How a ‘geeky baker’ carried out a killing spree in the Alaskan wilderness 

His wife, children and friends knew nothing of the 'terrifying' secret he was hiding.

Hansen’s Bakery in Anchorage, Alaska was a popular spot in the 1970s. Located in a strip mall at Ninth Avenue and Ingra Street, the bustling shop’s donuts and danishes drew customers near and far.

To those who visited, owner Robert Hansen seemed like a good-natured man. He was married to Darla, a deeply religious woman who tutored disabled children. Hansen went hunting on the weekends and worked hard. If anything, the dad-of-two was considered a little dull by friends. 

‘Robert Hansen was a geeky looking guy,’ Dom Utton, author of new book Faces of Evil, tells Metro. ‘He had a stutter, he wore glasses, he was skinny. He didn’t seem like a “bad man”.’

But Hansen was worse than bad, he was pure evil. His ferocious killing spree – which went unnoticed for 12 years – is suspected to have stemmed from a feeling of ‘inadequacy’ experienced from an early age.

Born on February 15, 1939, in Estherville, Iowa, Hansen had been bullied in school due to his stutter and severe acne. He had an unstable relationship with his father, who had made him work long hours in the family bakery before school. 

By his twenties, Hansen had turned to a life of crime. 

At 21, he was jailed after burning down a school bus garage and went on to be caught several times for shoplifting in the years which followed. 

When Hansen moved to Alaska in 1967 it was to start a new life. But behind his ‘gentle’ exterior, was a terrifying secret.

In the 1970s, construction workers had flocked to Anchorage to help build the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which stretched over the state. In a bid to capitalise on the influx, nightlife bosses hired extra dancers and prostitutes to keep them entertained.

At the same time, Hansen began to prowl the downtown Anchorage area when his wife, Darla, visited her family in Arkansas with their children.

Later known as the ‘Butcher Baker’, he deliberately targeted sex workers as young as 16 – often vulnerable and from out-of-state – as he knew were less likely to be missed.

After meeting the women on street corners or near bars, Hansen would kidnap them at gunpoint and smuggle them to his plane at the city’s Merrill Hill airport. The killer would then take them to secluded areas such as the Knik River in the Alaskan wilderness.

There – according to disputed reports – he’d hunt them like animals. Many of the women were killed by gunshots to the back.

‘Hansen was a killer hidden in plain sight,’ Dominic explains. ‘So many people would have popped into his shop and thought he was a nice bloke, then later had to come to terms with the fact he was, in fact, an absolute monster. The way he killed his victims was horrendous.

‘Hansen got away with his murders for 12 years. You’d think local gossip and word of mouth would have made people realise what this guy was doing, but the pieces never really came together.

‘When police first started finding bodies, and it took a while before they did, they built up a psychological profile of the suspect, which was weirdly accurate. It said the killer would have feelings of inadequacy and a stutter..’

Hansen, shy outwardly, had secretly grown in confidence as he got away with his murders. Anchorage was the perfect backdrop for his crimes, as he was able to blend in with Alaska’s natural predators such as bears, moose and Mother Nature.

When women started to disappear, there was no ripple of fear. Deaths in Alaska were easy to ignore. When 17-year-old dancer and sex worker Cindy Paulson escaped from Hansen in 1983, but her experience was brushed off by police. Hansen had persuaded investigators she had made up the story after a dispute over money.

Dominic adds: ‘Cindy had been chained up in Hansen’s basement and ran out of his car when he tried to take her to his plane. She went to the police and went “look, this is the guy, he raped me, he did all these horrible things, he was going to take me into his plane and kill me in the wilderness.” Cindy gave the police everything they could possibly need.

‘Detectives brought Hansen in for questioning and he says, “no, no, it wasn’t me, I was at a friend’s” – and they let him go. Hansen was clearly guilty as hell, but got away with it.’

When bodies started emerging later that year – on the banks of the Knik River and buried in gravel pits – police realised there was a serial killer was on the loose.

Detective Glenn Flothe of the Alaska State Troopers persuaded colleagues to revisit Cindy’s testimony and Hansen’s home was searched for any evidence which could link him to the bodies. There, they found several guns and jewelry belonging to some of the missing women. A chart with 37 small ‘x’ was also discovered, with locations which matched up to where the bodies were found.

Hansen eventually admitted to killing 17 woman and raping another 30.

He was thrown behind bars for life and, over decades, the story of the Butcher Baker faded. Hansen’s name was briefly brought back into the spotlight in 2013, when a film ‘On Frozen Ground’ – which starred John Cusack as Hansen and Vanessa Hudgens as Cindy Paulson – was released.

Robert Hansen died aged 75 at 1.30am at Alaska Regional Hospital August 21, 2014. The cause of death given was ‘natural causes’.

While Hansen’s story is full of intrigue, mystery and horror, his name isn’t quite so infamous as the likes of Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer. The very location of his crimes in Alaska – a state nicknamed ‘the Last Frontier’ – may have made his murderous spree seem more distant to Americans and the wider world, Dominic suggests.

What’s more, there didn’t seem to be a direct motive for Hansen’s crimes. A variety of factors – his strict father, bullying in school, previous crimes – had perhaps set him on the path to becoming a murderer, but the world will never truly know.

‘We crave explanation. When there is none, it makes you want to dig around more to find answers,’ says Dominic.

‘When I was writing my book, the really scary killers weren’t John Wayne Gacy or Ted Bundy, or even the Moors Murderers. They’re all nightmare-ish figures, for sure. But people like Hansen are different. He seemed so “normal” to people who knew him, and it’s just terrifying to think how easy it was for him to hide his true self.’

You can buy Faces of Evil: Unmasking the World’s Most Horrific Serial Killers by Dominic Utton by clicking here.

Robert Hansen's known and suspected victims

• Celia Beth van Zanten, 18. Kidnapped as she walked from her home to a nearby supermarket on December 22, 1971. On December 25, 1971, her body was found at Chugach State Park, close to Anchorage.
• Megan Siobhan Emerick, 17. Vanished without a trace on July 7, 1973, in Seward, Alaska after leaving a laundry room at her boarding school. Hansen was in Seward the day she vanished and had an ‘x’ in the town on his map, leading to police to suspect his involvement.
• Mary Kathleen Thill, 22. She disappeared from Seward, Alaska on July 5, 1975 while her husband was away working on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.
• Eklutna Annie, age unknown. The remains of this unknown woman – possibly a sex worker – were discovered one mile south of South Eklutna Lake Road in Eklutna, Anchorage, on July 21, 1980.
• Joanne Messina, 24. The local topless dancer went out to dinner with Hansen on May 19, 1980.On July 8, 1980, Joanne’s severely decomposed body was found.
• Roxane Easland, 24. Vanished on June 28, 1980 while staying at the Budget Motel on Spenard Road in Anchorage with her boyfriend. Although Hansen admitted to killing her, her body was never discovered.
• Lisa Futrell, 41. She met and was subsequently kidnapped by Hansen on September 6, 1980. The nightclub worker was reported missing by her two housemates. Lisa’s body was discovered on May 9, 1984.
• Sherry Morrow, 23. She vanished after telling friends she was meeting a photographer who had promised her $300 for nude images on November 17, 1981. Hunters found her remains in a shallow grave on the banks of the Knik River on September 12, 1982.
• Andrea Mona ‘Fish’ Altiery, 24. At 11:00 p.m. on December 2, 1981, Andrea was seen jumping in a taxi to go to the Boniface Mall in Anchorage, where she planned to take part in a photoshoot. She was never seen again. Andrea’s possessions, including her fish necklace, were discovered when police later searched Hansen’s home. He told officers he had thrown her body off a bridge and into the Knik River. Andrea’s body was never found.
• Sue Luna, 23. On May 26, 1982, the exotic dancer met Hansen in a diner car park in Anchorage and was reported missing the following day. Hansen confirmed he abducted and killed Sue then buried her near to the Knik River. Her remains were found on April 24, 1984.
• Robin Pelkey, 34. Skeletal remains were found on April 25, 1984, in the Alaskan town of Palmer, close to Horseshoe Lake. Little is known about Robin’s life, besides the fact she lived in Anchorage and vanished n July, 1983.
• DeLynne ‘Sugar’ Renee Frey, 22. The waitress was last seen in March 1983 and her body found on a Knik River sandbar by a pilot in 1985.
• Paula Goulding, 30. The dancer in Anchorage was offered money by Hansen on April 25, 1983 before he kidnapped there and bundled her into his aircraft. Hansen killed Pauline with a .223 rifle and her body was found on September 2, 1983 in a shallow grave on the Knik River.
• Cindy Paulson, 17. She met Hansen on June 13, 1983, in Anchorage after he offered her money to perform a sex act. He then kidnapped her at gunpoint and planned to take her to his plane at Merrill Field. But she escaped from the car and would later detail the experience to police, who initially did not believe her story.
• Malai Larsen, 28. On July 10, 1981, the dancer was reported missing from Anchorage. Her body was found on April 24, 1984.
• Teresa Watson, 22. Another dancer, she was last seen in Anchorage on March 25, 1983. Hansen had met her at beauty spot Scenic Lake, and offered her $300 to provide ‘company’ before he abducted and killed her.
• Angela Lynn Feddern, 24. She was last seen on Fourth Avenue in Anchorage sometime in February 1983. She reported missing three months later by the owner of the nightclub where she worked. Angela’s body was found on April 26, 1984, on a small lake near the larger Figure Eight Lake.
• Tamera ‘Tami’ Pederson, 20. The dancer called her family on August 7, 1982 and said she’d been offered money to pose for photographs. Instead, she was kidnapped and murdered by Hansen. Her body was not found until Hansen confessed.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Kirsten.Robertson@metro.co.uk 

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