1 of 6: The Beginning

Rachel Hansen was nineteen years old when she was killed. As she was shot inside her own apartment. A call came in to Gilbert Please just after two am on June fourth, from Rachel herself, saying she'd been shot by an unknown person. As months continue to go by, her family can't help but think that there's people out there that are withholding information. Someone knows something. As an investigative journalist and podcast producer, I come across so many heartbreaking cases, cases that go unsolved, and many that grow cold over the years. These families are desperate for answers, hoping and praying that one day their loved ones will get the justice they deserve. One case really caught my attention and shocked me, not because of the crime itself, but because of all the unknowns surrounding the case. This case is not cut and dry, and it leaves you not only frustra traded, but scratching your head wondering what actually happened and why. I knew this case was one that I needed to investigate. My heart broke for this family and it sparked that fire in me to help in the best way I know how, tell their story and help bring more awareness to this case and hopefully get the answers that this family deserves. Over the course of this season, I dive into timelines, theories, and the tragic story of a beautiful, loving, and talented nineteen year old girl who was brutally murdered inside her own apartment just days before her twentieth birthday. I'm Jen Rivera and this is the unseen truth the Murder of Rachel Hansen. This is episode one, the beginning. It's June twenty twenty two, and Rachel Hansen is living out her dream. She's engaged to her fiance, Joe Matt, She's running a successful business, and recently moved into an apartment closer to her parents' home. Everything seems to be going exactly how she's planned. But as Rachel is getting settled into her apartment and starting the next chapter of her life, everything would come to an unexpected and tragic To understand this case, we have to take it back to the beginning, where Rachel's story began. Rachel Anne Hansen was born on June twelfth, two thousand and two, and was known by her birth name Rochelle. Early on in her life, Rachel experienced an immense amount of tragedy and trauma. When she was just three years old, her birth mother abandoned Rachel and her younger sister. Her mother went out to buy milk and never returned. Soon after, Rachel and her sister were placed in the foster care system, which was incredibly traumatizing for both of them. When she was in kindergarten, Rachel came home from school and found the person she was living with at the time deceased on the floor of their apartment. It was then that she was taken to the child Crisis Center before being placed with the foster family. Rachel lived with this foster family for several months as severance proceedings took place, and her case was transferred to the adoption's unit. Not long after, in two thousand and eight, Kim and Todd Hanson, a couple from Gilbert, Arizona, were notified about Rachel's case. You see, the Hansons adopted Rachel's biological sister a few years earlier, and they were thrilled to welcome Rachel into their family. Despite this wonderful news and being reunited with her sister, Rachel thought the family she was living with was her forever family and home. This caused familiar feelings of abandonment for Rachel, and she struggled with those feelings in the beginning, but she would soon realize how amazing her new family and new life would be. On February fourteenth, two thousand and nine, Rachel was officially introduced to the Hanson family, and just three months later, they adopted her. She was so excited for this new chapter and was thrilled to have her new family. But there was one request that Rachel had, and at only six years old, she wasn't afraid to sit Kim down and ask her if she can change her name. You see, all the children in the family had names from the Bible that had special meanings, including her biological sister, so Rachel wanted a name that was special and was a representation of this new chapter and her new life. Kim, being the amazing mother that she is, told Rachel she would support her in whatever she wanted to do and agreed to let her change her name, so she chose the name Rachel Anne. Rachel's brother Matt shares his memory of Rachel joining the family and changing her name. After Rachel came to us from her foster family who was original our doctor and chose not to. Unfortunately, that gave us the opportunity to adopt Rachel and for her to come into our family. She actually chose her name, name that she knows by. Rachel was her her choice. When we were adopting her, she asked if she could pick any name that she wanted, and she chose that name because for most of us, all of us have biblical senses for her backgrounds of her names, such as for me and Matthew, everyone the name is Zach and her and so on and so forth. So she picked her name to kind of be with the rest everyone and kind of welcome herself into our family. Despite the challenges in trauma and Rachel's early childhood, Rachel was strong, determined, resilient, and fearless. Although the impact of her trauma and early life experiences stuck with her, the love and support from Kim and Todd helped Rachel truly start to enjoy her childhood. She loved animals, especially horses, and she would always talk to Kim about how much she would love to have a horse of her her own. And she used to kind of sit on the back of the horse fencing that we have back there with our horse dolls or our chicken cons and everything are now. And she used to kind of just stare at the horse dolls and be like, Oh, I really wish we had a horse, you know, something that I could take care of and I could ride, and I could experience the first time, and how she was talking with mom and Mom and I actually gotten rid of all the horses after all the years of us not being active anymore than her ears, and so Mom went out and put her a horse, and that kind of just led her into her love of everything horses and dogs and animals. This was a dream Kim knew she wanted to fulfill for Rachel, since the Hansons were all too familiar with caring for horses and even had a few that lived on their farm prior to Rachel joining their family. So Kim and Todd bought Rachel a horse named Dixie, and despite not having any riding lessons, Rachel wasn't natural. Robin, a close family friend, recounts her initial encounter with Rachel and how incredible she was with her horse at such a young age. I had a horse, still have that horse that I decided to put up for sale because I was afraid to rider, because she was unpredictable and gave me all kinds of trouble. And I'm an experienced writer, and I was having that trouble with her, and so I put a for sale ad for her, and twenty minutes after that, I got a call from her mother, from Rachel's mother, and I learned that Rachel was twelve years old. She was looking for a barrel racing horse. Well, I didn't know if my horse would be right for that, but they wanted to come look at her, so they did, and Rachel just fell in love with my horse. And I thought, she is twelve years old and she handled this horse, and her mom Tim said, oh, yeah, she can handle her, which proved to be true. Well, it turned out that my horse was not a barrel racing material, and Rachel was just grieved that it turned out that way, but she still came over and rode her and threw her work on my horse, and also showing me a couple of strategies. She changed my life with this horse. She changed my horse, and she changed you know the course of me keeping this horse. It's been years now, Rachel, she just had so much ambition, and this little girl just seemed like she could conquer anything that she took on. Throughout the years we had stayed in contact with each other. They lived in a neighborhood behind me, and she'd come over and ride my horse, and I wound up giving her one of my horses to teach. Another little girl that was six years old at the time that she met at the Riparian Park and she had given her ride on her horse. And this little girl's mother had died and she was a very troubled little kid, and Rachel just reached out to her and taught her how to ride, and her adoptive parents were so grateful because it radically changed this little six year old's life. Therapy, nothing was helping her, but the horses were helping her and they were just very therapeutic for and Rachel really changed this little girl's life. It was amazing, through you know, horses, how she touched people and she just was absolutely fearless. At only fourteen years old, Rachel started teaching horse writing lessons and had several horses over her teenage years that she worked with, including one that she had an incredible bond with named Dash Rachel loved her horses and invested so much of her time training and caring for them. Aside from her passion for horses, Rachel loved being outdoors and was very active in sports, including wrestling, soccer, and football. She was also very dedicated to her studies, and at just sixteen years old, she graduated high school early and started her own business where she would train, hall, sell, and find horses for clients. Her mother, Kim, and her friend Cheyenne share their memories of Rachel and the amazing person that she was. I can definitely say I called her my little firecracker, her little spitfire. She just was so full of life and energy and ambition, and she just always amazed me with all the things that she wanted to do and always got involved in. There was never a dull moment with Rachel around. She all. She just was so giving and helped so many people in different situations. I just remember when I don't know, I don't I don't know if it was our church or if it was what it was exactly, but somebody was collecting canned food for people that needed it for a food bank or something. And she when she was ten years old, and she was so amazed by that and just thought it was the most important thing in the world to do. She walked around the block and knocked on every single neighbor's door and said she was collecting canned food for the food bank and could they bring her eight or ten cans. And she came back, that little girl, pulling this wagon full of canned food and things for the food bank. That's just how she was. She just jumped in and got in the middle of everything and did anything she could to help, which I was just always amazed by that, and I just really respected her for that because at that age, you know, at sixteen seventeen, eighteen, kiddos are usually a lot more selfish and more you know, worried about what they're doing and where their life is going then reaching out helping others, and she just really always did that in so many different ways. It's beautiful. I'm seenne. I initially met Rachel through doing her lashes. I am a lash tech and one of our mutual friends, Kaylin, she introduced her to me, and immediately it was just like positive vibes coming from Rachel from the second I started talking to her. To her first appointment. And when you do the line of business that I do, you know, when you're a girl you go get services done, It's like you open up in so many ways and you really get to know who you're working with, and you build such great bonds with people. And I got to know Rachel really, really well through that. In the spring of twenty twenty two, Rachel was ready for the next chapter of her life. She's celebrating so many milestones and is ready to take her business to the next level. This, however, will lead to a devastating encounter and will lead to a series of events that will change the course of Rachel's life forever. The Unseen Truth is a Reignited Media production and is hosted and produced by me Gen Rivera. Make sure to follow Unseen Truth Podcast on social media and visit Unseen Truth podcast dot com for more case information. If you'd like to support the show, please consider liking and sharing this podcast so I can continue my efforts in being a voice for the voiceless, and if you'd like to get more involved in helping families who have loved ones who are missing or have unsolved cases like the ones I cover on The Unseen Truth Please visit Shores of Strength dot org to learn more about the advocacy work behind this production and how you can help