The Evil Within - A Top Murder Squad Detective Reveals The Chilling True Stories of The World's Most Notorious Killers (29 page)

In 1980, construction workers digging near Eklutna Road discovered the partial remains of a woman buried in a shallow grave. Animals had taken off with the majority of the remains and there was very little evidence at the scene. The victim was never identified and was dubbed ‘Eklutna Annie’ by police. Later that same year, another body was found in a nearby gravel pit. The victim was later identified as Joanne Messina, a local topless dancer. Unfortunately, her body was badly decomposed and, as with Eklutna Annie, the police were unable to obtain any evidence from the crime scene.

On 12 September 1982, a third body was found. On that day, two off-duty police officers were out in the wilderness hunting. As darkness began to fall they decided to call it a day. The trek back to their camp was not easy, but both men were familiar with the area and cut across a wide sandbar. However, as they progressed up the river, they noticed a boot sticking out of the sand. Upon closer inspection, the two men were taken aback. Sticking out of the sand was a partially decomposed bone joint. Once they registered what they were looking at, both men retreated from the crime scene. The last thing they wanted to do was to disturb or contaminate any evidence. After making a note of the location, the men made their way back to their camp.

Forensics experts conducted a thorough examination of the
crime scene and began sifting through the sand around the body. It took several hours for them to finish sifting, but in the end it paid dividends. They found a single shell casing from a .223-calibre bullet, used in high-powered rifles such as M-16s, Mini-14s or AR-15s.

Back in Anchorage, a preliminary post-mortem revealed that the victim was female, of undetermined age and had been dead for approximately six months. The cause of death was three gunshot wounds from .223-calibre bullets. Ace bandages were found mingled in with the remains, causing investigators to suspect that the victim had been blindfolded at the time of death. It took a little over two weeks to finally identify the body as that of 24-year-old Sherry Morrow, a dancer from the Wild Cherry Bar in downtown Anchorage. She had last been seen on 17 November 1981. According to friends, she was going to see a man who had offered her $300 to pose for some pictures. The police then reopened the files on other missing prostitutes.

On the night of 13 June 1983, the police got a lucky break. That evening, a lorry driver was passing through town when he noticed a frantic young female waving her arms and calling out to him. The girl had a pair of handcuffs dangling from one of her wrists and her clothing was dishevelled. She told the driver that a man was after her and asked him to take her to the Big Timber Motel. Once inside, she had the front desk clerk make a telephone call for her to her pimp. As she waited outside for her pimp, the lorry driver drove straight to the Anchorage Police Department and reported the incident.

When a police officer arrived at the Big Timber Motel, he found the girl alone and still in handcuffs. Once he removed her cuffs, she began telling him her story. She had been approached on the street by a male aged about 40; he had distinctive red hair, and had offered her $200 for oral sex. She agreed, but midway through the act the man locked handcuffs around her wrist and pulled out a gun. He told her if she cooperated he would not kill her. He then drove to his house. Once inside, the man brutally
raped her, bit her nipples, and at one point shoved a hammer into her vagina. After a brief rest, the man said that he was going to fly her to his cabin in the mountains and told her he would let her go if she cooperated. Upon their arrival at the airport, he pushed her inside a small plane and began loading supplies. At that point she knew she was in serious trouble. She waited until his back was turned, pushed opened the plane door and ran for her life. The man chased after her at first, but then stopped when he saw her wave down the lorry.

After she had made a formal statement, police officers drove the young prostitute to Merrill Field, the airport where she said she had been taken. They were hoping she could identify her abductor’s plane. As they drove through the small airport, she spotted a blue-and-white Piper Super Cub, tail number N3089Z, and identified the plane. A check with the flight tower revealed that the plane belonged to Robert Hansen, who lived on Old Harbour Road. Officers then went to Hansen’s house. Hansen became outraged when confronted with the young woman’s charges. He claimed to have never met the girl, and said ‘You can’t rape a prostitute, can you?’ He said that he had spent the entire evening with two friends. His alibi checked out and no formal charges were filed.

On 2 September 1983, another body was found along the Knik River. The remains were partially decomposed and buried in a shallow grave. The victim was later identified as 17-year-old Paula Golding, a topless dancer and prostitute from Anchorage. She had gone missing some five months earlier. The post-mortem revealed that she had been shot with a .223-calibre bullet. Police were now convinced that they had a serial killer within the community, and turned their attentions back to Hansen, attempting to disprove the original alibi he had put forward regarding the abduction of the young prostitute. Police decided to bring in for questioning the two males who had given Hansen his alibi. Both men confessed and said that they had not been with Robert Hansen on the night the young prostitute was
abducted and brought to the airport. Police also learnt from Hansen’s friends that he was committing insurance fraud. He had reported several burglaries of his house to the police, but these reports were false; the burglaries never occurred. Hansen was hiding the items he alleged were stolen in his basement. The police took out search warrants on his house and his plane.

On 27 October 1983, the police made the decision to move in on Hansen. They followed him to work and asked him to come with them to the police station for questioning. Hansen never bothered to ask why they wanted to talk to him and agreed to go along. Simultaneously, officers executed the search warrants on his house and plane. At the house, they found weapons but at first nothing to implicate Hansen in any of the murders. However, just as they were about to leave, one of the officers discovered a hidden space tucked away in the attic rafters. Within it, they discovered a Remington 552 rifle, a Thompson contender 7mm single-shot pistol, an aviation map with specific locations marked off, various pieces of jewellery, newspaper clippings, a Winchester 12-gauge shotgun, a driving licence and various ID cards, some of which belonged to the dead women. As incriminating as all these items were, the most important piece of evidence was a .223-calibre Mini-14 rifle.

Hansen was then formally arrested and interviewed. He denied all knowledge of the murders. He was charged with assault, kidnapping, firearms offences, theft and insurance fraud. On 3 November 1983, an Anchorage grand jury returned indictments against Hansen. These were first-degree assault and kidnapping, five counts of misconduct in the possession of a handgun, theft in the second degree and theft by deception in insurance fraud. Police were still awaiting the ballistic test results on Hansen’s rifle, so it was decided to not charge him with murder at this stage. Hansen pleaded not guilty to all charges. Bail was set at half a million dollars.

The ballistic test results finally came through on 20 November, showing that Hansen’s rifle and the shell casings
found at the murder sites matched. The firing pin and the extractor markings were identical. When confronted with the mass of evidence now against him, he asked his attorney to make a deal with the authorities.

In exchange for a full confession, the District Attorney guaranteed him that he would only be charged with the four cases that they knew of and he would be able to serve his time in a federal facility, rather than a maximum-security institution. Hansen reluctantly agreed to the conditions. During the confession that followed, he told of how he would abduct his victims, then take them on his plane to his remote cabin in the wilderness when, after raping and torturing them, he would let them go. After giving them a head start, he would track them down, killing them with either his hunting knife or his high-powered rifle. Hansen referred to the killings as his ‘summertime project’. He stated that he had hoped to forcefully teach his victims a lesson for their whoring and stripping ways.

Hansen was provided with a large aerial map of the region. He identified 15 gravesites, 12 of which were unknown to the investigators. Since it would have been nearly impossible to locate any of the graves going by Hansen’s checkmarks on the map, investigators decided to fly him to each location. The following day, Hansen accompanied the men to Anchorage International Airport, where they boarded a large military helicopter. Hansen led investigators to the various sites, at that time heavily covered in snow. The police marked the trees with orange paint, so that when the snow melted they could return and search for the bodies. By the end of the day, Hansen had revealed the gravesites of 12 unknown women.

On 18 February 1984, Robert Hansen pleaded guilty to four charges of first-degree murder in the cases of Paula Golding, Joanna Messina, Sherry Morrow and ‘Eklutna Annie’. One week later, on 27 February, Hansen was sentenced to 461 years plus life, without chance of parole. By May 1984, police had found
only seven bodies at the gravesites Robert Hansen had pointed out to them. No other bodies were ever recovered.

On 15 January 1974, 15-year-old Charlie Otero arrived home from school in Wichita, Kansas. As he opened the front door and walked into the living room, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. But he called out and there was no response. Not even a bark from his dog. Charlie walked toward his parents’ bedroom. He saw his father Joseph lying face down on the floor at the foot of his bed; his wrists and ankles had been bound. His mother Julie was lying on the bed bound in a similar fashion; she had been gagged. For a few seconds, Charlie could not move. Moments later, he came to his senses and ran out in desperation to get help for his parents, not realising that he had experienced only a portion of the horror that the house would soon reveal.

When the police arrived, they were shocked to find nine-
year-old
Joseph Otero in his bedroom laying face down on the floor at the foot of his bed. His wrists and ankles were also bound and a hood had been placed over his head. Downstairs in the basement, Charlie’s 11-year-old sister, Josephine, was found hanging by her neck from a pipe; she was partially naked and dressed only in a sweatshirt and socks. She had also been gagged. All four of the victims had been strangled with lengths of cord cut from a Venetian blind. The police found no similar cords in the house so it was presumed the killer had come armed with the cords, hoods, tape and wire-cutters and may have been in possession of a gun. Semen was found throughout the house, and it appeared that the killer had masturbated on some of the victims, although none had been sexually assaulted. There was no evidence of forced entry, robbery or signs of a struggle.

The times of death were estimated at around 8.00am. The police theorised that while Joseph Otero was driving the older three children to school, the murderer gained entry to the house where Julie and her two younger children were by themselves.
Once the killer had subdued and bound the three of them, he waited for Joseph to come home to take the younger two children to school and caught him by surprise. After murdering the family, the killer took the Otero family car and parked it at a nearby shop. The neighbours told police they had seen a man with a dark complexion leaving the Oteros’ home in their car. The way the victims had been tied, gagged and then slain suggested to the police that they had a fetish killer on their hands, but the enquiry was eventually wound down with no suspects emerging.

On 4 April 1974, Kathryn Bright was murdered in her home. Her brother, also present, managed to escape. Both had returned home to find the killer lying in wait. He had obviously selected Kathryn as a victim but had not expected her to return home with her brother.

In early 1977, Shirley Vian Relford was the next victim. She was strangled in her own home with her children in the house. The killer was forced to make a quick exit when the children said that a neighbour would soon be coming round, leaving the children unharmed.

On 8 December 1977, police received an emergency call. They were told to go to a specific address where they would find the occupier, Nancy Jo Fox, murdered. The call was traced to a public telephone box where witnesses recalled a blond man, approximately 6ft tall, using the phone booth moments earlier. Unfortunately, the quality of the recording was too poor for investigators to use for any type of voice analysis in the future.

Police went to the address and noticed that a window had been broken, allowing entry to the home. Upon entering the house, officers discovered 25-year-old Nancy Jo Fox dead in her bedroom, a nylon stocking twisted around her neck. Unlike previous victims, she was fully clothed. Fox’s driving licence was missing from the scene. Police theorised that the killer had taken the licence as a memento of the crime. The murder had occurred at night; semen was also found at the scene, but Fox
had not been sexually assaulted. Again, the police were unable to obtain any evidence to link to a suspect. In early 1978, police received letters from a person purporting to be the killer. He called himself BTK (for Bound, Tortured, Killed). Letters were also sent to the press. In one letter, he claimed to have killed seven victims.

On 28 April 1979, the killer waited inside a house for the 63-year-old female resident to come home. When she did not show up, he left in an angry mood and later sent the woman a note along with one of her scarves. ‘Be glad you weren’t here,’ he wrote, ‘because I was.’ Nothing more was heard from the killer and the murders appeared to stop.

In 1983, a team of detectives set out to re-investigate the murders. They went on a cross-country trip, collecting saliva and blood samples from over 200 people who had been flagged by their computer as suspects in the case. The samples collected were all voluntary; only five of the men refused. The blood tests ultimately eliminated all but 12 of the names on the list (including the five who refused the tests). The re-investigation continued into 1984. By this time there had been major advances in DNA technology; as a result, all of the evidence previously gathered was reassessed. But in spite of all the new technology and extensive police work, no further clues to the killer’s identity were uncovered. Then the killings started again.