By Mark Thiessen -
The Associated Press
Genetic testing has helped reveal, after 37 years, the identity of a victim of an Alaskan serial killer.
The victim, initially known as Horseshoe Harriet, was identified Friday as
Robin Pelkey.
She was 19 years old and living on the streets of Anchorage when she
was murdered by Robert Hansen
in the early 1980s, according to the Alaska Bureau of Investigation's unsolved cases unit.
Alaska Department of Public Safety Commissioner James Cockrell thanked authorities involved for nearly two decades for clearing up this case.
"Without her hard work and tenacity, Ms. Pelkey's identity may never have been known," she said in a statement.
Hansen, who owned a bakery, earned the nickname
Butcher Baker
for kidnapping and hunting women
- many of them sex workers - in the wilderness north of Anchorage in the early 1980s, when the largest city The state was booming due to the construction of the transatlantic pipeline.
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The construction of the 800-mile (almost 1,288-kilometer) pipeline was a source of high-paying jobs and attracted those who wanted to make money from them, from sex workers to drug dealers.
Hansen's victims initially included any woman who caught his eye, but he quickly learned that strippers and prostitutes were harder to track down, said retired police officer Glenn Flothe, who helped put Hansen behind bars, in the middle of Anchorage. Daily News in 2008.
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The film
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He was convicted of the death of four women but confessed to having killed several more, according to the agents.
One day he flew with investigators over an area north of Anchorage, where he pointed out where
17 of his victims
were buried
.
In 1984, Alaska State Police returned to these areas, where the remains of eight women were discovered.
In total,
12 bodies have been found;
11 of them were identified, said police spokesman Austin McDaniel.
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The only person who has yet to be identified is known only as Eklutna Annie, who is believed to have been Hansen's first victim, McDaniel noted.
His body was found near Lake Eklutna, north of Anchorage.
Among the skeletal remains found in 1984, Pelkey was discovered lying on the ground near Horseshoe Lake, a few miles northwest of Anchorage, police said.
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The victim initially identified as Horseshoe Harriet did not carry any identification with her.
Hansen had told investigators that she was a sex worker who he abducted from downtown Anchorage sometime in the winter of 1983. He took her to the lake in his small plane,
murdered her and disposed of the body, he
assured investigators.
He didn't know her name or anything else about her.
Genetic testing
The autopsy confirmed that the body was that of a white woman between the ages of 17 and 23.
There were no matching missing persons reports and she was buried in the Anchorage Municipal Cemetery as an unknown.
But in 2014 the case was reopened, the same year that
Hansen died in prison at age 75.
The body was exhumed and samples were sent to create a DNA profile, which was added to the FBI's national missing persons database but did not provide identification.
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Years later, in September 2020, the researchers made another attempt to identify the remains using
genetic genealogy.
A
bone sample
was sent to a private laboratory and additional DNA was extracted and sent for whole genome sequencing, police officers said.
This data was sent to another laboratory, where a DNA profile was generated and uploaded to a publicly accessible genealogical database in April.
Forensic workers and doctors exhume the body of unknown # 3 from a cemetery in Anchorage, Alaska, in September 2014.Rachel D'Oro / AP
The cops found several close matches and created a
family tree for the victim.
The investigation indicated that the victim could be a woman named
Robin Pelkey
,
who was born in Colorado in 1963,
officers said.
Cops found she lived in Anchorage in the early 1980s, but no records indicated she was alive after 1984.
Eventually, authorities located close relatives in Arkansas and Alaska.
State police said he ended up living on the streets of Anchorage, but
disappeared in late 1982
or early 1983.
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A DNA check with a close relative in Arkansas confirmed Pelkey's identity and the family was notified in September.
This assured, through the police, that she did not want to be contacted by the media.
"Obviously,
I'm very happy to finally find out who he is and give his family closure
," McPherron said.
"Genetic genealogy has been a great advance in the resolution of unsolved homicides, but also in the
identification of people,
so it is very satisfying to see that it has finally been achieved."
The cops have bought a new headstone for Pelkey, McDaniel said.