27

Monday, April 23, 1984

The smell of fetid death became the signature for the spoiled fruits of Hansen’s Arctic summers. The stench of decaying human flesh was sickeningly sweet, and could turn a stomach inside out. The knees wanted to buckle, but the legs wanted to run away. Flothe and his fellow troopers knew they were in for some hard duty.

Not until the end of April, however, did the ground thaw enough to permit an effective search. The first breakthrough came on Monday, April 23, when Trooper Wayne Von Clasen, checking gravesites at the Knik River bridge, found a suitcase and a purse at a spot Hansen had marked as grave site number six. Hansen told them a purse was buried at this spot, and Von Clasen was using a probe to test the hardness of the ground when he found it. The contents were well preserved and the plastic case itself was soon identified as one belonging to Tamara Pederson, one of the missing dancers.

The next day at ten-thirty, Jent, Kasnick, Flothe and Von Clasen dug up the first body, at Hansen gravesite number two. They were concentrating on places in the sun, and this one was near Jim Creek, east of the Old Knik River bridge, on the north side of the river. Making sure not to disturb the body, they used hand shovels and ice chippers to remove it from the riverbank. What they found was a badly decomposed body consisting of bones, some flesh, hair, and bits of clothing. Very slowly they slid the remains into a body bag, being cautious not to jostle it too much.

It was a busy day. About a mile and a half west they found another body, this near the parking area of the Old Knik bridge. It was recovered about 1:00, and was distinguished from the first body in that it was wrapped in a plastic bag. The troopers took that as evidence the murder had happened elsewhere, and the corpse was transported to the river bank for burial. Lieutenant Jent also thought the body was nude, but couldn’t be sure because it was so badly decomposed.

What was uncanny, though, was the fact that the troopers didn’t have to dig more than one hole for each body. Hansen had been right on target, a remarkable feat, considering that some bodies had been there for at least two years.

The next day even busier than the day before. It was a bright blue day, the mountains snowcapped and magnificent, when the troopers returned to the parking area near the old Knik River bridge, searching for Hansen grave site number three.

Because Hansen couldn’t quite remember where he’d buried this body, the troopers had to probe carefully. They began by raking various spots near the marks Hansen had given them. At each spot they dug a small test hole. They were trying to think like a killer. Their efforts were rewarded by piles of moose nuggets, rusting beer cans, the remains of a dead dog.

To make things interesting, someone was watching them work: Sheila Toomey of the Anchorage Daily News. They noticed she was trying to evade the scent from the grave they’d opened the previous day. She went off to the left. Then back to the right. Then she stepped back. Everywhere she went, it followed her. The death stench stuck to everything. Even as the reporter tried to escape, she took the smell with her. It was on her shoes, on her hands, in her hair.

The troopers, meanwhile, talked as they worked, as was their habit. It helped them put their minds on something else. Finally tired of coming up empty-handed, however, the troopers decided to split into two teams and move on. That way they could cover more area.

Using a four-by-four, Troopers Von Clasen and Haugsven checked gravesite number eight, on the island south of the place where Paula Goulding’s body had been found. The body was supposed to be buried in the sandbar but, not sure of its exact location, the troopers did not find the body.

Flothe and Kasnick, meanwhile, took the AST helicopter to check gravesite number seven, which was next to the Goulding grave. The ground was frozen eight to ten inches deep and, uncertain of the body’s exact location, the two of them decided to return later.

From there, Kasnick and Flothe flew to Horseshoe Lake, east of the Susitna River, where Hansen had marked grave number nine. They found a body not more than fifty feet from the flag left by Hansen. one of three bodies Hansen said he hadn’t buried, it was on top of the ground, lying face down and prone. The body was fully clothed. Although somewhat damaged by small animals and mostly skeletal, the jaw was in one piece. There was hope the body could be identified through the dozen sets of dental records Flothe had already collected.

Back at trooper headquarters, Flothe found several messages waiting for him. The first of them was news about the preliminary autopsy reports on the bodies they’d found the day before. The identities were still unknown, but they had some partial descriptions.

One of the bodies was a woman in her 20s, 5’5” with blond or strawberry blond hair. She was wearing jeans, a long-sleeved black-and-white sweater, a white zippered jacket with colored trim, high heels, and a cheap gold necklace. The second woman was about 5’3” and had brown or auburn hair. She was, as Jent suspected, completely nude. She had been shot just once.

 

 

Thursday, April 26, 1984

 

Working zealously so they could quickly put the worries of the victims’ friends and relatives to rest, Flothe and Von Clasen were at it again promptly the next morning. Using the AST helicopter, they flew north to Figure Eight Lake, Hansen gravesite number eleven. Located just east of the Susitna River was another spot where Hansen said he’d left a body on the ground. That’s where they found it, lying beneath a flag placed there by Hansen himself.

What they found were pieces of clothing and bone resting on the still frozen earth. They couldn’t dig out the pants, which were bonded to the soil beneath them, without destroying the evidence. Again they had to wait for it to thaw further.

The jawbone of the victim was found on top of the ground, near the pants, and separated from the rest of the body. It was clear much dental work had been done on the teeth. They were a good candidate for identification. Flothe picked up the jawbone and took it back to the chopper. They’d take it back to Anchorage and compare it with their dental records.

The next stop was Scenic Lake, almost directly due south across Cook Inlet, on the Kenai Peninsula. It was Hansen gravesite number thirteen and this one, Hansen said, was on the ground but covered by some brush. At this site they found a small rib bone and a torn red blouse, both of which they seized. There was also “bear sign” noted around the body. Unfortunately, the ground was frozen. They couldn’t remove it yet. While there, Flothe and Von Clasen looked for the victim’s purse, but there was still ice along the edge of the lake where it was allegedly located.

Back at headquarters, the jawbone seized at Figure Eight Lake was immediately compared with dental records. The dental x-rays were positively identified as those of Angela Feddern, reported missing in February 1983 by Joe Majors, owner and operator of Murphy’s Law, a bar featuring nude female dancers. In a way the troopers got lucky on this one. The incident was reported to them, but no APD report was ever filed. Looking at the trooper incident report, however, Flothe learned that Feddern had been working as an avenue prostitute and allegedly had a date with a doctor when she disappeared.

In Seattle Angela’s mother, Mary Radford, soon learned that her daughter’s body had been found. “I was prepared for it,” she told the Associated Press. “I knew something was wrong when she stopped calling last year. In a way, there’s some relief. You wonder what happened to them until you know for sure.”

Asked what she thought of Hansen’s plea-bargained sentence, Mrs. Radford turned bitter. “I don’t see why he should be alive and they dead,” she said.

Mrs. Radford also acknowledged that her daughter chose to be a prostitute, knowing it was a rough life. “That was the life she chose,” she said. “Angie just couldn’t find it in herself to go out and get a thinking job. She did the best she could.”

 

Friday, April 27, 1984

 

By Friday Dr. Rogers had used dental records to identify the first body troopers found, the one in the Old Knik River bridge parking lot. She was Sue Luna, one of the first women Flothe had asked about. He remembered that her sister had reported her missing and, looking at the records, found the date to be May 30, 1982. Almost two years before, to the day. She was a woman who was offered three hundred dollars for sex, little knowing that her date would kill her and take his three hundred dollars back.

That Sunday, moreover, off-duty Palmer Police Officer Al Moreau found another body while walking along the Knik River with a friend. A knee bone and tattered piece of blue jean material protruded through the sand and caught his eye. “I figured it was a body,” he said. “It was probably the worst smell I had ever smelled in my life.”

Moreau called the troopers, and stuck around to help them dig up the remains. “All night I kept seeing the same thing,” Moreau said. “Picking up the legs and putting her in the body bag. She was cold, real cold.”

What was noteworthy about the discovery was its nearness to Hansen gravesite number six. And it was across a sandbar from where troopers had earlier found the lavender purse and blue suitcase belonging to still-missing Tamara Pederson. Was it she? An autopsy disclosed the victim had been shot twice with a large caliber bullet that appeared to match those from a gun used by Hansen in some of the other murders.

By the middle of the next week Dr. Rogers had once more used dental records to identify the body. It was indeed Tamara Pederson. She had been twenty-one when she disappeared from the Wild Cherry nightclub in August 1982. The discovery of her body brought to six the numbers of bodies troopers had found during the week. Altogether, they had accounted for ten of the seventeen women Hansen admitted killing.

Mr. Pederson, Tamara’s adopted stepfather, met with Flothe on Wednesday, May 2, and again the next day, when Flothe flew him to Tamara’s grave site at his request. It was a grim pilgrimage to a spot that had retained its serene beauty despite the carnage. While on the scene, Flothe used an infrared heat detecting video camera he borrowed from the Alyeska Pipeline Company to see if he could find more bodies at Hansen gravesites number one and three. The results were negative.

Later that same week Flothe checked on an alleged gravesite on Eagle River Road, one that had been called in by a concerned citizen. Although no mark on Hansen’s aviation maps corresponded to this location, it was still worth checking out. Maybe Hansen had missed one. As it turned out, the site was just a natural ground formation; no grave was found, and no items were recovered.

The search for bodies had become an all-consuming task for Flothe and the troopers who worked with him. At one site they dug test holes and although they couldn’t find a body, the ground had at least thawed and become suitable for digging.

Back on the Knik, troopers Von Clasen and Bullington went to a gravel pit on the northwest side of the Old Knik River bridge. There, with the help of the heavy equipment operator who owned the gravel pit, they dug up a body believed to be that of Lisa Futrell. The body was found in an embankment beneath six inches of leaves and soil, her body parallel to and under a log. It was on its back, the head pointing north.

In mid-May, troopers found a deteriorated paper bag buried near Hansen gravesite number eight across from the Goulding grave. Inside they found a bloodstained woman’s dress jacket, bloodstained Levis, shoes, nylons, a Buck hunting knife, and a purse containing make-up, lipstick, a Bic lighter, a spoon, and a hypodermic syringe, but no identification. They dug test holes about thirty-five feet on each side of the bag, but without results.

Later that day, they resumed their search at Hansen gravesite number seven, which was next to the Goulding grave. They dug for about five hours, using staggered test holes and seven people, but to no avail. It was a strikeout kind of day: They used a metal detector at the Pederson grave, with negative results. Troopers Von Clasen and Bullington weren’t having any luck at Hansen gravesite number three at the old Knik River bridge parking area, although they were using a Cat to hasten the job.

As the summer days grew longer, Flothe started to have other concerns. It explained why he was pushing to get this grisly task finished quickly. “It’s important that we get out there soon,” the sergeant told a reporter from the Anchorage Times. “The buried bodies are pretty well-protected, but the ones on the ground are not. They could be carried away by animals, and we’d never recover them.”

What that meant was troopers were temporarily suspending their search at Hansen grave site number seven, where the sack of blood-stained clothing was found. Instead, they concentrated their efforts on the above-ground bodies, all of which had been found but were impossible to move without destroying evidence.

By the middle of the month they’d identified another of the bodies from the old Knik River bridge parking lot as that of Malai Larsen. The body found on the ground at Horseshoe Lake was tentatively identified as DeLynn Frey. The body found on the ground at Scenic Lake was tentatively identified as Teresa Watson. By the end of June, moreover, Lisa Futrell’s body had been positively identified. Alaska’s short summer was almost at an end.

Flothe knew he would never find some of the victims. The woman tossed off the Knik River railroad bridge was one. And then, there were the bodies marked on Hansen’s map, the ones at Resurrection Bay, although Hansen denied that the marks showed the presence of victims.

Flothe also knew there were some murders to which Hansen would never confess: If the victim wasn’t a prostitute, then Hansen’s claim was that he didn’t kill her. He could handle killing prostitutes, apparently, but not the murder of the girl next door. It was doubly disheartening, therefore, to talk to Vincent Thill, father-in-law of Mary Thill, a young woman who had disappeared from the docks near Seward on July 5, 1975. She had never been involved in prostitution in her life.

“Hansen was known to be in the Seward area that Fourth of July,” Flothe told Thill. “The same year your daughter-in-law was reported missing. We also found some aviation maps at Hansen’s house, and so far there’s been a pretty good match between the marks on the maps and the gravesites of the women he killed. And there are several marks in Resurrection Bay, down near Seward, which leads us to believe that Mary might have been one of Hansen’s victims. He has, however, denied that allegation.”

Two days later, Flothe took another difficult call, this from Mona Altiery in Hawaii.

“Has my daughter’s body been found?” she asked.

“I’m sorry,” he replied. “It hasn’t.”

“Well, could you send her jewelry to me?” she asked. “Primarily the fish necklace and ring is what I’m interested in.”

“No problem, Mrs. Altiery.”

At summer’s end, eleven bodies had been found, putting the number accounted for at twelve, if the woman thrown off the Knik railroad bridge was counted. It was all the consolation anyone could hope for, because there would always be those others whose identities would never be known, the nameless victims of Bob Hansen’s bloodlust, abandoned forever in the drifting sands of the Knik. The known dead were:

Joanna Messina, found July 8, 1980, at a gravel pit near Seward.

“Eklutna Annie,” found July 17, 1980, at Eklutna Lake Road.

Sherry Morrow, found September 12, 1982, at the Knik River.

Paula Goulding, found September 2, 1983, at the Knik River.

Sue Luna, found April 24, 1984, at the old Knik bridge parking lot.

Malai Larson, found April 24, 1984, at the old Knik bridge parking lot.

DeLynn Frey, found April 25, 1984, at Summit Lake.

Angela Feddern, found April 26, 1984, at Figure Eight Lake.

Teresa Watson, found April 26, 1984, at Scenic Lake.

Tamara Pederson, found April 29, 1984, at the Knik River.

Lisa Futrell, found May 9, 1984, at the old Knik bridge gravel pit.