I must be going crazy...

[wiseguy182]

I'm actually having doubts about Donnie Hansen's gult. Bear with me...

1) There were 2 unidentified people spotted running away from the trailer the night of the crimes. These people remain unidentified to this day. I want to know what attempts, if any, LE made to find these people. These people may very well be guilty, or at least probably have information, and we know pretty much nothing on them.

2) Donnie's taken a lot of flack for his claim of helping his sister Julie immediately following her shooting, as opposed to trying to disarm the attacker (and it's also been speculated why the attacker didn't shoot him. it's a fair question). However, I can totally buy this. He sees his sister has been hurt. It becomes more important to help her than trying to go after the attacker. It's a natural reaction. He sees she was obviously hurt, he tried to help. There some discrepancy as to whether he assisted her out of the trailer or whether she got out on her own accord. I think a combo might be possible, he helped her as far as getting outside, and she made it down the steps on her own accord and/or memory might be hazy.

3) If the plan was to kill Jill, Julie, Hans and Betty, then why didn't he just do it? Just because Hans, Betty and Julie (well initially) woke up doesn't mean he still couldn't just kill them if he wanted to. I don't see how them waking up would ultimately made that much difference.

4) It would be incredibly risky for Donnie to risk his own life in order to pull this off. Regarding the theory he planned to kill the other 4 people in the house that night, he would have to do all of that all while the house is blazing with fire (an accelerant, gasoline, was used, which means the fire is spreading faster than normal.), then get himself and his accomplices out in time. He also runs the risk of the accomplices possibly turning on him. Perhaps Donnie did have some stake in this initially, but backed out at the last second, the accomplices didn't want to change their plans.

5) Tying this in to point #2, it has been said the attacker shot Julie while standing next to Donnie, and didn't shoot him. But Hans and Betty were also not shot. I get the impression the girls were the target, not Hans, Betty and Donnie. If he/she is masked, it's not necessary to kill Donnie because he can't identify them. Plus, he wasn't the target.

6) Stack says "Donnie moved the gun even before he knew a crime had been committed." Yet, how can that be? Both Julie and Donnie stated that he was present when she was shot, so he obviously knew a crime HAD been committed! And a lot has been made of the fact that Donnie hid the gun. I can think of one good reason to hide it: not let it fall back in the hands of the killer.

7) The prosecution brings up a fair point: if you're going to commit crimes, don't you bring the instruments with you? Good point, but I can think of one person that knows Donnie had the shotgun: the person that lent it to him. It would be crafty since this person could use the gun and since Donny had it at the time, suspicion would naturally fall on him. Question is, who owns this gun?

I won't go as far as to say I'm switching my opinion on this case, more like I have nagging doubts about some unanswered questions.

[bell83]

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

I'm actually having doubts about Donnie Hansen's gult. Bear with me...

1) There were 2 unidentified people spotted running away from the trailer the night of the crimes. These people remain unidentified to this day. I want to know what attempts, if any, LE made to find these people. These people may very well be guilty, or at least probably have information, and we know pretty much nothing on them.

2) Donnie's taken a lot of flack for his claim of helping his sister Julie immediately following her shooting, as opposed to trying to disarm the attacker (and it's also been speculated why the attacker didn't shoot him. it's a fair question). However, I can totally buy this. He sees his sister has been hurt. It becomes more important to help her than trying to go after the attacker. It's a natural reaction. He sees she was obviously hurt, he tried to help. There some discrepancy as to whether he assisted her out of the trailer or whether she got out on her own accord. I think a combo might be possible, he helped her as far as getting outside, and she made it down the steps on her own accord and/or memory might be hazy.

3) If the plan was to kill Jill, Julie, Hans and Betty, then why didn't he just do it? Just because Hans, Betty and Julie (well initially) woke up doesn't mean he still couldn't just kill them if he wanted to. I don't see how them waking up would ultimately made that much difference.

4) It would be incredibly risky for Donnie to risk his own life in order to pull this off. Regarding the theory he planned to kill the other 4 people in the house that night, he would have to do all of that all while the house is blazing with fire (an accelerant, gasoline, was used, which means the fire is spreading faster than normal.), then get himself and his accomplices out in time. He also runs the risk of the accomplices possibly turning on him. Perhaps Donnie did have some stake in this initially, but backed out at the last second, the accomplices didn't want to change their plans.

5) Tying this in to point #2, it has been said the attacker shot Julie while standing next to Donnie, and didn't shoot him. But Hans and Betty were also not shot. I get the impression the girls were the target, not Hans, Betty and Donnie. If he/she is masked, it's not necessary to kill Donnie because he can't identify them. Plus, he wasn't the target.

6) Stack says "Donnie moved the gun even before he knew a crime had been committed." Yet, how can that be? Both Julie and Donnie stated that he was present when she was shot, so he obviously knew a crime HAD been committed! And a lot has been made of the fact that Donnie hid the gun. I can think of one good reason to hide it: not let it fall back in the hands of the killer.

7) The prosecution brings up a fair point: if you're going to commit crimes, don't you bring the instruments with you? Good point, but I can think of one person that knows Donnie had the shotgun: the person that lent it to him. It would be crafty since this person could use the gun and since Donny had it at the time, suspicion would naturally fall on him. Question is, who owns this gun?

I won't go as far as to say I'm switching my opinion on this case, more like I have nagging doubts about some unanswered questions.

These are some very interesting points. I've long sat on the fence about his guilt, teetering back and forth. I really don't know what I believe, at this point.

[wiseguy182]

thank you, a few more things:

8) If Donny is guilty, once he realized the police were heavily suspecting him, why did he not rat out his accomplices? He could say he recognized one of their voices or something. If the police can place the accomplices there and prove it, then that possibly could have gotten Donny off the hook. Now, the accomplices can subsequently turn on him, but where would the proof be? Hans said "Who could hate us this much to make this attack on our house"? How likely is it that Donny wipe out his entire family, yet put his own life on the line to save the accomplices?

9) Julie told her doctor, who has no horse in this race, that she didn't see anyone during the shot. She didn't say she didn't remember, she said she saw nobody. Then this changes to her seeing Donny. I'm not quite sure how we went from seeing nobody to seeing Donny, but even if her statement of seeing Donny during the shooting is correct, it doesn't necessarily mean Donny is the one that shot her. Remember that the shooter was standing next to Donny while the shot was fired. I think it's entirely possible Julie walked down the hall, was obviously surprised by the shot, saw Donny in the background and later made the connection. Interestingly, it seems to be this item that changes her parents feelings on the matter, as they went from believing Donny was innocent to thinking he was guilty.

10) This is a bunch of things really, but I'm not seeing an apparent motive. Outside of Dana Ewell, I don't think there's a lot of people in the 21 year old age group that try to wipe out entire family. If the goal was to take out the other 4 people in the house, he or whoever certainly did a LOUSY job. I'm still scratching my head wondering how everyone did not actually hear the shots, and there were multiple ones.

I also think it's possible that Donny maybe did have some nefarious intentions that night (burning down the house for whatever reason), but maybe things just went horribly wrong and not according to his plans, or he changed his mind but the accomplices went through with it. That doesn't make him totally innocent, but he doesn't look quite the monster as before. If Donny is guilty, I think it's safe to say the prosecution bungled things. A smart move then would be to charge Donny with just Julie's or just Jill's murder, and if he gets off, learn from mistakes, then try him for the other's murder. There's also the point that the prosecution was confident enough to ask for the death penalty. Some would say that's the very thing that got Casey Anthony off. And I also think the hospital was responsible for Julie's death. It's very frustrating that Julie survived arson and being shot, only to die because of an air bubble.

11) Donny actually volunteered and came in for further questioning on his own accord. For the record, I have never, ever heard of a guilty person doing that. Guilty people usually lay low, say as little as possible, and just hope that suspicion eventually fades with time. Donny did lie, that's something everyone can agree to, even Donny himself. But he made a point that after telling one lie, it became necessary to tell another another lie to keep the original one, and things just snowballed. And really, doesn't that happen all the time IRL? Heck, Donnie's volunteering for questioning ended up getting him arrested and charged. It seems like an extremely weird move for a guilty person to do.

[Mystery Man]

I've always thought Donnie was guilty, but had an unnamed accomplice, hence why the witness saw two people running from the scene (Donnie and said accomplice). Wiseguy, you do raise some interesting points. It's neat to see this case from another angle. I wanna the segment again with those points in mind.

However, I have one nagging question: if it truly wasn't Donnie, who was it and why? Why would they set fire to the place and murder the girls for no reason? Maybe Jill and Julie had a high school stalker we know nothing about?

[WishfulDreamer]

I want to start by saying that you bring up some very interesting points.

However, here's my big, nagging question about Donny: If his side of the story is true and he saw Julie shot, then helped her outside, why did he not mention this to his parents when running back and forth to get fire extinguishers? I would think that he would say, ''Mom and Dad, hey, some guy with a gun is running around!'' He claimed that the incident with the shooter and Julie happened while he was still on the couch, having woken up from sleeping, so when he was running with the parents back and forth, it was supposed to have already happened. Yet he didn't say one word. I think that if he was innocent, he would have warned his parents that a maniac with a gun was running around and he would have been fearful for his own life. Also, his mom saw him yelling at someone in a ''horrible voice'' to ''get out of here!'' Was it the shooter? Wasn't he already supposed to have gotten Julie out of the house at this point? You can claim that the fire and chaos caused it to slip his mind, but I think in any chaos you would still be extremely worried that an unknown stranger was running around your property shooting people. His story just doesn't add up to me, even if you take the pandemonium and chaos of the night into account.

[isotope]

To answer a couple of your later points.

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

thank you, a few more things:

8) If Donny is guilty, once he realized the police were heavily suspecting him, why did he not rat out his accomplices?

.

Because he would then be confessing (at the very least) to being an accessory to murder. That's serious prison time, even with remorse and an early plea of guilty.

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

10) This is a bunch of things really, but I'm not seeing an apparent motive


.

When it comes to murders within families, you don't really need a classic motive (see for instance Ronald DeFeo). Unhappy families (particularly blended families) can be hotbeds of jealousy, resentment and long standing petty greivances - if one of the members is inclined to violence, it might not take much to spark them off.

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

Donny actually volunteered and came in for further questioning on his own accord. For the record, I have never, ever heard of a guilty person doing that


.

Jeffrey MacDonald did - co-operating with army investigators. The above mentioned Ronald DeFeo also agreed to an extensive interview. These people know that they are the prime suspect, and that if they shut up, cops will immediately harden their suspicions (if you are innocent, you should be breaking your neck trying to assist LE).


I'm not saying the jury necessarily got this wrong. We will never know what happened that night - it is up to the prosecution to convince a jury that the accused is guilty beyond reasonable doubt - which they failed to do.

[wiseguy182]

Originally Posted by WishfulDreamer

I want to start by saying that you bring up some very interesting points.

However, here's my big, nagging question about Donny: If his side of the story is true and he saw Julie shot, then helped her outside, why did he not mention this to his parents when running back and forth to get fire extinguishers? I would think that he would say, ''Mom and Dad, hey, some guy with a gun is running around!'' He claimed that the incident with the shooter and Julie happened while he was still on the couch, having woken up from sleeping, so when he was running with the parents back and forth, it was supposed to have already happened. Yet he didn't say one word. I think that if he was innocent, he would have warned his parents that a maniac with a gun was running around and he would have been fearful for his own life. Also, his mom saw him yelling at someone in a ''horrible voice'' to ''get out of here!'' Was it the shooter? Wasn't he already supposed to have gotten Julie out of the house at this point? You can claim that the fire and chaos caused it to slip his mind, but I think in any chaos you would still be extremely worried that an unknown stranger was running around your property shooting people. His story just doesn't add up to me, even if you take the pandemonium and chaos of the night into account.

I would say one possible explanation is that the parents already knew there was somebody running around trying to kill them by torching the house. The gun is an extra component added to the equation. I get the feeling it might have been a backup in case things went wrong for whoever planned it. Another point is that we see somebody pouring gasoline in the girls rooms (and not the parents), which reinforces my belief they were the target. Or perhaps just one of them was and the other was "in the way."

Donnie yelling at the uknown people to get away is a bit of an oddity. It doesn't prove his guilt or innocence. Perhaps they were coming back to the house to do more damage and that was his attempt to stop them.

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

1) There were 2 unidentified people spotted running away from the trailer the night of the crimes. These people remain unidentified to this day. I want to know what attempts, if any, LE made to find these people. These people may very well be guilty, or at least probably have information, and we know pretty much nothing on them.

I believe they were Donnie's accomplices. I think the intention was to burn the trailer down, and kill everyone inside (save Donnie). Something happened in the middle of the fire that disrrupted the plan...Julie woke up. She came out and one of the accomplices got trigger happy and shot her. Then they went to the bedroom and shot Jill. Donnie now knows that the shots will wake up the others in the trailer, so he then screams at them to get out of there (witnessed by his stepmother).

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

2) Donnie's taken a lot of flack for his claim of helping his sister Julie immediately following her shooting, as opposed to trying to disarm the attacker (and it's also been speculated why the attacker didn't shoot him. it's a fair question). However, I can totally buy this. He sees his sister has been hurt. It becomes more important to help her than trying to go after the attacker. It's a natural reaction. He sees she was obviously hurt, he tried to help. There some discrepancy as to whether he assisted her out of the trailer or whether she got out on her own accord. I think a combo might be possible, he helped her as far as getting outside, and she made it down the steps on her own accord and/or memory might be hazy.

I think this is a non issue. If he did help her out, it was obviously trying to cover up the fact that he planned their murders.

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

3) If the plan was to kill Jill, Julie, Hans and Betty, then why didn't he just do it? Just because Hans, Betty and Julie (well initially) woke up doesn't mean he still couldn't just kill them if he wanted to. I don't see how them waking up would ultimately made that much difference.

Well if four out of five people in the trailer died, and four of them had died from shotgun wounds, woudn't that make the survivor look that much more guilty? And these attacks just so happened to have occurred on a day that Donnie was visiting for the weekend?

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

4) It would be incredibly risky for Donnie to risk his own life in order to pull this off. Regarding the theory he planned to kill the other 4 people in the house that night, he would have to do all of that all while the house is blazing with fire (an accelerant, gasoline, was used, which means the fire is spreading faster than normal.), then get himself and his accomplices out in time. He also runs the risk of the accomplices possibly turning on him. Perhaps Donnie did have some stake in this initially, but backed out at the last second, the accomplices didn't want to change their plans.

Not if the plan was to simply set the house on fire and somehow trap the others inside so they would die from the flames. I don't see how or why if Donnie changed his mind, why his accomplices wouldn't have complied. He was the only one with a motive to kill anyone in that trailer.

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

5) Tying this in to point #2, it has been said the attacker shot Julie while standing next to Donnie, and didn't shoot him. But Hans and Betty were also not shot. I get the impression the girls were the target, not Hans, Betty and Donnie. If he/she is masked, it's not necessary to kill Donnie because he can't identify them. Plus, he wasn't the target.

But Betty and Hans were still in their bedroom when Julie was shot. Donnie was standing right next to her. I highly doubt that the person who just blasted Julie is going to get cold feet and run away because Donnie yelled at them. It would have taken less than 5 seconds to turn the gun on Donnie and shoot him to, which is what would have happened if he was completely innocent.

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

6) Stack says "Donnie moved the gun even before he knew a crime had been committed." Yet, how can that be? Both Julie and Donnie stated that he was present when she was shot, so he obviously knew a crime HAD been committed! And a lot has been made of the fact that Donnie hid the gun. I can think of one good reason to hide it: not let it fall back in the hands of the killer.

Donnie borrowed the gun from a friend 3 days before the attack, he was the one who bought the ammunition, and he also was the one who purchased the gasoline and the containers found in the trailer. These are three undisputed facts. Hiding the gun so the real killers wouldn't get it is absurd. Why hide it at all? All he had to do was call the authorities and say, "hey I borrowed this gun from my friend 3 days ago and I think it may have been used in the attack". I know it sounds stupid for him to do that, but if he were truely innocent he would want to explain the gun as soon as possible to cast suspicion away from him. Hiding it makes him look even more guilty, IMO.

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

7) The prosecution brings up a fair point: if you're going to commit crimes, don't you bring the instruments with you? Good point, but I can think of one person that knows Donnie had the shotgun: the person that lent it to him. It would be crafty since this person could use the gun and since Donny had it at the time, suspicion would naturally fall on him. Question is, who owns this gun?

Donnie's friend lent him the gun. I'm sure he was questioned being that he was the owner of the murder weapon. In all probability, he was ruled out or else Donnie's defense would have introduced him as a possible suspect instead of Donnie.

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

8) If Donny is guilty, once he realized the police were heavily suspecting him, why did he not rat out his accomplices? He could say he recognized one of their voices or something. If the police can place the accomplices there and prove it, then that possibly could have gotten Donny off the hook. Now, the accomplices can subsequently turn on him, but where would the proof be? Hans said "Who could hate us this much to make this attack on our house"? How likely is it that Donny wipe out his entire family, yet put his own life on the line to save the accomplices?

Well obviously if both accomplices were to turn on Donnie and say he was the mastermind in all of it, it wouldn't be very good for Donnie. He didn't save any accomplice because they weren't mentioned or brought up, nor ever identified. The only person Donnie had to save at that point was himself, and naming his accomplices would have definitely done more harm than good.

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

9) Julie told her doctor, who has no horse in this race, that she didn't see anyone during the shot. She didn't say she didn't remember, she said she saw nobody. Then this changes to her seeing Donny. I'm not quite sure how we went from seeing nobody to seeing Donny, but even if her statement of seeing Donny during the shooting is correct, it doesn't necessarily mean Donny is the one that shot her. Remember that the shooter was standing next to Donny while the shot was fired. I think it's entirely possible Julie walked down the hall, was obviously surprised by the shot, saw Donny in the background and later made the connection. Interestingly, it seems to be this item that changes her parents feelings on the matter, as they went from believing Donny was innocent to thinking he was guilty.

Again I think this is a non issue. Like you said, even if Donnie wasn't the triggerman, his close proximity to where the shot was fired could have caused her to see him in the blast.

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

10) This is a bunch of things really, but I'm not seeing an apparent motive. Outside of Dana Ewell, I don't think there's a lot of people in the 21 year old age group that try to wipe out entire family. If the goal was to take out the other 4 people in the house, he or whoever certainly did a LOUSY job. I'm still scratching my head wondering how everyone did not actually hear the shots, and there were multiple ones.

If all four had died in the fire, that leaves Donnie to inherit life insurance. I believe that was the motive presented in the segment. But it could have been something else, known only to Donnie.

[RobinW]

Originally Posted by wiseguy182

1) There were 2 unidentified people spotted running away from the trailer the night of the crimes. These people remain unidentified to this day. I want to know what attempts, if any, LE made to find these people. These people may very well be guilty, or at least probably have information, and we know pretty much nothing on them.

Anyone else ever wondered if the neighbors actually saw Donny and Hans running around outside the trailer that night and from a distance, mistakenly thought it was two other people? I could almost see Donny's attorney manipulating the witnesses into believing they saw two strangers since that was the entire lynchpin of Donny's defense.

Don't get me wrong, I've always believed the two men were likely Donny's accomplices and involved in the murders somehow, but I also do find it strange that LE never found out who those guys were. Considering how incompetent Donny seemed to be at planning this crime and covering his tracks, it's kinda surprising he didn't leave some incriminating evidence implicating his accomplices.

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by RobinW

Considering how incompetent Donny seemed to be at planning this crime and covering his tracks, it's kinda surprising he didn't leave some incriminating evidence implicating his accomplices.

That's a very good point. Although if LE focused on Donnie, and thought he was the sole perpetrator, I could see how they didn't actively seek out other leads/suspects because the evidence against him was pretty damning.

[WishfulDreamer]

Just to add to the ''Donnie helped Julie outside'' point, we don't know that he actually did. He claimed that he got her out after the fact (before helping with the fire extinguisher run) but Julie claimed while in the hospital that she bent down and her belly felt like jell-o and she stumbled outside on her own. And I seriously cannot believe that if Donnie was innocent he wouldn't have said, ''Hey, Julie was shot and I got her out, but haven't seen Jill yet!'' Yeah, it would have been chaotic while running back and forth to put out the fire, but I still believe he would have mentioned it.

I never really cared much for the doctor's testimony. She didn't tell him about Donnie's face in the flash, but she told her parents. To me, this is 100% understandable. Would you tell a complete stranger if you thought it was possible that your brother shot you and killed your twin...or would you want to confide in your parents first? I would go with the latter.

[TheUntouchables]

Originally Posted by RobinW

Considering how incompetent Donny seemed to be at planning this crime and covering his tracks, it's kinda surprising he didn't leave some incriminating evidence implicating his accomplices.

The proof of his incompetence lies in the fact that he was left to be the prime suspect.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Also, if it isn't Donnie then there's really no motive for this crime. These two people busted into one trailer to kill people and burn it down and never strike again?

That isn't serial killer behavior, it isn't arsonist behavior, nor does it bear the marks of a random attack for being too well-planned. The only thing that makes sense is that it was planned. But what would it be planned for? What would strangers gain from this sort of attack?

This case only really makes sense if Donnie is the one behind it, in my opinion. He's the only one that gains anything.

[wiseguy182]

Originally Posted by RobinW

Anyone else ever wondered if the neighbors actually saw Donny and Hans running around outside the trailer that night and from a distance, mistakenly thought it was two other people? I could almost see Donny's attorney manipulating the witnesses into believing they saw two strangers since that was the entire lynchpin of Donny's defense.

Don't get me wrong, I've always believed the two men were likely Donny's accomplices and involved in the murders somehow, but I also do find it strange that LE never found out who those guys were. Considering how incompetent Donny seemed to be at planning this crime and covering his tracks, it's kinda surprising he didn't leave some incriminating evidence implicating his accomplices.

Donny apparently shouted at them, so I think that's the confirmation they exist. FWIW, Stack says they saw them "running away from the trailer."

[wiseguy182]

Originally Posted by WishfulDreamer

I never really cared much for the doctor's testimony. She didn't tell him about Donnie's face in the flash, but she told her parents. To me, this is 100% understandable. Would you tell a complete stranger if you thought it was possible that your brother shot you and killed your twin...or would you want to confide in your parents first? I would go with the latter.

Julie had no idea how long she would be alive. If she knew who shot her, I could see her telling her doctor if she didn't know for certain she would ever see her parents again. I didn't have a problem with his testimony. He presumably helped save her life, so I don't see a reason why she wouldn't trust him.