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Speaker 1: Well, there have been a lot of horror flicks about

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Speaker 1: killers who hunt their victims, sort of like the classic

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Speaker 1: Most Dangerous Game and Ready or Not. But in the

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Speaker 1: real life case of Robert Hansen, this was his regular mo.

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Speaker 1: So put yourself there. Imagine running for your life through

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Speaker 1: the Alaskan wilderness at night. You're being chased by a

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Speaker 1: guy who people in town only know as a shy, polite,

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Speaker 1: church going family man. But to him you are his prey.

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Speaker 1: I'm Patty Steele Baker by day, hunting humans by night.

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Speaker 1: That's next on the backstory. We're back with the backstory.

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Speaker 1: Robert Hanson is believed to have raped and murdered at

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Speaker 1: least seventeen women between nineteen seventy two and nineteen eighty three.

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Speaker 1: What's terrifying about his mo is that he'd kidnap his victims, frequently,

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Speaker 1: fly them in his small plane into the wilderness, release them,

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Speaker 1: and then hunt them down. Don't you get chills imagining

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Speaker 1: what that must have felt like for his victims. To

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Speaker 1: understand how somebody evolves into a deranged killer, he got

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Speaker 1: to look at their past. Robert Hansen, born in Iowa

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Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty nine, is a quiet kid with a

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Speaker 1: stutter and painful acne. He's uncomfortable around people and prefers

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Speaker 1: to spend his time in the woods. He learns to

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Speaker 1: hunt early on, but the woods aren't in answer to

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Speaker 1: his growing disconnect and upset with other people, particularly women.

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Speaker 1: At twenty one, he does time after setting fire to

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Speaker 1: a school bus garage. He gets involved in other petty crime.

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Speaker 1: He marries and divorces, then gets married again. Now it's

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven, he's twenty eight years old and Robert

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Speaker 1: moves to Anchorage, Alaska with his second wife. There he

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Speaker 1: opens a small bakery. The neighbors like him. He's shy,

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Speaker 1: but friendly and polite, like the rest of the married

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Speaker 1: guys in town. He goes to church and spends a

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Speaker 1: lot of his free time hunting. Now at the time,

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Speaker 1: Anchorage is just beginning to explode. It's a small city

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Speaker 1: supercharged by pipeline money and the swarm of workers it

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Speaker 1: brings in. It also attracts young women looking to make

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Speaker 1: a buck as dancers and sex workers, but these are

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Speaker 1: also women's society doesn't pay a lot of attention to. Usually,

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Speaker 1: they don't have much in the way of family ties.

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Speaker 1: If someone makes them uncomfortable, nobody's going to listen to him.

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Speaker 1: If they disappear, it's pretty unlikely anybody will look for them,

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Speaker 1: And as a hunter, Robert knows how to choose his prey.

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Speaker 1: So this shy, friendly guy develops a rap sheet. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one, he's arrested twice. In one case, he

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Speaker 1: kidnaps and attempts to rape a young housewife. In another,

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Speaker 1: he rapes a sex worker, but plea bargains on lesser

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Speaker 1: charges keep him from getting long term jail sentences. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, he's convicted of stealing a chainsaw, and

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Speaker 1: that sentence is later reduced on appeal, and he walks

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Speaker 1: with time served. So on paper, it all looks like

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Speaker 1: somewhat minor trouble compared to what authorities don't know. In practice,

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Speaker 1: he's testing the boundaries of what he can get away with.

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Speaker 1: Hansen's method is chilling in its routine. He approaches a

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Speaker 1: vulnerable woman, often a teenager or a young adult working

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Speaker 1: the anchorage strip. He pulls a gun and forces her

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Speaker 1: into his car. When his family isn't home, he assaults

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Speaker 1: some in his basement. Not unlike Long Island's Gilgo beach killer.

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Speaker 1: He's a control freak, so not every attack involves a chase,

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Speaker 1: but many do. He just wants to control them. After

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Speaker 1: the initial assault, he drives her to the local airfield,

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Speaker 1: loads his small plane, and flies her into remote stretches,

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Speaker 1: now out beyond civilization. He releases her into the woods.

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Speaker 1: He lets her get a head start to make it more.

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Speaker 1: Then he pursues her with a Ruger Many fourteen rifle

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Speaker 1: or a hunting knife. It doesn't end with the killing.

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Speaker 1: He keeps trophies from his victims, rings, necklaces, small trinkets,

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Speaker 1: and so the killings might have gone on longer except

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Speaker 1: for one fortunate victim who managed to escape. It's June thirteenth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three. Cindy Paulson, just seventeen years old, has

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Speaker 1: been snatched by Hanson, but as he's loading his plane

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Speaker 1: at the airfield, she sees an opportunity to escape. She

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Speaker 1: bolts from Hanson's car. She's barefoot and handcuffed, but she

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Speaker 1: leaves her blue sneakers in the car as proof she's

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Speaker 1: been there. She then flags down a passing driver, so

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Speaker 1: Paulsen lives to tell investigators details about the house. The

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Speaker 1: basement the airport and the plane. Strangely, her story is

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Speaker 1: at first dismissed by some because she's a teenage prostitute

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Speaker 1: and Hannah is a somewhat respected business owner and father

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Speaker 1: despite his rap sheet. But soon her story becomes the

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Speaker 1: hinge of the case. One sergeant with the Alaska State

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Speaker 1: Troopers is already trying to connect bodies found along rivers

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Speaker 1: and in the woods out in the Alaskan wilderness. He

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Speaker 1: asks the FBI for a profile. The likely suspect, they

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Speaker 1: say would be an avid hunter, shy with a stutter,

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Speaker 1: a need to keep souvenirs, and access to a small plane.

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Speaker 1: Makes you wonder how profilers figure all that out right. Well,

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Speaker 1: of course, it does make the suspect list really short,

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Speaker 1: and Hansen rises to the top. With Cindy Paulson's detailed statement,

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Speaker 1: the very specific profile and his past, troopers are able

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Speaker 1: to get warrants to search Hansen's home, vehicles, and plane.

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Speaker 1: What they find is a nightmare. Firearms hidden in the attic,

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Speaker 1: including a Ruger Many fourteen, and boxes of women's jewelry

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Speaker 1: that don't belong to his wife. They also find an

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Speaker 1: aeronautical chart hidden away, marked with handwritten exes. Investigators plot

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Speaker 1: those marks against recovery sites, and while some click into

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Speaker 1: place immediately, others lead them to new horrifying discoveries. They

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Speaker 1: nab Hansen, and at first he denies all blaming the women.

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Speaker 1: He tells them he's the wronged party, that he was

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Speaker 1: forced to extremes. So close your eyes, picture the interrogation,

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Speaker 1: the table, the picture of water in the center. Officers

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Speaker 1: clustered around the murderer. They put the map on the table,

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Speaker 1: and they point to his exes. They point out the

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Speaker 1: trophies and the gun. Investigators keep hammering away, and finally

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Speaker 1: hands and sighs, and bit by bit gives them the details.

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Speaker 1: He talks about the women, describing them as a problem.

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Speaker 1: He admits to the killings but calls them accidents. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: he flo with troopers by helicopter and points out grave

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Speaker 1: sites seventeen in all ballistics match bullet fragments to his rifle.

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Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, prosecutors offer him

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Speaker 1: a plea deal that will save taxpayer money for further

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Speaker 1: trials and keep him off the streets forever. In February

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Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty four, Hanson pleads guilty to four murders,

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Speaker 1: plus kidnapping and other felonies. His sentence life in prison

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Speaker 1: plus four hundred and sixty one years with no possibility

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Speaker 1: of parole. In addition to the seventeen murders and many

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Speaker 1: more rapes he admitted to. It's thought he could have

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Speaker 1: killed in excess of thirty women. His story is a

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Speaker 1: reminder that ordinary folks can have a scary backstory. Hanson

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Speaker 1: was liked. He wrapped up pastries for cops and other locals.

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Speaker 1: He piled up hunting trophies and bragged about his skills.

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Speaker 1: He went to church regularly. He was a dad who

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Speaker 1: wore a cardigan sweater, a baker's apron at work, and

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Speaker 1: hunting camo when he was going after pray. He looked

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Speaker 1: like a hundred other guys in Anchorage who liked to

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Speaker 1: hunt and fish and complain about the snow. The press

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Speaker 1: called him the butcher Baker. His wife and kids left

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Speaker 1: him behind eventually and moved to Arkansas to be with family.

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Speaker 1: The story was made into a movie in twenty thirteen

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Speaker 1: while Hanson was still alive. The Frozen Ground stars Nicholas Cage,

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Speaker 1: John Cusack, Vanessa Hudgens, and fittycent Although it didn't do

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Speaker 1: too well at the box office, it's done much better

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Speaker 1: on Netflix. Meantime, Hanson never left prison. He served time

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Speaker 1: at Spring Creek Correctional Center in Seward, Alaska, and he

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Speaker 1: died in twenty fourteen at a hospital in Anchorage at

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Speaker 1: the age of seventy five. I hope you like The

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Speaker 1: Backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave a review and I'd

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Speaker 1: love it if you'd subscribe or follow for free to

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Speaker 1: get new episodes delivered automatically. Also feel free to DM

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Speaker 1: me if you have a story you'd like me to cover.

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Speaker 1: On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele.

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Speaker 1: I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks,

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Speaker 1: the Elvis Durand Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer

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Speaker 1: is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new

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Speaker 1: episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out

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Speaker 1: to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram

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Speaker 1: at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The

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Speaker 1: pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know