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Jill and Julie Hansen Pt. Two · The Path Went Chilly

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Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two of our series about the
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murders of Jill and Julie Hanson. Robin, do you want to catch everyone
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up on what we talked about in our previous episode. The crime took place
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in Willow Creek, California, in nineteen eighty six, and the two victims
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were a pair of twin sisters sixteen years old, Jill and Julie Hanson,
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who were living with their parents, Hans and Betty Hanson, and also their
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a half brother, Donnie, who was conceived in a previous marriage Betty's previous
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relationship before she got married to Hans. He happened to be staying over that
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at their mobile home. But then there was a major fire and the family
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tried to do everything to put it out, and they called the fire department,
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and then they would discover got a double check which one it was that
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died first. I always forget Julie. She was discovered in a field across
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the street, and it turned out she had a gunshot wound to the stomach,
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and it became obvious that this was a deliberately planned crime with arson and
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murder, and they would find Jill's body in the wreckage shortly thereafter, and
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she also had a gunshot wound to her stomach. And even though Julie was
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still survived and was taken to the hospital and held on for a few weeks,
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she wound up passing away too when an air bubble accidentally entered her vane.
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And suspicions started turning towards Donnie because it turned out that the he tried
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to go back into the crime scene to retrieve the shotgun, and it turned
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out that he had borrowed it from a friend, and that bunch of gasoline
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that was used to start the fire have been charged to his credit card only
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a few days before the crime took place. There seemed to be overwhelming evidence
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against him, and when Donnie went on trial, his defense attorney tried to
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paint a scenario that two other intruders broke into the house and happened to kill
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the two girls before setting it on fire, and reasonable that was created because
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there were other neighbors who claimed to see two unidentify men outside the trailer while
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it was on fire, and of course the defense tried to say that they
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were the real killers and that Donnie was completely innocent, and the jury seemed
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to buy it. They didn't necessarily believe Donnie was innocent, but they still
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thought there was reasonable doubt, so they wound up finding him not guilty.
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During the trial, Hans and Betty were very supportive of Donnie, but as
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time went on they came to believe that he was responsible for what happened,
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so they wound up disowning him, and he moved away to a new state
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and changed his name. But though Donnie was acquitted, he cannot be charged
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with the crime again. There has always been suspicion that he did not do
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this alone, and that at the very least he would have had some other
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accomplices. So there's still a lot of unanswered questions about this case. Well,
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no matter which way you look at it, even if Donnie Hanson is
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guilty, this is still a pretty bizarre crime and there are a number of
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unanswered questions. There weren't many people featured on Unsolved Mysteries whom you'll feel more
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sympathy for than Hans and Betty Hanson, who moved to Oregon in the years
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following the crime. In order to start over. The couple had to experience
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an unimaginable tragedy, as they not only lost two daughters, but had to
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come to terms with the fact that their own son was likely involved in the
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crime. Even though Hans was technically Donnie's stepfather, he had raised him since
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he was around two years old, and shared this heartbreaking line during his Unsolved
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Mysteries interview. Quote, this has been a real tragedy for us because we've
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lost three of our four children out of this. Two of them are dead,
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and Donnie's dead to me because I do feel like he was one hundred
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percent responsible for this, whether he pulled it off one hundred percent himself or
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not. End quote. I would be interested to know when the Hansons ultimately
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came to this realization, because Betty did say that she was initially happy when
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Donnie was acquitted. We've seen a number of cases in which a murderer's family
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sticks by them and refuses to believe that they're guilty in spite of overwhelming evidence.
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But it seems like Hans and Betty reached the point where they realized that
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there was no way Donnie could have been innocent in all this. Since Donnie
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could not be charged with this crime again because of double jeopardy. I can
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understand why his refusal to come clean would lead to estrangement from his family.
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If he did have accomplices and someone else pulled the trigger, they could technically
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still face justice for what they did, but Donnie refuses to name them or
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acknowledge any involvement. Jules, you nailed it when you said, regardless of
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what Donnie did or didn't do, your heart breaks for these parents who,
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at the end of the day, they lost two children to murder as the
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victims, but then come to this realization that they're, in the stepfather's eyes,
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one hundred percent sure that Donnie's responsible, and so they technically lose this
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third child and they're left picking up the pieces of saying how do you reconstruct
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a family when so you know, half of us are missing. And what's
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really difficult in these cases is oftentimes law enforcement can't share all the details with
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the family as they're going through a trial. But when a trial ends and
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a verdict's been rendered, there are detectives who sit down with families and are
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able to be much more frank and open because they love and care about these
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people they're working with. You really do take on a liking to in a
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friendship to families like this that are just grieving and hurting and asking for help.
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And so it's possible that when the trial ended that either the prosecutors or
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the police were able to reveal more information or be more transparent and blunt with
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the family than they were prior to. So when he was acquitted, Mom
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was thinking, this is wonderful, right, he's we're safe and this is
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not our son's fault, and so we can kind of heal our family having
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two of our children. And then possibly as they learn more information from the
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prosecutor and the police, that's when they come to the realization that, wow,
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I didn't even the trial didn't say it that bluntly to me. Point
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I never thought of that that maybe the Hansons just did not have all the
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information before they went to trial. There could have been some details that were
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withheld from them, and it was only afterwards, after Donnie was acquitted,
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that they were able to sit down and explain the full story, all the
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evidence of the details, and that's what caused hans and Betty to change their
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mind. But who knows, it could have been Donnie himself who changed their
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minds because maybe he just did not show any grief towards his sister or something,
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or maybe he did something suspicious and that the more they thought about it,
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the more they realized. Yeah, even though he was found not guilty,
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he had to have been involved in this. By the time Donnie appeared
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on Unsolved Mysteries, he had moved out of the area and changed his name,
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so during his interview his face was shown in silhouette and his voice was
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digitized. He also really seemed to like using the word ludacrous by saying things
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like quote, the accusations that I know what went on that night are absolutely
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ludicrous. Of course, when asked to account for the many discrepancies in his
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original story, Donnie really didn't do a very good job explaining them and made
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himself look even worse. I think if you were to take a poll among
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Unsolved Mysteries fans about Donnie's guilt or innocence, virtually none of them would vote
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that he's innocent. But the full extent of his involvement in this crime is
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not so clear cut. As far as the rest of the Hanson family,
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it sounds like Hans, Betty, Jill, and Julie were all considered to
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be genuinely nice people within the community. During his Unsolved Mysteries interview, hans
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said that even though the twins were popular in school, they also acted very
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friendly and sympathetic towards underdogs and would befriend anyone. There's virtually no information out
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there about the surviving Hanson daughter, Becky, but I would be really curious
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to know about what the family dynamic was like with Donnie. If you look
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up any online discussions about this case, you'll find comments from a few people
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who claim to have known the Hansons personally and say nothing but nice things about
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most of the family. But they don't speak all that glowingly about Donnie,
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and you get the impression that he was pretty much the black sheep. I
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don't know if he had a history of trouble before this crime took place,
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but I'd love to know if there were any warning signs to suggest he was
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the type of person who was capable of murdering his own family. Can you
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all refresh me? Donnie's story did change while he was interviewed by police and
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then interrogated by police. Originally, I recall him saying something that said that
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he actually carried one of the girls to safety, and then it turns out
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he definitely did not like he was playing both sides, saying, you know,
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thinking maybe one of the scissors was going to survive and could tell on
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him. Remind me what happened there. Well, that happened originally because when
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the fire was going on and Hans was asking have you seen Julie and Donnie
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said no, And it was only after they discovered Julie's body in the lot
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across the street that he said, oh, yeah, I carried her out.
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It's my I was the one who got her out of there. But
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Unsaw Mysteries interview is when he changed the story about the shotgun because he originally,
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as you recall, the police caught him trying to break into the family's
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warehouse because he had stashed the gun there and thought he could go in to
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get rid of it. And he originally said that he hid the shotgun because
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he was worried that he would get blamed for the crime. But then he's
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interviewed years later on Unsolved Mysteries and said, oh, actually I decided to
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hide the gun because I was worried it'd get stolen, as if someone who's
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in the middle of a house fire losing your family is going to care about
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their precious shotgun being stolen, or that you'd care if you were going to
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be blamed. I mean, the reality is is my priority is my family
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in that moment, and that wouldn't be where my brain was at that time.
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I mean, that might be while I'm sitting in an interrogation room,
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I might go, oh, Lord of mercy, this is going to look
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real bad on me. But in the moment, and like you said,
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while his father screaming, where's you know? Have you seen her? Have
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you seen her? And he's saying no, and then makes up this elaborate
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hero story. It's wild to think that someone in the midst of this trauma
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of watching the physical fire and the physical possessions burn, and then knowing your
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sisters are harmed in this fire, right everyone thought it was just the fire,
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to be thinking about any of those extra details makes zero sense. One
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might even say it's ludicrous. Quite The most prominent theory about a potential motive
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for is that he wanted to collect on a life insurance policy that his stepfather
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had. But even if he had managed to kill everyone in the trailer that
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night, he still would have had to split the insurance money with his surviving
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sister, Becky, and if Donnie had accomplices, they presumably would have demanded
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a cut of the money as well. We know that Jill and Julie were
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shot, whereas Hans and Betty were not. But was this an intentional choice
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or did Donnie just not get the opportunity to kill his mother and stepfather as
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well. The fact of the matter is that Donnie lived in an entirely different
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town and had stopped by to visit his family, So if he was a
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completely innocent victim, it's quite a coincidence that they would happen to be attacked
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on the one night when Donnie was staying there. Now, in a moment,
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Robin is going to go over the scenario presented by Donnie's defense team at
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his trial, which involved two random intruders breaking into the trailer and committing the
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crime. I'm glad that Unsolved Mysteries presented a reenactment of this scenario because when
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you watch it unfold on screen, it gives you a pretty good idea of
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how absurd the whole thing really is, and Remember, it doesn't sound like
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the defense ever presented a potential motive for why these two intruders would decide to
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perform a home invasion on the Hansens, a well liked family who did not
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seem to have any known enemies. I'm excited to hear these theories. Also,
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remember if this was someone who wasn't random. I know we're about to
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talk about a random intruder, but if this was someone plotting to kill the
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girls or kill the family, when they would see that there's an extra vehicle
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there, wouldn't that also deter them from being at the scene because you already
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know that there's a mom, dad, and these two girls. If you're
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planning this, and then you drive up and you see an extra car,
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that could mean an extra adult, an extra male, someone that's going to
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confront you. I feel like if it was a planned attack, Donnie's presence
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would have actually deterred people from being there because they would have been familiar with
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whose cars would be in the driveway and what activity would be going on at
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the house. And then here's Donnie arriving. Now there's gonna be a theory
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thrown out by the defense that says These are random perpetrators that just so happened
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to have this plan that kills the girls. I'm ready to hear it,
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and I think it too will be quite ludicrous. Yeah, there's gonna be
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a lot of sarcasm when we describe these scenarios. So the story goes that
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the perpetrators showed up at the hands and trailer at three am without bringing any
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weapons of their own, but by pure luck, Donnie just happened to have
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a shotgun, some shells, and two full cans of gasoline inside his car,
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which he had borrowed or purchased during the preceding days. Man, don't
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you just love it when you plan a home invasion and the victims are courteous
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enough to leave the items to use outside their residence. These men then break
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inside and start pouring gasoline all over the trailer while Donnie is sleeping right there
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on the couch and somehow manage not to wake him up. When Julie suddenly
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walks out into the hallway, one of the intruders uses Donnie's shotgun to fire
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a shot into abdomen before starting a fire and fleeing the trailer. When you
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watch the scene in the reenactment, you'll see that when the shot is fired,
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the gunman is standing literally only inches away from Donnie while he's waking up
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on the couch. Yet he somehow does not notice Donnie and just decides to
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completely ignore him and not shoot him too. The most ridiculous part of the
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scenario is that Donnie supposedly tended to his wounded sister and move Julie's body onto
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the porch before helping his parents with the fire, which would explain why Julie
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wound up crawling to the vacant lat across the road. But the problem is
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that at no point before he was arrested or put on trou for murder did
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Donnie tell his parents or anybody else that he witnesses Julie gets shot by this
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mysterious intruder, which seems like a pretty important detail to share if both if
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your sisters have been murdered and your family's home burned down. Yeah, this
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doesn't work because Donnie even was seen by his parents screaming get out, get
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out, and the girls weren't present. She one of them believed they might
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have seen somebody else, another person there. I don't believe Donnie's sleeping through
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this either a shotgun blast and you slept through that. I just I don't
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see that being possible whatsoever. And you brought up the point about how if
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these intruders saw an extra car parked outside the house, they might be discouraged
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from going in there, thinking that there were more people to possibly have to
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overcome. And let's just say theoretically that these were intruders who were specifically targeting
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Jill and Julie, that maybe they wanted to break in and sexually assault them
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in their bedroom or something. Yet they're going through the front door and they're
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not discouraged at all by seeing an extra person there sleeping on the couch,
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Like they would have to pass by Donnie before they even made it to the
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bedrooms. So that's just another hole. And like why they would decide to
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do this and then just leave Donnie alone, even though he's the first person
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they would see when they went inside. And if they were there to annihilate
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the entire family for whatever reason, it wasn't sexually motivated. You'd think that
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they would murder the men first. They would get Hans and they would get
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Donnie, and then they would deal with the women. After because they would
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be easier to manage. You wouldn't just go straight for the most vulnerable ones
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there, the two sixteen year old girls. No, you'd surely shoot Donnie
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on the couch if you walked by him. And they said, like,
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well, maybe they didn't see him. That's pretty hard to miss a grown
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man sitting on a couch. But I'll also tell you that, you know,
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you got to think about the situation here. If these people even were
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just random passerbys that didn't come prepared whatsoever and hit this treasure trove in Donnie's
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car, They're coming up to the scene and they're going, is this a
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good place to attack? Yes or no? And you have two teenage girls
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that could be driving, so they could either share a car or each have
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their own car, so that could be one to two cars. You got
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Mom and Dad who likely have their own cars, so now you're at two,
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three, four cars, and then Donnie's there, so you could have
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up to five cars parked in that front yard or driveway. And to me,
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if I'm looking to see who could I case, who could I go
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attack? Who could I I would look for a single car right so that
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I don't think that there's gonna be five adults that can charge me when I
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walk through this door. It makes no sense. Remember, during the chaos,
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while they were attempting to put out the fire, Hans said he asked
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Donnie if he had seen the twins, and Donnie replied no. It was
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only after Julie was discovered in the lot when Donnie changed his story and said
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that he'd gotten her out of the trailer. Yet he didn't mention anything about
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witnessing her get shot, and no one else even realized Julie had a gunshot
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wound until after she was rushed to the hospital and token into surgery. This
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would tie into the problematic story Donnie shared after he was caught breaking into the
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warehouse to retrieve the shotgun, as he told police he'd taken it from the
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car and hit it there because he feared he'd get blamed for the crime.
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But once again, it was not until after Julie was taken into surgery that
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anyone even found out a crime had occurred. For all, anyone knew,
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the fire could have just been an accident, Yet Donnie's making it his top
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priority to hide a shotgun in order to avoid being blamed for shooting no one
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was even aware had taken place. During his Unsolved Mysteries interview, Donnie changed
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his story and said that he hit the shotgun because he was worried it might
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get stolen. But I just don't see how a normal person would even be
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thinking of something like that if they were going through the traumatic ordeal of witnessing
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their famili's home burned to the ground. If the defense scenario was and these
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intruders took the shotgun from Donnie's car, it was awfully nice of them to
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put it back there so that Donnie could grab the murder weapon and hide it
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in order to avoid being blamed for the shooting. For an innocent person,
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Donnie sure did a lot to preemptively cover his tracks for a crime that he
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did not even commit. Who well, that explanation with a shotgun really does
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put you in a place where you go that defense is impossible, because,
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like you said, no one even knew the girls were shot, and therefore,
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what would bring your attention to the fact that you had a shotgun in
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your car. Did he ever say, I found the shotgun in my car
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and I went and I hit it, or you know, so it wouldn't
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get stolen, because if he found it at the scene and he goes,
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that's my gun. Oh no, they're gonna think I did this, I
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gotta go hide it. If that was his explanation at one point, then
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he did know they were shot before anybody at the hospital did. And so
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Donnie he really did dig himself in a deep, deep ditch. I have
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no idea how the defense team convinced a jury that Donnie was not guilty.
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I get there's reasonable doubt because more people could have been involved, but that
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simply accomplices that haven't been caught. Donnie has to be the root of it.
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And so the fact that the defense did a good enough job to cause
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that reasonable doubt that Donnie actually was not involved pretty powerful defense attorneys. Yeah,
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we talked about this in the last episode, but I guess maybe one
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of the reasons is that they did not actually charge him with conspiracy to commit
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murder. They charged him with murder itself. So the jury's thinking to themselves,
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well, I think Donnie might be involved, but they never actually proven
20:44
that he was the guy who pulled the trigger and murdered his sister. And
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if that's the case, we just have to acquit because even though this defense's
20:51
scenario is completely implausible, it still doesn't mean that Donnie was the actual trigger
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man, and that's what he was charged with. They were saying, if
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you can't prove he pulled the trigger himself, then we can't convict. That's
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what I'm guessing. Yeah, because the jury said, we don't believe he's
21:07
innocent, but we still don't think that the prosecution had proven its case beyond
21:11
a reasonable doubt. When you break down the defense's alternate scenario from beginning to
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end, it does seem pretty astonishing that a jury could hear this and vote
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not guilty. Of course, one of the worst breaks for the prosecution's case
21:26
was when Julie died in the hospital before she could testify about what she saw
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at trial. Given the circumstances of how she passed away, it's tempting to
21:34
believe that someone might have tampered with Julie's intravenous feeding tube to allow the air
21:40
bubble to enter our heart, But I genuinely believe that this was nothing more
21:44
than an unfortunate freak accident. Donnie had already been arrested by the time Julie's
21:48
death took place, and if anyone else was involved in this crime, I
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highly doubt they would have been sophisticated enough to sneak into a hospital to disconnect
21:56
Julie's IV tube without being seen. That type of covert operation to eliminate a
22:03
witness is the type of thing you see in movies, but I don't see
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it happening in a small town in Humboldt County, California. The circumstances of
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Julie's death were extensively analyzed when Hans and Betty filed the civil lawsuit against the
22:15
hospital and took them to trial years later, but there's nothing to suggest it
22:19
was intentional sabotage. No, I'd have to agree with what Hans and Betty
22:25
fought for that it was neglect or an error on the hospital part, that
22:29
something simply wasn't checked, it wasn't inserted correctly, that it wasn't cleaned correctly,
22:34
and therefore this freak accident led to Julie's death. Now, the reality
22:40
is is that Donnie and or this mysterious intruder or intruders are responsible for her
22:48
death because had she not been there and the hospital due to the fire and
22:52
the shotgun blast. She'd be alive today. And it's pitiful that Julie wasn't
22:59
one a to survive this, but that she also wasn't able to gain the
23:03
strength to provide a statement to police, or to provide any kind of written
23:10
note or anything saying this is what happened, because it's very possible if Julie
23:14
had regained consciousness and been able to communicate that she would have said last thing
23:18
I saw was Donnie coming into my room with a shotgun or running towards me
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with a shotgun. Yeah, it is true because Donnie was initially only charged
23:26
with Jill's murder because Julie was still alive at the time. But they still
23:30
had the mindset though, when Julie died that even though this was an accident
23:33
with an air bubble, we're still going to charge Donnie with this murder as
23:37
well, because he was directly responsible for her winding up in the hospital to
23:41
begin with. I'm surprised that their parents didn't get a payout from the hospital
23:47
that was rather substantial, because doctors and have to pay a huge amount of
23:52
malpractice insurance, and hospitals are usually pretty well equipped to just do these payouts
23:59
when these mistakes happen. So it's really unfortunate in such a tragic situation where
24:03
they'd already lost Jill and Julie was hanging on by a thread, and by
24:10
a mistake that happened, they ended up losing their other daughter. And of
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course she wouldn't have been there had it not been likely for Donnie. But
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still, it's just unfortunate that they didn't get a payout there because who knows
24:22
if she would have made it. Yeah, it is very sad because the
24:26
civil trial did not actually take place until a couple years after the murder trials,
24:30
So not only did they not get to see justice for their murdered daughters,
24:33
but they didn't even get any financial gain from the hospital's negligence. But
24:38
ask yourselves, this, would Donnie's trial have turned out differently if Julie had
24:44
lived to testify against him. As your recall, Julie said that she remembered
24:48
seeing Donnie's face in the flash of a shotgun blast. But even if her
24:52
memory was genuine, I'm not sure if this conclusively proves that he pulled the
24:56
trigger. If the unsolved mysteries the re enactment of the shooting is accurate.
25:02
The coach Donnie was sleeping on would have been in Julie's line of sight from
25:04
the hallway, so if another person was standing near Donnie when they fired the
25:10
shot, it's possible that Julie still could have seen Donnie's face in the flash,
25:15
even if he was not holding the gun. The details are pretty vague,
25:18
but it sounds like the police did not do a particularly thorough job collecting
25:23
fingerprints from the shotgun or the empty shells, And since Donnie was not implicated
25:29
as a potential suspect until days later, I'm sure that they never checked his
25:33
hands for gunshot residue right after the crime took place. Even if Donnie's prints
25:40
were on the shotgun or the shells, that would hardly implicate him, since
25:44
he borrowed or bought these items. But if they had found fingerprints belonging to
25:49
anyone else, then that points to another shooter being involved, though it doesn't
25:53
necessarily clear Donnie. So I totally forgot that Julie had said she saw Donnie's
26:00
face, So to just back up from what I was saying a minute ago,
26:06
I almost think that it's possible that was that said at trial? Was
26:11
that allowed to be said at trial because she was deceased at that point and
26:14
he couldn't cross examine her. Is that was she allowed to testify? No,
26:18
she only gave like a statement in the hospital, but they could not
26:21
allow her statement to be used at trial because the defense would not be able
26:23
to cross examiners since she passed away. I wonder how much the parents knew
26:29
about the brief statement that she was able to give prior to the trial then,
26:33
because at the end, if the police said, look, it wasn't
26:36
a missible in trial, or the prosecutor sat down and said, listen,
26:41
I need you to be very weary of you know, I want to be
26:44
very honest with you and transparent. Here's the things we could not present at
26:48
trial. And they heard that their baby girl, in her last moments to
26:52
communicate on this earth, said that her brother had she had seen him as
26:57
the shotgun blast goes off. As a mother, I would believe my baby
27:03
girl's voice, whether the police could prove it or not, and that could
27:07
be a game changer on the way I defended my son. Yeah, that's
27:11
a good point, because that wasn't used as evidence. As trials, so
27:14
it is possible that Hans and Betty just were unaware of this story about seeing
27:18
Donnie's face in the flash until after the trial took place, and that could
27:22
have played a role in changing their minds. The biggest piece of evidence which
27:26
God Donnie acquitted was the eyewitness accounts from the neighbors who saw two men standing
27:30
outside the Handsome residence while it was on fire. The sound of a car
27:34
screeching down the street was also apparently heard, which suggests that someone fled the
27:38
scene. It doesn't sound like the witnesses provided a detailed enough description of the
27:44
two men for a composite sketch, so I initially wondered if they might have
27:48
actually seen Hans and Donnie while they were trying to put out the fire.
27:52
But Hans is a pretty distinct looking bald guy, so I think he would
27:56
have been recognized if one of the men was him. It's also been that
28:00
two men showed up at the scene a few hours later who appeared to have
28:03
ashes on their clothing, suggesting that they may have already been there when the
28:07
trailer was on fire. I've never seen this information corroborate it, but following
28:11
Donnie's trial. Someone wrote in a letter to the Eureka Times Standard newspaper in
28:18
which they pointed out the pieces of evidence which leaned away from Donnie, and
28:22
they mentioned that one of these two men with ashes on their clothing was the
28:25
step son of a local deputy. It almost sounded like the writer was trying
28:30
to imply that the authorities pinned the crime on Donnie in order to protect someone
28:33
who had a connection to law enforcement. Well, considering all the evidence against
28:38
Donnie, I certainly don't agree with that assessment, particularly since he might never
28:42
have appeared on law enforcement's radar as a suspect if he hadn't returned to the
28:47
warehouse to retrieve the shotgun. But I certainly don't rule out the possibility that
28:52
these two unidentified men could have been Donnie's accomplices. Well, think about this.
28:56
Let's say you're a law enforcement agent and use his inspect your son was
29:00
an accomplice in this murder. I don't think you'd actively be pursuing Donnie either,
29:04
because usually accomplices are tied directly to the person who hires them or conspires
29:11
with them to carry out the crime. So when you do a small circle
29:14
of who Donnie knows and who Donnie could have hired. If it really is
29:18
a local law enforcement kid, who I'd be looking at some crazy serial killer
29:23
stranger theory and trying to prove something like that. Not Donnie hiring two kids,
29:27
one of which might be mine, to commit this crime. Yeah,
29:33
exactly. I kind of wish we had more information about this angle, but
29:37
it would actually not surprise me in the least if perhaps Donnie himself could have
29:40
written this anonymous letter to the newspaper just to say that, hey, there's
29:44
plenty of evidence leaning towards Donnie, and then just tried to point the crime
29:47
in another angle just to make himself look more innocent. We also have the
29:52
account from Betty who said that she saw Donnie running out of the trailer and
29:56
yelling get out of here right after the fire started. If Donnie had been
30:02
yelling at intruders he saw on the property, he never told anyone during the
30:06
early stages of the investigation, which is why I think it's reasonable to assume
30:11
that Donnie was yelling at someone who assisted him with the crime and wanted them
30:15
to leave before his family saw them. So if Donnie committed the crime,
30:19
alongside others, you have to ask what exactly was their plan. I mean,
30:25
whenever a murder plot doesn't make much sense, I usually just chalk it
30:30
up to the fact that criminals are often stupid. But it's really hard to
30:33
figure out what the perpetrators were attempting here. Since all the items used during
30:38
the commission of this crime, including the shotgun, the shells, and the
30:42
cans of gasoline, could all be traced back to Donnie, this definitely suggests
30:48
that he planned the whole thing, So why would he need accomplices in the
30:52
first place. Donnie lived in Fortuna, which is around seventy miles away from
30:56
Willow Creek, so it seems to me that if there were others involved,
31:02
Donnie's most logical course of action would have been to orchestrate a murder for hire
31:07
plot and have these accomplices attack his family on a night when he was at
31:11
home in Fortuna and had an airtight alibi. Why do this on the one
31:15
night when Donnie just happens to be staying with his family. If Hans,
31:19
Betty, Jill, and Julie were all murdered and Donnie was the sole survivor,
31:25
he would automatically become the focus of the investigation and arouse suspicion. Part
31:30
of me wonders if Donnie was not planning to have his accomplices do this until
31:34
after he returned home to Fortuna, but they jumped the gun and screwed up
31:40
broke into his family's trailer on the wrong night when he happened to be there.
31:44
Given how nonsensical this whole plan seemed to be, that probably would have
31:48
been power for the course. Well, another silly thing is if you're Donnie
31:52
and you're hiring somebody to help you with the commission of the crime. You're
31:56
right, you don't show up right that you hire someone, so you're not
32:00
at this scene of the crime. That's the smart thing to do. Well,
32:04
not the smart thing to do everyone listening, That is not smart.
32:07
However, if you're saying Donnie hired these people, he would not be there,
32:12
and you also would not be the one purchasing all of the items needed
32:16
because it directly goes back to you and it's easy to prove. So you
32:21
would have those accomplices both by different items needed for the commission of the crime
32:27
or steal items needed for the commission of the crime so that nothing could be
32:31
linked back to you. And yet Donnie did everything for them. Why would
32:36
you hire them and share your money or share whatever you gain from this.
32:40
You did all the hard work yourself in the beginning. And just the fact
32:45
that he bought, like the kansa gasoline on his own credit card, Like,
32:47
how long does he think it's going to take investigators to notice this?
32:51
So it just seems like he did not think this whole thing through. And
32:54
I actually do think there might be some credence onto this theory where Donnie told
32:59
his family to a I'm saying that I'm going to be stopping by to see
33:01
my parents, and the night after I leave, I want you to go
33:05
there or burn down the trailer and kill them. But then they just came
33:07
one night early while he was still there, and that could have been one
33:10
of the reasons he was yelling get out of here, saying you're not supposed
33:14
to be here. You screwed this whole thing up. So, like we
33:16
said, even though it seems obvious Donnie was guilty, just trying to figure
33:21
out the logic of this plan is just makes your head explode. It's bad
33:25
enough that Donnie purchased items which could be traced back to him, But I
33:29
think it's particularly stupid that he would borrow the shotgun from a friend of his.
33:34
Even if Donnie had been able to get rid of the murder weapon,
33:37
this person is bound to be asking Donnie for their gun back at some point
33:42
and might become suspicious after learning that Donnie's sisters just happened to be killed with
33:45
a shotgun only three days after he borrowed it. I have read some gossip
33:51
online, though I've never seen this information substantiated, that Donnie had issues with
33:55
drugs during this time period, and the entire crime might have been orchestrated because
34:00
he owed a drug debt to someone. If the whole thing was drug related,
34:05
that might explain the desperation and lack of logic associated with many of Donnie's
34:09
actions. This just does not come across as a well thought out murder plot,
34:15
and the vast majority of the time, anyone who makes these types of
34:17
stupid mistakes would wind up in prison, So it seems like Donnie just got
34:22
incredibly lucky. If those neighbors had not reported seeing the two men near their
34:27
trailer, there might have been less reasonable doubt in the jury's minds. Oh
34:31
for sure. I think that's the only reason that the defense attorneys were able
34:36
to take this idea of accomplices and magnify that as a whole defense strategy.
34:42
So could there have been two people walking by, Yes? Absolutely. Could
34:45
there have been someone who jumped in their car and drove off because they see
34:49
this house like a blaze with a fire, yes. Does that mean that
34:53
they were Donnie's accomplices. No, but it did give the jury that doubt,
34:59
and it did get the defense attorneys a tool to say, look,
35:02
I'm not the one saying it. The neighbor said they saw somebody. So
35:07
now you can't be so sure that it was Donnie and it worked. Yeah,
35:12
it's true. We can't be one hundred percent certain that those were accomplices.
35:15
It could have just been some passers by who saw this fire and decided
35:19
to stop, but they just didn't want to get involved, so they drove
35:22
off before the police arrived, and then just never came forward. It's possible
35:27
that the main reason Donnie had accomplices is that he wanted his family dead but
35:31
just lacked the stomach to kill them himself, which is why he enlisted the
35:36
help of others. Perhaps the original plan was to burn down the trailer with
35:39
Hans, Betty, Jill, and Julie inside, and hoped that they would
35:43
all get killed in the fire. Even though Donnie brought along a shotgun as
35:46
a backup plan, he may have hoped that it wouldn't have to be used.
35:52
If a trailer fire was the exact cause of death, it wouldn't have
35:55
looked implausible that Donnie was the only member of the family to survive, since
36:00
he was sleeping on the couch next to the sliding glass door and would have
36:04
been able to escape quicker than everyone else. Of course, Donnie would still
36:07
have to get rid of the gas cans, and I'm sure the authorities would
36:10
find evidence that arson took place. But like we've reiterated many times, it
36:15
doesn't look like Donnie was a criminal mastermind. But it seems like before this
36:21
plan was completed, Julie heard something and woke up. Once she went into
36:24
the hallway, she may have seen something which led to her being shot.
36:30
We may never know for certain if it was Donnie himself who fired the shot
36:34
or one of his accomplices, but I'm sure this probably through the original plan
36:37
for a complete loop, since the noise wile Hans and Betty up and they
36:42
were able to escape the burning trailer. What's still not clear to me is
36:46
when exactly Jill would have been shot. The theory presented by the defense at
36:52
trial is that one of the intruders remained inside the trailer while Hans, Betty,
36:55
and Donnie ran to the warehouse to grab the fire extinguished, and the
37:00
intruder used that opportunity to shoot Jill. But that doesn't make sense because unless
37:06
this assailant had a personal grudge against the twins, why would they hang around
37:10
just to murder Jill and not make an attempt to kill the rest of the
37:14
family. It doesn't make any sense. You're right, it makes no sense.
37:20
And you know this sound of a shotgun blast. Yes, you have
37:22
a fire roaring, and you have the sounds there. I'm assuming pops and
37:28
bursts and things like that would be happening, but a shotgun blast is pretty
37:31
distinct, and it would be very hard for me to fathom that no one
37:37
would hear it. If it's if it's phased like this, that like they
37:40
shoot this one one child, start this fire, have the family run out
37:45
the house, and they're running back towards the house with fire extinguishers and they
37:49
shoot again. They're in the fires going Why would someone sit and hang out
37:53
in a fire that's taking the whole house down. I just don't think that
37:58
that would be a very plause solution to sit and wait for the other family
38:02
members to leave while the homes burning down, just so you can shoot Jill.
38:08
I've seen differing accounts from differing sources about where exactly Jill's body was found,
38:14
as one source said that it was in the kitchen area, while another
38:16
said she was found in a fetal position inside her bedroom closet, and that,
38:21
in addition to her gunshot wound, smoke inhalation was one of her causes
38:24
of death. If true, this would mean that after she was shot,
38:29
Jill crawled into the closet to hide from the fire before she perished, which
38:32
is a truly horrifying thought. Even though it's possible that Donnie always intended to
38:37
kill everyone, the fact that he was seeing yelling get out of here before
38:42
any attempt was made to shoot Hans and Betty makes me wonder if perhaps the
38:45
main motive for his plan was to kill his half sisters possibly because of some
38:51
deep seated hatred he had towards them. I really have no idea what Donnie
38:55
has been up to these past three decades, and since he changed his name,
39:00
it's not like you can just search for information about him on Google.
39:02
If Donnie was the sole perpetrator of this crime, then there really isn't anything
39:07
else that can be done due to double jeopardy. But the evidence does suggest
39:10
that multiple individuals were involved, so theoretically there are others who could be brought
39:16
to tryal for these murders. But given the amount of time that has passed,
39:21
unless Donnie decides to fess up and share the complete truth, we may
39:24
never know the exact details of what happened. However, if you happen to
39:30
have any information about the murders of Jill and Julie Hanson which points to someone
39:34
else besides Donnie Hanson being involved, please contact the appropriate authorities. Jules Ashley
39:40
any final thoughts on the case. This is one of those cases that,
39:45
when we sit back and we look at it, you have two young girls
39:49
who had the entire world at their feet. Everyone described them as kind and
39:54
loving and ambitious and driven, and they had a family that was intact right
40:02
there in their home. They're supposed to be safe and their brother comes to
40:07
visit, and that's a night that should be full of fun and family memories
40:12
and things like that, and they lose their life. There's no explanation,
40:16
there's no way of knowing why this happened. But I think it's pretty clear
40:22
that it's Donnie Hanson. And beyond the misjustice, right, the injustice that
40:29
occurs in this case because he's found not guilty, you have these two parents,
40:34
Like the father said, I lost three children that night, not two,
40:39
because I'm one hundred percent convinced that Donnie killed my daughters. Their daughters
40:45
were fighting to save their own lives. Remember Julie crawls out. It looks
40:49
like Jill crawled to try to be safe from the fire. And they're literally
40:53
fighting for their lives that their brother stole from them. And then the parents
40:58
have to live with them as well. Not only can we, you know,
41:01
step away and say we lost our two babies in a tragic house fire.
41:06
Now it's a murder that was committed by our son. And so the
41:09
grief and realization of what occurred that night for the parents is something I just
41:15
don't even know how you'd begin to process. My prayers go out to that
41:19
family, and I pray that Becky's having a life that is purposeful and filled
41:23
with love and joy and happiness. It was robbed from her as well and
41:28
her parents. But man, I would love to find out and be able
41:35
to say, there's concrete evidence that Donnie did it. He confessed to somebody.
41:40
It's public knowledge. Even though he can't be tried in court. It
41:44
would just feel good to know confirmation there were no accomplices. This was Donnie.
41:50
Here's his real name now, and you know, complicate his life a
41:53
little bit. I don't know if that's evil, but I feel like there
41:57
should be consequences. You don't just get to get away taking everyone's life.
42:01
He changed his parents' life that day as well in Becky's life too, so
42:06
he stole five lives that night when he decided to shoot his sisters. It's
42:12
disgusting. I really hope that he gets his karma come upance, because I
42:16
truly believe that he deserves it. He is somebody who it's very clear from
42:22
the evidence that he was the person who was responsible. It looks like he
42:25
may have had outside accomplices in what could be described as like the worst laid
42:31
plans ever. And it's a miracle that he isn't behind bars for what he
42:36
did. To think of the trauma that poor Julie had to endure crawling out
42:43
of that house after a shotgun blast to the stomach, how I can't even
42:46
imagine what that did to our body, just blew it apart. And to
42:52
know that her sister, her other half, her literal twin, is in
42:55
there fending for her life, and you've got a wonder like connection twins have.
43:00
Did she know when her twin sister was gone and that it was just
43:04
her left and wondering if her parents are alive? It must have been so
43:08
horrific. And then for Hans and Betty at the scene, going okay,
43:13
well, Donnie's saying that he rescued Julie, but he can't even talk about
43:17
what type of burns she had or if she was suffering from any burns.
43:22
He had no information to give, and so I'm sure upfront they had some
43:27
trepidations about trusting him. But like Robin had said, during the initial stages,
43:32
his mom had said that she was happy that he was acquitted but later
43:37
on, Hans had said that he believed that Donnie was one hundred percent responsible.
43:42
So this family was decimated by the actions of one person, and Robin
43:47
you had mentioned that it could have been a drug debt. That makes a
43:52
lot of sense to me, because these seem like the actions of a very
43:54
desperate person. But even if he was successful and the entire family had died
44:00
in the house fire and there had been no shotgun blasts to the stomachs of
44:05
his sisters, You're still going to have to split the money with your other
44:09
sister. Are you going to go and try and kill her as well,
44:14
or are you just going to hope that you're going to get the money in
44:17
some kind of expedient fashion, which settling estates and getting life insurance money can
44:23
take a very long time, Ashley. I'm sure you're a lot more well
44:28
versed in dealing with something like that, But it can take a long time,
44:31
can it not? Oh? Absolutely absolutely it can. And it's I
44:36
mean, this whole case, it's so complicated. It's a compounding complication that
44:39
makes it impossible to think of how you would move forward from this. Yeah,
44:45
my heart just goes out to the family. I think it's pretty clear
44:47
from the evidence that we have a good idea of what happened here, and
44:53
it just really irks me that Donnie has never faced justice for what I believe
45:00
he did. Yeah, I said right at the outset that I would classify
45:04
this as one of the least mysterious mysteries we've covered, because it seems pretty
45:07
obvious who's responsible. But the only big unanswered question here is not only if
45:13
the others involved, but motive. Because we talked about how no one had
45:17
a bad word to say about Hans, Betty, Jill, or Julie.
45:21
They just seemed like a very nice, well rounded family, So it just
45:24
seems so odd that they would have this one black sheep who just seemed cold
45:29
enough to be capable of murdering them all. And that's why I would really
45:32
love to know more about Donnie's backstory, like what happened while he was growing
45:37
up to make him turn like this. Is he just born bad or something
45:40
like that, or did he just become desperate because he had accumulated a drug
45:45
dead or something. Those are the things we probably will never know unless Donnie
45:50
or anyone else was involved decides to make a confession but I still remember watching
45:54
this on Unsolved Mysteries when it originally aired, and I was thinking to myself,
45:58
why is this an unsolved mystery? We know who did it, and
46:00
was pretty shocked when they reveal that Donnie actually got acquitted at trial and that
46:06
he was brazen enough to appear on TV even though he concealed his identity to
46:10
say that the accusations that he was guilty are absolutely ludicrous, even though it
46:15
just seemed pretty obvious that he was very lucky to get away with murder.
46:20
And at the time, I wondered, well, I'm glad that they're featuring
46:23
this on the show, but is there really anything that can be done because
46:28
Donnie can't be tried again because of double Jeopardy. But I do think there
46:31
is a decent chance that there were others involved, and that perhaps someone else
46:37
actually pulled the trigger which murdered those two girls, that even if Donnie was
46:40
complicit, he was not the one who actually killed them. And it's probably
46:45
a minuscule chance, but there is always a chance that if other people were
46:49
responsible, they can still be charged with this crime and we can learn the
46:52
full truth. Even though Donnie will never go to prison. But yeah,
46:57
just an incredibly sad story. There aren't too many victims I feel more terrible
47:00
for than Haunt and Betty Hanson, and I hope they've had a stable life
47:06
after since enduring this automagical tragedy. And I hope Donnie has lived a miserable
47:09
life these past three decades, even though he has managed to start a new
47:14
life under a new identity. But yeah, he definitely did get away with
47:17
murder. And this is one of the most shocking acquittals I've ever seen in
47:22
a criminal case. Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
47:25
about the Trail Went Cold Patreon? Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has been
47:30
around for three years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like early
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ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers and sign thank you cards
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to anyone who signs up with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars
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tier Tier two. We also offer monthly bonus episodes in which I talk about
47:49
cases which are not featured on the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're
47:52
exclusive to Patreon, and if you join our highest tier tier free, the
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ten dollar tier. One of the features we offer is a audio commentary track
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over classic episodes of Unsawved Mysteries, where you can download an audio file and
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then boot up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or YouTube and play
48:12
it with my audio commentary playing in the background, where I just provide trivia
48:15
and factoids about the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
48:21
first episode that I did a commentary track over was the episode featuring this case.
48:24
So if you want to download a commentary track in which I make more
48:29
smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join Tier three.
48:32
So I want to let you know a little bit about the Jules and Ashy
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Patreons. So there's early ad free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've
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and we're really enjoying doing those. So we hope you'll check out those
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up because cold trails and chili pass call for warm clothing. Music by Paul
49:13
Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy