The Lost Years: Trouble In Mind

Part Two: Bob Hits a Ditch

One lie that Robert Hansen repeatedly told himself was that his wife Darla kept him out of trouble. As we now know, Hansen had a complex relationship with reality. Or, more to the point, had difficulty controlling his own impulses and, hence, staying out of trouble. That point surfaces multiple times during his February 1984 confession. None were more stark than his answer to Asst. D.A. Frank Rothschild’s question about how long it took, after his 1972 release on parole in the Heppeard case, for him to once more prowl the downtown Anchorage strip.

Rothschild: So what happens when you're finished with the halfway house and you're back home and you're, nobody's watching you like that anymore? Do you start up driving back down there and meeting up with women?

Hansen: Ah, I can't remember what it was for, but my daughter was born at this time [Sept. 10, 1970], (inaudible) and ah, my wife's parents had not seen her for a year or two and ah, it's - since it was through summer vacation my wife took my daughter and went back to visit her parents and that, right away that left me, hey, I got me a - my wife's not here...

[And] the one thing that kept Bob Hansen in check at all was my wife.

Robert Hansen confession, Anchorage D.A., February 22, 1984

Busted in Minnesota

In fact, Darla Henricksen had little influence over Bob’s behavior except, perhaps, to paper it over with periodic visits to their local church, where he would endure a forced reading from the Word of God. As proof, even early into their marriage, while living in Minneapolis, Bob got in trouble once again. The year was 1967.

"I got arrested for stealing a god darn softball, you know, ah, a thing that didn't cost nothing, but yet it was the idea, it wasn't that - I'd been in that store stealing stuff many times...

I ah, belonged to a ball team back there in ah, a mobile home park that we lived in had a ball team back there... it was all volunteer, so guys - the guys were bringing stuff all the time… If I got stuff that made me a good guy." 

Running From Trouble

Darla graduated from the University of Minnesota in March of 1967, with a B.S. in education. Post-arrest, Bob broached the subject of moving to Alaska.

“I used to like to hunt and fish, and I always read all of these stories about Alaska… I approached her, I said, Darla, I sure would like to go up to Alaska for awhile.”

Darla, ever the practical one, said “yes.”

“[T]hen the next weekend we drove to Iowa,” Hansen told authorities, “and told her folks we was going to Alaska… go up there and try it for six months, maybe a year.”

This move does not seem in the least bit coincidental. Running to Alaska is a well worn trope. And that one year tryout? It turned into almost two decades. But Robert Hansen’s lost years were not entirely forgotten. Recently, they came back to haunt me.

An Unsolved Iowa Murder

It all started with an intriguing inquiry from Allison Williams of the esteemed Coffee and Cases Podcast [Spotify link HERE]. It involved a question about an unsolved Midwest murder. A murder from Robert Hansen’s Lost Years.

On August 19, 1969, real estate agent Dorothy Miller’s body was found in a vacant two-story house in Burlington, Iowa. Her corpse was found lying face-down in a large upstairs bedroom closet. Her dress was pulled up over her chest; her underpants, hose, and shoes were removed, and her bra was loosened and pushed up. She had been murdered, then brutally raped.

Was Robert Hansen her killer? Was trouble ever far behind this guy?

Question One

The first question we need to answer: Is there any evidence Hansen was in Iowa during that time? The answer: Yes and No. Mostly no.

By August 1969, Robert Hansen had been living in Anchorage, Alaska, for two years. We know from an Estherville, Iowa, news report that he’d arrived in Anchorage by late 1967. An August 12, 1967, item from the Estherville Daily News reported that: “Mrs. Marie Pedersen [Bob’s maternal grandmother] received word that her grandson and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Hansen, have arrived in Anchorage, Alaska, and that Hansen is decorating cakes in a bakery. Mrs. Hansen will be teaching school.”

That same newspaper places Robert Hansen in Armstrong, IA, on Easter Sunday, April 6, 1969. There is, however, no mention of him during the August 1969 timeframe. Given that his maternal grandmother was ill during this time, a visit to Iowa was not out of the question. Local midwest newspapers are, however, very reliable pathways for stories with a local through-line. Somebody always has some gossip to share.

A gap of that sort is very telling — no Robert Hansen news for August 1969 spells trouble for the Iowa murder narrative. There was, after all, the small matter of his job; Hansen’s life in Alaska depended on maintaining gainful employment. He couldn’t just take off for Iowa.

And then there were the logistics. Another source of trouble.

Travel Obstacles

It’s no easy matter to travel from Alaska to Iowa. First, an Alaska Airlines flight to Seattle. Then a layover before a flight from Seattle to Minneapolis-St. Paul, likely on Northwest Orient Airlines. THEN the 153 mile, three hour drive from Minneapolis to Armstrong, IA, where Bob ultimately shared an afternoon with Darla’s relatives.

Burlington, IA, moreover, is 329 miles south of Armstrong. Another five hour drive. Not impossible, of course.

Except that Dorothy Miller’s case involved several days of careful planning: an initial visit with the presumed killer to the empty house — recently on the market — then a later meeting, then the murder, then the rape. Bob Hansen was not the type to linger.

Question Two

The second question we need to answer: Does the Dorothy Miller homicide fit Hansen’s M.O.? The answer: Mostly no.

Dorothy was 48-years old at the time of her murder. None of Hansen’s known victims fit that age profile. His first known Alaska encounter — an attempted kidnapping — was Susan Heppeard, an 18-year-old real estate secretary, in November 1971. Do not confuse the roles. A real estate secretary is office-bound, unlike her realtor counterpart, who routinely shows available properties. In fact, Hansen “met” Heppeard at a stop light and, imagining she was checking him out, followed her home.

Hansen’s second known encounter occurred in mid-December, 1971, barely a month after Heppeard. That woman was eighteen year old Patricia Roberts. Indeed, with few exceptions, Hansen’s victims were in their late-teens or early twenties, ranged in height from 5-foot-4 to five-foot-7, weighed between 120 and 125 pounds and were slim, usually busty. Whoever was “disappearing” these young women had a type.

The lone exception was Paula Goulding, age 32. She fit all the other criteria — the height, the weight, the bustiness. And there was the fact that she was new to this business. Just the type of victim profile Hansen exploited again and again.

Question Three

The third question we need to answer: Does the weapon of choice match across all of these homicides. The answer: Mostly no.

Dorothy Miller was killed by a knife. Brutally stabbed — once in the throat and 21 times in the back. That was after being knocked out by a blunt object — likely a brick.

Significantly, Hansen’s weapon of choice in both of his early encounters did not match this profile. His preferred weapon was a handgun. In the Heppeard case, that was a .38 revolver. That evolved over the course of his twenty-plus murders, ending with a mini-14, .223 caliber semiautomatic rifle.

Wasn’t there also a knife in there somewhere?

Yes. Eklutna Annie, Hansen’s first “admitted” murder, was stabbed — in the back — with a long-blade knife. In fact, it was her own knife, one she pulled from her purse to fend him off. So, different M.O. for sure. Not to deny that Hansen, toward the end of his killing spree, shot his victims with multiple firearms, then stabbed them in a frenzied ritual of destruction. Still not the same thing.

Close But No Cigar

Three coincidences do not a murder make. The real estate angle is tantalizing, but the realities are another story. The knife is also tantalizing, but the fact is that Hansen wrestled it away from Eklutna Annie, then stabbed her. Then there’s Iowa. Clearly Hansen was in Iowa near the time of Dorothy Miller’s murder. That four-month differential is a severe test of our gullibility. I, for one, remain skeptical. There are too many conditionals. And not enough “dependables.”

Solving Dorothy Miller’s murder is still extremely important. Unfortunately, we have to wait for a better match.

---

Purchase Butcher, Baker

Copyright 2024. All rights reserved.

You can order my latest book, “What Happened In Craig,” HERE and HERE. True crime on Epicenter Press about Alaska’s Worst Unsolved Mass Murder.