Hunted on Ice: The Search for Alaskan Serial Killer Robert Hansen (2 page)

Chapter Two

 John Daily and Audi Holloway, two off-duty Anchorage police officers, were spending a few much needed days off twenty-five miles north of the city in the Knik River Valley. Considered prime hunting ground for those experienced enough to brave its isolated wilderness, the valley is replete with all types of wildlife, including black bear, Dahl sheep, mountain goats, elk and moose.

On September 12, 1982, the men had hunted all day with little luck, and evening was fast approaching. Deciding to head back to camp, Daily and Holloway began walking the banks of the winding Knik River, avoiding the tangled scrub that lined each shore. Crossing a sandbar, each man noticed something sticking up from the silt and paused.

“What is that?” Holloway asked, pointing.

Daily shook his head, squinting his eyes in an effort to see it better. “I don’t know.”

The two men continued to walk, the object coming closer and closer, until they could distinguish that it was actually a boot jutting up from the sand. This was not that unusual, but the fact that there was a skeletonized leg bone in it was.

 Backing away slowly, the men noted the location and peered around. There was nothing visible in close proximity to the boot, but they had no intention of looking any further. They were, after all, police officers, and the last thing they wanted to do was contaminate a crime scene. It was too late to try and hike out of the gorge tonight, so Daily and Holloway went back to camp and summoned help the next morning.

Sergeant Rollie Port of the Anchorage Police Department arrived on the scene early and ordered the entire area photographed. Carefully, using small trowels, he and his men excavated the grave, uncovering a badly decomposed, fully clothed skeleton. An ace bandage was tangled through remnants of curly blonde hair, indicating to investigators that the victim may have been blindfolded when she was killed.

Sergeant Port had the corpse photographed from every angle, then helped place the remains gently into a body bag. Working with large metal screens, investigators began sifting the sand from the excavated grave, finding their first clue when the screen revealed a single shell casing from a .223 caliber bullet. Port knew that this type of ammunition was used in high-powered rifles, such as M-16’s, Mini-14’s, or AR-15’s. The shell casing was a good clue for ballistic purposes, but as far as the ammunition itself, it was not that unusual.  The high powered rifles capable of firing the shell were preferred weapons of big game hunters, and the majority of the Alaskan population probably owned some type of high powered weapon.

Back in Anchorage, the medical examiner determined that the body was that of a female, who had been dead at least six months, maybe more. She had died from three gunshot wounds made by .223 caliber bullets. Interestingly, her clothing showed no signs of bullet holes or tears. Sergeant Port was intrigued by this. It appeared that the victim had been nude when her killer shot her, and had then been re-dressed before she was buried. But why?

It would take investigators a little over two weeks to determine that the dead woman found on the Knik River was 24-year-old Sherry Morrow, who had been missing since November 17, 1981. She had last told friends that she was going to meet a man who had offered her $300 to pose for some nude photos.

**********

Finally, after the discovery of Sherry Morrow’s body, Anchorage Police were willing to consider the possibility that there was someone out there murdering topless dancers and prostitutes. They knew about the increase in missing person’s reports, and of course, the discovery of Eklutna Annie and Joanne Messina. Now, having found that Sherry Morrow was also a victim of murder, they were willing to concede that they might have a serial killer on their hands.

But if they were admitting this among themselves, they were reluctant to reveal it to the public. Fearing that doing so would tip off the killer, Detective Maxine Farrell told the Anchorage Daily News that she doubted the deaths of the three girls were connected. ‘We don’t believe we have a mass murderer out there. Some psycho knocking off girls,’ she said.

But that’s exactly what the prostitutes and topless dancers believed. They were convinced there was a predator out there, targeting them, preying on them, and they berated the Anchorage Police for not taking the disappearances more seriously.

The police understood their frustration, but they strongly disagreed with their assessment. They
had
investigated the girl’s disappearances, and questioned everyone they could think of, from friends to bar owners, to pimps, to aggressive johns, in an effort to find out what had happened to them. And still, they weren’t sure who was actually ‘missing’, and who had simply left town on their own.

But the discovery of the three murdered women and the others that were still missing had the Anchorage Police Department very concerned. They asked the Alaska State Police for assistance with the investigation, and after they joined forces, the two agencies began sharing information.

**********

Seven months would pass since Sherry Morrow's body was found in the lonely grave by the Knik River, and in that time, more women would continue to disappear. In April of 1983, 17-year-old Paula Golding was wondering how her life had taken such a drastic turn.

Paula had come to Alaska, like all those before her, to try and improve her financial situation, and in the beginning, things went well for the girl. She found a good job as a secretary, earning excellent money in the booming economy, secured a nice apartment, and made several new friends. But just as quickly, things had begun to fall apart on her.

She lost her secretarial job and was unable to find another, and any savings she had managed to acquire soon ran out. She needed to find work that paid well, and find it fast. But there was not much out there that fit that criteria, and reluctantly she ended up taking a job as an exotic dancer at a gentleman’s club downtown.

On the evening of April 25, 1983, Paula Golding was seen near 4
th
Avenue, outside a strip club in the city of Anchorage. And then she vanished. Friends of the missing teen reported her disappearance to local police, but there were no leads to follow and no suspects, and as with all the other women who had disappeared, Paula’s case soon went cold.

**********

Less than two months later, at 5:00 am on the morning of June 13, 1983, a local truck driver was shocked to see a scantily clad woman run in front of his vehicle. The girl was screaming, and waving her arms frantically, in an effort to get him to stop. The driver screeched to a halt, and as he did so, he noticed the furtive shadow of a man slinking away between two buildings.

The woman, who was little more than a teenager, raced to the passenger side door and climbed in. She was nearly hysterical, sobbing and crying that a man was trying to get her. Dangling from her left wrist was a pair of silver, shiny handcuffs.

The distraught girl asked the driver to take her to a nearby motel, and once there, she went inside and called her pimp. But her rescuer, surprised that she seemed to have no intention of calling the police, drove directly to the police station and reported the incident.

Officer Gregg Baker arrived at the motel to find the girl alone, and still in handcuffs. He removed the cuffs, and then listened in astonishment as the girl told him her story.

She was 17-years-old, and working as a topless dancer at one of the clubs on 4
th
Avenue. Earlier that evening, a red-haired man who wore glasses and had a heavily pockmarked face had approached her and offered her $200 to perform oral sex on him.

The teen readily agreed, and got into the passenger side of the man’s truck. But while performing the act, the man had snapped a handcuff around her wrist, and pulled a gun on her. He then cuffed both hands in front of her and drove her to a house in the Muldoon section of the city.

Once there, the man had taken her to the basement, stripped her naked, and ordered her to stand against a wooden support beam. Chaining her body to the beam, he then raised her cuffed wrists and suspended them to a hook in the ceiling. The man then spent several hours torturing her, biting her breasts, and sexually assaulting her with the handle of a hammer.

After what seemed like an eternity, her kidnapper laid down on a couch and fell fast asleep. The terrified girl knew she was in serious trouble, and searched for a way to escape. But there was no way out, so instead, she decided to take note of her surroundings, memorizing every detail in the hope that if she lived through this, she could put this sadist behind bars.

 The basement walls were covered with what was obviously the trophies of an experienced and avid hunter. The mounted heads of deer, elk, moose and sheep stared back at her, their dead glass eyes fixed and unseeing. There were stuffed birds resting in a corner, and a large bear skin rug on the floor.

Looking upwards, toward her suspended hands, she took note of several long scratch marks in the beam near the hook. She memorized the layout of the furnishings, and carefully studied her attacker as he slept. He was thin, slight, and woefully unattractive, his skin so badly blemished that she would later describe him as a ‘crater face.’

After several hours the man awoke and assaulted her again, then released her aching arms from the hook and stood face to face with her, staring intently.

“I like you.” He said, his face so close to hers that she could actually smell his foul breath. “I like you a lot.” His gaze was intense, leering. He paused, as if thinking, then continued. “I’ll tell you what; I’m going to fly you up to my cabin, and if you’ll have sex with me there, I’ll let you go.”

For a moment, the girl felt a surge of hope rise within her. But she wasn’t stupid, and almost instantly she realized that if she got into this man’s plane, she would never be coming back. She wanted to object, but she was afraid too. Instead, she nodded her head and whispered ‘Okay.’

The two drove out to Merrill Air Field, where the man directed her over to a small, two-seater plane. Unlocking one of the handcuffs, he threw it over a small pipe running along the top of the plane, and then locked her hand back in it. She could now move the length of the pipe, but no further.

As the man returned to his truck, carrying bags back and forth to the plane, the girl worked on the handcuffs. She pulled at her hands, yanking and twisting them until the cold steel cut into her flesh, tearing her wrists and allowing blood to run freely down her arms.

And then, incredibly, her right hand slipped through the locked cuff and she was free. Amazed, she turned to see the man bending into his truck, his back towards her, his body halfway inside the vehicle. Terrified and excited, all at the same time, the girl saw her chance to escape and she took it.

She bolted from the plane, running as fast as she could, fleeing from this man she was certain would kill her. She didn’t know where she was or where she was going, and she didn’t care. She had to get away because the man was chasing her.

The petrified girl could hear him gaining ground behind her, his heavy boots slapping against the pavement. She had no shoes on, and she was aware of the gravelly tarmac cutting into the flesh of her feet, slowing her down, but she was oblivious to any pain.

Up ahead, almost like a miracle, the girl saw two headlights piercing the dark road. With renewed energy, she burst forth and ran into the middle of the street. She had no intention of moving. If the truck hit her, she thought, so be it. It would surely be an easier death than what her kidnapper had in mind. But the truck didn’t hit her. It stopped abruptly, and her attacker scurried away.

**********

Officer Baker was stunned by the girl’s story. He transported her down to police headquarters, where she gave a formal statement. Several detectives then drove her out to Merrill Airfield where they cruised back and forth among the numerous planes. Finally, the girl shouted for the officers to stop, and pointed to a blue and white Piper Super Cub with tail #N3089Z.

Learning from the flight tower that the plane was owned by a man named Robert Hansen who lived on Old Harbor Road in the Muldoon section of the city, police dropped the teen off at the hospital and then proceeded to Hansen’s home.

There, they were greeted by 40-year-old Bob Hansen, a small, thin man with red hair, glasses, and a severely pockmarked face. When they explained to the man why they were there, Hansen was incensed. He was adamant that he had never met the teen, and had certainly not abducted her. He had been out all evening, first having dinner with friends, and then playing poker with them till the wee hours of the morning.

The suspect explained that he was a happily married man with a family and a successful bakery in town. His wife and children were traveling in Europe, he said, while he stayed behind to run their business.

He seemed to want to impress upon the lawmen that he was way above consorting with prostitutes. He was well liked and respected in the community, he asserted, which was probably why the ‘hooker’ was telling such a ridiculous story. It seemed obvious to him that it was nothing more than an attempt to shake him down for money.

The police listened quietly as the man continued to fume. It was totally absurd, he insisted, “You can’t rape a prostitute can you?” he asked sarcastically.

 Police knew that you could, indeed, rape a prostitute, but they didn’t bother to point this out to their suspect. They found Robert Hansen to be arrogant and pretentious, and they disliked the man immediately. But they held their tongues. The baker seemed to be cooperative, even asking if they’d like to come in and search his house.

They certainly would, the officers said. Making their way to the basement, the detectives were surprised to see that very little matched what the teen had told them. While it was furnished as the girl described, there were no animal heads mounted on the walls, no stuffed birds staring from the corner recesses, and no bear skin rug on the floor. They used flashlight to look above the beam they assumed was the one the girl was chained to, but they found no hook screwed into the ceiling, and no scratches as she had described.