Alaska serial killer Hansen, 75, dies

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Convicted Alaska serial killer Robert Hansen, who abducted women and hunted them down in the Alaska wilderness in the 1970s as Anchorage boomed with construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, died Thursday. He was 75.

Hansen died at Alaska Regional Hospital after being in declining health for the past year, Alaska Department of Corrections spokeswoman Sherrie Daigle said.

The state medical examiner will determine the cause of death, Daigle said.

Hansen was convicted in 1984 after confessing to killing 17 women, mostly dancers and prostitutes, during a 12-year span. Hansen was convicted of just four of the murders in a deal that spared him having to go to trial 17 times.

The Anchorage baker also confessed to raping another 30 women in that time.

Hansen was the subject of a 2013 film titled, “The Frozen Ground,” which starred Nicolas Cage as an Alaska state trooper investigating the slayings. Actor John Cusack portrayed Hansen.

Hansen was serving a 461-year sentence in Alaska at the time of his death. He had been incarcerated at a state prison in Seward and was moved May 11 to the Anchorage Correctional Center to receive medical attention.

Hansen, who got the nickname “the Butcher Baker,” owned a bakery in a downtown minimall in the 1970s and 1980s. He lived across town with his wife and children, who knew nothing of his other life.