Egregious Falsehoods: Get Your Story Straight

When I started combing the Internet for Butcher, Baker falsehoods, I didn’t have to go very far. I quickly identified four “Red Flag” narratives, ones so egregious they had to be called out. One of the most egregious is the FBI Files docudrama called “Hunter’s Game.”

Although there are multiple errors, one of the sequences in Hunter’s Game is a total farce. [1] In their telling, a construction crew found a body while building a road near the Knik River. The doc goes on to claim it was the body of seventeen year old Paula Goulding. That’s when I knew something was drastically amiss. Even criminally wrong. I know, the FBI right?

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Screen Cap The FBI Files, Hunter’s Game (caption Leland E. Hale

Stories Mixed Up

To be sure, a work crew did find a Hansen victim. Only it wasn’t a road construction crew. And it wasn’t on the Knik River. It was a power line maintenance crew, working on the Eklutna transmission line. And it wasn’t Paula Goulding. It was Eklutna Annie.

(Eklutna Annie got that nickname because the work crew found her close to the Alaska Native village of the same name. Hansen claimed her as his first victim, completely ignoring the women gone missing near Seward in the early-70’s. Whatever.)

Glenn Flothe: Where was the start, Bob?

Robert Hansen: The start was the one… was the one body that you found on the Eklutna power line [sic].

Robert Hansen’s confession, February 22, 1984
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Eklutna Transmission Line (courtesy Matanuska Electric)

Total B.S.

In fact, Eklutna Annie was found in a spot quite distinct from where Goulding was discovered. For one, she was fourteen miles southwest of the Knik River. Hansen drove her there. Took a back road and got stuck in a seep. That’s when she pulled a knife on him. The line crew, moreover, came across her in 1980, four years before Paula was found.

Fourteen Miles from Knik River gravesites to Eklutna Annie’s grave (Courtesy Apple Maps)

Depending on how you count, that’s at least three egregious errors right there. There’s more. Like Paula Goulding’s age. Thirty-years-old, not seventeen. [2] [3]

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Excerpt from Hansen Search Warrant, October 26, 1983
(Affiant = Sgt. Glenn Flothe; Courtesy AST)

Flight Map Makes Difference

To be fair, Eklutna Annie’s manner of death — brutally stuck with her own knife — suggested something entirely different than Robert Hansen’s M.O. Bob’s victims were usually shot, often with a high-powered rifle. That distinction faded quickly, however, once Troopers found the aviation maps hidden at Hansen’s house.

Eklutna Annie was #16.

Sgt. Glenn Flothe’s Annotated Flight Map (Courtesy Alaska State Troopers; Click for Larger Image – 14MB)

Victim Map

[1] The FBI Files was a docudrama crime series that premiered on The Discovery Channel. It initially ran from 1998 to 2006 and is now available in-full on YouTube. Season Two, Episode 9 featured “Hunter’s Game,” focusing on Robert Hansen.

[2] Whatever you do, don’t get gaslighted by the Hansen episode. The behind-the-back handcuffs scene at the start of the docudrama, for instance, is poetic license. Hansen preferred to handcuff his victims from the front. Why? Because it was MUCH easier to get them in and out of his plane (and car) when he cuffed them that way. But, you know, truth and all that…

[3] The Discovery Channel made up for many of their errors when Investigation Discovery (ID) aired “Mind of a Monster.” But the FBI B.S. is still out there. Sigh. 


Copyright Leland E. Hale (2022). All rights reserved.

Leland E. Hale

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