Robert Hansen aka: The Butcher Baker

Early Life/ Backround Hansen was born in Iowa in 1939 Son of a Danish immigrant Father was a humble baker, and Robert would eventually follow in his footsteps. Very skinny and shy as a child Did not have many friends and was bullied and shunned for his awkwardness and his severe acne. Also had a severe stutter The popular and attractive girls were the cruelest to him, so he started to think of revenge on women as early as 10 or 11. Started hunting as a young teen and it grew to be his “safe place” Spent much of his time alone in the woods.

Backround continued Very poor relationship with his Father, he was very hard and domineering with Robert. In 1957, he joined the US military reserves and served for one year when he was discharged. Married first wife in summer of 1960 while working as a drill instructor for a police academy Burned down bus garage at age of 20, served 20 months in prison. Divorced while in prison. Moved to Anchorage, Alaska with second wife and two kids in 1963 Stole chainsaw in 1977 and was arrested, and diagnosed with Bipolar disorder. He was prescribed Lithium, but never ordered by a judge to actually take the medication

Crimes/ Convictions From the time he was reaching adulthood, Robert was involved in petty crimes such as theft under 1000$ and insurance fraud. However somewhere along the line he graduated to harder crimes, such as when he burned down a massive school bus garage in the town he lived in at the age of 20. It is unknown when Robert started killing because he would not tell the police. He confessed to the murder of 17 young women but could have killed as many as 21. He was also convicted of Rape and sexual assault, which was inflicted on each young woman before she was hunted. Insurance fraud is lying to the government or your insurance provider in order to gain money or financial aid of some sort.

Recent Crime/ Activity The most recent crime committed by this pathetic, evil man was most likely the kidnapping of Cindy Paulson. On June 13 th 1983, she escaped his car as he was driving her up to his hunting cabin, flagging down a truck on the side of the road who drove her to safety. Hansen was able to wiggle his way out of being a main suspect through lying, but he was still made a person of interest. Another women went missing later that year when the police realized that they had a serial killer on their hands. The FBI quickly gained a search warrant for his home where they found several trophies and a map marking out his hunting grounds.

Recent Activity Cont. Robert was quickly arrested and soon started to say what a lot of murderers say to justify their actions; he blamed the women for their own deaths and said he was doing them a favor. The FBI made a deal with him, only convicting him of 4 murders that he already admitted to spare him from having to go to 17 different trials. He was sentenced to a life term, along with over 400 years without parole. He died in prison during August of 2014.

Evidence The Police had enough evidence to put him away for life shortly after entering his home. They found several pieces of Jewelry from the women he murdered. They also found several guns that could potentially match the guns used to murder them. Finally, the nail in the coffin, they found a map detailing his “Hunting Cabins’’, stuck behind his headboard.

Conflict Theory In this case, I believe that the theory that best exemplifies my criminals actions would be the conflict theory. This theory states that deviance and crime arises from a ‘conflict’ between two or more parties due to many factors such as an unfair distribution of power and wealth. As a child Hansen was bullied and looked down upon. He even states he began dreaming of revenge on the “popular” girls since a very young age. It is completely reasonable to think that this could've lead to his killing later on in life. He felt shunned and targeted by the main culture and therefore lashed out against it.

Cultural References His murders were the plot of a 2013 movie entitled “Frozen Ground” John Cusack played Robert Hansen and Nicholas Cage played the FBI agent who was assigned to his case and eventually brought him down.