Arrest of Robert Hansen: Last Gasp

Although there would be additional attempts to identify bodies, June 1984 marked the last gasp in the contemporaneous search for Hansen’s gravesites. Given that Hansen’s first known murders occurred in the early ’70’s, each passing year meant trace evidence grew thinner. Even spots where there was a match between Hansen’s aviation map and his on-site ID’s, the prospect loomed large that wild animals or humans had disturbed, or even removed, portions of those remains.

It’s telling that the last entry in Sgt. Flothe’s memorialization waivered between positive and negative. Even with the help of a dog, his search for remains at Hansen gravesite #7 were initially written up as “negative.” And then the “negative” was mysteriously crossed out. In other words, it read exactly like a last gasp entry:

Last Gasp
Last Gasp
Trooper Cadet Ray Jennings Searches Along the Knik 1984 (courtesy Anchorage Times)

For the record, Flothe’s detailed matrix ultimately identified Gravesite #7, “adjacent to Goulding grave,” with a blank entry denoting negative results.

Last Gasp
Sgt. Flothe’s Victim Matrix (excerpt)


Thirty years later, authorities would exhume the body of an unidentified victim, hoping that new science would unpack her identity. Some speculated this victim, who was nicknamed “Horseshoe Harriet” because her body was found near Horseshoe Lake, was actually Andrea Altiery.

In 1984, however, Sgt. Flothe had identified this woman differently, saying it was “Tentative Delynn Frey.” Frey, whose dancing name was “Sugar,” was 20 at the time of her disappearance in March 1983. Angela Feddern had disappeared in February 1983 and was found near Figure 8 Lake, just due west of Horseshoe Lake. That seemed to link them in time as well as space, which appeared to make DeLynn Frey the more likely answer.

At this writing, however, the identity of Horseshoe Harriet is still unconfirmed. [UPDATE: Horseshoe Harriet has now been identified as Robin Pelkey from Colorado.]

Last Gasp

DeLynn Frey (courtesy Alaska State Troopers)

Last Gasp

Horseshoe Lake (Google Maps, illustration by Leland E. Hale)


Purchase Butcher, Baker

8 thoughts on “Arrest of Robert Hansen: Last Gasp”

  1. This is my first cousin Delynn. I had been looking for her for several years when I found out about her death and who murdered. My uncle her father was never informed before he died in the early 1990’s. Delynn was the product of divorce and her father suffered a brain anyurism while he was in Vietnam. He was never all there for the rest of his life and she was never in one place for very long. She was never a happy child and never smiled and most beautiful eyes, but always sad. Her mother never informed anyone in our family this happened to her and I was probably closer to her then anyone in our family. This was just horrible tragedy. My heart cries for her often and there isn’t a day that I don’t think about her.

      1. Hi Joseph, so sorry to hear this was your sister – I really feel for your family. We are making a documentary and are hoping to hear more about the victims in this tragedy to honor their memories. I would love to hear more about your sister Delynn and who she was as we feel other productions have not gone far enough to talk about the victims in this case. If you are happy to share anything with us I can be reached on: jessica.burgess@arrowmedia.com. I can explain more in detail about what we’re if you send me an email

    1. Hi Deborah. I’m so sorry to hear about your loss. We are making a documentary and are hoping to hear more about the victims in this tragedy to honour their memories. I would love to hear more about Delynn and who she was as we feel other productions have not gone far enough to talk about the victims in this case. If you are happy to share anything with us I can be reached on: jessica.burgess@arrowmedia.com. I can explain more in detail about what we’re if you send me an email

  2. OMG how awful to find out that this happened to your cousin and sister. Just unbelievable. I cant imagine how hard it was to find out what happened to DeLynn. I’m into true crime and just come to know about RH and his crimes. Im also interested in finding out more about the victims from their family members. They deserve to be remembered.

  3. “Remains of unidentified victim of Alaska serial killer Hansen exhumed”

    One of Alaska serial killer Robert Hansen’s unidentified victims was exhumed from an Anchorage cemetery on Wednesday, with hopes that DNA testing and a facial reconstruction image will help bring to light the identity of a young woman buried nearly 30 years ago.

    The woman, sometimes known as “Horseshoe Harriet,” was believed to be in her late teens, said Jason Grenn, spokesperson for the state Department of Health and Social Services. Her body was found April 25, 1984, near Horseshoe Lake.

    “Hansen had led investigators to the remains, and he confessed to murdering that victim, and in 1985 it was buried as a Jane Doe,” Grenn said.

    On Wednesday, the State Medical Examiner Office exhumed the body from Anchorage Memorial Park. The body is now in the medical examiner lab in Anchorage, Grenn said.

    Requested and paid for by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the remains will undergo DNA testing. A facial reconstruction image will also be created, said Dr. Angela Williamson from the center’s Virginia headquarters Thursday.

    The center hopes to compare new information gathered from the remains to a missing child in Alaska. “She very well may not be this girl,” Williamson said. But without testing “we will never be able to compare her to anyone.”

    Hansen died in an Anchorage hospital on Aug. 21. He was 75. The Department of Corrections said his health had been declining for the past year.

    The fact that Hansen died just before the body was exhumed was “pure coincidence,” Williamson said.

    The center has already done testing and created a facial reconstruction image for Eklutna Annie, a Jane Doe found buried along a power line outside Eklutna.

    For “Horseshoe Harriet,” DNA testing will occur at a university in Texas, Williamson said, and the facial reconstruction imaging will take place at the center’s headquarters in Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C.

    The image will be completed in about six months, Williamson said, and after that the center will work with law enforcement to get the image out to the public.

    Williamson hopes to reach “anyone who had a friend … of that age, in that time frame, who they think could have been one of the victims,” she said.

    Grenn said that the body will remain in Anchorage for the duration of the testing. Should the remains be identified, Alaska State Troopers will notify next of kin. Should the body remain unidentified, it will be re-buried at Anchorage Memorial Park.

    Alaska serial killer Robert Hansen admitted to killing 17 women and raping another 30 women in the 1970s and 1980s. Police suspect the death toll was even higher. He often found his victims among topless dancers and prostitutes in downtown Anchorage. Hansen would kidnap the women at gunpoint, tie them up, then fly to remote areas to kill them. He confessed to sometimes releasing the women in the woods in order to stalk and hunt them before the murders.

    He was sentenced to 461 years in prison in February, pleading guilty to four of the murders. He served most of his prison sentence at the Spring Creek Correctional Center in Seward. As part of his plea deal, Hansen agreed to help authorities find the graves of the murdered women. Only a dozen bodies were located. Others have never been found.

    https://www.adn.com/crime-justice/article/unidentified-victim-alaska-serial-killer-hansen-body-exhumed/2014/09/04/

    1. The ADN quote says: “He confessed to sometimes releasing the women in the woods in order to stalk and hunt them before the murders.” That alleged confession is NOT taken from the official confession Hansen made at the Anchorage District Attorney’s office on February 22, 1984. I have the complete transcript of that confession, have read it back to front multiple times and that assertion… Is. Just. Not. In. There.

      Is it possible he made some other “confession” at some other time? Sure. Maybe. Possibly.

      But in his 1984 official confession, Hansen goes to great lengths to minimize his role. He wants only to take responsibility for those four women whom police had already found. (He slipped up and revealed one more that they hadn’t found.)

      In Hansen’s mind, there were “good” times when the women he kidnapped returned alive. Then there were “bad” times when they didn’t. The following is a representative quote from Hansen’s 1984 confession. Notice his emphasis on what I call the “fight or flight” reaction.

      RH: I made the mistake of, uh, (pause) they got their hands on firearms that I had with and, uh, I come pretty damn close to, uh, getting shot. Uh, it’s (pause) nothing…there was no ah ah hurt created, if you want to call it that, as long as they didn’t, uh, more or less uh, I guess I always call it panicked on me. Uh, as long as things were, uh, she would go along with what I wanted out there, okay. Uh, go home and that was it.

      GF: And if they didn’t?

      RH: They…they stayed. [Ed. Note: Were killed.]

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