There's a way to make an entrance. This is my destiny. It was now a conspiracy of [music] witches. Download VI today. The dense and rugged Alaskan wilderness provided the perfect cover for a fierce and sadistic killer. He prayed on women, kidnapping them, raping them, torturing them. He hunted them like animals for his own twisted pleasure. [music] [music] In the 1970s and 80s, people went to Alaska looking for a fresh start to reinvent themselves. or to disappear for a while. Some of those disappearances weren't by choice. I'm Jim Calstrom, former head of the FBI's New York office. A serial killer's rampage was exposed when the bodies of young women began turning up in shallow graves that dotted the Alaskan wilderness. The killer was at home in the rugged terrain. But the hunt for him began 3,000 m away, where FBI profilers mapped the criminal's mind. She was a hopeful young model looking for her break. She accepted a job with a man who claimed to be a photographer but turned out to be a merciless killer. She wasn't his first victim or his last From the 70s through the mid 80s, the wilderness of Alaska became a popular destination. As people flowed north to construct the Alaskan pipeline, the population boomed. On August 13th, 1982, two offduty [music] Anchorage police officers were hunting moose near the Kick River in a wilderness about 20 m from Anchorage. Not really holding out for us either. Yeah. As they made their way through the dense [music] forest, they happened upon partially buried human remains. They left it undisturbed. The next day, crime scene technicians from the Alaska State Troopers arrived at the scene. Crimes out here fell under state jurisdiction. Besides clothing and an elastic bandage, troopers found a 223 caliber shell casing in the shallow grave. Came right here in the sand. Dental records identified the remains as 23-year-old [music] Sher Marl, an exotic dancer reported missing a year earlier by her boyfriend. Troopers called him in to break the news. Her clothes matched the ones he reported her missing in. But her good luck charm, the gold arrowhead pendant she never took off, was gone. But uh I wanted to let Marl was probably murdered shortly after she disappeared, giving the killer more than a year to cover his tracks. Finding him would be next [music] to impossible. In the year following the discovery of Sher Marorrow's body, more women began turning up. It's a sad truth that finding bodies in the Alaskan wilderness wasn't all that unusual. Two or three times a year, some novice hiker or hunter would get lost and succumb to the elements. But a growing number of bodies had a different story to tell. During new road construction on September 2nd, 1983, a crew unearthed human skeletal remains not far from where Sher Marorrow's body had been found one year earlier. The bones had obviously been here for some time. Yet until recently, this area of the Kick River was so remote that it could only be accessed by boat or light plane. The remains were identified as 17-year-old Paula Guling, an out-of [music] work secretary who had moved to Alaska from Hawaii. She had been missing for 5 months. Like Sher Marorrow, she had taken a job as an exotic dancer to make ends meet. And like Sher Marorrow, a 223 caliber cartridge was found at the site. For Alaska State Trooper Wayne Van Clawson, the connection was frightening. And that's about when everything started to become kind of scary for everybody because the the profile was the same. They were they were topless u dancers from from the clubs downtown. Uh but that was certainly when there was the belief that there was a serial murderer out there. Two bodies had been found, but now troopers believed there were more. They began to revisit missing person's reports. Many of those reported missing were exotic dancers, but in Alaska, their disappearance was not unusual. Missing persons was a relatively low priority. Um, statutoily, if you're an adult, you have a right to be missing, and there were a lot of instances where these girls would just jump on a plane and go away. Between 1980 and 1983, 12 women had been reported missing. That was only a fraction of the unreported total. Troopers now wondered how many of the missing women were victims of the killer. That would be difficult to determine. The Alaska State Troopers sent the [music] evidence from the Sher Marorrow and Paula Guling crime scenes to the FBI's laboratory in [music] Washington DC for analysis. The FBI ran ballistics tests [music] on both shell casings to see if they were shot from the same gun. State troopers hoped the results could provide them with strong evidence that the same person [music] committed both murders. The lab results were conclusive. Both women were killed by the same high-powered rifle. There was little doubt Alaska troopers were dealing with a serial killer. While they began their hunt for him in the wilderness, the Anchorage police were dealing with their own problems. [music] Every city has its dark side, [music] and Anchorage is no different. Except that in Alaska, the nights are [music] longer and darker. In the 70s and 80s, Anchorage was a frontier town. Men came here to work hard, and women followed [music] to ease their loneliness. Some women were lured to the strip clubs, hoping to earn a quick buck. [music] Others, looking for more respectable opportunities, worked in the clubs until something better came up. For many, it never did. And in the city's streets roamed a stalker. He chose carefully. His victims were hardly missed. For in a city made up largely of strangers, it's [music] difficult to be a missing person. Some of the women who disappeared from Anchorage turned up safely. Some didn't turn up at all. But disappearances weren't the only crimes being reported. On the early morning of June 13th, 1983, Cindy Pollson, aged [music] 17, ran down an Anchorage Highway. She was partially dressed and in handcuffs. She managed to flag down a passing truck. She was running for her life. The motorist dropped her off at her motel apartment. The desk clerk called the Anchorage police. Miss Pson. An officer removed her handcuffs and tried to calm her. You all right? Here, let me get those. Anchorage police officer Greg Baker recalls the incident. Uh we found her in handcuffs with very little clothes on. She was real credible. She was very scared. She's very frightened. And uh she told us her story. Pollson, the prostitute, told Baker that she picked up a trick the night before. She described him as wiry, scruffy, about 6 feet [music] tall with glasses and a stutter. He was not the kind [music] of person she thought of as threatening. But as soon as she [music] stepped into his car, he handcuffed her and put a wood-handled revolver to her head. They drove to a respectable residential neighborhood. He pulled her into his house. The place was wellkept and full of hunting [music] trophies. He had a chain hanging from the ceiling of his den. He chained her up and stripped her. And there she was tortured and raped repeatedly for hours. Then he went to take a nap, leaving her there. Put my wrap, but he wasn't through yet. He said he was going to take [music] her to his cabin in the wilderness. He said if she tried to get anyone's attention, he'd kill her and them as well. He told her he already had his alibi worked out. His friends were willing to lie for him. No one would believe her story. [music] They ended up at the airport. She could see him loading a weapon into a small aircraft. She also saw her chance for escape. Her one chance to save her life. [music] [music] The story sounded outrageous, but her genuine terror compelled Officer Baker to check it out. Yep. I had a very street smart female scared to death with a story about being taken at gunpoint and held prisoner at a specific location that she described where it was. So, she knew where it was. She described the interior of the location. She described a den up to it including various animals were mount posted on the mounted on the wall. In route to the hospital for an examination, Pollson insisted on stopping at the airport to show police the airplane she had seen earlier. She positively identified it. While we were in there, we had a security guard stop us. and described the car the same way that Cindy had described the car and in fact gave us a license number. Uh that license number confirmed the address or the area at least that Cindy had given us uh regarding where the house was. Police went to the address to speak to the owner of the car. [music] They arrived moments before he pulled up, driving the vehicle described by Cindy Pollson. So far, everything Pollson said and checked out, but the suspect had his own story to tell. What happened? According to the motor vehicle records, the car that Cindy Pollson was abducted in belonged to Robert Hansen, a baker in Anchorage. Hansen, who [music] fit the description of the man Pollson described, calmly answered questions. [music] He said he was at a friend's house from 5:00 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. preparing a seat for his airplane. Afterward, he went to the home of another friend and [music] stayed until around 5:30 that morning. don't recognize the father. Then he went to the airport and installed the seat. Hansen [music] gave police his consent to search his house. Again, his home was [music] exactly as Pollson had described. That only proved she'd been [music] in the house, not that Hansen had raped and tortured her there. They could find [music] no evidence of that. They did notice a loose- [music] fitting wall panel. Behind it, they found a collection of weapons, [music] but that wasn't surprising. Hansen was an avid hunter. They did find a revolver, but it didn't match the one that Pollson described. The gun, the chain, and the blanket she [music] was wrapped in were nowhere to be found. Hansen's car appeared equally clean. Anchorage police found nothing in his car that fit Pollson's story. Those alibis were corroborated and verified and Mr. Hansen was released after a consent search of his house. Pollson, still shaken from her ordeal, was able to pick Hansen's picture out of a photo lineup. But when given the chance to take a lie detector test, she refused. Her occupation gave her an inherent distrust of the police and gave police an inherent distrust of her. No doubt. She felt she'd never be taken seriously. Soon after, she left town for a while to try to put the nightmare behind her. Anchorage authorities were willing to let it drop, too. I found out because the uh alibis were corroborated and because they had a problem with Cindy Paulson appearing and disappearing and of course her lifestyle left a lot to be desired that the case had been suspended at the Anchorage Police Department. My hand and it was already police had gathered no solid evidence linking her story to Robert Hansen. But for officer Greg Baker, [music] it wasn't over. He was one officer who believed Pollson's story and wouldn't let it go. The predator roaming the streets of Anchorage, was still out there, free to claim more victims. Robert Hansen, [music] the most likely suspect in the abduction and rape of Cindy Pollson, had been released for a lack of solid evidence. Officer Baker was still curious. Lately, the Anchorage [music] police have been grappling with what seemed like more than their share of missing persons reports [music] involving prostitutes like Pulson or exotic dancers or women out by themselves. Pollson's assertion that she was about to be put on a plane only reinforced his creeping suspicions about Hansen. He had taken her to the airport where he was going to fly her out with a story that if she maintained her her helpfulness that uh he'd bring her back and let her go. Well, Cindy was bright enough to know that she was on a one-way trip and uh so was I. And so I kind of just put two and two together and figured that he was a very good suspect for the uh missing dancers. Baker's supervisor had suspended [music] the investigation into Robert Hansen, but Baker couldn't let it go. Cindy Pollson's nightmarish story had too much detail to not have some basis in truth. But [music] no one except Baker would listen to her. He continued his investigation. On the surface, [music] Baker found nothing in Hansen's record to arouse suspicion. He had moved to Anchorage from Iowa 16 years earlier and opened a bakery. It was a huge success. He had a wife and children and except for his stutter, he fit in completely. When he wasn't in the kitchen, Hansen enjoyed flying his small airplane, a Super Cub Piper. Back on the ground, he took to the woods. He was a solid citizen. He just didn't fit the model of a serial killer. There were plenty of others drifting through Alaska more suited to that role. They didn't [music] have businesses. They didn't have families. Hansen did. He had everything to lose. Frank Rothschild was a prosecutor involved in the Pollson case. Bob the Baker, the troopers and the police used to go to his doughnut shop all the time. Was a very popular place to go. Uh he was he had a a bakery. People knew him. He was friendly. Uh he was just a hardworking guy. I want to know. Unaware of Officer Greg Baker's [music] local investigation in Anchorage, state troopers were still trying to find their serial killer. Bodies continued to be unearthed in the Alaskan wilderness. Troopers set up a task force to study the similarities between the missing women [music] and the murder victims. They hoped to find a common thread that would lead to a suspect. to talk to you about something. Until authorities knew more, they did their best to educate [music] dancers and prostitutes about playing safe. For the first time, police and [music] prostitutes were on the same side. According to Rothschild, the goal was preservation. Law enforcement were then and had been for a time advising young women who were working in some of these clubs and who were working the streets to be careful and to advise them there was a maniac out there who was who seemed to be abducting and killing people. A little digging revealed that [music] Hansen's criminal history was extensive. 12 years earlier in 1971, he'd [music] been arrested twice for kidnapping, rape, and assault with a deadly weapon. They were crimes that bore an eerie resemblance to what Cindy Pollson had endured. Baker couldn't bring [music] this information to his supervisor. The Pollson case had been officially suspended, and Baker [music] was bucking authority. That left him no alternative. And at that time, I gathered up all the reports and background that I could find on Mr. Hansen and for carried it over to the troopers. When the troopers received the file from officer Baker, they were [music] optimistic. Pollson's testimony along with Hansen's police record from Anchorage made him a prime suspect in the state case. The troopers investigation dovetailed with Bakers. They were both dealing with the same maniac. Robert Hansen was their [music] best suspect. I think everybody was looking at him real seriously because he made a good suspect when you looked into him. He had uh a pretty extensive criminal background, including some sexual assaults. The only problem was the proof. Though Hansen was a violent sex offender, his record indicated nothing about being capable of homicide, nor was there any direct link from him to Sher Marorrow, Paula Guling, and the other missing women. At this point, troopers didn't even have enough for a search warrant. They knew only that three [music] women were dead and 12 were missing. Out there lurked a serial killer. Troopers needed to catch him before he killed again. They needed help. We knew we had a mass murder on our hands. That was not something Alaska had any experience with. Somebody obviously knew that the FBI not only had experience with it, but had set out this unit that was designed specifically to try to assist in discovering who these people were. To catch a killer in their own backyard, the troopers called on help from over 3,000 m away. Only the FBI had the resources needed to get inside a killer's head. When the Alaska State Troopers determined they had a serial [music] killer on their hands, they realized they didn't have the expertise to stop him, but they knew who did. Quantico, Virginia is home to the FBI's investigative support unit. Here, agents attempt to predict behavioral patterns by analyzing a criminal's actions. Retired FBI agent John Douglas helped pioneer behavioral profiling and still works as a consultant. His profiles are based on 25 years interviewing convicted killers. They taught Douglas how to think like they do. He's learned that serial killers are acting out their fantasies of control and conquest. As Douglas slowly wins their trust, he takes them back to the scene of their crime. you finally get them talking, they start giving you that thousandy stare. They're back, they're back 10 years ago, 20 years ago when they were perpetrating uh the crime and they kind of lock into that thousandy stare and their memory is is just so precise and the fantasy is what keeps them going uh over and over and enables them to survive when they're incarcerated. So, I got to tap into that. It takes time, but once I'm in there, I get tremendous information. From these interviews, he [music] distilled a checklist of traits and habits that serial killers share. They start young with lesser crimes [music] such as arson or cruelty to animals. Okay, take care. Over the years, their violence builds to every new case. Profilers bring the knowledge of how killers evolve. To understand the criminal, you must look at the crime. You just want to see if you can come up with an analysis based upon preliminary police reports. crime scene photographs, a profile of the uh the victim, autopsy protocol, reviewing that re review the autopsy photographs, do a an analysis of the overall crime, the risk level that the subject took, uh the victim risk level, analysis of the the area, the the maybe the crime scene, maybe have multiple crime scenes, and then uh based upon that uh you attempt now to come up with a specific type of uh type of profile by examining ing every aspect of an unsolved crime. A profiler can determine [music] specific characteristics of that killer, such as age, occupation, and physical [music] characteristics. The troopers contacted the FBI [music] to see if the bureau could work up an analysis of the Anchorage killer. They hoped the profile would sharpen the investigation and bring overlooked [music] clues to light. The troopers gave the FBI what they needed to build the behavioral profile. For a scrupulous, accurate profile, they required [music] only facts from the troopers, no analysis or theories. Trooper Wayne Van Clawson didn't want to lose any time. The information he received from Officer Baker aroused his suspicions about Robert Hansen, but he needed more information. Criminal records [music] were just beginning to be computerized and he didn't have access to them all in Anchorage. While the profile [music] was being developed, he went to Juno to collect Hansen's records from the Superior and Supreme Court archives. In his factf finding mission, Van Clawson researched every town that Hansen had ever lived in. He found reports on Robert Hansen dating back to [music] 1961. He gathered all that he could carry, sent the rest by truck, then headed home. While he was in Juno, the FBI had come through with a criminal profile of the serial killer. The fact that the killer was so prolific meant to Douglas that he could function unnoticed within the community, someone who worked independently, [music] most likely a business owner. The killer would be an avid outdoorsman since the bodies were recovered in remote areas of wilderness. Since he prayed on prostitutes, Douglas concluded the killer had [music] difficulty talking to women, had low self-esteem, and grew up feeling like an outcast. Based on killers with similar profiles, Douglas provided a specific characteristic to explain [music] the cause of those feelings of inadequacy. a feature that bore an eerie resemblance to Robert Hansen. The one that totally blew us all away, I think, is that when they when they said he's either going to be be a stutterer or someone who has a lisp, a speech defect, how do you figure that? But that was one of the things that they suggested might show up. I got it. I got what I was going after. The FBI profile pointed to Robert Hansen, but the depths of Douglas's insight were about to be known. Upon Van Clawson's return, troopers studied the files. The records showed that Hansen had spent three years in a reformatory for setting fire to his old high school's bus garage. Based on their work with previous killers, the FBI profilers said the killer would have a history of arson. You have a boyfriend? Yes, actually I do. Yeah, cuz the profile painted the killer as a social [music] misfit. do something. Hansen's court-ordered psychiatric reports from his days at the reformatory bore this out. That's boyfriend girl. I'm really busy right now. You know, I don't I don't mean anything like I mean his stutter was a [music] social barrier that undermined his self-confidence. Whenever he tried to assert himself, he'd be slapped down. Work to do or I'm going to call security on you. He never forgot the sting. The profile said the killer would learn to function as a normal member of society while his perversions festered [music] within. His record showed that in his 30s, Hansen began working at a bakery. He would brag to co-workers about his kleptomania and the sense of power it gave him. He also bragged about his love of hunting. He took great pleasure in exerting power over his prey, stalking it, then wounding it, and he became good at the kill, winning prestigious awards. In 1967, he moved to Alaska to start a new life and for better hunting. 3 years after moving there, his record showed he was arrested for the attempted rape of a young receptionist at gunpoint. He pleaded no contest to assault with a deadly weapon. A little more than a month later, he was indicted for the attempted assault of an 18-year-old woman he followed home. As soon as the man got to Alaska, he was involved in theft cases. He was involved in abductions. He uh had psy psychiatric evaluations showing him to be really unstable and having all kinds of weird sexual fantasies and the rest. True to the profile, Hansen seemed a respectable citizen, so the courts [music] were lenient. In one case, he claimed to have memory lapses and was given psychiatric treatment and 5 years in a work release program. He abducted one of his early victims outside a coffee shop, took her to a cabin in the wilderness, and raped her at gunpoint. She was 17 at the time. He told me, of course, if I called the police, that he would hunt me down and kill me. He told me he was a fine, outstanding businessman. He had never mentioned at any point when uh during the rape time or or before or after that he was married, but he said he's a fine outstanding businessman and that I was just a kid and nobody would believe me. And he was right. Everything the profiler said about the perpetrator of the serial killings fit suspect Robert Hansen, a truly dangerous [music] man who was passing as a nondescript face in the crowd. While troopers zeroed in on Hansen, they spread out to search for more victims in the Kick River area where three bodies had been found. They believed that the dancers who were still missing may have been buried close to the other grave sites. But troopers came up empty. The area was too large and remote to cover completely. Despite the compelling FBI profile and the past [music] police records, troopers lacked anything tangible to link Hansen to the killings. His police records were too stale, the evidence too circumstantial to hold any weight in a court of law. Investigators [music] hoped that Cindy Pollson could help. She was the only surviving victim to Hansen's current wave of violence. Perhaps she could remember something else from her ordeal. Paulson gave another statement. But this time, she was able to ID one of the guns Hansen had in his possession. Okay, that was the same. Aside from Pulson, Hansen had not been implicated in a rape or abduction for more than 10 years. But in the hopes of strengthening their case and establishing a pattern of behavior, investigators searched for another of Hansen's victims from years earlier, whose experience matched Paul's. Although this prior victim no longer lived in the area, troopers tracked her down and asked for her help. I had gotten a call from Alaska asking if I would like to maybe help with a conviction for Mr. Hansen. Uh they had explained to me that he had killed to the best of their knowledge seven women. And they explained to me that the last woman had broken free. She agreed to [music] testify when the time came, but troopers still had a weak case. The troopers felt confident they were on the right track. They didn't have enough to prove that Hansen was a serial killer. According to Anchorage Police [music] Officer Greg Baker, Hansen knew that authorities were on to something. One morning, I was driving by and I needed to get some donuts for the shift. Mr. Hansen was there and he had a uh a window that he stood in and decorated cakes and cupcakes and cookies. And I remember watching him. He kept looking up at me and you could tell he was nervous and he kept putting frosting on his thumb and I liked that. What we'll do is although investigators had Hansen [music] in their sights, they still lacked the evidence to connect him directly to the crimes. all the information. But because Hansen matched the profile so closely, Douglas flew to Alaska to review the case and to brief the troopers and prosecutor Frank Rothschild on how to proceed with the suspect. The information that's already in front of him to Douglas was confident that Hansen was their serial killer. The hunter was now the hunted. So the missions was to provide a a analysis for them. Does he have the capability to commit a crime like this? And the answer was was yes. I believe this prostitute and I believe he's capable of perpetrating these crimes. Douglas's idea was to bring Hansen in for questioning while simultaneously [music] searching his house. To obtain a warrant, investigators needed to list specific [music] items they believed to be in the house. They knew to look for the gun that Cindy [music] Pollson described and the one that fired the bullets found in the graves of Sher Marorrow and Paula Golding. when we come in the room. That wasn't enough. They needed a home run. Something that would prove Hansen's guilt in no uncertain terms. They asked Douglas if there was anything else to list in the warrant. Yes. Some of the research findings is we're dealing here with a serial killer. And serial killers, uh, it starts off as fantasy. And one of the things to keep the fantasy going after the crime is is because they're on the hunt nightly looking for victims, is they take some type of momento, we call them either souvenirs or trophies, something belonging to the victims. Douglas helped prosecutors write the affidavit based on the likelihood of finding momentos mentioned in the profile. Okay. Anything else? I've got those two. Anything from a piece of the victim's jewelry to a driver's license. We don't have any. But a behavioral profile had never been used as the basis of a search warrant in the United States before. Rothschild knew he'd need to back it up with more conventional information. Obviously, the district attorney's office wanted this search warrant to be bulletproof. They wanted it to be absolutely positively without flaw because they knew this was a big, big case. The last thing they wanted was to have something wrong with the search warrant and have all the evidence thrown out. The affidavit swelled to 48 pages. The judge granted [music] eight search warrants for Hansen's property. Now they just needed Hansen. They had learned his pattern, knew his schedule. On October 23rd, 1983, they went to pick him up at his bakery. But Hansen [music] wasn't there. He'd gotten off to a late start, unwittingly keeping the troopers waiting [music] 20 t minutes. Robert Hans Robert Hans, sir, you step away from your car. When asked to come in for questioning, he didn't resist. The interrogation room was ready for him. The goal was to keep him off balance, hoping to elicit a confession and avoid a lengthy legal case. Douglas helped the troopers design the interrogation room for the biggest psychological impact. Crime scene photos and related materials were strewn everywhere for Hansen to contemplate before his interview. At the appointed moment, the troopers arrived and the mind game began. Mr. Hansen. The FBI coached Rothschild on how to play it. Ask him questions in a way that would prompt more discussion. So that that's game plan number one. Then obviously we've got all of these cases that have been investigated and to get him to talk specifically about those. He's trying to search us out. What do we know? So I could see his game plan was to kind of find out what we knew and play off of that. And my game plan, of course, is to find out what he knew. While Rothschild tried to get Hansen to open up and confess, troopers served the search warrants. Hansen's wife was home. The troopers were extra [music] cautious, videotaping the entire procedure. What they were looking for could be anywhere, even in plain sight. Hansen knew the troopers had access to his police and psychological records. He didn't tell authorities [music] anything they didn't already know. He spoke of his painful upbringing, his strict family, his anger. He admitted to picking up dancers and prostitutes in the early 70s and how [music] enraged he became when they tried to raise their prices, but he denied threatening any of them. He admitted nothing. While Hansen told [music] his story and his house was being turned inside out, other troopers headed [music] to his bakery and to the airport to search his plane. Both were clean. The house became the focal point of the investigation. A careful search of the upstairs [music] bedroom finally yielded a curious and eerie discovery. An aerial map of the region peppered with 37 X's. They seem to be clustered mainly around the area where bodies have been found. But there were dozens more marks than bodies, at least so far. The searchers continued up to the attic. Under insulation, the troopers found weapons. Among the items found were a 223 Ruger Mini-14 rifle like the one used to kill Sher Marorrow and Paula Guling and a wood-handled [music] revolver resembling the one described by Cindy Pollson. Yeah. The search team let Van Clawson know the good news. Sounds good. These women [music] look familiar. You ever seen the net was closing on Hansen and he knew it, but he wasn't ready to talk just [music] yet. Take another look. The interview dragged on for hours. It didn't seem like a confession was likely. I I I haven't never seen. While troopers [music] collected the evidence, the case unwound even further. Hansen's friend and neighbors stopped by, curious about the activity. She was stunned by the news, then made a confession that demolished the last of Hansen's story. She told troopers that her husband [music] provided Hansen with his alibi on the night of Cindy Pollson's abduction. He'd lied to protect [music] his friend, not realizing how serious Hansen's charges were. The husband later called police and retracted his statement. Hansen's alibi evaporated. As the search continued, the troopers found the most incriminating [music] evidence so far. Evidence that Douglas knew had to be there somewhere. They found Sher Marorrow's necklace and other personal property belonging to the dead or missing women. They had found Hansen's stash of trophies. Yeah, this is Baker here. Investigators called [music] the station. Just search the Hansen house. Though they had Hansen where they wanted him, still he wouldn't [music] confess. a buck about but they had enough to lock him up on the Cindy Pollson case. Take your time. Bail was set at $500,000. Investigators now had time to build their case against Hansen as a serial killer. They called the prior victim to see if she was still on board. And at that time, they thought he had killed 11 women and was I still interested in being a witness. They they really felt that they may need me cuz he hadn't confessed. All right, what you got? Three points on the map found in his bedroom match the locations of bodies recovered by the troopers. Another X marked the location of a body recovered by Seward police years earlier. The remaining X's presumably marked the graves of more victims, dozens of them. Looking at the map obviously was pretty chilling because we believed the map. The map was a body count as far as we were concerned. The man had kept track. He didn't have newspaper clippings. He had the map. When the troopers believed they had enough to convict Hansen on at least four murders, they confronted him and his lawyer with the evidence. Hansen couldn't refute it. He had no place left to hide. Finally, it was time to confess. Time for Hansen to cut a deal. Hansen said he would [music] confess to the murders that could be proven as long as the trial was given no publicity and that his family be left alone. He demanded that he be imprisoned [music] outside of Alaska when the trial was over. In exchange for only four convictions, [music] he agreed to show the troopers where more bodies were buried. Investigators called the prior [music] victim to tell her the good news. The third time they called back and said that he had confessed and they wouldn't need me. So, um, I hung up the phone when we were done talking, got my son off to school, got my husband out the door, and um, proceeded to fall apart. I started crying. I couldn't stop. I had no control over it. It controlled me. I could see each and every one of those women how they died. Probably hunted down like dogs, wounded, and then hunted more. In his confession, Hansen described how he would take his victims [music] into the woods and hunt them as prey. Over the dozen years that he lived in Alaska, he'd raped more than 30 women [music] and developed many strategies for capturing them. Once he found a likely target, a solitary woman like Sher Marorrow, he would befriend her and arrange to meet her at a fast food place. If they were dancers or aspiring models, he'd [music] offer to pay to photograph them. He'd arrive early and stay in his car. That way, he'd be certain the woman arrived alone and had no one waiting for her in the parking lot. no witnesses. Then he [music] go in and meet his new victim. One half of the handcuff was already fastened to the seat. Hansen boasted that snapping the other half onto his victim's wrist while reaching for his gun became like a reflex. Then he would take them home or to a remote motel to rape and torture them. Afterwards, he'd blindfold them and drive or fly them to the outskirts of town until he arrived at a secluded spot, his hunting ground. His habit was to toy with his prey before he made the kill. Hansen confessed that in the summer of 83 he devised what he called his summer plan. He sent his family [music] away so he could bring his victims home. When he was done with them, he'd dispose of them in the wilderness. 26. On [music] February 27th, 1984, Robert Hansen was convicted of murdering four women and sentenced [music] to 461 years plus life with no chance of parole. After his sentencing, Hansen accompanied troopers into the field to find more of his victims, represented by X's on his map. A total of eight victims were found. Some places on the map went unexplored. Bears scavenged [music] others, scattering the remains. Investigators [music] will never know how many of the 37 X's represented one of Hansen's victims. According to John Douglas, the map might have depicted only a small part of his hunting grounds. Killers like Hans will come into contact with a lot of women, but fantasy is everything. And they may not like the way the the the person talks or the person dresses uh style and um so they'll make a decision. Well, this one will live. This one over here will, you know, will die. I believe he was good for a lot more cases. And I still believe there's there was a chance that one of the reasons that caused him to go up to Alaska, [music] he was running away from homicides back in the lower 48. In the United States, [music] an estimated 35 to 50 serial killers are active at any given time. Profiling has made them easier to spot and apprehend. Each time one is captured, investigators learn more about their twisted motivations, making it easier to catch the next one.