Sadistic Killers: Profiles of Pathological Predators (18 page)

Sue was taken to Knik River, stripped, abused and eventually hunted before being shot dead. Hansen would later identify her from photographs.

Sue’s sister was so concerned that she placed an advert in the paper asking for information of her whereabouts – and when Hansen saw this, he was deeply perturbed. He’d assumed that no one cared about the victims but now someone was asking questions and the café staff might identify him. Determined to regain control, he phoned Sue’s sister and stutteringly said that Sue had gone off with a black man. He asked her to meet him but she sensibly refused, a move which doubtless saved her life.

Sue’s best friend Reva later left a tribute to her on a memorial website for murder victims, describing her as someone with ‘a zest for life and a deep love of people’ who loved to laugh.

Tami’s murder

Three months after Sue Luna’s murder, Hansen offered pretty Tamara Pederson $300 for a photo session. The talented dancer, known as Tami, lived with her boyfriend and was in love with him. Her wages were low so she was understandably keen to make legitimate cash.

Robert Hansen took her in his plane to his safe house and satisfied his cruel urges before burying her one and a half miles from the old Knik Bridge.

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intimidating dance bar owners who were allegedly connected to organised crime.

Burglary

Meanwhile Hansen’s need for thrills continued unabated, and he began to burglarise the cabins on Hawk Lake, loading radios and cassette players into his aeroplane and transporting them to his bakery. But soon he reverted to his preferred type of thrill…

Angela’s murder

In February 1983, he approached 24-year-old brunette Angela Feddern on Fourth Avenue. Angela was a dancer who occasionally supplemented her income by prostituting herself.

She got chatting to Hansen and agreed to meet him for one of his infamous $300 lunches. She told a colleague that he was ugly but rich. Angela doubtless also received the bondage and gagging treatment before Hansen carried out his brutal sexual fantasies. But no amount of bondage, torture or rape could make him feel important in the long term, so he had to repeat these controlling acts before shooting her and burying her naked body at Figure Eight Lake.

Tereasa’s murder

The following month – on 25 March 1983 – he struck up a conversation with Tereasa Watson (known as Nicolle, her middle name) and offered her $300 to have lunch and spend some time with him. She told her flatmate that he seemed nice and took off for the restaurant.

She, too, was flown to the wilderness and abused repeatedly before being shot. But the ground was frozen solid and Robert Hansen found it impossible to dig even a shallow grave.

Defeated, he left her body outdoors on the Kenai Peninsula where it was half eaten by animals.

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DeLynn’s murder

In early April he murdered again, abducting 20-year-old DeLynn Frey and flying her into the Alaskan woods where she was presumably raped and tortured before being buried at Horseshoe Lake. Again, the cruelty only satisfied him for a few days before he had the urge to kill again.

Paula’s murder

Later that same month – on 24 April 1983 – Hansen visited a bar where the women danced naked. He approached the newest dancer, Paula Goulding, and asked her for a date.

Paula had found it difficult to make ends meet whilst working as a secretary and had been lured to Alaska’s tenderloin district by the talk of good wages and large tips. Hansen’s stammer and cleancut look made him seem a safe bet and she tentatively accepted, so just before midnight they went for a drive in his car.

She relaxed in the vehicle as he drove into a quiet car park, and was taken completely by surprise when he grabbed hold of her hair and held a gun to her head. He warned her to do exactly as she was told, then handcuffed her arms behind her back, driving her to the airport where he kept his plane.

He flew Paula to a wooded area beside Knik River and pulled her into a meat shack used by hunters. There, he handcuffed her hands behind her back around a long post. From what we know of sadists, she would have been extensively tortured in this safe house – but according to Hansen he now uncuffed her and she slapped him and fled.

He said that he immediately picked up his rifle, took aim at the fleeing woman, and shot her through the heart. But the authorities believe that he abused each woman repeatedly until he eventually tired of them.

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During this particular abduction, Hansen didn’t have a spade with him, so he dug a shallow grave with a ragged piece of wood and dumped Paula in it. Her skeleton wasn’t discovered until 2 September that year.

The suitor

Finding victims through the dancing bars was becoming more difficult. For one thing, many bars were closing down as the area was becoming less prosperous. Second, he was using them so often that he was afraid of being recognised, even though he was still in disguise. So now – less than a fortnight after murdering Paula Goulding – Hansen placed a singles ad, describing himself as a lover of the outdoors who yearned for a sincere relationship. He conveniently forgot to mention that he had a wife, a 12-year-old daughter and an eight-year-old son…

Keen to temporarily free himself of his incumbents, Hansen arranged for his family to enjoy a European vacation. They left to visit friends in Austria and he now had the house to himself.

He began to meet the respondents to his advertisement, taking them for coffee or for dinner. Some of those relationships progressed as far as several dates, and one woman even took flying lessons in his plane.

All of these women had ex-husbands, grown children or friends who had an interest in their welfare so Hansen didn’t sexually assault them and the relationships just naturally drifted to an end. Realising that these weren’t suitable victims, Hansen returned to the streets for likely prey.

A torture victim escapes

On 13 June 1983, he went cruising and eventually saw 17-year-old prostitute Cindy Paulson. He negotiated the price of fellatio, and she got into the car and began to pleasure him, but 152

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suddenly he produced his gun and cuffed her then drove swiftly to his house. There, Hansen handcuffed her to a sturdy pillar.

He also chained her to it around her neck before sodomising and raping her, clearly turned on by her screams. But for sadists like Hansen, the real pleasure comes in inflicting maximum pain and sexual mutilation so he bit viciously at her nipples, forced a hammer deep into her vagina, raped her again and left her chained to the support.

When she told him that she had to urinate, he fetched a towel and told her to empty her bladder onto it, enjoying her evident humiliation. He left her chained up in a standing position overnight – a stance which can lead to a victim dying of exhaustion – and raped her again in the early hours. Then he unshackled her, leaving her wrists handcuffed, and took her out to his car, explaining that he was going to fly her to his cabin for a week.

Realising that his sadism would increase when he had her in a remote setting, Cindy waited until they reached the airfield then fled. Barefoot and bleeding with her hands still cuffed in front of her, she ran in front of a car and begged the driver for help. It was 5 a.m.

Noting that his victim had found help, Robert Hansen raced back to his house and cleaned away the traces of Cindy’s captivity. Then he phoned a business acquaintance and said that he’d picked up a prostitute who was now claiming she’d been raped. Would his friend give him an alibi for the night in question? The acquaintance unthinkingly agreed.

Meanwhile, the police interviewed Cindy Paulson and she was able to give a clear description of the man who had abducted and raped her. She also gave the name of the street where he lived and described the moose heads and other animal trophies mounted on the walls. She even gave them the colours of his plane, a blue and white Super Cub.

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A search of Hansen’s home revealed a hidden cache of weapons in the basement but it didn’t include the rifle that Cindy claimed she’d been threatened with. Some of the police believed her, but others thought she’d simply had an argument with a punter over how much she was to be paid.

She was taken to hospital, where medics found a tampon pushed high into her vagina which was saturated with semen.

There were also marks on her neck and abrasions on her wrists where she’d pulled desperately at the metal cuffs.

The following day she quickly picked Hansen out of a photo line-up. The police interviewed him, but he’d now persuaded a second business acquaintance to back up his false alibi. These alibis, combined with the fact that there was no forensic proof that Cindy Paulson had been in his house, made the authorities decide not to arrest the man. Yet they could have charged him with unlawfully keeping weapons, as it’s a felony for a criminal to possess a handgun, and Hansen had convictions for assault with a deadly weapon, felony theft and arson in his distant past.

The officer concluded that Hansen was a family man and successful businessman whereas the complainant was a prostitute. The case was closed.

The net closes in

Later that summer, Robert Hansen’s wife and children returned from Europe and he again played the role of the happy family man. That August, his father died of a heart attack and he inherited his gun collection, adding it to his already sizeable collection of hidden weaponry.

But by now the police had found the bodies of many of the murdered dancers and knew that others were missing. Several of them remembered Robert Hansen’s abduction of Cindy Paulson and recalled that he’d previously held a gun to an 18-154

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year-old’s head and attempted to abduct her. They knew that he also had a record for arson and theft.

A pro le

Keen for confirmation that they were on the right track, they asked the FBI for a profile of the murderer. Profiler John Douglas told them that the man was a sadistic thrill killer who probably had a stutter. He’d be around 40, have suffered rejection in childhood and would have a record for arson and/

or shoplifting.

The police were amazed that Douglas had identified that the man had a stutter, but the FBI agent was simply working on the basis of statistics. Numerous murderers have had speech defects. Christopher Wilder, profiled in this book, had a slight lisp as did the Son of Sam killer. David Carpenter aka The Trailside Killer had a stutter as did prostitute-killer Joel Rifkin.

And serial killer Charles Starkweather, who was terrified of his father, frequently stammered as a child.

The police told John Douglas that they had a suspect who fitted the profile perfectly but that he had an alibi for the abduction of Cindy Paulson. Douglas suggested that the police tell Hansen’s acquaintances that they’d be in serious legal trouble if they were lying and continued to lie. Both men now shamefacedly admitted that they hadn’t been with him on the night in question. It was time to bring the suspect in.

Arrest

Early on the morning of 27 October 1983, the police staked out Hansen’s bakery and arrested him. Still maintaining his good guy act, he surrendered without a fight – he didn’t even ask what crime they were charging him with.

They read him his rights and started the five-hour interview.

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behind the headboard of his bed they found an aviation map with over 24 marks on it, each believed to represent a spot where Hansen had murdered. The FBI were convinced that he’d masturbated frequently whilst looking at the map and thinking about what he’d done to the bondaged girls. They also found a Ruger, a Magnum and evidence that Hansen owned another three guns. More damningly, the business card of the murdered DeLynn Frey was found alongside other women’s ID hidden in his garage and some of the victims’ jewellery was found concealed in the attic insulation.

Asked about the abduction attempt of the 18-year-old in 1971, he admitted that he’d pulled a gun on her, stating that his desperately unhappy childhood had left him with an uncontrollable rage. He also admitted paying for the services of numerous prostitutes, but denied forcing anyone to commit sexual acts. Shown photos of the murdered dancers Sherry Morrow and Paula Goulding, he denied knowing them.

The interviewer pretended to empathise with the sadistic killer, telling him that he understood what it was like to be rejected by girls – and that Robert probably felt he was merely turning the tables around when he got out the wires, handcuffs, laces and chains. But Hansen continued to deny any wrongdoing and eventually asked for an attorney. The police had been hoping for a full confession and were dismayed that he’d chosen to lawyer up.

Kidnapping charges

On 3 November 1983, he was indicted for assault and kidnapping, five counts of illegal possession of a handgun, theft and insurance fraud. He entered a not guilty plea and was remanded in custody. Recognising that she was a completely innocent victim, the Anchorage community pledged their support for Hansen’s shellshocked wife. As further details 156

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of her husband’s crimes emerged, she took the children to Arizona to protect them from the truth.