Kansas Cold Case Ends 44 Years Later as Man Is Sentenced for Killing His Former Neighbor in 1980

Published on September 15, 2024

GREAT BEND, Kan.—More than 44 years after a nursing student was slain in her trailer home in central Kansas, her former neighbor has been sentenced to 10 to 25 years in prison for killing her. The investigation into the Jan. 24, 1980, shooting death of Mary Robin Walter, 23, of Great Bend, had gone cold until 2022, when a detective persuaded Barton County Sheriff Brian Bellendir to reopen the case and use technology and techniques that weren’t available at the time. The new evidence pointed to Steven L. Hanks, who was 25 at the time and had been a suspect early on. The Kansas Attorney General’s Office said in a statement Friday that it was Hanks’ admission in new interviews that allowed authorities to charge him in 2022, when he was living in Burden, Kansas....

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