Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Hunting Ground - The ‘Butcher Baker’ Alaska’s Most Notorious Serial

Transcript

Hunting Ground - The ‘Butcher Baker’ Alaska’s Most Notorious Serial · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, God admit diving into the Robert Hanson case, the
• 0:03
  butcher baker. It's well, it's one of those stories that
• 0:06
  sticks with you. I mean, we're talking about a serial
• 0:08
  killer right here in Anchorage, Alaska from seventy two to
• 0:11
  eighty three. Seventeen women we know of dead, but those
• 0:15
  missing persons reports from that time makes you wonder, you.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Know, the scope is always what's so unsettling exactly?
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: So you sent over a ton of material on Hanson,
• 0:24
  his life, the crimes, how they finally caught him, and honestly,
• 0:28
  going through it all, it's hard to wrap your head around.
• 0:30
  How does a guy a baker for crying out loud
• 0:34
  become a monster like that?
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: That's the question, isn't it The ordinariness of it. We
• 0:38
  want to believe monsters are hiding in the shadows, not
• 0:40
  serving us bread.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Right, And you sent over this bio and it talks
• 0:43
  about him working in his dad's bakery, Like can you
• 0:45
  imagine one minute he's measuring flower the next. It's just chilling.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: It speaks to the compartmentalization, the almost disturbing ability to
• 0:54
  lead these while these double lives.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: And what gets me is you read about his early life.
• 0:58
  You'd think there'd be red flags everywhere, but it's almost
• 1:01
  normal to a point. That's creepy. Born in Iowa, family
• 1:04
  moved around some he even won speaking awards in school.
• 1:08
  Doesn't exactly scream future serial killer.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Doesn't. Not on the surface, no, But often that's where
• 1:14
  the problem lies. Beneath the surface, even in what seems normal,
• 1:18
  there are cracks, and those cracks, well, those are what
• 1:20
  we need to pay attention to. His acne, for instance,
• 1:23
  the stuttering, Those can seem like typical teenage woes, right, sure,
• 1:27
  But for someone like Hanson, especially with what we know
• 1:31
  about his shall we say, domineering father, those insecurities confester.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Like constantly being told you're not good enough, not strong enough,
• 1:39
  every time you stumble over a word or look in the.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Mirror, exactly, and that simmering resentment, that need to exert control,
• 1:46
  it can and often does, manifest in destructive ways. Take
• 1:49
  for example, the school bus garage he set fire to
• 1:52
  as a teenager.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, so not just typical teenage angst. Then that's
• 1:55
  a whole other level.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: And a huge red flag. It seems everyone missed arson,
• 2:01
  particularly at that age, often a precursor to far darker impulses.
• 2:05
  It's about power, seeing the world burn while you're holding the.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Match, And in Hans's case, it seems that feeling that
• 2:11
  rush of power, he craved it. Even after serving time
• 2:14
  for the arsen he gets out, heads to Alaska for
• 2:17
  a clean slate, even gets.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Married, and yet the pattern re emerges. Yeah, assault, charges,
• 2:23
  then rape. It's like that darkness within him, it couldn't
• 2:25
  be contained. It was just dormant waiting and the vastness
• 2:29
  of Alaska. Yeah, it seems he saw that as his
• 2:32
  hunting ground, and.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: The way he targeted his victims. It was deliberate, wasn't it.
• 2:36
  Women on the margins of society, sex workers, runaways, women
• 2:40
  he likely believed wouldn't be missed as quickly.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Precisely, they represented vulnerability, a lack of power that someone
• 2:46
  like Hanson desperate to reclaim that sense of control he lacked. Well,
• 2:50
  it made the me easy prey.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: And then there was the way he'd hunt them. Ugh.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Yes, the hunting. That was more than just a hobby
• 2:56
  for Hanson. It was an integral part of his psychosis. Stalking,
• 3:00
  the capture, the feeling of absolute dominance over another living being.
• 3:06
  It's well It's a chilling thought.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: And this was just the beginning of his reign of terror.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: These early glimpses into his psyche, these seemingly unconnected events,
• 3:16
  they form a chilling mosaic. And to understand the monster
• 3:20
  he became, well, we have to trace those patterns, these
• 3:23
  early expressions of violence and control. They paint a very
• 3:26
  disturbing picture. I think it's safe to say that the
• 3:29
  isolation of Alaska played a role, wouldn't you say?
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely, for someone like Hanson already, you know, living
• 3:35
  on the edge. It's almost like Alaska gave him permission
• 3:37
  to become the monster he was, allowed him to disappear
• 3:40
  literally and figuratively out there. He was the one in control.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: He made the rules exactly.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: And for years it seemed like he was going to
• 3:47
  get away with it. But then June of eighty three,
• 3:50
  everything changes. This seventeen year old Cindey Paulson, her story.
• 3:55
  It still gets to me. Imagine, right, you're a young woman,
• 3:57
  you get offered some quick cash, just got to hang
• 3:59
  out with this guy.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Sounds almost harmless on the surface.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Right, And that's how it starts for her, Except her
• 4:05
  date is Robert Hanson.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: A classic predator tactic, lulling her into a false sense
• 4:10
  of security, making her believe she has a choice, when
• 4:13
  in reality she's already brought.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: And for Cindy it escalates fast. He takes her to
• 4:19
  his house, the one in Muldoon, and that's when the
• 4:21
  real nightmare begins.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Reading through the source material, the details of what she
• 4:25
  endured in that house, being chained, tortured, it's just horrific, like.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Something out of a horror movie, but tragically real. And
• 4:34
  what gets me is what sets Cindy Paulson apart. How
• 4:38
  did she survive when so many others didn't? I mean,
• 4:41
  what did she have that the others didn't?
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Resilience, absolute refusal to give up hope. Even while she
• 4:46
  was going through that, she was planning her escape, observing everything,
• 4:49
  little details like the layout of the house, those blue
• 4:51
  sneakers she made sure she left behind in his car,
• 4:53
  the bread crumbs, exactly tiny details that would ultimately help
• 4:57
  lead investigators back to Hanson.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: It's incredible listening to her testimony and you can hear
• 5:02
  the terror in her voice, obviously, but also this incredible strength,
• 5:05
  and that's what saves her In the end. Hansen decides
• 5:09
  to move her to that shack he had, the one by.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: The airfield, Merrilfield. He called it his cabin, which is well,
• 5:16
  a chilling euphemism when you consider it's true purpose. Flown
• 5:20
  out there, away from everything and every one, his own Well,
• 5:23
  I guess you could call it his killing field.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: God, yeah, killing field.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: That's going to stick with me, as it should. We
• 5:29
  can't look away from the reality of his crimes. It's
• 5:32
  in acknowledging that horror that we honor the memory of
• 5:35
  the victims.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: You're right. So he gets Cindy to this airfield, to
• 5:38
  the shack, and thankfully he makes a mistake, leaves her
• 5:42
  alone in his car. She's cuffed, but she's alone while
• 5:45
  he's off messing with his plane. And that's when she makes.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: A run for it. Unbelievable. Can you imagine running with
• 5:51
  your hands cuffed toward the road, just praying that someone,
• 5:55
  anyone will see you, hoping against hope exactly, and thankfully
• 5:58
  someone did.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Robert Yont truck driver just passing by, seize this young
• 6:03
  woman running towards his rig, and thank god he stops.
• 6:07
  And that, my friend, that's when it all starts to
• 6:10
  unravel for Robert Hanson.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Almost poetic, isn't it that one chance encounter, one act
• 6:15
  of human kindness, and it brings down this web of
• 6:18
  evil that had been spun for years.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: You'd think at that point Hanson would give up, right,
• 6:23
  But no. He goes back to the police, tries to
• 6:27
  file a false report against Cindy, says she was trying
• 6:29
  to extort money from him.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Textbook narcissism. Yeah, shifting the blame, anything to maintain that facade.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: But the police, they're finally onto him, especially Detective Glenn Floath.
• 6:39
  He'd been working all these missing persons cases, all these
• 6:41
  women who just vanished, and he had a hunch.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: And this is where we see the rise of something
• 6:47
  that would change criminal investigations forever. Criminal profiling, hold on profiling.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: That's like what reading minds or something.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Not exactly, but it's about analyzing the behavior of an
• 6:58
  unknown offender, scenes the victims, the way the crimes are committed.
• 7:02
  It's like putting together a puzzle to create a psychological
• 7:06
  and social portrait of the perpetrator.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, so they're profiling Hanson based on these disappearances, but
• 7:12
  they can't prove anything concrete yet.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Right, not yet. He was still just a baker with
• 7:17
  a shady past. But the more they learned about Hanson,
• 7:21
  his hobbies, his psychology, the more they realized that they
• 7:24
  were dealing with someone who fit the profile perfectly.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: So they've got Hanson dead to rights in their sights,
• 7:29
  but still need that slam dunk proof right to put
• 7:32
  him away. What finally does it?
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: The profile gave them what they needed to get a warrant,
• 7:37
  and what they find on Hans's property, well, guns, jewelry.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: We're talking about his house, right, that's gonna be a
• 7:43
  tough warrant to get it was, But what.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: They found jewelry belonging to the missing women, firearms, and
• 7:51
  the most chilling piece that aviation map. We keep coming
• 7:55
  back to, the one marked with those exes, each one
• 7:57
  a victim, each one of burial site.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I read about that map. That wasn't just a map
• 8:01
  for him.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: It was like some kind of a trophy. Absolutely, this
• 8:04
  wasn't just about killing. It was about possessing his victims,
• 8:07
  even in death. Each ex was a marker, a chilling
• 8:11
  testament to his power over their lives, even after he
• 8:14
  had taken them.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: So they finally had him. What was Hanson's reaction with
• 8:18
  that kind of evidence staring him in the face.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: He confesses.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: He confesses, just like.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: That, he confesses. But even then, even in admitting to
• 8:26
  these horrific acts, there's this attempt to control the narrative.
• 8:31
  Claims he lets some of the women go, tries to
• 8:33
  pain himself as well. I guess a merciful monster, it
• 8:37
  could have been worse, exactly, classic abuser tactic, as if
• 8:42
  minimizing the violence somehow excuses it.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: But it didn't work. He ended up taking a plea deal,
• 8:46
  right he did.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: In exchange for leading investigators to the remains of his victims.
• 8:50
  Hanson agreed to a plea deal to avoid the death penalty.
• 8:53
  Four in sixty one years. No parole.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Justice, but you know it's always bittersweet. Justice served can't
• 8:58
  bring back the dead, and in Hanson's case, not all
• 9:01
  of his victims.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: Were ever found. That's right for those families, the not
• 9:04
  knowing it's a wound that may never heal. And that's
• 9:08
  the truly heartbrating legacy of Robert Hanson, the butcher baker,
• 9:11
  the lives taken, the family shattered, and the chilling reminder
• 9:14
  that monsters can often hide beneath the most ordinary exteriors.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: This deep dive has been dark, for sure, but important.
• 9:21
  It's important that we look into these dark corners to understand,
• 9:24
  to learn, and hopefully to.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Prevent exactly in understanding the motivations and the behaviors, we're
• 9:30
  better equipped to see the warning signs, to recognize the
• 9:33
  cracks in the facade before it's too late.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Because the truth is, we like to think we can
• 9:37
  spot evil, that it wears a certain face, but the
• 9:40
  Robert Hanson case it shows us that's not always the case.
• 9:43
  Evil can be quiet, unassuming, even ordinary, and that's what
• 9:47
  makes it so terrifying. So for all of us out there,
• 9:50
  it's a stark reminder never stop questioning, never dismiss the
• 9:53
  gut feeling, and never ever underestimate the darkness that can
• 9:57
  lurk within seemingly ordinary hearts.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: Well said