Robert Christian Hansen

Robert Christian Hansen (* 15. February 1939 in Estherville , Iowa , † 21st August 2014 in Anchorage , Alaska ), by the media The Flying Nightmare ( English for The Flying Nightmare ) called, was an American serial killer from Alaska. He took at least 17 women to a remote cabin in his private plane, abused them, and then released them into the wild to hunt and kill them. He is the most recorded casualty serial killer in Alaskan history.

Early life

Hansen was born in Estherville , Iowa , to Christian and Edna Hansen. In his childhood and youth, Hansen was described as a quiet loner. He had a troubled relationship with his dominant father and was frequently teased and bullied at school because of his acne and stuttering . He started the hobby of hunting, which he used as a refuge. In 1957, Hansen joined the United States Army Reserve and served there for a year. He later worked as an Assistant Drill Instructor at a police academy in Pocahontas , Iowa. He began a relationship with a younger woman and married her in the summer of 1960.

On December 7, 1960, he was sentenced to three years in prison for arson at the Anamosa State Penitentiary . His wife filed for divorce while he was in detention. Over the next few years he was arrested several times for theft. In 1967, he moved to Anchorage , Alaska with his second wife, whom he married in 1963, and their two children . In 1977 he was sentenced to prison for stealing a chainsaw. Due to a diagnosis of bipolar disorder , he was prescribed the drug lithium .

Deeds

On June 13, 1983, a 17-year-old prostitute reported to a police officer that she had been handcuffed by a man and that she had been forced to go to his house with a gun. There she had to undress, the man raped her and inflicted almost unbearable pain on her. While she was tied to a stake in the basement, the perpetrator slept for several hours. When he woke up he told her that he liked her and that they were both flying his private plane to the woods on the Knik River where they should have sex again. Then he wants to bring her back. She escaped at the airport when Hansen was loading provisions. Her description suggested Robert Hansen. He was in his 40s at the time and had lived in Anchorage for 17 years, where he owned a bakery. He was married and had a son and a daughter.

Police took the victim to Hansen's home, where they said she had been tortured, and at the airport they also identified Hansen's plane, a Piper Super Cub . When Hansen was confronted with the allegations, he reacted violently, claiming that he had never seen the woman and that she was simply trying to blackmail him. He was also able to show an alibi for having eaten at home with two business partners, which they also confirmed. Since the police only had the woman's testimony, there was no arrest or charge. But the police continued to suspect Hansen, despite the poor evidence.

As early as 1980 construction workers had found the remains of a woman's body while working on Eklutna Road. She had been partially eaten by bears, but it was still possible to tell that she had been stabbed and buried. She was called Eklutna-Annie because she could not be identified. Later that year, Joanne Messina's body was discovered in a gravel pit near Seward . In September 1982, hunters found the remains of 23-year-old stripper Sherry Morrow, who was killed in three shots, in a shallow grave on the Knik River. The cartridge cases at the scene proved that she was shot with a Ruger Mini-14 . However, this weapon is widely used as a hunting weapon in Alaska, so that it was impossible to interview all hunters with this weapon. It was noticeable that the clothes of the dead had no bullet holes, which indicated that they must have been naked when they were shot. Almost exactly a year later, another body was found on the Knik River. Paula Goulding, an unemployed secretary who had worked in a topless bar for financial reasons. She was also shot with a Ruger Mini-14 and has been missing since April 25, 1983. That was around the time the 17-year-old prostitute was kidnapped and then escaped. When the Goulding case made the list of unsolved murders, the Alaska State Troopers decided to investigate suspect Hansen.

Transfer and arrest

John Douglas, an FBI psychological profiling specialist , created a criminal profile that applied to Hansen. In the absence of evidence, an attempt was made with Douglas' help to get Hansen to confess. The living conditions of the victims were examined more closely, and it was found that all of them were prostitutes and strippers, whose disappearance was usually only noticed after the body was found. This indicated that the killer had deliberately selected this group. Since all the victims were found in the forest and shot with a hunting rifle, it was also suspected that they had been hunted by the perpetrator before they were murdered. Based on the profile that Douglas had created, a search warrant for Hansen's property was obtained.

When his home was searched, the weapon to which the cartridge cases found at the crime scenes could be assigned was seized. The victims' jewelry and a watch that belonged to one of the victims were found in the attic. In addition, they came across a driver's license and identity papers for the dead, as well as a land map on which the locations of the corpses were marked. At first Hansen denied everything and explained the find of the cases with target practice that he had done at the sites. When he was confronted with all the evidence and the death penalty , he confessed to the murders in the hope of a milder sentence. According to his statement, he had visited the women for oral sex , which he did not want his wife to do. The women with whom he was not satisfied were then "punished". He confessed to having kidnapped, raped, hunted and murdered a total of 17 women between the ages of 17 and 41.

On February 27, 1984 Hansen was sentenced to life plus 461 years in prison with no prospect of pardon by Judge Ralph E. Moody for multiple murders, rape, kidnapping and various thefts and violations of the gun law and was sent to the United States Penitentiary, Lewisburg , Pennsylvania briefed. In 1988 he was one of the first inmates to be transferred to the new Spring Creek Correctional Center in Seward, Alaska.

On August 21, 2014, he died at the age of 75 in an Anchorage hospital, where he had been recently taken for deteriorating health.

filming

In October 2011, filming of the film Frozen Ground , directed by Australian Scott Walker, began in Alaska , which is about the events of Robert Hansen and starred Nicolas Cage (as a police officer) and John Cusack (as Robert Hansen) . It opened in theaters on August 23, 2013.

In Criminal Minds as well as in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Gone there is an episode each, the plot of which is based on the criminal case Robert Christian Hansen .

literature

• Michael Newton: Hunting Humans . ISBN 1-55950-026-3
• Bernard DuClos: Fair Game . ISBN 0-312-92905-6
• Walter Gilmour, Leland E. Hale: Butcher Baker . ISBN 0-451-40276-6

Web links

• Hansen on serienkillers.de
• Hansen on explorenorth.com (English)
• Hansen on crimelibrary.com (English)
• radford.edu (English; PDF; 44 kB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Serial Killer Robert Hansen Dies in Anchorage
2. ↑ http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/weird/robert_hansen/index.html