Robert Hansen, the notorious serial who was convicted of killing four women but confessed to killing and raping dozens more during the '70s, died Thursday morning at a hospital in Anchorage, Alaska.
Officials from the Department of Corrections said the 75-year-old's health had been on the decline for the past year when he died shortly after midnight at Alaska Regional Hospital, Alaska Dispatch News reported. He was transferred to the hospital earlier this week from the Anchorage Correctional Center.
It appears Hansen, who was serving a 461- year sentence, died of natural causes. A medical examiner is expected to determine an official cause of death.
"He will not be missed," Assistant District Attorney Frank Rothschild, who tried the case, told ADN on Thursday afternoon. "Good riddance to him."
Over the span on 12 years, Hansen kidnapped women at gunpoint and drove or flew them to secluded areas outside the city before raping them. Some women he let go, but many he released into the wilderness and hunted them down with a gun, the Associated Press reported. Hansen later told investigators he preferred to take his victims to the Knik River located northeast of Anchorage.
Hansen's victims were mostly prostitutes and strippers because he realized people most likely did not miss them as much.
"On this day we should only remember his many victims and all of their families and my heart goes out to all of them," Glenn Flothe, a former Alaska State Trooper who was a driving force behind Hansen's arrest, wrote according to ADN.
Over the course of his heinous crimes Hansen maintained a bakery business and had a wife and kids who were oblivious to the monster within. His occupation led to him being dubbed the "Butcher Baker."
His downfall came in 1983 when a teenage prostitute named Cindy Paulson escaped while wearing handcuffs to a local motel and said she was raped and held captive in Hansen's home, AND reported.
Hansen confessed to authorities that he murdered 17 women and raped 30. But in 1984 he was convicted of killing only four after striking a deal to help lead police to the bodies.
Authorities were able to locate only 12 bodies.
