Butcher Baker

Explicit content warning

04/29/24 • 61 min

To all who knew him, Robert Hansen was a typical hardworking businessman, husband, and father. But hidden beneath the veneer of mild respectability was a monster whose depraved appetites could not be sated. From 1971 to 1983, Hansen was a human predator, stalking women on the edges of Anchorage society—women whose disappearances would cause scant outcry, but whose gruesome fates would shock the nation. After his arrest, Hansen confessed to seventeen brutal murders, though authorities suspect there were more than thirty victims.

There are countless books, documentaries and movies about the monster who came to be known as the “Butcher Baker.” But the book, by late Alaska State Trooper Walter Gilmour and author Leland E. Hale, is arguably the most complete and most compelling work to date. “Butcher Baker” tells the story of the most prolific serial killer in Alaskan history, from the dark urges that drove his madness, to the women who died at his hand, and finally, to the authorities who captured and convicted him.

My guest today is Leland E. Hale author of "Butcher Baker."

My guest today is Leland E. Hale author of "Butcher Baker."

Previous Episode

I have your daughter!

On May 31,1985, two days before her high school graduation, Shari Faye Smith was abducted from the driveway of her family home in South Carolina.

For several days after the abduction, the kidnapper called and sent letters to the family, taunting them with details of abduction and murder of Shari. Ultimately, he revealed the location of Shari’s body on a phone call to Shari’s older sister, Dawn.

But he wasn’t finished. Two weeks to the day of Shari’s abduction, the murderer snatched another victim, 9-year-old Debra May Helmick, who came to a similar fate. The authorities realized they were dealing with a sadistic, narcissistic serial killer of young women.

WHEN A KILLER CALLS is the haunting story of Murder, Criminal Profiling and Justice in a small town, written by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker. John and Mark have written 7 previous books, including Mindhunter, the number one New York Times bestseller that was the basis for the hit Netflix series of the same name.

Mark drew the short straw, and he joins me today on Murder Most Foul.

Next Episode

Mapping the Night

Crime movies, documentaries and literature come in several genres: True Crime (just the facts, Ma’am), “Non-Fiction Novel,” (made famous by Truman Capote with his masterpiece, In Cold Blood) and pure fiction. But even with fictitious crime novels, there are hybrid approaches. Some are “based on a true story,” or “inspired by a true story,” or “drawn from today’s headlines.”

Mapping the Night by David Bethel, falls comfortably into that last category. Drawn from an actual murder case that took place in New York City, it is meticulously researched, authentic, with just the right amount of humor, arising from the interaction of the participants.

It is my pleasure to welcome author David Bethel to Murder Most Foul.