CA CA - Twins Jill & Julie Hansen, 16, Willow Creek, 14 Nov 1986

[4SAM]

I may have watched too many horror movies, but was the air bubble really an accident? in the movies they show ways to get an air bubble in the tube to cause a person to die. I know, I may be weird, but just curious.

 

[Kell1]

Not so much an unsolved case, as a miscarriage of justice ... sad

 

[rob525]

Maybe I missed something as I cannot open the link to the story from the other site. The Incident happened on the 14th of November 1986 but Julie died of the medical accident on 19 December of 1987, more than one year later. Was her hospital stay in 1987 a result of being shot or was it for another reason? Which may be why her testimony would then be inadmissable.

 

[glamourkitty1922]

I read the article and I can see why the brother was acquitted. The girl first claimed she never saw the shooter, then sometime later she claims it was her brother. That is very suspicious. Also, there were two men (seen by a witness who has no reason to lie) around the trailer when it started burning.
As for the sister's death in the hospital, the main leading cause of unnatural death is doctor/hospital mistakes.
Such a sad story.

 

[glf]

I am an LPN, since 1998, and it takes more than a "bubble" to cause death. We were told by bag instructors there would have to be at least 10cc's of air in an IV line to cause the death of an adult. Furthermore, ALL IV pumps alert the staff of problems with an IV line or when it is time to hang a new bag. And they are plenty loud enough to be heard throughout the unit. Something sounds really fishy! :fishy::fishy::fishy:

 

[Lilibet]

Note to Tricia:
I think this case would go into Crimes against children
Crimes-Spotlight on Children

OR Cold Cases
Cold Cases

Delete link from Cold Cases to ETF thread
CA - CA - Twins Jill & Julie Hansen, 16, Willow Creek, 14 Nov 1986

The brother was not convicted so the case has never been solved.

None of the links in this thread work. Here are links I found:

Julie Hansen, 16, who survived a shotgun-arson attack that killed her twin sister last month, has died in a hospital from an air bubble that stopped her heart, authorities said. The victims' half-brother, Donald Hansen, 21, faces double murder charges in connection with the Nov. 15 shootings and burning of the family's Willows Creek home, Humboldt County Dist. Atty. Terry Farmer said. The air bubble entered Julie's bloodstream through an intravenous feeding tube while she was undergoing treatment for the gunshot wounds, Farmer said. Sheriff's deputies found Julie, shot in the abdomen, lying in front of the family home, which had been set afire. Authorities later discovered the charred body of her twin sister, Jill, inside the gutted home.

The State

Long article based on the show:
The Mysterious Murder of Jill & Julie Hansen - Unsolved Mysteries

Jill and Julie Hansen

 

[burblestein]

Note to Tricia: return thread to CA - CA - Twins Jill & Julie Hansen, 16, Willow Creek, 14 Nov 1986 in Cold Cases homicide forum.

 

[Laughing]

So much like the story of Lauria Bible & her friend in Oklahoma!!!

Gunshots, two girls missing, house fire....

 

[burblestein]

Events did not break well for the prosecution. First, their major witness unexpectedly died in hospital. Then the defense found neighbors to testify to strangers in the neighborhood.... I do not think Donny was acquitted; more like, the jury couldn't find enough evidence to convict.

 

[dulcinea]

I've been a huge UM fan for years and have seen this story more times than I can count. Every time I've seen it I've been convinced Donny was involved. Viewing it now from an adult perspective and now that I live in CA and understand more about this area, I do question a lot of things. Watching the episode, it does seem quite biased against Donny, intentionally or not. A couple of things that might point away from Donny are that his mother claims she saw him yelling at someone to, "Get out of here," and neighbors saw two unidentified men outside the house. Did they commit the crime with Donny? Alone? Did he know who they were but for some reason won't identify them? The physician of the sister who was in the hospital claims she said she didn't see anyone in the blast from the shotgun. However, later she claimed it was Donny. Which version of events is accurate?
Willow Creek is part of the Emerald Triangle, an area known for missing people and marijuana cultivation. I do not know what it's reputation was regarding marijuana in 1986, but could this be a drug related crime? Was the family involved in something not presented on TV? Were they mistakenly thought to be involved in something? Did Donny get involved in something and the two men seen outside were after him but the entire family became a target?
IMO, there is more to this story than was presented on UM.

 

[burblestein]

Previous posters have damned the jury. However, the posters are considering the facts posted on this forum. The jurors had to consider whatever evidence was presented in court, and nothing else. We don't know what evidence was--or wasn't--presented to the jury for their consideration.

If there were two men involved in the murders, whether with or without Donny's collaboration, what was their motive? Or is it being claimed two strangers showed up in a small rural town and casually offed the twins for the heck of it? And why the girls, and not the parents?

One thing for sure. Nobody is going to sleep through indoor shotgun blasts. Speaking from personal experience, firing a gun indoors is like being inside the bass drum at the Superbowl halftime show. You'll read lips for a week afterwards, waiting for your hearing to return.

An added note: Sheriff Allman of the MCSO tabulated his homicide cases about a year ago. 40% of them were marijuana-related. Take this stat cautiously. There has been no mention of the Hansens being involved with pot.

Again, I don't believe the jury acquitted Donny. I believe that if we followed the Scottish system of verdicts, they would have returned a finding of "Not proven".

 

[burblestein]

With my interest piqued, I read all the functional links. The folks that posted them deserve serious applause.

I discovered some interesting facts mentioned, that don't seem to have made it into the discussion. Here they are, though not in any organized fashion.

There was a bar near the murder site. If last call were at 2 AM, patrons who stayed to finish their drinks would exit at about the time of the arson/murder. Could the two men reportedly seen near the fire been some belated drunks from the bar, attracted by the flames?

The twins were sleeping in the same bed. Julie said she climbed over Jill to flee from the fire. Julie was shot later. Apparently, she was shot where she was found, out in a field. At one point, she said she saw Donny's face by the flash of the shotgun's muzzle blast. Think of it as spotting someone during the glare of a flashbulb explosion.

Inferences can also be made about some unstated facts.

First, if someone was intent on murdering the entire family, grown males should be first on their hit list, as offering the best chance of resistance. However, Donny was sleeping just inside the trailer door. Invading assassin(s) would have killed him right off. Hans would have also been a target; however, he wasn't harmed.

The type of shotgun was never mentioned. Could it have been a single shot weapon? If so, it had to be reloaded to shoot Julie.

Could Donny have yelled at Julie to get out of the trailer, so that he would know where to find her when he reloaded?

To me, it seems pretty obvious that at least one of the girls was the intended victim. They were identical twins. Could the murderer have killed both to insure he got the one he intended?

 

[burblestein]

Hansen's shop still stands in Willow Creek. Here's a street view of it: Google Maps

 

[dulcinea]

Previous posters have damned the jury. However, the posters are considering the facts posted on this forum. The jurors had to consider whatever evidence was presented in court, and nothing else. We don't know what evidence was--or wasn't--presented to the jury for their consideration.

If there were two men involved in the murders, whether with or without Donny's collaboration, what was their motive? Or is it being claimed two strangers showed up in a small rural town and casually offed the twins for the heck of it? And why the girls, and not the parents?

One thing for sure. Nobody is going to sleep through indoor shotgun blasts. Speaking from personal experience, firing a gun indoors is like being inside the bass drum at the Superbowl halftime show. You'll read lips for a week afterwards, waiting for your hearing to return.

An added note: Sheriff Allman of the MCSO tabulated his homicide cases about a year ago. 40% of them were marijuana-related. Take this stat cautiously. There has been no mention of the Hansens being involved with pot.

Again, I don't believe the jury acquitted Donny. I believe that if we followed the Scottish system of verdicts, they would have returned a finding of "Not proven".

You mentioned that no one is going to sleep through shotgun blasts. Apparently the parents did. The mother woke up to smoke. She didn't say anything about hearing a loud noise. No one had any idea a gun was used until the injured twin was found near the road. At the time they thought she had been hurt by something possibly exploding in the fire. According to the UM segment, only when she was examined at the hospital did anyone realize a gun was involved.

I am curious to know how often Donny came to visit his family and if he always slept on the couch.

Per Donny's defense attorney on the UM episode, he believes Donny was found not guilty because his team was able to create enough reasonable doubt to explain away various pieces of "evidence". Some of the points he made were sound, but others were quite a stretch.

 

[burblestein]

Me and my afterthoughts....

The trial was held in Oakland. A rural case from the pale white boondocks was tried in front of big city jurors of all colors and persuasions. I think a lot probably got lost in translation, so to speak.

 

[burblestein]

A case of a person failing to report shots doesn't mean the shots weren't fired. It means that they didn't mention them.

If it weren't for the damage to your ear drums, Dulcinea, I would invite you to fire a blank cartridge from a shotgun inside a room. Given that muzzle blast is faster than sound, you have your very own supersonic boom in the room with you. Try to ignore that!

 

[Ellekay77]

Hi! New to the forum, eager for information. Where was the fourth sibling, Becky Hansen during all of this?