The Butcher Baker – Robert Christian Hansen –3.Criminal in the Cold

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Criminal in the Cold
Alaska not only had a booming economy, it also had a vast wilderness perfect for Hansen's favorite past time, hunting. It didn't take long for him to become proficient at hunting the wild game of the Alaskan forests and mountains. On four different occasions in 1969, 1970, and 1971, he had his trophy kills memorialized in the Pope & Young record books. Hansen's trophy room quickly became flush with monuments of his hunting exploits.

Eventually, though, hunting wild game ceased to satisfy him. Luckily for Hansen, the influx of people into Alaska had brought with it a fair amount of shadier activity. The majority of this activity was run by a Mafia boss from Seattle, Washington, named Frank Colacurio. The area he controlled was referred to as a "tenderloin"—the red light district of Anchorage. There were a multitude of strip clubs such as the Great Alaskan Bush Company, Arctic Fox, Wild Cherry, and Booby Trap. The unnamed dispensaries were the more abhorrent: brothels, magazine stands that sold child pornography and violent sexually explicit material, and drug dens. Crime in the tenderloin was high, featuring assault, robbery, prostitution, and even murder on a not infrequent basis.

Hansen got into the act with petty theft, then began perusing the ladies of the night. For 200 to 300 dollars, Hansen could get any one of these women into his vehicle. It didn't take long for him to move on to raping the women picked up. Most of them never reported the rapes; they did not believe they would be taken seriously, and at any rate it was something of an occupational hazard in their line of work. Even when the news broke years later about what Hansen had done to some of his victims, about the ones who didn't make it, very few of the survivors came forward. An unknown number could not come forward, as they had disappeared from the streets never to be seen again.

Prostitution is illegal in most of the United States for a few reasons. The first is to help prevent the spread of sexually transmitted and drug related diseases. The second is the lack of laws that would enable prostitution to be regulated as a legitimate occupation. Thirdly, prostitution is often associated with other criminal activity; where there is prostitution there are also drugs and often other forms of crime. Of course, the illegal nature of their profession and their proximity to other criminal elements makes prostitutes easy prey. Controllable by drugs and money, disposable in the eyes of sociopaths and solid citizens alike, they are often the target of rape, theft, abuse, and murder.

Many of Hansen's victims who weren't prostitutes were exotic dancers. In 1970s Anchorage, dancing in strip clubs was often a supplementary job for women who were trying to raise children, finish school, or just make enough to get by. In a place with long nights and a burgeoning population of unattached men seeking entertainment, exotic dancing was seen as a decent source of income, without the risk of working the streets or the requirement of sexual interaction. Some strippers also worked as call girls, but the majority did not. For Hansen, however, there was no difference. The strip clubs were mostly in the seedy, shady tenderloin district where reliable witnesses were few and far between. Exotic dancers therefore made easy targets, because it would be very difficult for them to prove that an assault had occurred—or even to get the police to take the complaint seriously. Many of those who disappeared forever did have missing persons reports filed by friends or relatives, but these were not usually a priority for authorities. The high-risk lifestyle was considered a person risk, and police tended to focus on the fact that these women worked in a field that catered to the criminal populace. This fact certainly allowed Hansen to get away with his crimes for longer than he would otherwise have been able.

In November of 1971, a woman pulled up to a stoplight in the Alaskan town of Spenard. She looked over to see Hansen and gave him a polite smile. Hansen lifted a gun and pointed it at her, demanding that she get out of her car and into his. She wisely drove away, and Hansen was arrested. While out on bail prior to the trial, he was arrested again, this time for the kidnapping, rape, and armed assault of an 18-year-old prostitute. Unfortunately for Hansen's future victims, the prostitute failed to show up in court on the day of the trial, and Superior Court Judge James Fitzgerald was forced to drop the charges in that case.

However, Judge Fitzgerald still wanted to keep Hansen off the streets, and he still had the charge of assault with a deadly weapon from the first incident. He later said that he recognized the type of man Hansen was and knew he was a probable repeat offender. The best he could do was to try to slow Hansen down. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to slow him down much. Sentenced to five years, Hansen was jailed in March and paroled in June, when he was moved to a halfway house under psychiatric supervision until November. In Hansen's eventual confession, he told police was already prowling around the red light district searching for his next victim the night he was released. He was the subject of more complaints in 1975, but one by one, the prostitutes dropped the charges. They were afraid that Hansen would go free and follow through on his threats to kill them if they told anyone.

Two women were already missing when Hansen was arrested again in 1977. 17-year-old Megan Emerick had gone missing on July 7, 1973, from Anchorage. Two years later, Mary K. Thill, a 23-year-old housewife, had gone missing from Seward. Hansen was not arrested for these disappearances, however; he had stolen a chainsaw. He was sentenced to another five years in prison. After a psychiatric evaluation, Hansen was diagnosed with behavioral and personality issues, including bipolar disorder. It was ordered that he follow a lithium-based treatment program, but this was never enforced. After one year in jail, Hansen was released back onto the streets.

He quickly resumed his hobby of kidnapping women off those same streets. To make his home available for this dark pastime, he sent his wife and children away for a vacation. Some of the women were raped and released; some went missing. In 1980, Hansen killed a dog belonging to one of his murder victims. He later told investigators that he was afraid that the dog would lead someone to her body.

In that same year, a body was discovered near Eklutna Road. The woman would be dubbed "Eklutna Annie," and is still unidentified to this day. In June, Roxanne Easland, a 24-year-old prostitute, went missing from Anchorage. Joanne Messina's body was discovered in a gravel pit after she disappeared from Seward in July. 41-year-old Lisa Futrell was last seen in Anchorage in September of 1980.

To society, though, Hansen seemed to be doing well. In 1981, Hansen claimed his house had been burglarized and his hunting trophies stolen, resulting in a settlement from his insurance company. He used the money to open a bakery in Anchorage. The insurance company, however, filed a fraud case when it was discovered that the missing trophies were still in Hansen's possession. His excuse was that he had found them in his yard and forgotten to report the fact to the insurance company.

In 1981, two more women went missing from Anchorage: 22-year-old Andrea Altiery and 23-year-old Sherry Morrow. The next year, Hansen bought an airplane, despite his lack of a pilot's license. The Piper Super Cub N3089Z became the key component of his hunting expeditions. Previously, Hansen had picked his victims up and handcuffed them in his vehicle before taking them to nearby rural areas. He now began to fly them out to the Knik River, where he had located a remote sandbar. It was there that he would begin his hunt. The women were stripped, raped, blindfolded, and then released. Hansen would hunt them with his favorite rifle before burying or dumping their bodies and then flying back to Merrill Field, where he kept his plane.

23-year-old Sue Luna was last seen in Anchorage in May of 1982. In September of 1982, the body of Sherry Morrow was found by the Knik River by an off-duty policeman who was out hunting. Paula Goulding, a 31-year-old stripper, went missing in April of 1983. Even as more women began to disappear and bodies began to pile up, Hansen was still maintaining his facade as a baker—and still randomly raping women he picked up in Anchorage's tenderloin district. And then, one of his victims escaped.