The Butcher Baker – Robert Christian Hansen –4.The Prey Escapes

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The Prey Escapes
Cindy Paulson was a 17-year-old girl who had fallen on hard times. She led a high-risk life working the streets as a prostitute in Anchorage. She had already seen the darker side of human nature up close and personal. And then one day a man picked her up and changed her life forever. It was the worst day of her life—and it was almost the last. She would be one of the lucky ones who survived, but only due to her strength and tenacity.

A sedan stopped to pick up Cindy Paulson on June 13, 1983. Cindy watched the man as they spoke. He was well dressed, but seemed a bit odd, quiet and nervous. Still, there was nothing to indicate that he had any violent tendencies. They discussed what he was looking for and the cost, and he agreed to pay Cindy $200 to perform oral sex. Cindy got into the car.

As soon as she was sitting in the seat, the man changed completely. He pulled out a gun and pointed it at her as he handcuffed her, threatening to kill her if she tried to escape or call any attention to them. He then drove them to his home, where he took Cindy down into the basement. She was forced to strip. He told her that no one would believe her if she tried to escape. He bragged that he was an upstanding citizen whereas cops would see her only as a prostitute and a liar. He also told her he had an alibi already in place. Cindy was already beginning to realize she might not survive the encounter.

Cindy was then tortured and raped repeatedly for hours. Her captor bit her nipples, sexually assaulted her, and then began to use tools, such as a hammer, to rape her. Eventually, he became tired and handcuffed her and chained her neck to a concrete support in the basement. Then he lay down on a nearby couch to take a nap.

When he woke up, he forced Cindy to dress hastily and return to the car. She had to crouch in the back seat as he drove, telling her that he was going to take her to his cabin. Cindy took her shoes and tucked them down into the rear floorboard of the back seat. She would later tell interviewers that she didn't think she would survive the encounter, so she wanted to leave as much evidence as possible to make sure the man wouldn't get away with it.

They arrived at a small airfield. Cindy began scoping out her escape route as he started moving items over to a plane. He un-cuffed her and escorted her to the small aircraft, making her climb inside. However, he didn't secure her as he continued loading guns and supplies into the plane. Cindy saw her chance and took it. She took off, running toward the distant road, 6th Avenue. The man pursued her at first, yelling that he was going to catch her and kill her, but stopped when he saw a truck coming down the road.

36-year-old truck driver Robert Yount saw Cindy, handcuffs dangling from her arm and looking a little worse for wear, and stopped. She climbed in and he took her to the nearby Mush Inn to use a phone. She was trying to call her boyfriend at the Big Timber Motel as Yount left. As he got back on the road, he called the police on his CB radio to report that he had picked up a battered looking woman with no shoes taken her to the Mush Inn. Officer Greg Baker of the Anchorage Police Department went to the Mush Inn, but Cindy was no longer there. The receptionist told him that she had mentioned something about the Big Timber Motel. When he arrived there, Officer Baker found her in Room 110. She was sitting alone, still wearing the handcuffs.

As Officer Baker removed her handcuffs, she told him what had happened to her. She described the kidnapping, the torture she had experienced in the basement of a nice house in a decent suburb, and her abductor's plans to take her to a cabin they could only get to by plane.

The police were incredulous. Some instantly dismissed her story as unbelievable. Others were simply too familiar with the crime in Anchorage, and the criminals. To them, prostitutes were part of the problem. On the other hand, her description of the events and locations was clear and certain, and it was evident that she had suffered some kind of trauma. Officer Baker saw a terrified and beaten woman who was determined to make sure the man who had done this to her would not get away. For this policeman, the crime was too bizarre—and at the same time too strangely familiar—for him to let go.

At the police station, Cindy Paulson filed a formal report, writing down every detail she could remember. The suspect was described as a man in his 40s with reddish hair. Cindy told them about the sedan, the color and style, and that her shoes were in the back seat floorboard. She knew that the house had been in Muldoon. The plane was at Merrill Field, where the trucker had picked her up. After filing her statement, police took her back out to the airfield to see if she could identify the plane the suspect had put her in. Cindy pointed out the blue-and-white Piper Super Cub with the registration identifier N3089Z. She was then taken to the hospital for a physical exam and rape kit. It was confirmed that she had bruising and tearing consistent with sexual assault.

It was easy for police to trace the plane to Hansen. They went to his house and confronted him with Cindy's accusations. Hansen acted surprised and baffled, but readily agreed to cooperate and went down to the police station to make his statement. He was interviewed by an officer from the Anchorage Police Department's Sex Crimes Division, William Dennis. He claimed he had never seen Cindy, and even asked detectives, "You can't rape a prostitute, can you?" He admitted that his family was out of town on a European vacation, but said that his neighbors would give him an alibi—which did check out. His demeanor was calm and confident; in fact, the only suspicious aspect was that he was being accused of very serious crimes and yet was very composed and relaxed. He gave his permission for police to search his house and vehicle.

Investigators did a cursory search of the various locations tied to the alleged crimes. Cindy's descriptions of the interior of the home, car, and plane, as well as her shoes in the car, proved that she had been to all three places at some point. Since Hansen's statement suggested that Cindy was trying to extort him, police began to wonder if he had utilized her services but failed to pay her. Perhaps she was recalling details from that event and applying them to her accusations?

Hansen was known as a meek man and the owner of a well-loved bakery; Cindy was a teenage whore. Cindy had also refused to take a lie detector test. Hansen relied heavily on those facts to help him get out from under police scrutiny, and it worked. After checking Hansen's alibi with his friends John Henning and John Sumrall, Officer Dennis closed the case. Only Officer Greg Baker, the one who'd originally found Cindy at the Big Timber Motel, was still convinced that Hansen was getting away with a crime.

At the time, Anchorage had more than its share of crime—not to mention the increasingly obvious possibility that they had a serial killer on their hands. But police weren't focused on Hansen as being the potential perpetrator. To them, Hansen just didn't seem like the serial killer type. And despite Cindy's statements, her obvious knowledge of Hansen, his home, his vehicle, and his plane, the rape of a prostitute didn't rank high on their list of priorities. Only two members of the Anchorage PD weren't so certain: Officer Baker, and Detective Glenn Flothe, who had been working on the case of the murdered women popping up in the Alaskan wilderness.

Soon, the police would have another name to add to their growing list of potential serial killer victims. On September 9, 1983, the decomposing body of 31-year-old Paula Goulding was found along the banks of the Knik River. Paula had been reported missing over five months before, in April. She had been shot, the same as the others. A .223 caliber bullet was recovered. Most tellingly, Paula's body was found in the same spot that Sherry Morrow's had been almost exactly a year before (minus ten days). With this find, the local police decided that they needed help catching their serial killer. They called in the Federal Bureau of Investigation.