Rachel Hansen is well known in the Gilbert community as a Bonafide horse whisperer. At 14, Rachel is teaching younger children to ride and breaking yearlings. Rachel is a great student, the only girl on the football team, and a star soccer player. She is so accomplished, she graduates high school early at just 16 years old. After graduating, Rachel runs a busy horse training business, AZ Hansen Horses, finding and breaking wild horses for clients. Rachel also makes a deal with a ranch owner in Queens Creek to live and work on the property as a trainer

While living and working on the ranch in Queen’s Creek, Rachel’s relationship with the owner begins to break down. There’s a payment dispute over a deal to breed Rachel’s mare, Dash, and Rachel gets in an accident while transporting horses, damaging a horse trailer. The owner tells Rachel she won’t be paying her for her last month of work and will no longer be needing her services. Rachel removes all of her belongings from the property, and makes plans to move into an apartment that she’s currently subletting to other tenants next week.

Rachel moves some of her belongings to the apartment, and while still very bare, it’s enough to sleep in. Rachel decides to spend the night. Around midnight, Rachel wakes up to someone standing over her. Rachel screams and the intruder runs out. It appears they had a key! Rachel’s fiancé, comes straight away to help replace her lock with one from his father’s house. He suggests calling police, but Rachel is convinced the intruder simply didn’t realize the previous tenants moved out.

Just after 2 a.m. Rachel Hansen calls 911 and says, “Someone broke in and shot me.” The dispatcher gets Rachel’s address and tries to help her stop the bleeding while police and paramedics are on the way. Rachel says she doesn’t have any kind of cloth or towel near her to use, and the dispatcher notes that Rachel is less and less responsive and it sounds like she’s about to pass out. The dispatcher notes that the shooter has left the apartment, but warns officers to be vigilant.

An officer finds her crumpled to the floor of her bathroom with a gunshot wound to the chest. As another officer sweeps the apartment, he finds blood and a spent shell casing in Rachel’s bed. Officers note that the apartment seems oddly empty, but there are no signs of a struggle, and Rachel’s jewelry and other valuables are untouched. The case is still unsolved.

Joining Nancy Grace today:

• Kim Hansen - Mother
• Justin Yentes - Criminal Defense Investigator at Arizona Investigative Associates; website: https://azprivateinvestigator.com/; Host: Truth Be Found Podcast with Justin Yentes on Spotify; IG: @truthbefoundposcast
• Dr. Brie Pileggi - Board Certified Forensic Psychologist at Veritas Forensic Psychology, www.veritasforensicpsychology.com, IG and FB: @veritasforensicpsych
• Dr. Eric Eason - Certified Forensic Pathologist, consultant, Instagram: @eric_a_eason, Facebook: Eric August Eason, LinkedIn: Eric Eason, MD
• Ashley Holden - Reporter ABC15 Phoenix, AZ; www.abc15.com; IG & FB: @ashleyvholdentv

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