Willow Creek, California, is about 250 miles north of San Francisco. Hans and Betty Hansen moved to this quiet community in 1971, three years after they were married. Hans operated a logging supply business in a warehouse next to the couple's mobile home. The Hansen family grew to include four children, Donny, Becky, and two twin girls, Jill and Julie. According to Hans, his twin daughters were kind to everyone:

"Jill and Julie were good kids. They were a little shy. They would kind of be more friendly to underdog people and they were real popular girls in school. So if a new person came to school or something, that wasn't taken in so much by the other people, they would befriend them."

For Betty and Hans, life was close to perfect, until the night of November 14, 1986. At around 11 PM, the 16-year-old twins were in their room, preparing for bed. Their half-brother, Donny, age 21, was visiting from the town of Fortuna, 70 miles away. He planned to sleep on the living room couch. Then at around 3:00 AM, Betty Hansen suddenly awoke. She smelled smoke and woke up Hans. Their mobile home was on fire. Hans grabbed a fire extinguisher and tried to put out the flames:

"I shot that fire extinguisher down the hall, it burnt right back up. There was a strip in the middle of that hallway burning. That's real odd that coming back in a strip like that. And still no, I got no response from anybody. I was yelling all three of their names and then exited the house. As I ran out the door, I kicked the gas can out of the way, not really thinking much of it 'til I got a few steps away, thinking that gas can shouldn't have been there. It was empty because I felt how it was empty when I kicked it."

As Betty ran up the hallway to warn her everyone of the fire, the first person she saw was her son, Donny:

"…he was standing at the end of the couch, where I think he slept that night and he didn't see me. And he's screaming in a horrible voice, he's screaming get out of here, real loud and running, chasing. And so right away I was afraid for him, what was happening, who he was chasing out."

Betty ran to the warehouse, where several fire extinguishers were stored. She was met first by Donny, then by Hans. Hans searched for a ladder:

"I got a ladder and came to Jill's room and just shoved that ladder right through the window. That room was totally in flames, totally engulfed in flames. And I didn't get any response or see anybody."

According to Hans, Betty and Donny continuously returned to the warehouse for fire extinguishers:

"I remember asking Donny as we were chasing back and forth for fire extinguishers, did you see anybody. And he said no, he didn't see anything."

Fire trucks responded to the scene within 15 minutes. Minutes later, a neighbor noticed a crumpled figure in a vacant lot across the road. It was Julie Hansen and she was nearly dead, bleeding from a gaping wound in her stomach. Hans recalled the terrifying moments that followed:

"I heard somebody yell from across the street, we found one of them or something like that. Then the next thing, Donny came running up on the deck and he said we found Julie. Julie's out, I got her out. And my first question to him was how bad is she burned. And he didn't give me an answer."

Hans claimed that it was only after Julie was discovered, that Donny took credit for having pulled her from the fire. But according to Betty Hansen, that apparent discrepancy was quickly overshadowed by concern for Julie:

"When I saw Julie, I thought there was no way she could live. Her stomach was just open, blown open. And so I ran back across the street and I just went from one fireman to the other one, begging them to please go in and find Jill. And then I'd run back across the street and to see how Julie was doing. And each time I went back across the street, I was surprised she was still alive."

Emergency personnel rushed Julie to the hospital, believing her stomach injury had been caused by some kind of fire-related explosion. But in surgery, doctors made a shocking discovery. Julie Hansen had been shot in the abdomen at point blank range with a 12-gauge shotgun. Hans was shocked when he heard the news:

"Well, I about fell off my chair then because that was the first I'd known anything about any shooting at all. And I still couldn't figure out… who could've hated us this much to make an attack on our house like this."

Daylight brought still more unbearable news. Jill's body was found in the ruins. An autopsy later confirmed that Jill had also been wounded by shotgun fire. Unable to flee, she had perished in the flames. Authorities recovered three shotgun shells and another five-gallon gas can from the ashes.

The Hansen's warehouse was untouched by the fire and investigators examined every square inch for clues. Behind some boxes they found a 12-gauge shotgun. Ballistics tests later proved it was the weapon used to shoot Jill and Julie Hansen.

The entire Hansen property was cordoned off and kept under round-the-clock surveillance. Two days after the fire, in the early morning, the officer on duty caught a prowler outside the warehouse. It was Donny. Detective George Gatto of the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department was called to the scene. Donny told Detective Gatto that he had come to feed the family dog:

"He knew the dog had been taken to a neighbor's… He knew the dog was not there. And that's when we figured that the reason he was there, he was there to get the shotgun, because he didn't know we had found it yet."

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.

There was only one person who could confirm the growing suspicions—Julie Hansen. Approximately two weeks after the fire, she had recovered enough to tell her parents what had happened. According to Hans, Julie recalled being shot, but not seeing anyone:

"She said she crawled over her sister… so her sister was still asleep in the bed beside her… and stepped out of her bedroom door and bang… she saw the flash and she thought a bomb went off. And she said she reached down and felt her belly. It was like a bowl of jelly."

As Hans and Betty asked more questions, Julie had a chilling flashback. She claimed to have seen Donny's face before being shot. Two weeks after the fire, Donny Hansen voluntarily met with Detective Gatto for further questioning:

"He kept saying he was innocent. He failed the polygraph twice and when I interviewed him he kept denying everything. Because every time it was a different story with him."

The interrogation lasted two hours. When Donny emerged, he was in handcuffs, facing trial on charges of arson and murder. Betty Hansen was stunned:

"That was a pretty low point in my life to see my son arrested for the murder of my daughter. It was just unbelievable. And I kept thinking, when am I going to wake up. When's this going to end?"

But the nightmare was far from over. 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.

In April of 1988, Donny Hansen went on trial for the murders of his half-sisters, Jill and Julie. Terry R. Farmer, the Humboldt County District Attorney, was confident enough to ask for the death penalty:

"The defendant, Donald Hansen, brought the gun that was the murder weapon to the scene. He brought the shotgun shells that killed those two girls. He hid the murder weapon and he lied about all of those things. That was strong evidence."

However, Donny's lawyer introduced testimony from the Hansen's' neighbors. They claimed to have seen two unidentified men near the trailer while it was on fire. Their sighting became the cornerstone of a defense theory designed to show that Donny Hansen was innocent. William Bragg was Donny's attorney:

"There were a tremendous number of unanswered facts and occurrences that happened that night that the prosecution couldn't explain and which were not consistent with Donny having been involved. I was able to come up with at least a suggested scenario that tied the majority of the unanswered factual questions together."

Bragg claimed that around 3:00 AM, two intruders approached the Hansen's trailer:

"The person had found Donny's shotgun outside and for whatever reason decided to bring it inside with some shells. Picked the lock. Came through the sliding glass door. They just spread the gasoline around the living room area at the front of the trailer, the kitchen. At some point during the activities of the perpetrator, Julie was awakened… and walks in on the perpetrator. And he shoots her as she's coming out the hallway. And she goes down, that's what wakes Donny up. Donny picks Julie up, takes her out on the front porch, deposits her there."

According to the defense, at least one of the assailants was still in the trailer after Hans, Betty, and Donny escaped. It was only then that Jill was shot.

Terry Farmer and the prosecution disagreed with that theory:

"If you're going to commit a murder, don't you bring the instruments to do that job? Don't you bring the gun if you're going to burn down the house, don't you bring the gas. How convenient for them that both of these items just happened to be provided by Donald Hansen, makes no sense."

However, the jury believed it did make sense and they found Donny Hansen not guilty. For Hans Hansen, Donny's acquittal was a crushing blow:

"This has been a real tragedy for us because we have lost three out of our four children out of this. Two of them are dead and Donny's dead to me, because I do feel he was 100% responsible for this, whether he pulled it off 100% himself or not."

Since the trial, Donny has moved and changed his name. His account of the events that took place the night of his sister's murders is still the subject of debate. Although his attorney claimed Donny was awakened by the shotgun blast, Donny now has since changed his story and said he never heard the shot:

"No one that was in that trailer that night heard any blast. I don't know how I didn't hear it. I don't know how any of us didn't hear it."

Another nagging question is why Donny removed the shotgun from his car before anyone knew that a shotgun had been involved, or even that a crime had been committed:

"I don't really know why I moved it, other than… I didn't want… someone to steal it… someone find the gun… thinking oh I did this. You know if it was used in the commission of this crime. At that time, I didn't know if it had been or not."

However, with all the circumstantial evidence against him, Donny still maintained his innocence:

"The accusations that I know what went on that night are absolutely ludicrous because I had absolutely everything to lose and nothing to gain. You know. And the fact to let someone get away with what they did to Jill and Julie tears me up."

The whole truth about this hideous crime may never be known. A jury has acquitted Donny Hansen, but his mother Betty has not:

"You go on but life is never the same. And you can build a new house or buy a new car, but you can't… bring back the girls. And all we have left is memories. And it's really rough."