44-year-old cold case ends with the sentencing of Mary Robin Walter’s 1980 killer, her neighbor

On September 13, 2024, after an agonizing 44-year wait, law enforcement officials made the announcement that the man found guilty of shooting and killing 23-year-old Mary Robin Walter in her Great Bend, Kansas, trailer back in 1980 has been sentenced for her murder.

According to Kansas’ Barton County Sheriff’s Office, on January 24, 1980, Mary Robin Walter was found murdered in her home west of the city of Great Bend in the Nelson Trailer Park near the airport. She was 23 years of age at the time. She had been shot multiple times by an unknown assailant.

A 22-caliber handgun, later confirmed to be the murder weapon, was recovered at the scene. The Sheriff’s Office investigated the case with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and assistance from the Great Bend Police Department. Suspects were developed and interviewed but no conclusive evidence was discovered. One of the suspects was identified as Steven Hanks, who was a neighbor to the Walters’ family at the time of the homicide. He was 25 years of age at the time.

Over the years, dozens of law enforcement officers looked at the case to no avail. In mid-2022, Walter’s case was reopened utilizing new forensics techniques and technology that was not available at the time of the murder.

The sheriff, Brian J. Bellendir, said he was skeptical authorizing manpower and resources for such an old crime.

But the sleuthing paid off when evidence pointed to Steven L. Hanks as the culprit.

The four-decade wait for justice culminated Thursday in a judge handing down a 10- to 25-year prison sentence to Hanks, now 70.  ~ The Wichita Eagle

The first order of business was to consolidate the hundreds of documents accumulated over 40 years into an organized case file. Many interviews had been conducted decades apart, some documents were missing. Eventually, everything was indexed and consolidated. Evidence was re-examined and submitted for testing including DNA (no DNA was found.) Numerous interviews were conducted.

Detectives from the Sheriff’s Office, the Kansas Bureau of investigation and the Great Bend Police Department all assisted. Many of the witnesses as well as law enforcement officers that were originally involved in the case had died and interviews were not possible.

Eventually, by late 2022 an affidavit was presented to the District Court and an arrest warrant for Steven Hanks was issued. Hanks was arrested on December 8, 2022, and charged with murder and second-degree.

The Kansas Attorney General’s Office prosecuted the case represented by Associate Deputy Attorney General Jessica Domme. On April 15, 2024, Hanks was bound over on a charge of second-degree murder in a preliminary hearing. By August 8, 2024, a plea agreement was reached, sentencing was scheduled for September 12, 2024.

The agreement that was reached under the 1980 Kansas Statutes was for a sentence of not less than 5 years and not more than 25 years. At the sentencing hearing Barton County District Court Judge Honorable Steve Johnson departed upward from the plea agreement and sentenced Hanks to not less than 10 years and not more than 25 years. Hanks remains in the custody of the Sheriff’s Office and will be released to the Kansas Department of Corrections upon receipt of the necessary paperwork.

Officials stated that they believed this is the oldest cold case in the State of Kansas to be solved and result in a conviction. From the date of the homicide to the sentencing was 44 years, 7 months and 19 days.

Sheriff Bellendir said that he was 18 years old and a senior in high school when this homicide occurred, and he remembers the event well. By 1982, he had started with the Sheriff’s Office as a reserve deputy and has been associated with the Barton County Sheriff’s Office ever since. He worked for the four Sheriff’s that preceded him, adding that this homicide had “haunted all of us.”

 It bothers me that many of the people who were so affected by this tragic crime have since passed away prior to bringing the suspect to justice. I consider myself fortunate that I had the resources and the diligent personnel to close this case. The credit for solving this homicide goes to the dedicated officers that had the tenacity to bring it to a conviction.

The Sheriff went on to to thank the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, the Great Bend Police Department as well as the Office of the Kansas Attyorney General for their assistance.

For more on the 1980 murder of Mary Robin Walter and the subsequent arrest of Steven L. Hanks more than four decades later, see the video accompanying this article.

–

(Source and all images: Barton County Sheriff’s Office)

Posted by Richard Webster, Ace News Today
Follow Richard on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram