CA CA - Richard 'Dick' Hansen, San Jose, 29 April 1991

[LinetteH]

I posted a thread on another board for UM fans because it's full of people who keep up with various cases, but all I've gotten back so far is that no one seems to know anything. I'll keep checking. (I saw this last week too and began googling.)

LOL! I am glad I am not the only one! I was starting to think I was grossly obssessed!

 

[georgiagirl]

Thank you for replying to this thread guys! This case has always bugged me and I have been searching for a couple of weeks but had not seen the episode in awhile so I was thrilled when it came on the other day. I wish I would have taken notes on what kind of car. For some reason I am thinking it was a junky car that was part primer and part blue. There is not one thing online about this and it just seems strange. Someone had to have heard something like gunshots or screaming. :banghead:

 

[MaryLiz]

Thank you for replying to this thread guys! This case has always bugged me and I have been searching for a couple of weeks but had not seen the episode in awhile so I was thrilled when it came on the other day. I wish I would have taken notes on what kind of car. For some reason I am thinking it was a junky car that was part primer and part blue. There is not one thing online about this and it just seems strange. Someone had to have heard something like gunshots or screaming. :banghead:

Well, it's bugged me too since I saw it last week. I wish now I would have paid more attention to details or even taped the episode. But I, like you, thought I would just get online and google it and find SOMETHING on it!!

 

[georgiagirl]

Well, it's bugged me too since I saw it last week. I wish now I would have paid more attention to details or even taped the episode. But I, like you, thought I would just get online and google it and find SOMETHING on it!!

Liz- I wonder if we could find out what police department investigated this case and contact them? But then, that would require information more than what we have from the UM episode.

 

[Angels_Not_Forgotten]

ive tried to find out where it occured then could call that area police maybe that would help? San Jose, im not familiar at all with, is it a large place?

 

[reportertype]

I keep trying to remember the car type. I think it was gray or light blue, but I can't remember what kind, other than it looked like a 70s type car. I don't think it was a Camaro. I'm going to google it and will report back.

 

[Amy Noel]

This case is no where? I have tried all the San Jose colleges/ Universities that I could find @ http://www.uscollegesearch.org/san-jose-california-colleges.html ,and all the San Jose papers that I could find @ http://newslink.org/canews.html. I did find a San Jose Alumni blogring @ http://www.xanga.com/groups/group.aspx?id=63184 but I didn't see anything useful I am thinking maybe If I could join, I could put a post up for the other members... surely If he truely was from San Jose and a former football player from one of the colleges or universities and he was murdered... they would remember! Atleast you would think, huh? Well let me know what you guys think!

 

[Amy Noel]

Okay I just joined and put a blog up asking for anyone's help... hopefully I will hear something!

 

[reportertype]

OK. There are articles in the San Jose Mercury News archives and I downloaded a couple. There are more, but they're $3 a piece so maybe later. Couldn't find a description of the car. AARGH.

But apparently, Dick is Richard G. Hansen, son of Gerald and Barbara. The killing actually took place in Sunnyvale. He played ball at Santa Clara State U. According to the story I downloaded, the two were followed from downtown San Jose to Sunnyvale. Gerald is apparently a well-known attorney in San Jose and the family is fairly well-known.

"Gerald Hansen was a U.S. court commissioner and he managed John Fitzgerald Kennedy's presidential campaign in Santa Clara County."

The killing occurred in 1991. Hansen was 36 and had two daughters, 13 and 11.

 

[Amy Noel]

OK. There are articles in the San Jose Mercury News archives and I downloaded a couple. There are more, but they're $3 a piece so maybe later. Couldn't find a description of the car. AARGH.

But apparently, Dick is Richard G. Hansen, son of Gerald and Barbara. The killing actually took place in Sunnyvale. He played ball at Santa Clara State U. According to the story I downloaded, the two were followed from downtown San Jose to Sunnyvale. Gerald is apparently a well-known attorney in San Jose and the family is fairly well-known.

"Gerald Hansen was a U.S. court commissioner and he managed John Fitzgerald Kennedy's presidential campaign in Santa Clara County."

The killing occurred in 1991. Hansen was 36 and had two daughters, 13 and 11.

good work!!!

 

[MaryLiz]

OK. There are articles in the San Jose Mercury News archives and I downloaded a couple. There are more, but they're $3 a piece so maybe later. Couldn't find a description of the car. AARGH.

But apparently, Dick is Richard G. Hansen, son of Gerald and Barbara. The killing actually took place in Sunnyvale. He played ball at Santa Clara State U. According to the story I downloaded, the two were followed from downtown San Jose to Sunnyvale. Gerald is apparently a well-known attorney in San Jose and the family is fairly well-known.

"Gerald Hansen was a U.S. court commissioner and he managed John Fitzgerald Kennedy's presidential campaign in Santa Clara County."

The killing occurred in 1991. Hansen was 36 and had two daughters, 13 and 11.

FINALLY there's some info on this. I looked online yesterday at the Mercury News website under Dick Hansen in the archives and nothing came up. I also looked on newspaperarchives.com and could find no San Jose newspaper listed. I must not have been looking under the right thing...oh well. Thanks for the info!

 

[Angels_Not_Forgotten]

thank you SO SO much!

 

[Angels_Not_Forgotten]

ok I have no clue how to link pages but I came across this story on newslibrary.com. I didnt buy the story yet so its just an introducation:

"It could be anybody" --Gerald B. Hansen, victims father
A big man's killing leaves a bigger "WHY"

Richard G. Hansen was a big man who was not the sort to be intimiadated by a car following him up the freeway and onto the streets of sunnyvale in the middle of the night. For one thing, he was a former Santa Clara University football player who stayed and shape and weighed 255 lbs. for another, friends say he had a knack for reasoning with unreasonable people. But neither quality saved Hansen, 36, early Tuesday morning when he was gunned down after he stopped to confront a driver who....

and thats all it gave me without paying.

 

[reportertype]

That's the same story I found. I think there are a couple of others, maybe I can find one the day or two after the murder, it's likely to have a description of the car and maybe some other details. I do have a copy of the entire story and I can PM it to anyone who wants it, just let me know!!!

It's on my home computer so I could do that tonight.

 

[Angels_Not_Forgotten]

I would love to have the whole copy if you dont mind pming it to me, thanks a ton!

 

[Yaya]

I read through some of the other little clips available at Newslibrary.com and found this...

San Jose Mercury News (CA) - May 1, 1991
His father, Gerald B. Hansen, said he was told a motorist had upbraided his son and a friend for blocking a mailbox and then followed them onto Interstate 280.

 

[iconoclast]

Not so baffling when you realize that a lot of media just passes along hearsay and urban legend. Perhaps this incident never happened or is only partly true, but was passed around the local high school, thence to the parents, until it became "truth" in the popular view. Think how many urban legends we believe without asking. The classic is the young woman whose mother, hotel room and belongings allegedly disappeared while visiting the World's Fair (some versions of the story say Paris, others St. Louis). Google that one and you'll find dozens of variations, and a movie on that theme in the 1940s cemented it into popular culture.


Bottom line: we are a society that often accepts truthiness over fact. The Internet is a major distributor of questionable information, which is why obsessed folk like us have such an important place online—we do our homework.

 

[Angels_Not_Forgotten]

we've found a few things to back it up, and it was on Unsolved mysteries (not that that makes it true)...its just strange. maybe with his father being so respected in his community that everyone respected their privacy in the matter?

 

[Angels_Not_Forgotten]

Just another thought, with the ROdney King trial going on and the riots in 92, maybe this case was just lost, ya know what i mean?

 

[reportertype]

I'm sure we could find proof that this man was murdered as opposed to a figment of someone's imagination.