speaker 1: They found Sherry Morrow's necklace and other personal property belonging
42:35
Speaker 1: to the dead or missing women. They had found Hansen's
42:39
Speaker 1: stash of trophies.
42:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is Baker here.
42:43
Speaker 1: Investigators called the station. Though they had Hansen where they
42:48
Speaker 1: wanted him, still he wouldn't confess. But they had enough
42:53
Speaker 1: to lock him up on the Cindy Paulson case. Bail
42:58
Speaker 1: was set at $ 500, 000. Investigators now had time to build
43:03
Speaker 1: their case against Hansen as a serial killer. They called
43:07
Speaker 1: the prior victim to see if she was still on board.
43:11
Speaker 4: And at that time, they thought he had killed 11 women.
43:15
Speaker 4: And was I still interested in being a witness? They
43:20
Speaker 4: really felt that they may need me, because he hadn't confessed.
43:24
Speaker 4: All right, what you got?
43:25
Speaker 1: Three points on the map found in his bedroom matched
43:27
Speaker 1: the locations of bodies recovered by the troopers. Another X
43:31
Speaker 1: marked the location of a body recovered by Seward police
43:34
Speaker 1: years earlier. The remaining Xs presumably marked the graves of
43:39
Speaker 1: more victims dozens.
43:41
Speaker 5: Of them looking at the map obviously was pretty chilling
43:47
Speaker 5: because we believe the map the map was a body
43:52
Speaker 5: count as far as we were concerned the man had
43:55
Speaker 5: kept track he didn't have newspaper clippings he had the map.
44:02
Speaker 1: When the troopers believed they had enough to convict Hansen
44:04
Speaker 1: on at least four murders they confronted him and his
44:07
Speaker 1: lawyer with the evidence Hansen couldn't refute it. He had
44:12
Speaker 1: no place left to hide. Finally, it was time to confess.
44:23
Speaker 1: Time for Hansen to cut a deal. Hansen said he
44:28
Speaker 1: would confess to the murders that could be proven, as
44:31
Speaker 1: long as the trial was given no publicity and that
44:33
Speaker 1: his family be left alone. He demanded that he be
44:39
Speaker 1: imprisoned outside of Alaska when the trial was over. In
44:44
Speaker 1: exchange for only four convictions, he agreed to show the
44:47
Speaker 1: troopers where more bodies were buried. Investigators called the prior
44:55
Speaker 1: victim to tell.
44:56
Speaker 2: Her the good news.
44:58
Speaker 4: The third time they called back and said that he
45:01
Speaker 4: had confessed and they wouldn't need me. So I hung
45:06
Speaker 4: up the phone when we were done talking. I got
45:09
Speaker 4: my son off to school, got my husband at the door,
45:15
Speaker 4: and proceeded to fall apart. I started crying. I couldn't stop.
45:24
Speaker 4: I had no control over it. It controlled me. I
45:29
Speaker 4: could see each and every one of those women, how
45:34
Speaker 4: they died, probably hunted down like wounded, and then hunted more.
45:47
Speaker 1: In his confession, Hansen described how he would take his
45:50
Speaker 1: victims into the woods and hunt.
45:52
Speaker 2: Them as prey.
45:55
Speaker 1: Over the dozen years that he lived in Alaska, he'd
45:57
Speaker 1: raped more than 30 women and developed many strategies for
46:01
Speaker 1: capturing them. Once he found a likely target, A solitary
46:08
Speaker 1: woman like Sherry Morrow. He would befriend her and arrange
46:11
Speaker 1: to meet her at a fast food place. If they
46:16
Speaker 1: were dancers or aspiring models, he'd offer to pay to
46:19
Speaker 1: photograph them. He'd arrive early and stay in his car.
46:24
Speaker 1: That way he'd be certain the woman arrived alone and
46:26
Speaker 1: had no one waiting for her in the parking lot.
46:30
Speaker 2: No witnesses.
46:32
Speaker 1: Then he'd go in and meet his new victim. One
46:47
Speaker 1: half of the handcuff was already fastened to the seat.
46:52
Speaker 1: Hansen boasted that snapping the other half onto his victim's
46:55
Speaker 1: wrist while reaching for his gun became like a reflex.
47:01
Speaker 1: Then he would take them home or to a remote
47:03
Speaker 1: motel to rape and torture them. Afterwards, he'd blindfold them
47:10
Speaker 1: and drive or fly them to the outskirts of town
47:13
Speaker 1: until he arrived at a secluded spot, his hunting ground.
47:19
Speaker 1: His habit was to toy with his prey before he
47:21
Speaker 1: made the kill. Hansen confessed that in the summer of 83,
47:30
Speaker 1: he devised what he called his summer plan. He sent
47:33
Speaker 1: his family away so he could bring his victims home.
47:37
Speaker 1: When he was done with them, he'd dispose of them
47:39
Speaker 1: in the wilderness. On February 27th, 1984, Robert Hansen was
47:52
Speaker 1: convicted of murdering four women and sentenced to 461 years
47:58
Speaker 1: plus life with no chance of parole. After his sentencing,
48:07
Speaker 1: Hansen accompanied troopers into the field to find more of
48:10
Speaker 1: his victims represented by Xs on his map. A total
48:15
Speaker 1: of eight victims were found. Some places on the map
48:20
Speaker 1: went unexplored. Bears scavenged others, scattering the remains. Investigators will
48:29
Speaker 1: never know how many of the 37 X's represented.
48:33
Speaker 2: One of Hansen's victims.
48:36
Speaker 1: According to John Douglas, the map might have depicted only
48:39
Speaker 1: a small part of his hunting grounds.
48:42
Speaker 9: Killers like Hans will come into contact with a lot
48:44
Speaker 9: of women, but Fantasy is everything, and they may not
48:48
Speaker 9: like the way the person talks or the person dresses, style,
48:55
Speaker 9: and so they'll make a decision. Well, this one will live,
48:58
Speaker 9: this one over here will die. I believe he was
49:02
Speaker 9: good for a lot more cases, and I still believe
49:05
Speaker 9: there was a chance that one of the reasons that
49:07
Speaker 9: caused him to go up to Alaska, he was running
49:10
Speaker 9: away from homicides back in the lower 48s.
49:14
Speaker 1: In the United States, an estimated 35 to 50 serial
49:17
Speaker 1: killers are active at any given time. Profiling has made
49:21
Speaker 1: them easier to spot and apprehend. Each time one is captured,
49:25
Speaker 1: investigators learn more about their twisted motivations, making it easier
49:30
Speaker 1: to catch the next one.
49:58
Speaker 4: Thank you.