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The Hansen Twin Murders · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So I want you to picture this. It is uh
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: three am on November fifteenth, nineteen eighty six, middle of
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the night, right middle of the night. You're in the
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: quiet community of Willow Creek, California. You are sound asleep,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and then suddenly you just jolt awake.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, the worst feeling.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: It really is like your feet hit the floor before
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: your brain even registers the emergency, and then the reality
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: of the situation floods your senses. It's that suffocating chemical smell.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Of thick smoke, which is terrifying.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Terrifying, and for forty year old Hans Hansen, this was
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: the start to his morning. He and his wife Betty,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: they throw open their bedroom door and they are just
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: met by a wall of intense, roaring heat.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Their double wide trailer is entirely engulfed in flames,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: and through the deafening crackle of the fire, Hans hears
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: this distinct rhythmic popping noise echoing down the hall.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, that is just a visceral, primal nightmare. You
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: are plunged instantly into a fight for survival, operating entirely
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: on adrenaline, and in this deep dive. Today we are
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: examining a story that begins as this harrowing rescue attempt,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: but then it completely shifts into a chilling, deeply complex
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: double homicide investigation.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it really takes a turn.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: It does. And we are pulling from a big stack
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: of sources today. We've got true crime retrospective reporting, historical
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: archives from the local paper, the Time Standard, and some
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: direct accounts from the Hansen family, just to try and
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: understand exactly what went wrong.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Here, right, because our mission today is to look past
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: those initial flames. We really want to unpack the actual
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: mechanics of this investigation.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it falls apart so fast.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Exactly, Like, how does a case against a prime suspect
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: who happens to be a family member look so structurally
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: sound on a Tuesday and then entirely collapse by Friday
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: due to just stunning investigative gaps.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: It's wild to look at the source material.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Honestly, it really is. The trajectory of this night is
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: jarring for you as a listener, because you expect the
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: tragedy to be the fire itself, but the actual horror
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: is hidden in the smoke.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and to understand how this shifts from an emergency
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: response to a crime scene, we kind of have to
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: look at the physical geography as a home.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, set the scene for us.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: So the Hansons lived in a double wide trailer, where
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: the layout became a literal trap. The bedrooms in the
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: bathrooms were clustered on one side, and they were connected
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: by the single hallway to the living.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Areas, so only one way in and out.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Right. When Hans opens his door, that hallway is already
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: an impassable barrier of fire. He can't get through, and
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: his first thought goes to his twenty one year old
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: steps on Donnie.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Because Donnie usually sleeps on the living room couch right exactly.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: But when Hans makes it outside to check on him,
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: the sliding glass door is wide open and Donnie is
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: missing from his spot, so Hans just assumes, hey, Donnie
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: made it out safely, right.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Which leaves his sixteen year old twin daughters, Jill and Julie,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: and the fire is entirely blocking access to their bedroom
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: door from the inside.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: It's apparent's worst nightmare.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: It really is, And looking at Hans's actions, the shit
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: your panic is just palpable. I mean, he's grabbing fire
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: extinguishers he's sprinting to his nearby logging warehouse on the
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: property for more, but the thermal energy of the fire
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: is just too massive.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: There's only so much you can do, yeah, So he ends.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Up grabbing a garden hose. He smashes the exterior window
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: of the girl's bedroom and he throws the hose inside,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: and that is when he hears a cry for help
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: coming from the dark burning room.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: God, that's haunting. And by the time the volunteer firefighters arrive,
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: the scene is pure chaos. But then Hans suddenly spots
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: his daughter Julie outside. Oh, thank goodness, right in the dark.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: He hadn't even seen her escape, but first responders find
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: her on the ground and she is clutching her stomach
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: in just absolute agony.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: But because it's a raging fire, they assume it's a burn, right.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Well, given the context, the paramedics naturally operate on a
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: very specific medical assumption. They believe the extreme heat caused
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: something in the house to explode, and that debris severely
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: injured her abdomen.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Which makes sense. I mean that dictates the whole next
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: sequence of events. They rushed Julie to the hospital and
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Hans and Betty.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: Ride with her, leaving Donnie behind.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they leave Donnie behind at the property to wait
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: for any news on Jill, who is still missing in
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: the wreckage. But looking at the police reports from the hospital,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: there's this distinct shift in how law enforcement treats the
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: family from this exact moment.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Forward because of what the doctor finds.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Right, the doctor comes out to update Hans and Betty,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: and he drops this absolute bombshell. He reveals that Julie's
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: stomach injury was not caused by flying debris from a
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: fire explosion. She was shot at close range.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: I mean instantly, the police stopped treating this as a rescue.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: It is now an active crime scene.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the whole energy changes, and the.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Grim news coming from the property just confirms it. Later
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: that morning, first responders discovered Jill's body in the kitchen.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: She didn't survive the blaze. Oh that's awful, But the
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: autopsy reveals a darker truth. She had also been shot.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: And then investigators locate two empty gas cans at the scene,
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: and they are the exact kind of gas cans Hans
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: kept in his logging warehouse. So it's arson, premeditated arson
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: designed to cover up a double homicide.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Which completely recontextualizes Hans's testimony later. Remember he said he
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: heard those popping noises when you woke up, right, He
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: actually testified that he thought they were hairspray cans exploding
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: in the heat. But wait, I have to ask, how
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: does a father hear gunshots in his own hallway and
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: just rationalize that as aerosol cans.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: I know, it sounds improbable when we sit here analyzing
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: it decades later.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it really does.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: But it actually perfectly aligns with the psychology of trauma
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: and auditory masking.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Auditory masking.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when you're thrust into a sudden, high stress emergency,
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: the human brain desperately tries to categorize confusing sensory inputs
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: so they fit the immediate visual threat.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Oh so, because he sees fire, he expects fire noises Exactly.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Hans sees a raging, destructive fire. Therefore his brain categorizes
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: a sharp, popping sound as a byproduct of that fire.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: It is basically a cognitive shortcut designed to help you
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: survive what you can see, rather than processing threats you
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: can't see.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he wasn't primed to expect to shootout in his hallway,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: so his brain literally edited the sound to make sense
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: of the fire.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: That reframing is fascinating, Like he wasn't lying or misremembering.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: His brain was actively writing a narrative to protect him
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: in that exact moment. Absolutely, but the reality of the
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: violence is just unspeakably cruel when you actually look at
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: the victims. Jill and Julie were highly visible, beloved teenagers
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: in this town. They were, and Jill, she had actually
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: just beaten this grueling six year battle with leukemia. She
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: was diagnosed at age ten. The whole community had rallied
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: behind her, and she had just received a clean bill
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: of health. It's just devastating, this survive cancer only to
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: be murdered in your own home. I mean, you can
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: completely understand why the initial police reaction was to look
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: outward for some kind of monster, and.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Historically speaking, humbold County in nineteen eighty six offered plenty
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: of monsters, oh for sure. While Willow Creek itself was
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: this quieter community, the surrounding region was notoriously nicknamed Murder Mountain.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Murder Mountain that says.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: At all, it really does. It was an area infamous
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: for off the grid violence, disappearances, and massive, highly lucrative
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: illegal drug operations.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Right and looking at the early dispatch notes, there was
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: certainly evidence pointing in that direction. Neighbors actually reported seeing
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: some highly suspicious activity right as the fire started. What
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: kind of activity, Well, one neighbor saw two teenage boys
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: standing near the trailer watching the blaze and specifically noted
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: that one of them have fresh ashes on his shoulder.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: That is incredibly suspicious.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Right, and other neighbors heard the blasts and saw a
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: car peeling out speeding toward Highway one ninety nine. So
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: with cartel activity basically in their backyard, a drug related
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: home invasion feels like the most logical starting point for
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: an investigator.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: It is a really compelling starting point. But this highlights
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: how real world criminology diverges from theoretical profiling. How So, well,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: when investigators assess a crime scene, the physical behavior of
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: the perpetrator really dictates the pivot. Okay, and this crime
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: involved highly specific intimate violence, navigating a dark, complex trailer
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: layout to execute sleeping targets, and taking the time to
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: locate the family's own gas cans to meticulously burn the
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: house down.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see what you mean.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that behavioral profile suggests an insider, professional hit men,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: or thrill seekers. They don't typically hunt for a homeowner's
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: personal garden equipment to cover a crime. They bring their
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: own weapons, execute the job, and leave immediately right.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: They aren't looking around for your shed, which explains why
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: the police start looking closer to home. Because fire inherently
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: destroys so much biological evidence, investigators are basically forced to
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: rely heavily on behavioral anomalies and whatever surviving physical forensics
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: they can find. And they find something, They find a
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: massive piece of the puzzle. It was hidden behind some
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: boxes in Hans's logging warehouse a twelve gage shotgun. Wow,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: And on that shotgun is a very clear palm print.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: And this is where things get tense, because Hans explicitly
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: tells the police that he does not own a twelve
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: gage shotgun. He only owned an old childhood rifle.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: But the cops find something else, don't they.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, A quick search of Donnie's car reveals unspent twelve
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: gage shotgun shells sitting right there in the backseat.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Oh man, So when detectives bring this to the twenty
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: one year old stepson Donnie just outright admits he borrowed
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: that exact shotgun from a friend earlier that week for target.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Practice, and the friend later corroborates that, by the way, right.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: And Donnie's explanation is that he simply forgot to return
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: it and he just left it in his car. But
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: then the behavioral anomaly starts stacking up, like what well,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: the police have the property staked out, watching to see
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: if anyone returns to the scene of the crime, and
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: who shows up lurking around the warehouse Donnie, Yeah.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: And when a detective steps out and confronts him, Donnie
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: claims he was just looking for the family dog.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Which sounds fine until you talk to Hans exactly.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Hans later clarifies to the police that Donnie knew the
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: dog was staying safely with a friend. He had absolutely
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: no reason to search for the dog.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: So law enforcement immediately suspects Donnie was returning to retrieve
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: the hidden murder weapon before they could find it.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Which makes perfect sense from their perspective, and the circumstantial
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: timeline just gets tighter from there. Investigators discovered that days
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: before the fire, Donnie actually used the family credit card
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: to buy five gallons.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Of gas, but he didn't put it in his car.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Nope, he filled a portable gas can, claiming his car's
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: fuel spout was bent. Huh. Furthermore, the sources indicate Donnie
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: and his mother, Betty, had a major falling out the
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Thursday prior. They bickered over Donnie refusing to take an
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: item out of the freezer over frozen food. Yeah, he
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: stormed out of the house, threatened to move away, but
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: then return the day before the murders.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Which naturally leads to the question of motive. And I
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: really have to push back on this.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: I figure you would.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, a teenager bickers with his mom about frozen food,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: and we're supposed to draw a straight line to annihilating
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: his sisters. That is an incredibly weak primary motive. If
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: every argument over household chores led to arson, there wouldn't
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: be a single house left standing in the country.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: No, you're right. If we apply that logic to a courtroom,
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: you are absolutely correct. A freezer argument cannot sustain a.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Murder charge exactly.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: But detectives don't usually arrest based on the strength of
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: a motive alone. They build cases on the compounding mechanics
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: of opportunity, access and witness testimony. True, And the most
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: damning piece of that puzzle comes from the surviving victim, Julie.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because a few days after the fire, Julie miraculously
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: wakes up in the hospital.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: It's incredible.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: At first, she's communicating through writing, but as she regains
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: her strength, she starts talking, and her account of that
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: night is just terrifying. She tells police that just before
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: three am, she woke up to a distinct sound. She
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: described it as someone loading heavy batteries into a flashlight.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Which to a firearms expert, sounds exactly like the mechanical
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: clack of a pump action shotgun being racked. Right.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: So she walks down the hall toward the living room
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: to investigate, and she is ambushed. She states that when
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: the shotgun fired, in the split second flash of the muzzle,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: she saw Donnie's face in the dark.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: That is a crucial statement, but it's important to note
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: the nuance here. Julie never explicitly stated Donnie was the
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: individual holding the weapon.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's a good point.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: And Donnie's own account to the police was that he
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: was asleep on the couch woke up to a blast,
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: saw Julie collapse and ran over to help her. So technically, right,
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: seeing his face illuminated by the muzzle flash could technically
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: just corroborate his presence in the room.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: But for law enforcement, when you combine her visual identification
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: with the recent gas purchase, the hidden gun, and the
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: ammunition in his car, it provides enough structural integrity to
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: really tighten the net around him.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: And this tension leads to a confrontation that just permanently
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: fractures the family. The police had explicitly instructed Hans not
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: to mention the hidden shotgun to Donnie.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: But Hans is a grieving father.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: He is He's living out of a motor home in
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: the hospital parking lot, and the pressure is unbearable. When
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Donnie stops by the motor home, Hans abandons the police instructions.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: He looks Donnie right in the eye and asks him
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: point blank about the twelve gage shotgun.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: And Donnie's psychological response is explosive. He becomes highly agitated,
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: screams that he is innocent, and physically flees the area
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: takes off. Yeah, And for Hans, observing that reaction was
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: a definitive answer. From that moment on, he fully believed
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: his step son was responsible and severed ties with him completely.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: It's so tragic. Following that confrontation, Donnie actually voluntarily goes
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: to the police station, likely trying to clear his name,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: but he ends up taking two polygraph tests and fails
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: them both. Then he drastically changes his story.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: It's nearrowless good never.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Remember his initial claim that the gun was just sitting
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: in his back seat. He now admits to police that
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: he did hide the gun in the warehouse, but his
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: justification defies all logic. He claims that in the middle
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: of a roaring fire, with his sisters trapped and burning,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: he suddenly remembered the shotgun was in his car.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: What right?
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: He said. He worried the police would find it and
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: frame him, so he paused his rescue efforts to go
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: hide the weapon.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Which is an extraordinarily difficult narrative for any investigator to accept,
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: and the forensic science delivers what appears to be an irrefutable.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Timeline because of the palm print.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, the palm print on the shotgun is confirmed to
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: be Donny's, but it is the chemical context of that
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: print that really matters here. The print is encased in
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: fire extinguisher residue.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's break down the mechanics of that, because that
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: implies he didn't just touch it on a Tuesday during
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: target practice. No, he touched it during the fire. How
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: does the resident to actually prove that.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: It comes down to the physical properties of the chemicals.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: When a standard fire extinguisher discharges, it releases a very fine,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: highly abrasive chemical powder, usually as mono ammonium phosphate. If
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: you leave fresh oils and sweat from a palm print
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: on the cold steel of a shotgun and that chemical
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: powder settles over it, it essentially acts as a casting agent.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Wow, it seals it exactly.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: It binds to the oils and seals the print. It
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: locks that physical interaction into a highly specific timestamp. He
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: had to have handled that gun while the extinguisher dust
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: was actively in the air.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: That is incredible forensic context. It physically links him to
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: the weapon at the exact moment of the arson.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: It's this smoking gun literally.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: So consequently, Donnie is arrested and charged, but before the
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: trial even gets underway, a bizarre and heartbreaking medical tragedy
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: fundamentally alters the legal stakes.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this part is so hard.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Two weeks after the arrest, Julie, who had been recovering
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: tap talking assisting the police, she suddenly dies in the hospital.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: It is a devastating blow for the family. And the
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: cause of death wasn't directly the trauma of the gunshot one. No,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: it was a freak medical accident, an air bubble somehow
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: entered her bloodstream through an ivy feeding tube, causing a
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: fatal embolism.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: It's just unbelievable.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Instantly, Donnie is facing two counts of murder, and the
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: district attorney decides to seek the death penalty.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: And if we revisit my earlier pushback about the flimsy
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: frozen food motive, the prosecution actually brings forward a much darker,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: calculated theory.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: For the trial, which makes a lot more sense for
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: a jury.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Right, Hans had built this booming, highly lucrative logging supply
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: of business. The sources note he openly discussed the two
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand dollars life insurance policies he held
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: on the children.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: That's a lot of money in nineteen eighty six, massive.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: And they carried a double indemnity clause, meaning they paid
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: out half a million dollars in the event of an
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: accidental death.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: So the prosecution's theory is that Donnie, who had dropped
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: out of college it was kind of drifting, wanted quip
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: cash to buy an expensive Corvette. The Corvette right, They argued,
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: he hatched a plan to stage a fatal fire to
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: inherit that insurance money.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: When you look at the architecture of the States case,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: the palm print, locked in chemical residue, the insurance payout,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: the altered stories, it really looks impenetrable.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: The public certainly assumed it was a guaranteed conviction, but
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: when the trial commenced in April of nineteen eighty eight,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: that structurally sound case completely collapsed.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it wasn't necessarily because the defense proved Donnie's innocence.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: It was because they exposed that the police investigation was
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: built on an incredibly fragile, incompetent foundation.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: This is where we need to look at the legal mechanics,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: because the defense team essentially puts the local police.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Department on trial, they really do.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: They start pulling at threads and the whole tapestry unravels.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: For instance, the police found Donnie's palm print on the gun,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: which is great, but the defense points out they never
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: bother to test the gun or the box of shells
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: for any other fingerprints.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Which is a catastrophic failure of forensic best practices. I mean,
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: finding your prime suspects print is only step one, right,
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: You must then clear the weapon of other potential contributors
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: to rule out accomplices or alternate suspects. By failing to
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: do so, the police just left a massive analytical void.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't just the gun.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: No. The defense also highlighted that the lock on the
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: trailer's sliding glass door, the very door near where Donnie
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: was sleeping, had physical tool marks indicating it had been
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: tampered with.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Which strongly suggests an external break in exactly. But the
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: absolute bombshell of the trial, the detail that exposes the
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: intersection of early era investigative hubris and small town nepotism,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: involves those two teenage boys seen watching the fire.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Oh this is the craziest part.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: The neighbors reported them, noting one had ashes on him.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: It turns out the police did conduct an interview with
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: those boys, but the deputy assigned to question them was
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: one of the boy's own uncles.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: It is a staggering conflict of interest that compromises the
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: integrity of the entire investigation and.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: The execution of it. Is even worse, the deputy completely
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: omitted his familial relationship from the official paperwork, and he
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: buried the entire content of that.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Conversation, just left it out completely.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: It never made it into the main reports, and by
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: the way, retrospective reporting later tracked one of those boys down.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: The individual admitted he was high on acid that night
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: and barely remembers his own actions.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: But because the uncle buried the lead, the police never
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: followed up exactly.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: By burying that interview and failing to test for other prints,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: the police essentially built a structurally unsound house.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Right, the defense didn't have to prove Donnie was a saint.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: They just had to show the jury the missing foundational bricks.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: And that allowed them to introduce an alternate narrative.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the defense hypothesized that intruders, perhaps those very teens,
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: were casing the property. They found the shotgun in Donnie's
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: own locked car, picked the lock on the sliding glass door,
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: and sneaked inside to commit arson. Okay, when Julie interrupted them,
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: They panicked and fired the blast, woke Donnie, causing the
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: intruders to flee, shooting Jill in their way out, and finally,
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: as they escaped, they tossed the shotgun back into Donnie's car.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, pause, I have to apply some basic human logic here.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: I maybe you're going with this.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: If you are an intruder, you have just broken into
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: a home, ignited a massive fire, and shot to teenagers.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: You are operating in a state of absolute blind panic.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Why on earth would you pause your frantic escape to
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: meticulously place the murder weapon back into the victim's car
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: in the driveway. You would throw it into the woods
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: as you ran. That narrative makes zero logical sense.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Your skepticism is entirely justified. It defies criminal logic. But
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: this highlights the fundamental mechanics the justice system.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: The defense does not bear the burden of proving their
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: alternate theory is the objective truth. They only have to
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: prove that the state's narrative contains reasonable doubt.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: H reasonable doubt.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: And the defense found a massive timeline flaw regarding the
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: victims to support that doubt. Remember Hans testifying that he
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: was outside with the garden hose and he heard a
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: cry for help from inside the burning bedroom.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Yes, right after he smashed the window.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Well, multiple witness testimonies established that by the time Hans
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: was outside operating that hose, Donnie was already outside, standing
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: in the driveway with him. Wait really, yeah, So if
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: the person crying for help was Jill, meaning she was
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: still alive while Donnie was visibly outside.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Then Donnie physically could not have been the individual who
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: shot her in the kitchen moments later.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly. That is a.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Brilliant legal maneuver. So you combine a tampered block, a
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: covered up interview by a deputy uncle, a failure to
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: exclude other fingerprints, and an impossible timeline yep, and suddenly
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: that impenetrable case is nothing but reasonable doubt.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The burden of proof rests entirely on the prosecution.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: The investigative shortcuts handed the defence and acquittal on a
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: silver platter. So what happens The jury deliberated for a
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: mere six hours. Wow, the verdict was not guilty.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: That is just wow. And the immediate aftermath of this
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: verdict is visually surreal. After the trial concludes the jurors
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: actually go out for dinner and drinks with Donnie and
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: his defense attorney.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: It is a highly unusual, almost provocative visual for a
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: jury to socialize with the defendant immediately following a double
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: murder trial.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, imagine grabbing a beer with a man who
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: is just on trial for executing his family.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: It's hard to picture, but the.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Jurors were quite vocal with the press. They stated they
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: did it as a protest against the flat out incompetence
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: of the police investigation.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: They wanted to make a point.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they felt the Sheriff's department profoundly failed the Hanson family,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: and their verdict was an indictment of the system, not
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: necessarily an endorsement of Donnie's innocence.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Which really forces us to synthesize the ultimate tragedy of
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: this case. It is a masterclass in the collateral damage
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: of a botched investigation. Absolutely, because law enforcement developed tunnel
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: vision and failed to rigorously document their forensic work, the
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: legal mechanics of justice failed. A family lost two daughters
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: to horrific violence, they lost a son to permanent, unresolved estrangement. Yeah,
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: and the community of Willow Creek was left infected with
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: lifelong paranoia.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Because there is absolutely no closure. Following the acquittal, Donnie
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: legally changed his last name, moved to the Midwest, and
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: started a new.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: Family, total fresh start.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he completely disconnected from his past, never speaking to
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Hans or Betty again. According to recent updates, Donnie actually
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: died in a car crash in Indiana in May of
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Five, and Hans's reaction to that news was chillingly stoic.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: He told reporters that Donnie's death didn't feel like a
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: blow because his step son had been dead to him
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: since that night outside the hospital motor home in nineteen
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: eighty six.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: That is heavy.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: Hans remains resolute in his conviction that Donnie pulled the tray.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: Betty has struggled more deeply with the reality, wrestling with
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: the agonizing sociology of whether her own son could be
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: capable of such violence.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine that internal battle.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: But they never stopped seeking the truth. They actually took
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: the girl's fifty thousand dollars college fund and converted it
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: into a reward for information, a reward that remains active today.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? For us as we
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: wrap up this deep dive. We started by examining a
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: horrific fire, but we uncovered a complex story about the
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: fragility of the justice system.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: We really did.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: When the people tasked with finding the truth cut corners,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: the truth simply evaporates. But looking through our sources, I
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: want to leave you with one final provocative thought, Tom
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: all over.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, what specific detail caught your attention?
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: It's the VCR investigators noted in their reports that a
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: brand new, highly valuable VCR was sitting untouched on the
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: television set right next to the sliding glass door where
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: the intruders supposedly entered.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: Right, which is odd.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: In nineteen eight eighty six, a VCR was a massive
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: luxury item. It was highly targeted by thieves.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you would just leave it if this wasn't.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: A robbery, because nothing of value is actually taken. And
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: if we entertain the idea that Donnie truly didn't do it,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: what if the girls weren't the targets at all.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, that is a fascinating reframing of the initial motive.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Think about the context we discussed earlier. Hans had a
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: booming lucrative logging supply, business, yeah he did. What if
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: the arson was an act of corporate sabotage. What if
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: the intent was merely to destroy Hans's business assets and
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: ruin him financially, and the intruders broke in just to
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: set the fire, But then the teenagers woke up exactly,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the intruders panicked, shot the witnesses to silence them, and
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: fled without stealing anything. It fundamentally alters the narrative of
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: that higher night.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: It really forces you to question the very foundation of
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: every assumption made by the police from.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Minute once exactly. I want you to ponder that alternate theory,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: because sometimes, when the smoke finally clears, the scape you
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: are left looking at is murkier than ever. Thank you
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: for joining us on this deep dive. Keep questioning what
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: you see