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

Jill and Julie Hansen



Always found this segment interesting. I'll take you back to it.

November 14, 1986, 11PM.

Jill and Julie were 16 year old twins living with their parents in Willow Creek, California, which is about 250 miles north of San Francisco. Their half-brother, Donny, age 21, was visiting from the town of Fortuna, 70 miles away. He slept on the living room couch that night. So Donny spends the night and at about 3AM, a fire wakes everyone. The mother ran up the hallway to warn her everyone of the fire, and the first person she saw was her son, Donny. Donny's step dad and mother are frantic as they ran to the warehouse, where several fire extinguishers were stored. Meanwhile the twins aren't responding and were nowhere to be seen. The father runs outside and accidentally kicks a gas can over that he finds to be oddly out of place. The fire department is called.

Then one of the twins is found on the lawn with a shotgun wound in her stomach. The other twin dies in the fire. The living twin indulges to her parents that Donny is the one she saw pull the trigger on her. Unfortunately she dies of her wounds.

Not like its bad enough, Donny has some suspicious behavior like trying to break into a tool shed to retrieve the shotgun and he admitted to buying shotgun shells along with gasoline. Donny's parents believe that his intent was to "knock off" the whole family for some insurance money and that he had some accomplices enter the house and start the fire. The idea was when one of the sisters awoke she was shot.

Donny was acquitted but to this day his step dad and mother claim he had something to do with it. The step dad going as far as saying "Donny is dead to me". Your thoughts?


http://www.unsolved.com/ajaxfiles/mur_jill_julie_hansen.htm

http://projectparanormal.org/parapedia/jill-and-julie-hansen/ (not that I agree with paranormal stuff, mind you.)

never mind.

los2188 said:

never mind.

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How come?

Wow, stunning story. How devastating for the parents and how frightening to know that the son who bought the gas and had the shotgun was somehow acquitted.

It certainly sounded that he should have been found guilty after reading the story. Also that the parents believe he did it. But the jury obviously saw something else. Did the jury give a reason for their verdict?

Marg from Oz said:

It certainly sounded that he should have been found guilty after reading the story. Also that the parents believe he did it. But the jury obviously saw something else. Did the jury give a reason for their verdict?

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I'm not sure as to why the verdict was given, but honestly, I hope he wasn't guilty. I know that mean seem kind of silly, but I'd like to think that a brother wouldn't do that to a sister(s). This is just a straight up strange, yet intriguing story.

AnnieOakley said:

How come?

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It's just kind of frustrating when you see a story that you'd think would be interesting enough for people to comment on. You share the story, yet you get very few comments. Oh well.

I remember that case. I always thought Donny did it and never understood the not guilty.

Wow. A strange story. I wonder why no one heard gunshots. The article didn't say if the twin who lived awhile knew the trailer was on fire. Why didn't the parents hear gunshots and a freak medical death sounds really strange.

That is horrible. There are some terrible people out there, and they are brothers to people..... you know? I'm going to spend some time reading up on this. Thanks los2188, for finding this one.

"Three days before the fire, Donny had borrowed the shotgun from a friend and kept it in his car. Unspent shells found in the car matched those used in the attack. Donny had purchased the ammunition the very evening Jill and Julie were shot. Also, a credit card statement verified that two days before the fire, Donny had purchased five gallons of gas at a local station. Witnesses confirmed that the container Donny filled was identical to one of those found at the scene."

from http://www.unsolved.com/ajaxfiles/mur_jill_julie_hansen.htm

Hap said:

"Three days before the fire, Donny had borrowed the shotgun from a friend and kept it in his car. Unspent shells found in the car matched those used in the attack. Donny had purchased the ammunition the very evening Jill and Julie were shot. Also, a credit card statement verified that two days before the fire, Donny had purchased five gallons of gas at a local station. Witnesses confirmed that the container Donny filled was identical to one of those found at the scene."

from http://www.unsolved.com/ajaxfiles/mur_jill_julie_hansen.htm

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Oh wow. So I wonder what his motivation would have been. To my knowledge, there was no financial gain to be had. This is crazy. I'm glad more people are looking at this case. I wonder if there are any sort of allegations of inappropriate behavior were made or something, grading Donny and his sisters.

I wonder if the trial transcripts are available and if there was any record of Donny visiting his sister before the medical "accident". It's way too strange for her to survive a point blank shot gun blast only to succumb to something so rare and frankly obviously either negligence on the hospital's part or foul play. Did the parents sue the hospital after Julie died?

:bump:

What I find weird is this:

On December 19, 1987, Julie suddenly died in a freak medical accident. An air bubble entered her bloodstream through an intravenous tube and stopped her heart. Julie’s death was another devastating blow to her grieving parents. It was also a major setback to the prosecutors. Julie’s eyewitness statements would now be inadmissible as evidence, since she could not be cross-examined by defense attorneys.

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http://unsolved.com/ajaxfiles/mur_jill_julie_hansen.htm

The girl DIED! She was a VICTIM! She would not have been in hospital if she had not been shot ... and because she dies, her testimony all of a sudden becomes inadmissible ???

This is not right.

It's a fundamental principal of US rights that you have the right to confront your accuser. For instance -- and I am just making this up for example, not saying it happened -- what if she snuck out to meet a boyfriend, the boyfriend shot her with the brother's gun, and when she was found, she lied to protect her boyfriend? Again I'm not saying anything like that happened, but after she died, there was only secondhand information about what she said. In theory, somebody could even have made up the story to cast suspicion away from themselves.

I'm not saying that any of this happened in this case, but that's the kind of abuse that this rule is meant to protect the defendant from. We tend to assume that the victim is right and the accused is guilty, but plenty of innocent people are accused of crimes. That's why we have juries and trials.

carbuff said:

It's a fundamental principal of US rights that you have the right to confront your accuser. For instance -- and I am just making this up for example, not saying it happened -- what if she snuck out to meet a boyfriend, the boyfriend shot her with the brother's gun, and when she was found, she lied to protect her boyfriend? Again I'm not saying anything like that happened, but after she died, there was only secondhand information about what she said. In theory, somebody could even have made up the story to cast suspicion away from themselves.

I'm not saying that any of this happened in this case, but that's the kind of abuse that this rule is meant to protect the defendant from. We tend to assume that the victim is right and the accused is guilty, but plenty of innocent people are accused of crimes. That's why we have juries and trials.

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I don't disagree with the right to confront your accuser, but this notion is an open invitation to kill off witnesses as well.

I still wonder why the case went the way it went, even without her testimony. The jury believed the defence, but why?

Archangel7 mentioned on another thread about the FOIA. I didn't know it applied to crimes, but then, I know so little about it.

I remember seeing the episode of Unsolved Mysteries on this case and thinking how strange it was.

I don't know what the law is in California, nor what it was in 1986, but where I practise the witness evidence of somebody who has died can potentially still be admissible in court in certain situations. It is a shame Julie's evidence was not admissible in Donny's trial...I'm sure that would have convinced the jury.

From the Unsolved Mysteries page, it sounds like Donny was arrested for the murders before Julie died in the hospital, meaning that Donny couldn't have been involved in that. Assuming that Julie's death was not a freak accident then that would add weight to the suggestion that other people were involved.

I am curious about the family history, did the son grow up in the same house? Where is his bio father, etc? And the surviving daughter, where was she? Such a sad story! Thanks for sharing!