Robert Hansen Victims

Case background and investigation

Between roughly 1971 and 1983, Anchorage, Alaska, was stalked by a killer who hid in plain sight. Robert Christian Hansen, born February 15, 1939, in Estherville, Iowa, was an unassuming married father of two who owned a popular bakery in Anchorage, an award-winning big-game hunter and licensed pilot. Behind that respectable facade, Hansen abducted women, many of them dancers and sex workers, and subjected them to a uniquely brutal ritual: he flew some of his captives into the remote Alaskan backcountry aboard his Piper Super Cub, released them, and then hunted them down like game with a rifle and a knife.

Investigators believe his suspected first victim, Celia van Zanten, was abducted in December 1971 and left to die of exposure. Over the following decade, women vanished from Anchorage's streets, but with victims who were often transient and marginalized, the disappearances drew limited attention and were slow to be linked. The pattern remained largely invisible until one intended victim survived.

On June 13, 1983, 17-year-old Cindy Paulson escaped after Hansen abducted her at gunpoint and held her captive. Handcuffed and barefoot, she fled at Merrill Field as Hansen loaded his airplane, flagged down a passing truck driver, and was taken to the Anchorage Police Department. Her detailed account, describing the abduction, the aircraft and Hansen's home, gave investigators the break they needed. Alaska State Trooper investigator Sgt. Glenn Flothe pursued the case, and the FBI's behavioral profiler John E. Douglas developed a profile of an experienced hunter with low self-esteem who took trophies, closely matching Hansen.

On October 27, 1983, police searched Hansen's home and found jewelry belonging to missing women, firearms, and an aviation chart marked with dozens of small 'x' symbols later understood to correspond to body-disposal sites. Ballistics evidence tied cartridge casings recovered at grave sites to Hansen's rifle. In February 1984, Hansen pleaded guilty. He was formally charged with the murders of Sherry Morrow, Joanna Messina, Paula Goulding, and an unidentified woman known only as 'Eklutna Annie,' and in his confession he admitted to killing 17 women and assaulting many more. He was sentenced to 461 years plus life in prison without the possibility of parole.

For decades several of Hansen's victims remained unidentified, buried under placeholder names such as 'Eklutna Annie' and 'Horseshoe Harriet.' Using DNA and forensic genetic genealogy, authorities announced in October 2021 that 'Horseshoe Harriet' was Robin Pelkey, a 19-year-old originally from Colorado, resolving one of the cases 37 years after her remains were found. Other victims are still unidentified.

Hansen's crimes have been widely chronicled, including in the 2013 feature film 'The Frozen Ground,' in which John Cusack portrayed Hansen and Nicolas Cage played a fictionalized investigator, with the story loosely drawn from Cindy Paulson's escape and the investigation. Robert Hansen died in Anchorage on August 21, 2014, at age 75, while in state custody. He remains one of the most notorious serial killers in Alaska's history, and efforts to identify all of his victims continue.