Welcome back to the Pathway, Chili. I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and
I'm Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case. November fifteenth, nineteen
eighty six, Willow Creek, California, when a fire breaks out at the
mobile home of sixteen year old twin sisters Jill and Julie Hanson. Both girls
receive shotgun blasts to the stomach well. Jill dies at the scene, Julie
passes away at the hospital one month later. Since evidence implicates their twenty one
year old half brother, Donnie Hanson, he's charged with arson in murder and
goes on trial for the crime. However, since eyewitnesses reported seeing two other
unidentified men near the murder scene, this creates enough reasonable doubt for the jury
to acquit Donnie, so there are no conclusive answers about who actually killed Jill
and Julie. After that, the path went chilly. So today we're going
to be covering a case from Unsolved Mysteries in which the victims were a pair
of twin sisters, the nineteen eighty six murders of Jill and Julie Hansen.
This was a pretty unique segment for the show. Because it aired after a
suspect had already gone on trial for the crime and was found not guilty.
In essence, it was almost like a reverse final appeal segment, since a
number of people still believed that the defendant was complicit in the murders. Jill
and Julie live with their parents in a mobile home, but after a fire
broke out in the middle of the night and burned the trailer to the ground,
it would turn out that both sisters received shotgun blas, which ultimately led
to their deaths. At the time, the twins' half brother, Donnie Hansen,
was visiting from out of town and had spent the night at the trailer.
But a lot of evidence would soon emerge that Donnie was responsible for the
crime, and he may have intended to wipe out his entire family. While
Donnie would go on trial for double murder, his defense team managed to create
just enough reasonable doubt for the jury to vote not guilty, and because of
double jeopardy, he can never be charged with this crime again. However,
there was evidence to suggest that other people may have been at the murder scene
that night, and if Donnie was not completely innocent, these people could have
been his accomplices. Even if Donnie did not personally pull the trigger and shoot
his sisters, he may have known who did. The circumstances of how this
crime were carried out are so bizarre that it's really difficult to figure out what
actually happened. But there may still be people out there who have yet to
face justice for this crime, so the story is definitely worthy of discussion.
Can you imagine being in us or home where you're supposed to be safe and
no one's supposed to be able to get you. You're with your family and
a fire breaks out, which in and of itself would be horrifying, but
as you wake up to the fire, you're actually shot with a shotgun and
murdered alongside your twin sister. I can't even fathom who's in that scene,
who's setting this fire, and how they're in this place where they're comfortable enough
to set a fire and stay put to shoot the two girls. I know
that can happen in a few seconds, but you've got to remember they set
this fire and then or likely set the fire and then shoot these two girls
and flee. Who else was in the home at the time other than Donnie?
The two parents, the mother and stepfather, And this is so traumatic
for them because they're going through the situation where they think that they've lost their
home, that there's this big fire, and that they're potentially going to lose
both of their girls. And then they found out, oh my god,
they were both shot. So this was an intentional homicide. So this pretty
much is the worst nightmare imaginable for a parent. And also find out that
your other child might be involved and responsible. Well, that's what's really heavy,
is that not only are your babies murdered, but then you start to
wonder is it your child that actually killed their siblings. So it adds that
layer of not only are we mourning the victims, but we're also mourning the
offender potentially in this case, and the physical and emotional loss and financial loss
of our home as well. So I can't even imagine. I got to
learn more about how people got out, how this fire was started, Tell
me more. Our story begins in nineteen eighty six in Willow Creek, California,
a small mountain town located in Humboldt County near Six Rivers National Forest,
which had a population of around one thousand people at the time, Well,
this doesn't hold any relevance to today's featured case. I thought it was worth
mentioning that Willow Creek is the self proclaimed Bigfoot Capital of the World due to
the many Bigfoot sightings which have taken place in the region, and the town
also has its own Bigfoot museum and holds an annual Bigfoot Days festival every September.
While this may sound like a cliche, Willow Creek was described as one
of those tight knit communities where everyone knows everybody else and no one ever expected
that such a horrific crime would take place there. Our victims in this story
are Jill and Julie Hansen, a pair of sixteen year old twin sisters who
live with their parents, Hans and Betty Hanson. Hans and Betty had been
married for eighteen years and moved their family to Willow Creek in nineteen seventy one
so that Hans could operate his own logging supply business, and they currently live
in a mobile home located next to the business's warehouse. Betty also has two
older children from a previous marriage, named Becky, who has since gotten married
and Donnie, who's twenty one years old. At this point and living in
the town of Fortuna. On the night the crime occurred, Donny had stopped
by the residence to visit his family and stayed over by sleeping on the living
room couch. At around three a m. On the morning of November fifteenth,
Betty and Hans were sleeping in the primary bedroom when they were suddenly awakened
by what they described as popping sounds, and they soon started smelling smoke.
When they opened their bedroom door, they were shocked to discover the trailer was
now on fire and flames were burning in a long strip down the hallway.
Hans immediately grabbed a fire extinguisher and attempted to douse the flames, and while
he called out for Jill, Julie, and Donnie, he did not hear
any responses from them. When the extinguisher emptied, Hans exited out the back
door, but wound up kicking an empty gas can, which was now resting
on the porch. Betty made an attempt to run down the hallway to check
on her children and finally saw Donnie next to the couch. He ran through
the open sliding glass door while yelling get out of here, but Betty could
not see who he was shouting at. He could have been shouting at so
many people. He could have been trying to shout at the girls get out
of here, like get out of the flames, possibly shouting at somebody he
quote didn't recognize, which I assume would have been his whole defense if that
was what he said he saw. Or could he have been shouting at his
mom, you know, catching a glimpse of her running, just screaming,
get out, get out. The house is on fire. I'm assuming these
popping sounds are the shotgun blast. And at that point Donnie is present inside
the residence. Mom and Dad are there, and the two girls. That's
all we know of who's in the residence. And like I said, to
set a fire to the house very very very brazen. So if you were
going to go in to execute the girls, it's easier just to go in
and shoot the girls and leave without the fire, because you run the risk
of getting caught as the offender with burns, with gasoline on you, with
all these ways of getting into these murders. So it's so bizarre that you're
going to execute a murder with the arson while there's a whole family inside that
house. It's not like you just killed you know, all the victims that
could have I witnessed you. You left people alive and run out of that
home. Yeah. That's the thing with this crime is that nothing about it
really makes any sense. Like, regardless of whether you believe Donnie was an
innocent victim or he was involved in the crime, even if he planned it,
the way he carried it out really did not make a lot of sense.
And I know on the moment when his mother saw him yell and get
out of here, she didn't think anything of it because she figured, well,
he's taught, she's yelling at he's yelling at the twins, or maybe
he's trying to yell at me and his head's in the other direction, And
it's just one of those moments in retrospect where she starts thinking, maybe he
was yelling at the people who actually set the fire, and he was working
alongside them. And no matter who did it, what would ever be the
motivation if it clearly wasn't sexually motivated to kill two sixty year old girls with
a bunch of shotgun blasts to the stomach and then to set the entire place
on fire. It's just bewildering. And this was like a very well liked
family who didn't have any enemies, So it didn't make any sense for just
random strangers to come in the middle of the night and commit a crime like
this. Now, how often did Donnie come visit the house? Like?
Is it odd that Donnie decided to come that night? Uh, not that
I know of. I mean, I've heard some rumors about Donnie that he
might have been kind of the black sheep of the family, but I haven't
heard any specifics about how. It just seemed weird that he would be stopping
by the house at this particular night. So Jill and Julie slept together in
the same bedroom, which was now blocked by flames. So Betty exited the
trailer and ran to the warehouse, where a number of extra fire extinguishers were
stored. Hans and Donnie soon joined her there, and Hans grabbed a ladder
and took it back to the trailer, where he used the ladder to break
the window of the twins bedroom. He yelled inside for Jill and Julie,
but received no response, and by this point the bedroom was engulfed in flames.
By this point, Betty had already called the fire department, and the
family kept going back and forth from the trailer to the warehouse to grab fire
extinguishers to attempt to dowse the flames. While this was going on, Hans
asked Donnie if he had seen Jill or Julie anywhere, and he replied no.
The fire and department finally arrived at the scene to handle the situation,
but one of the Hansens neighbors noticed a body in a vacant lot across the
road, and it turned out to be Julie, who was bleeding from a
large wound in her abdomen. She was barely still alive, so she was
given immediate medical attention by paramedics and rushed to mad River Community Hospital in the
town of Barcada. Even though he had previously told Hans he never saw either
of the girls, Donnie now claimed that he had gotten Julie out of the
trailer himself, and when Hans asked how badly she was burned, Donnie didn't
answer. Unfortunately, there was still no sign of Jill, and no one
would find out what happened to her until daylight hit. After the fire was
completely put out. Jill's charred body was discovered in the trailer's rubble, but
like your sister, she had a large hole in her abdomen. Paramedics had
initially assumed that the wound in Julie's abdomen had been caused by an explosion,
but once she went into surgery, they realized that she had been shot at
point blank range with a twelve gate shotgun. Okay, I hate judging people's
reactions in the midst of trauma and grief. Right you're watching your house burn
down, You're watching your parents run back and forth trying to put the flames
out. You don't know where your sisters are. Necessarily, it would be
so overwhelming. I do not know how I would react. My prayer would
be that I would continue to fight to get everyone out of that house until
everyone was safe in sound. But I don't know. It's possible I shut
down. It's possible. I don't respond to people. However, it's really
interesting when Donnie is talking about, like, oh, yeah, I actually
got Julie out of the trailer myself, and when Hans asked details about how
badly burn she was, he doesn't answer. He can't answer, yeah,
supposedly he was holding her or pulling her out himself. And remember we see
him run out as mom is running down the hallway. She said she saw
him by the couch and then watch him run out the back door. Did
he actually bring her out? I don't think so. No. I think
she was shot and wounded and she crawled out there on her own. And
when Hans asked Donnie for the first time if he had seen Julie, he
probably was telling the truth when he said no, because he probably figured she
was just inside burning. But then I think when he realized that she was
out there, he just kind of changed his story to kind of make himself
look like a hero, because it would seem like an odd choice to try
to rescue her after I mean, I guess if you thought she was likely
going to die from her injuries and she wouldn't be able to articulate who shot
her, if Donnie was indeed responsible to pull her out, would be like,
see, I couldn't be responsible. It had to have been a third
party, because if so, why would I go back in and retrieve her
if I wanted her dead? That's what I think he was trying to do
to plant the seeds is that maybe he was thinking that she would die before
she had a chance to talk, and he figured, well, if I
tell this story, then no one will think that I'm responsible for killing her,
because why would I rescue her. Surgery was performed on Julie in order
to repair her internal organs, and even though it took six hours, she
wound up surviving and remained in critical condition in the intensive care unit. It
wasn't long before an autopsy confirmed that Jill had also been shot in the stomach.
When police performed a forensic investigation of the scene, they discovered three shotgun
shells and an empty five gallon gasoline can, in addition to the second empty
gas can that hans had almost tripped over when he exited out the back door.
A search was also performed in the warehouse, which was left undamaged by
the fire, and a twelve gage shotgun was found hidden behind some boxes.
Ballistics tests would show that it was the same gun used to shoot Jill and
Julie, conclusively proving that arson and murder had taken place. But since the
Hansons were known for being a very friendly family in the community without any enemies,
and the twins were popular in school. No one could figure out a
motive for this crime. And how sloppy is this murder anyway, because you
have two gasoline cans and you have the twelve gage shotgun found behind some boxes
in the warehouse that they own right by the mobile home, and so there
is all the evidence sitting at the scene of the crime. So either you
know, a young inexperienced criminal, but if you had these multiple offenders working
together, you would think someone in that group would say, we need to
get the supplies we bring and make sure they leave with us, not leaving
them at the scene of the crime, because that shows, like you said,
it conclusively proved arson and murder took place and how it happened. Yeah,
it definitely was a very sl crime, and I have a feeling that
whoever was responsible kind of had to think on their feet and leave the scene
right away and did not even think about the fact that they left crucial evidence
behind. Well, the case went in an unexpected direction during the early morning
hours of November seventeenth. At the time, the hands in property was corned
off by the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department, who kept it under twenty four hour
surveillance, but the officer on duty was taken by surprise when Donnie showed up
at the warehouse at five am and tried to climb in through one of the
windows. When the officer caught him and brought in the lead detective to question
Donnie, he told them that he had stopped by to feed the family dog,
even though the dog had recently been placed in the care of some neighbors
and Donnie would have known this. The detective suspected that the real reason for
Donnie's visit was because he wanted to retrieve the twelve gate shotgun, which had
been hidden behind some boxes inside the warehouse, and he was unaware the police
had already found it. It wasn't long before the investigation uncovered some pretty troubling
evidence against Donnie. It turned out that the shotgun belonged to a friend of
his, and Donnie had decided to borrow it only three days before the shooting.
A search of Donnie's car would turn up some unspent shells which matched the
empty shells found at the crime scene, and Donnie had purchased these shells only
hours before his sisters were shot. Credit card statements showed that Donnie also purchased
five gallons of gas two days before the crime, and witnesses from the service
station were called seeing Donnie fill up a five gallon can which was identical to
the gas cans found at the scene. Yeah, it really does point to
this fact that, of course Donnie's the one responsible for this. But why
is it possible that there's a life insurance policy or there's something that the girls,
maybe being the youngest, have larger beneficiary duties or assets coming to them.
If somebody happens to mom and dad he wants to get rid of them.
Is he resentful of the way they're treated versus the way he feels like
he's treated, So he's trying to take out who he's you're jealous and resentful
of? What would motivate someone who doesn't even live with these girls and they're
teenagers, Like, how much could you despise them? What would motivate a
brother to come home and do that? What if he had been abusing them
in some way, like whether physically or sexually, and maybe one of them
had said, well, you know, we're going to tell I can't Like,
honestly, I'm just totally spitballing here. I can't think of any other
thing that would motivate someone to act out like this against two really well liked
girls. I can't imagine that he would harbor that much animosity towards Jill and
Julie that he would want to commit murder. And can colock this whole hair
brain scheme that involves setting the entire trailer on fire and possibly killing his parents,
Or does he hate his parents so much that he wants to take out
their pride and joy, which are their baby twin girls. That's also possible.
Like you talked about life insurance, that people have speculated that was the
motive, and that he wanted to kill every like, not just the twin
girls. That this was like intended for him to possibly inherit the family business
or collect on their insurance policy, but the whole thing went awry and so
the parents woke up before they could be killed. Julie continued to recover at
the hospital, but two weeks after the fire, she finally started talking again.
She told her parents and the police that she remembered being woken up by
a noise. Julie climbed over her sister, who was still asleep in their
bed and exited their bedroom into the hallway. She then saw a flash and
instantly collapsed to the floor after she was shot in the abdomen. Julie said
she did not get that she didn't get a good look at the shooter,
but she managed to escape the trailer while she was wounded and made it across
the road to the vacant lot where she was found. While this contradicted the
original story that Donnie had shared with Hans, where he claimed that he pulled
Julie out of the trailer himself. When pushed for more details, Julie revealed
that she briefly recalled seeing Donnie's face in the flash of the gunshot. However,
according to Julie's doctor, she had previously shared her story with him on
multiple occasions and never mentioned Donnie, as she specifically said she saw no one
hm. So at one point she says it was Donnie, but that's after
people are pushing her to say somebody, like maybe you had to have seen
somebody. Who did you see And it is possible she saw Donnie running from
the fire or something like that, but she doesn't ever actually conclusively tell the
doctors my brother shot us. I saw my brother. That's complicated because at
one point she does mention Donnie, so maybe it came to her only for
that brief moment. She's an extreme trauma, she's under extreme stress. So,
man, poor Julie. It's pitiful to hear her describe how she got
out of the fire, and then you're thinking about this boy who's says,
oh, I was helping her. He's putting on this hero complex, and
Julie sitting there in her last moments describing how she had to climb over her
sister and instantly a shot and still manages to pull herself out of that house
somehow. I guess the alternate explanation is if Donnie was innocent because Julia gone
into the hallway and he was out there sleeping on the couch, that if
there was someone else there who fired the shot, she could have seen Donnie's
face in the background nearby, because he was in the living room. But
of course, the hole in that theory is that Donnie never mentioned anything about
someone coming into the house and seeing them fire a shotgun at his sister,
so it's really hard to explain, like her being able to see his face
if he had no involvement in the crime. But then again, is her
memory reliable? Is she just dealing with trauma or does she legitimately remember seeing
him and someone coming into the house and firing his shotgun at his sister's.
It's just such an implausible theory that, like, you borrowed shotgun three days
before the murder and were to believe that somebody else came in potentially used it
to shoot your sisters and the gas cans. Remember they actually went in and
got his gas cans too, and used the gasoline he had just purchased,
the shells that he had just purchased. All of that makes absolutely no sense.
Donnie would be questioned by police on December the second and continue to deny
any involvement in the crime, but he wound up failing two polygraphs. However,
he did finally admit that he had been keeping the shotgun inside the car,
but panicked and decided to hide it in the warehouse while the fire was
taking place because he feared he would be blamed for the crime. Regardless,
investigators still believed that there was enough circumstantial evidence tying Donnie to the crime,
so following a two hour interrogation, Donnie was arrested and charged with Jill's murder
as well as arson. Unfortunately, tragedy would strike just under three weeks later
on December the nineteen, when Julie suddenly died at the hospital during a freak
medical accident. Her intravenous feeding tube had become separated from her neck, causing
an air bubble to enter her bloodstream, which resulted in an air embolism that
stopped her heart. Donnie would be charged with a second count of murder for
his role in Julie's death, but since she could not be cross examined by
Donnie's defense attorneys, Julie's story about seeing Donnie's face in the flash of the
shotgun blast was ruled to be inadmissible as evidence at his trial. Due to
the extensive publicity surrounding the case in Humboldt County, the defense felt it would
be impossible to assemble an impartial jury, so they filed a motion for a
change of venue. The motion was granted so the trial would take place in
Alameda County. In April of nineteen eighty eight, before the trial began,
the Humboldt County District attorney and now said he would seek the death penalty against
Donnie if he was found guilty. I'm trying to even understand an ounce of
how these parents would be feeling. They lost their one daughter that evening during
the fire, along with all of their personal belongings. Their second daughter is
clinging to life, trying to recover in the hospital, and then some freak
medical incident and error causes her death, which would have never happened had the
fire not occurred and the shotgun blast hadn't happened. And then here's Donnie.
He's arrested in getting charged with both their murders. Do we have information about
where the parents felt in this moment about what their son's culpability would be.
Were they assisting law enforcement, did they feel as if Donnie was likely responsible?
Or are they advocating with Donnie's defense attorneys that he's absolutely innocent. At
this time, they were supportive of Donnie. They did not think, even
in spite of the overwhelming evidence, they thought he was incapable of murders.
So they did stand by him at the trial, But as time went on
they would change their tune. The primary piece of evidence supplied by Donnie's defense
team was eye witness testimony from two of the Hansen's neighbors who claimed that on
the night of the crime they saw two unidentified men standing outside the trailer while
it was on fire. Witnesses also were called hearing the sound of a car
screeching down the street a short time later, and these men were not present
when the police and fire department arrived. A few hours later, two men
were seen walking near the crime scene and were briefly questioned by police, and
while they claimed to have not been present when the fire took place, they
appeared to have ashes on their clothing. The defense's theory was that these two
unidentified men were the real perpetrators and found the shotgun, the shells, and
the cans of gasoline the Donny had recently purchased inside his car when they arrived
at the scene at around three a m. After picking the lock on the
sliding glass door and breaking into the trailer, they then proceeded to pour the
gasoline all over the interior. At some point, Julie woke up and egged
in her bedroom into the hallway, so one of the intruders shot her since
he was sleeping on the living room couch. Donnie was woken up by the
shotgun blast, and after finding Julie's wounded body, he took her out onto
the front porch before running over to the warehouse to help Hans and Betty grab
fire extinguishers. While all this was going on, at least one of the
intruders remained inside the trailer and fired a fatal shotgun blast into Jill. After
running outside, the assailant placed Donni's shotgun back inside his car, and the
two men subsequently fled the scene in their own vehicle before the rest of the
hands and badly saw them. Since Donnie was paranoid that he would be blamed
for the shooting of his sisters, he decided to take a shotgun out of
the car and hide it behind the boxes inside the warehouse. There was evidence
that the trailer's sliding glass door had been tampered with, and since the shotgun
was not thoroughly fingerprinted and the empty shell casings were never fingerprinted at all,
it could not be proven or disproven that the items had been handled by an
outside party. No, no, I do that. I say no,
I don't think that that's at all possible. As to what happened. And
here's the thing. Remember, if you're Donnie, the story is you're on
the couch, you wake up to the house on fire and these sounds of
popping, and you run out the door. Maybe you rescue your sister.
Who you see is, you know, struggling to get out. Does he
even know that they're shot? He's not mentioning that he didn't even know how
burned his sister was. So to say that you thought you were going to
be blamed and instantly, while your house is burning down and your sisters are
dying, you think, my god, I own a shotgun. Those are
definitely shotgun wounds. They've been shot with a shotgun. I could be the
main suspect. Let me go hide this weapon and then come back and figure
out what's going on the fire. None of that makes any sense. It
just not at all lines up. Yeah, the answer is no, hard
passed Donnie. Ten out of ten did not happen like that. Does not
happen like that exactly. Yeah, because it's true because no one was aware
at all that Julie had been shot until they did surgery on her at the
hospital, and of course they didn't realize Jill was shot until they found her
ashes the following morning. So if you're dealing with the trauma of your house
burning down, not knowing what's gonna happen to your sister, you're just gonna
think to yourself, Oh, they're gonna blame me that I shot, or
I better get rid of the gun just in case, Like normal people do
not operate like that. No, that shows that you knew they were shot
with that shotgun. Aka, you're guilty, and then you hid the evidence.
The paramedics thought that she had been in an explosion, which is what
caused the abdomen injury, until doctors later said, oh, no, this
is a shotgun blast. So just the defense's statement alone, their defense says
Donnie knew what was happening, and the withholding of that evidence since he so
strongly believed this, that his priority was to hide it so that it wouldn't
implicate him, And then he doesn't articulate what he knows to paramedics so that
they can properly render aid to his sister. It just speaks to guilt knowledge
and he thinks that he's like giving himself it out here that this is plausible,
But like, I'm going to go hide the weapons so that nobody thinks
that I did it, he said, no innocent person ever. And isn't
it just like great luck for these intruders that they stopped by at three am
and find these shotgun shells and gasoline and a shotgun in the car parked outside.
It's like, we didn't even have to bring our own weapons. They're
just waiting right here for us. And why why would they do this?
Like what would be their motivation? Well, needless to say, the prosecution
felt that the defense's theory was absurd and did not find it believable that intruders
would show up at the Handsome residence to commit a crime without bringing any of
their own weapons and rely entirely on Donnie's shotgun and cans of gasoline. The
trial lasted two months, but in the end, the jury ultimately sided with
the defense on June the sixteenth. After deliberating for six hours, they wound
up finding Donnie not guilty on all the counts of murder and arson. According
to the prosecutor, many of the jurors would later tell him that they still
believed Donnie was responsible for the crime, but did not feel his guilt had
been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. You know, it is all circumstantial.
I mean, there just wasn't forensic evidence to link him to it, if
the shotgun had not been thoroughly dusted, if the shells had not been thoroughly
finger printed. And the reality is, if he said I moved it,
we know his fingerprints are on that shotgun. So it's like, how do
you prove that I wasn't the murderer who put them there? But I was
moving the evidence in there for my fingerprints are on it. It's a complicated
case, highly circumstantial. Pointing to Donnie, he was known to have filled
those gas cans up, he was known to have bought shells. We know
that was his shotgun. He admits that he hid the shotgun because he was
fearful that he was going to get caught. And so what's so sad in
this case is that even the defense actually has evidence when you're when you're saying
Donnie moved all this and did all this because he was fearful that people would
think he murdered his sisters. He should have never known that information. So
even the defense points to his guilt, and yet the jurors said, you
didn't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. You allowed for other explanations to be
presented, and you weren't able to explain those away, and so that reasonable
doubt. We have juries all the time that say, you have course on
the surface, he's guilty, but our right is to be proven beyond a
reasonable doubt ninety nine point nine nine nine percent, and if you do ninety
eight percent, I'm supposed to find him not guilty. And that's what they
did here. It is still pretty surprising that after a two months trial that
he would only deliberate for six hours and not discuss it further before doing an
not guilty verdict. But I think the eyewitness siding of the other two men
outside the trailer probably created just enough reasonable doubt where they probably thought, well,
we believed Donnie was involved in this crime, but we can't technically prove
that he pulled the trigger. I mean, there was definitely murder here,
but how do we know those other two guys fired the gun that killed his
sister and were not charging him with conspiracy to commit murder. We're charging him
with the murder itself. And I guess they felt that this hadn't been proven.
The Hansons were initially supportive of Donnie and is not guilty verdict, but
upon further reflection, they ultimately came to believe that Donnie was involved in the
crime, or at the very least knew what happened. Hans and Betty suspected
that, in addition to Jill and Julie, Donnie had planned to kill them
as well in order to collect on a large life insurance policy Hans had taken
out for the family. Donnie would become completely estranged from his mother and sie
stepfather, and he eventually moved out of the area and changed his name.
Hans and Betty filed a wrongful death lawsuit against mad River Community Hospital, alleging
that malpractice had taken place and Julie died as a result of the hospital's negligence.
After years of delays, the case would finally be heard at a civil
trial in January of nineteen ninety two, but unfortunately for the Hansons, the
jury sided in the hospital's favor. Since double jeopardy prevented Donnie from ever being
charged with his sister's murders. Again, the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department did not
bother to reopen the investigation, but Hans and Betty still believed that there was
a possibility that others were involved in the crime. As you'll recall, right
after the fire started, Betty believed that she saw Donnie yelling get out of
here to an unknown person. And like I said when you first mentioned that,
it could have been like get out of here, like who are you?
But he would have run out screaming there is somebody in the house.
There is somebody in that house. Help you, like Hans, get in
there. Someone's in that house. If he just walks out, I was
like, oh yeah. By the way, I rescued my sister and didn't
mention this other person and there was no fear or anxiety about who this unknown
person could be. Then Donnie would have known that person and is saying get
out to like not burn alive in this house or to not get caught for
the murder of his sisters. So is it possible he could have left all
the evidence for someone else to help him carry out the crime? Thousand percent
could have been those two guys, but they didn't do it in absence of
Donnie. There's just no way. And if so, who like, is
there anybody in Donnie's life, Robin that could potentially have helped him in the
commission of this crime. Unfortunately, I don't really have that information. Like
surprisingly, given this was a big trial, there is a limited amount of
info out there that's accessible. I mean, I have heard rumors out there
that Donnie was involved in drugs, that he could have owed a drug debt
to someone, and that he ran with some rough people, But I never
heard any specific names or suspects of anyone else who would have helped him carry
out this crime. Because, as you can imagine, you've got to be
a pretty like rigid person. If someone says I need your assistance to murder
my entire family, will you go along with it? And of course,
like possibly he was going to collect on the insurance money, But it doesn't
sound like Donnie was a particularly wealthy individual who could pay someone a lot of
money to perform this murder. So Ever, since the twins were children,
their parents had been saving up money for them to attend college. They wound
up saving over fifty thousand dollars and hoped to use it as reward money for
information. The case would be featured on the tabloid TV show Hard Copy in
May of nineteen ninety two, and a year and a half later, in
November of nineteen ninety three, it was profiled on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries.
While Donnie agreed to be interviewed for this segment, he requested that the
show obscure his face and alter his voice in order to protect his identity.
However, don Donnie also wound up changing some details of his original story.
Even though the scenario presented at trial was that Donnie had been awakened by the
sound of a shotgun blast, he now said that he never heard any shots
at all. While Donnie had originally stated that he hit his shotgun in the
warehouse because he feared he would get blamed for the crime, his new story
was that he moved it there to prevent it from being stolen. In spite
of these inconsistencies, Donnie continued to maintain his innocence and denied any involvement in
the crime, even though there has always been speculation that other suspects were complicit
in the murders. After more than thirty seven years, there's still no conclusive
answers about who actually killed Jill and Julie Hansen, So I guess you could
say the path went chilly. I don't blame Donnie EF for wanting to obscure
his face because he's a liar man. I don't understand. Obviously he's been
found not guilty, so he could walk out of the courtroom and say I
did it and got away with it. And that's just how our justice system
works. A lot of times that protect people. But it's so frustrating in
a case like this, where you go, come on, Donnie, like,
either let it go and be quiet about it, because clearly you got
away with something. But to have him on this show, even with his
face obscured, and had him telling multiple versions of what happened, none of
it makes sense. If he didn't hear the shotgun blast, why did he
need to move the gun, Why did he need to hide the gun.
It's just so upsetting. I'm so frustrated. I cannot imagine what the people
who care about this family were thinking when they're listening to Donnie talk, when
the poor parents are having to watch his version and it just doesn't line up
with what they experienced that night. It's devastating. So Ashley, if your
house was on fire, your first priority wouldn't be your husband or your children,
right, you'd grab your gun. It makes to make sure that no
one stole it because people are going to steal valuables during a fire. Yeah,
two thousand percent. I'd be going around making sure what's most valuable in
here that could get stolen tonight, and everyone's gonna have to find for themselves.
I mean, especially the nine year old and the dogs. Figure it
out. I gotta protect us from theft tonight. Hope they're not listening to
this. I love you guys. So anyway, before I start talking about
this case, here's a list of some of the most controversial examples of defendants
who were acquitted of murder after trial. O. J. Simpson, Casey
Anthony, Lizzie Borden, Donnie Hanson. Okay, obviously, Donnie Hanson is
nowhere nearest famous as these other examples I just listed, but I would definitely
say it's one of the most surprising acquittals I've ever come across at a murder
trial. Even though there seemed to be pretty damning evidence against Donnie which could
not be adequately explained, twelve jurors only had to deliberate for six hours before
they decided to find him not guilty. Now, I'm definitely a big believer
in reason doubt and feel that if a juror thinks that there's any doubt whatsoever
that the defendant committed the crime, they should vote to acquit. Apparently,
some of the jurors in this case still believe that Donnie was responsible or at
the very least involved in the murders, but they just did not feel that
the prosecution had proven its case beyond reasonable doubt. We've covered quite a few
cases on this podcast where a defendant went on trial and was found not guilty,
and while we personally believed that some of these defendants were guilty all along,
we can also understand why the jury reached the verdict that they did.
But with Donnie Hansen, and I'm really not sure I get it. The
biggest point of reasonable doubt were the eyewitness sightings of the two unidentified men near
the trailer while it was on fire. I don't know if that's strong enough
to overcome the mounds of evidence which implicated Donnie. I mean. The Unsolved
Mystery segment presented a full reenactment of the alternate scenario, Donnie's defense team presented
in favor of his innocence, and when you watch this whole sequence of events
from beginning to end, it's hard to imagine how a jury could possibly believe
it. I do acknowledge that even if Donnie was guilty, there is a
good chance he had accomplices, and I guess I can see how this might
have created a dilemma for the jury. While the murder weapon could be linked
to Donnie, it could not be conclusively proven that Donnie himself used it.
It's possible that even if Donnie was complicit, it was his accomplices who fired
the shots into Jill and Julie. Technically, Donnie was not charged with a
conspiracy to commit murder. He was charged with committing the murders himself, so
the jury might have felt this uncertainty he created enough reasonable doubt for an acquittal
even if they did not personally believe that Donnie was innocent. It's so true.
I mean, it takes one scenario where they say is it likely no,
is it possible yes? And we just don't have enough. Especially think
about the fact that jurors they want a clear cut case. They're looking at
a murdered trial. They are also looking at where the DA has said we're
going for the death penalty. That's a lot of weight and responsibility on somebody.
And even when your gut says they're guilty, if your job and you're
tasked with this is your instructions to the juror. If you have any doubt
and you do not believe that he's been proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be
guilty, you must acquit him. And so we do see these cases where
we're screaming Casey Anthony, everyone knew she was going to be found guilty.
You just knew it. And it was a not guilty verdict. And then
if you watch how the trial went down, the prosecution didn't overcome some of
the defense arguments, as ridiculous and as wild as they were. It left
a question mark. It created a question mark, and jurors said, we
had to follow the rules of what we were told to do. Any doubt,
any potential ulterior alternative explanation, we have to vote not guilty. And
that's what they did in this case too. It's really disturbing because there's no
way these two random men walked by, saw this car with a shotgun,
brand new shells, brand new filled gas containers, and said, you know
what we should do tonight. Not only should we murder whoever's in this house,
but we should also set it on fire and then keep walking after we
carefully put back all of the things that we used. It just didn't happen.
There's no motivation. And although it's so frustrating that the jury came up
with that verdict, it's commendable that each of the individual jurors were able to
put their emotions aside and be able to be unbiased, because I can't imagine
being in that position, like just say Casey Anthony's trial, because that is
triggering for a lot of people, because little Kaylee's life was taken from her
and I think the vast majority of people believe at the hands of her mother,
Casey. So to sit on that jury and to not be able to
to say that she's guilty and to not sentence her to life in prison or
it's Florida, right, so it could have been a death sentence, I
can't imagine what that would feel like. You've got to go home and you
know that this little girl isn't going to get justice, and that would be
a lot to live with. So the burden is really heavy on these jurors
and although us when we're examining these cases and we're looking at the end result
can be so frustrated. I can only imagine what it feels like for them.
So I think this would be a good time to bring it in to
part one. But join us next week as we present part two of our
series about the murders of Jill and Julie Hansen. Robin, do you want
to tell us a little bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon? Yes,
The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three years now, and we offer
these standard bonus features like early ad free episodes, and I also send out
stickers and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up with us on Patreon.
If you join our five dollars tier tier two, we also offer monthly
bonus episodes in which I talk about cases which are not featured on the Trail
Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon, and if you join
our highest tier tier three, the ten dollars tier, one of the features
we offer is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsawved Mysteries where you
can download an audio file and then boot up the original unsaved Mysteries episode on
Amazon Prime or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in the background,
where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases featured in this episode.
And incidentally, the very first episode that I did a commentary track over
was the episode featuring this case. So if you want to download a commentary
track in which I make more smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be
sure to join Tier three. So I want to let you know a little
bit about the Jeweles and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad free episodes of
The Path Went Chili. We've got our Path Went Chili mini's, which are
always over an hour, so they're not very many, but they're just too
short to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those, so
we hope you'll check out those patreons will link them in the show notes.
So I want to thank you all for listening, and any chance you have
to share us on social media with a friend or to rate and review is
greatly appreciated. You can email us at The Pathwentchili at gmail dot com.
You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwink. So until next time,
be sure to bundle up because cold trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.
Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers comedy