First Blood (2022–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Robert Hansen: The Butcher Baker - full transcript

- The murders of 17 women,
prostitutes and topless dancers,

the biggest mass murder case
in Alaskas history.

- This woman did
not follow the plan.

- She broke away, he chased her.

- He's stalking women,

chasing women,

he's killing women.

He can't stop himself.

- There is a monster
walking amongst us.

- He had to have
that godlike feeling.

- Eklutna Lake nestled
in the mountains,



fed by glacial runoff.

It's a drop dead gorgeous place.

Very remote.

- It's just one of those
places that nobody goes to

unless they have
a need to go there.

- Two power line workers

were up in that
Eklutna road region

And they found skeletal remains.

Troopers went up there
and examined the scene

and they found skeletal
remains and clothing,

jewelry, some high
top red boots,

but nothing to help
them really identify

exactly who she was.

Anytime you find skeletal
remains, there's an autopsy.



You lay out the bones,

and a forensic expert
will look at those bones

and try and give
you a better picture

of who this victim was.

In this case, she was
most likely a young girl,

maybe late teens.

This particular female victim
was stabbed in the back.

Then they started doing
facial reconstruction

and she got the
name Eklutna Annie.

No disrespect but just
some way to identify her.

Looking at the tall red boots
and the type of clothing,

investigators thought

that perhaps this
victim was a prostitute.

When a sex worker's murdered.

It makes all sorts of
problems for investigators.

They don't use their real names.

They don't have contact
with their families.

Yeah, it was really
hard back then.

We didn't have the
internet to help us.

It was a very poor system,

but it was the
only system we had.

In the mid 70s, when the
pipeline started to build up,

there was an influx of
criminals and prostitutes.

- In the 70s,

Anchorage went from 60,000
people to about 200,000

in just that short
length of time.

A lot of strip joints
sprung up, a lot of bars,

all to capture that almighty
dollar from the pipeline.

- I arrived in 77.

I just wanted to get away
from the situation I was in.

So I went to a strip joint.

Got up on the stage,
started to dance.

The crowd went crazy.

To tell you the truth,

I love getting up on that stage.

I love hearing the
men whoop hurray.

It seemed like all of us
girls had a connection.

I mean, if you're gonna go to
a wilderness country like that

and not know anybody,

you're definitely
running from something.

They had no idea that they
were running into more danger

than they did at home.

- Robert Hansen lived
in Pocahontas in

his youth as did I.

It was a great place to grow up,

but he had to get up and
help his father bake things

at a fairly young age.

- Because his dad was a baker,

Bob was gonna be a baker,
whether he wanted to or not.

But Bob wasn't interested
in becoming a baker.

Baker's hours are early.

You need to get into
the bakery at midnight.

He's working all night,

and his father was
a harsh task master.

And his father was like,

"This is how I learned,

I'm going to treat you the
same way I was treated."

- Hansen struggled to
internalize the role

that was being impressed
upon him by his father.

His father dreamed of a son

who was more strapping,

did what he was told,

but he struggled in every
way to fit that role.

There were a lot
of things about him

that made him seem inadequate.

He spoke with a stammer,

he was short of stature,

And found little support

in the relationship
with his mother.

- There was resentment
that build up.

He was forced to
get up and bake

and then he was
forced to go to class,

and he was unhappy
throughout the whole process.

- He was a very quiet person,

a little odd,

but if you got him onto subjects
like hunting or fishing,

he could be somewhat engaging.

Or guns. He knew
a lot about guns.

When I hunted with
him a couple of times,

he always would get more
birds than the rest of us.

And he was proud of that fact.

- So for the first time, he's
found something he's good at

and feels like a man.

- After almost a year,

troopers couldn't identify
any missing persons

that matched up with the remains

that they found up
off Eklutna Road.

The troopers exhausted all
possible leads on that case.

And like any other case like
that, it just, it goes cold.

Sherry Morrow was a young
dancer at the Wild Cherry,

a strip joint in Anchorage.

- Me and Sherry Morrow, we
were working at the strip club.

She was a friend of mine.

Sherry wasn't built
for this kind of work.

She was a sweet girl.

One night,

one of our customers
started to talk about

how he was a modeling agent

and how he wanted to
take pictures of us,

and that he'd pay us $500.

The way he was talking,
I got on edge about it.

So I whispered to Sherry,

"There's something about
this guy that's not right."

She goes, "Brenda, I have to go.

I need the money."

Well, she went.

I knew she did
not go on her own.

He took her.

I was very scared for her.

Very scared.

Because the boogieman
really does exist.

And he's walking amongst us.

After Sherry went missing,

Sherry's boyfriend
went to the police.

He was very desperate
to find her.

I cried my eyes out because
that's all I could do is cry.

After the first body was found,

which was the
beginning of it all.

I was very scared for her.

And then more and more girls
started coming up missing.

- Tami was involved in dancing,

tap dancing, stage dancing.

She was never
afraid of anything.

She just would go.

Something sounded like
fun, let's just go do it.

Tami participated in
an amateur contest

in a club just north of Seattle.

And she won.

And then immediately after,

she was contacted to go
dance in the clubs in Alaska.

She went to Anchorage in 1981
before her 20th birthday.

Tami and my mom would
talk every week.

And then a couple
of weeks went by

and my mom hadn't spoken to her.

We have no idea where she's at.

And we were very worried.

The police's response
was basically,

"Okay, we'll take
the information.

But women come to Anchorage

because they don't
want to be found.

At this point, I know that
my sister's in danger.

- As Hansen's growing up
and becoming a teenager,

he develops terrible acne.

He also was a stutterer.

So now, even if he wanted

to try to have any kind
of social relationship

and in particular with
girls, they reject him.

- Bob felt that maybe that
women were mean to him

when they were
just ignoring him.

- Hansen was an individual

who probably from birth
had a certain brain style

that predisposed him
to poor judgment,

lack of empathy.

And then what happens is
difficult adverse experiences

that anybody would experience,

are interpreted a different way

because they're seen
through the lens of slights

and being judged negatively

or not being seen as
adequate or so forth.

And I think that set the stage

for all kinds of later
aggression or criminal behavior.

- He had this thing that we've
seen in some of these people

who call themselves incels.

He wanted a particular type of
girl to be interested in him,

the ones at the top
of the social stratum

and they rejected him.

And so he developed
revenge fantasies.

- My mom contacted the
Anchorage police again

and told them that she had not
heard from her daughter,

and that she was
concerned for her safety.

- I started the buddy system
after Sherry went missing.

And then the second girl, Tami,

that's when the managers of
the clubs made it a thing.

They would not let
you leave alone.

- A body was found in a shallow
grave off the Knik River.

And she was identified
through dental records

as the missing Sherry Morrow.

Sherry had been shot
in the back three times

and cartridge cases were found
in the vicinity by troopers.

223-caliber cartridge cases.

Now, we know that Eklutna
Annie was stabbed in the back.

But just because another
victim is not stabbed,

that they're shot instead,

doesn't mean that it's
not by the same murderer.

But the troopers couldn't
draw the connection

to Eklutna Annie.

And we really didn't know
how to find the killer.

There just wasn't enough leads.

- It's early morning,

a truck driver is
driving up 5th Avenue,

and suddenly, there is a woman
in the middle of the street

trying to get him to stop.

She's in handcuffs.

There's a guy who's chasing
after her with a gun.

A truck driver is
on his way to work.

And suddenly, there is a woman.

She's barefoot, in
tears and handcuffs.

So he brings her to
the police department.

And the chief proceeds
to tell the story.

- The first time I met him

was when I moved into
my home on E 6th.

He was my neighbor.

Bob was a baker.

His wife Darla was a teacher
at a Christian school.

They eventually
had two children.

- She's this gentle person
who has time for Bob,

who is probably the first person

who's ever really
listened to him.

- Getting a woman like
Darla to love him.

Although that's an achievement

that he might have thought
would never have happened,

she's not the type of
woman he was after.

- Bob was very excitable.

If you're talking about
something he really loves,

like hunting,

you could get him going.

Some time, if he
got real excited,

a little saliva would come
out the edge of his mouth.

Bob loved the challenge.

It was the skill required
to do the sneaking up part,

do the stalking,

and get close enough where
you can make the kill shot.

And once you do that,
trust me, it's a thrill.

It's a rush.

From all outward appearances,
he was a great guy.

But he was a Jekyll and Hyde
kind of person evidently.

- What you're
beginning to see here

is the roots of the
split in the personality.

A fragmentation of the self,

where he is harboring
all this kind of stuff

that he wants to do to women.

Equating human beings to the
beasts that they hunt down

in order to right some of
these wrongs from his childhood

and take revenge so
that you can say,

"See what I really am?

I'm actually very powerful

underneath this veneer of
weakness and insecurity."

- Hanson had a little shack.

- It's a remote place not
too far out of the city.

He could take off
from Merrill Field

where he kept his airplane.

So he unchained Cindy Paulson

and took her in his car
out to Merrill Field.

- He is going back and forth

between the trunk and the plane.

And she notices that the
door is a little bit ajar.

- They learned that the
person who owns the plane

is a man named Bob Hansen.

Cindy Paulson,

she remembers
many, many details.

And when they went back
to the house, it matched.

- Unfortunately
Hansen did have alibis

and that's pretty
much what killed

the Anchorage police
department's case right there.

The investigator
supervisor said,

"That's it. No case."

- Authorities believe
the body of a woman

found near the Knik
River was Paula Goulding.

Her friends says she
was going to meet a man

who was going to pay
her hundreds of dollars.

- Paula Goulding's body was
found in a shallow grave,

not too far from where Sherry
Morrow's body had been found.

Just like Sherry, this victim
was also shot in the back.

Law enforcement found a
fired 223 cartridge case.

So troopers now have two cases

that look to be very clearly
perpetrated by the same killer.

It's horrifying.

Because this could be, in fact,
a serial murderer.

- This is the east end
of downtown Anchorage.

Many bars, several strip joints.

Now a number of unsolved
disappearances of women,

most of whom were
topless dancers.

- [Reporter] Sherry Morrow
was a topless dancer.

Paula Goulding was
also a topless dancer.

Police say there are at
least four other women

who are missing under
similar circumstances.

There are striking similarities
between these four women

and the two who were killed.

They were all dancers
or prostitutes.

All were new in town.

- Everybody's taking a
closer look at disappearances

in the Anchorage area

and trying to connect them.

Eventually, two APD detectives

came over to
troopers headquarters

and directed their attention
to this guy named Robert Hansen

and the Cindy Paulson case.

And then maybe the connection

between the other missing girls.

And then all of a sudden the
lights started to come on.

- Hansen's keeping baker's
hours, he's up late.

And in Anchorage,
there's sex for sale.

He meets this woman
at the Nevada Cafe.

- He comes up to her
with a gun and says,

- He starts to drive South.

He stops to put
restraints on her.

So they rent a motel,

and he sexually assaults
her in the motel room.

- Usually, there is some event

that pushes the
individual over the edge

from fantasy into action.

In the life of Robert Hansen,

it's difficult to tell what
that factor might have been.

So one gets the
sense of a person

that was increasingly
needing a fix,

where first we have
the double life

and interacting
with sex workers,

and then ultimately
feeling comfortable enough

to play out the fantasies.

- Now here we are sitting around

believing that
Hansen did this.

What do you do?

You need to search his house.

We needed a search warrant.

But in order to get
that search warrant,

you have to come up
with probable cause.

So we had to refreshen evidence
in order to impress a judge

and grant us a search warrant.

The decision is made
to interrogate him

on the same day that we
served that search warrant

on his home.

- Two investigators came in

to do the interrogation
of Hansen,

and the end result is
that he didn't talk.

So everyone converged
on his house,

served the search warrant,

and went inside and
started searching.

I found a number of
aircraft sectional maps.

I picked out the one that he had

for the Anchorage Bowl area,

including the Kenai and
out on the Eklutna River.

And I noticed a number of Xs.

And I knew that some of
these were in the areas

where they had found bodies.

- Sherry Morrow, Paula Goulding,

were very close to marks that
were already on this map.

And that was the biggest
oh-my-god moment.

Because now you have
21 marks on that map

and there can be bodies
at every single one.

- It's big.

We have now even more momentum,

more belief that we
have the right guy

and we're gonna get 'em for
killing all these women.

The last place to search

was up in that crawl
space in the roof.

Two troopers went up in there.

I just said, "Rip
up the insulation."

So they were doing that

and choking and coughing
on the insulation dust

until they found guns.

One of which was
the Ruger Mini-14

that Hansen eventually
was connected

to the crime scenes with

and identified him as
certainly the murderer.

- The prosecutors

get a phone call from
Bob Hansen's attorneys.

And the phrase they use is he
wants to call clear the decks.

He's going to confess.

- At this stage in
Hansen's life.

What we see is him performing
a modus operandi initially

that looked an awful lot

like we had been doing
for quite some time.

He picked up a young woman.

- This woman did
not follow the plan.

She broke away and
ran away from Hansen.

- There was something
exciting for him

about the kind of danger and
the challenge in getting to her

and then taking her down

similar to the way he
had been hunting animals.

- Based on what Hansen said
about killing this young woman,

he crossed a line
out of desperation.

And any kind of resistance,

that just made him
wanna punish them more.

- Robert Hansen is a well
known businessman in Alaska.

Respectable.

Or so everyone thought.

Yesterday, Hansen admitted
that he murdered 17 women.

It's the biggest mass murder
case in Alaska's history.

- I was watching national
news and there was Bob Hansen.

And I thought,

what the hell is Bob Hansen
doing on national news?

And I turned it up and it said,

"This is the greatest
mass murder

in the
history of Alaska."

Well, you could have knocked
me over with a feather.

I had no idea.

- That guy was in my house.

At my dinner table.

Just sends a chill up my back.

- What we know is that he
took them into remote places.

Often they were shot in the back

indicating that he
either let them go,

or if they had run.

He's stalking women,

he's chasing women,

he's killing women.

And he can't stop himself.

- It was a celebration
in my heart

that they finally got him.

How could he kill women?

I couldn't understand how a
man could do this to a woman,

to a girl.

- You have an individual

with a basically psychopathic,

narcissistic
personality structure

who has had a complicated
relationship with his father,

who left him feeling
emasculated.

This, coupled with
the difficulties of

adolescence for him
created a perfect storm

which ultimately led to
compensating for those feelings

through acts of
domination control

over the people he felt
were rejecting him.

When everything got
rocked out of control

by the first victim,

putting up a fight was
very, very exciting

because he had to have
that godlike feeling

of I can control even this.

Hansen unexpectedly
discovered greater thrill

through murder,

to what is ultimately going to
be the culmination of arousal

in the hunting and the
killing of the victim.

- In 2020, they produce new
rendering of Eklutna Annie.

And there's still hope
to identify the victim.

I hope that someday
they solve that,

but there's a lot of families
that still don't have closure.

- I lost my big
sister when I was 17.

I miss Tami most just having
that person in your life,

spending your life your
whole time, your whole life.

You know.

She wasn't there when I
graduated high school.

She wasn't there
when I fell in love.

She wasn't there for my wedding.

I missed her having kids,

me being an uncle to her kids.

Missed having a big sister.

- I think why I
couldn't read him.

And that's the only guy I ever
know that I couldn't read.

Had I been able to read him,

maybe I could have stopped him

a lot earlier than he
finally got stopped.

And maybe saved
some of those girls.

Such a waste of young lives.