Life with Robert Hansen: So Then We Ask Why

“So then we ask why,” Assistant D.A. Frank Rothschild said as he addressed Judge Moody. “Why did he do all this?”

It’s the question everyone asks. These days there seems to be but one answer to such questions. It’s mental health, they insist. These people are crazy. Frank Rothschild did not take that approach; even if it was the easy way out.

“He said he was frustrated as a kid, his friends had to have all the fun, they got the girls and he didn’t,” Rothschild said. “He had acne, he stuttered, people made jokes of him, talked about hiding, going under the bed, not coming out for a day.”

Why

“And he said this is the reason; he wanted to feel wanted and you can’t feel wanted in a motel room. He called that too commercial. He didn’t like this slam, bam, do it again [sic], m’am stuff. He didn’t like this quick stuff.

“He wanted them under his control as long as he wanted and he tried hard to convince himself, he says, that they wanted to be with him too, that it wasn’t bought sex, that they really wanted to be with him.

“He said, I wanted to control things. It made me feel masculine or powerful or in control of my life, that he got into it for his own ego. Maybe this quote sums it all up:

“He said, I was just seeing everybody else got theirs, then it’s my turn to have fun now.”

There were other “why’s.”

Why

Robert C. Hansen (Alaska State Troopers)

Bob’s domineering, old-country dad, who constantly belittled him — and exploited his labor — even as he praised Bob’s older sister, who didn’t seem able to do anything wrong. A mother who was incapable of defending him. The attempts to fit in, that didn’t quite work (like joining the high school football team or the Junior Police; after all of that, they still misspelled his name in the high school yearbook).

His learning disabilities (which his second wife, Darla, tried to fix but couldn’t). His whore-madonna complex. His resentment of authority, shown in full-color when he burned the bus barn in Pocahontas, Iowa.

And, yes, his mental illness, for which the professionals seemed to have too many names. Schizophrenia. Obsessive-compulsive. Manic depression (now more commonly called bipolar).

So there you have it. No easy answers.


Purchase Butcher, Baker

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