Kansas sheriff announces sentencing for man in 44-year-old murder case

On Friday, Barton County Sheriff Brian Bellendir wrote about the conviction of the suspect in an unsolved murder case in Barton County.

BARTON COUNTY – On January 24, 1980, Mary Robin Walter was found murdered in her home west of the town of Great Bend in the Nelson Trailer Park near the airport.

She was 23 years old at the time. She had been shot several times by an unknown attacker. A .22 caliber pistol was recovered at the crime scene and was later identified as the murder weapon.

The Sheriff's Office investigated the case with assistance from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and Great Bend Police. Suspects were identified and interviewed, but no conclusive evidence was found.

One of the suspects was identified as Steven Hanks, who was a neighbor of the Walters family at the time of the murder. He was 25 years old at the time. Over the years, dozens of police officers investigated the case to no avail. In mid-2022, I was asked by Detective Sgt. Adam Hales to reopen the case using new techniques and technology available at the time of the murder.

To be honest, I was a little skeptical about approving the use of personnel and resources. Hales, along with Lieutenant Paden, Detective Travis Doze, and Detective Brian Volkel, reopened the case and looked at it with fresh eyes.

The first order of business was to consolidate the hundreds of documents that had accumulated over 40 years into an organized case file. Many interviews were decades apart, some documents were missing. Eventually everything was indexed and consolidated. Under the direction of Sgt. Hales, the evidence was re-examined and submitted for examination, including DNA testing. (No DNA was found.)

Numerous interviews were conducted, with investigators from the Sheriff's Office, Kansas Bureau of Investigation and Great Bend Police Department assisting. Many of the witnesses and police officers originally involved in the case had died and interviews were not possible.

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

The Kansas Attorney General's Office prosecuted the case under the representation of Assistant Attorney General Jessica Domme. On April 15, 2024, Hanks was charged with second-degree murder in a preliminary hearing.

A plea agreement was reached to expire on August 8, 2024, and sentencing was set for September 12, 2024. The agreement, reached under Kansas law from 1980, called for a prison sentence of no less than 5 years and no more than 25 years.

At sentencing, the Honorable Barton County District Court Judge Steve Johnson deviated from the agreement and sentenced Hanks to a term of not less than 10 nor more than 25 years in prison.

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 documentation. We believe this is the oldest unsolved case in the state of Kansas that has been solved and resulted in a conviction. From the date of the murder to the date of the verdict was 44 years, 7 months and 19 days.

Personally, I was 18 years old and a senior in high school when this murder occurred. I remember it well. I started as a reserve deputy with the Sheriff's Office in 1982 and have been associated with the Barton County Sheriff's Office ever since.

I have worked for the four sheriffs who have served before me, and this murder has haunted all of us. It troubles me that many of the people who were so affected by this tragic crime have since passed away before the suspect could be brought to justice. I consider myself fortunate to have had the resources and hardworking staff to close this case. The credit for solving this murder goes to the dedicated officers who had the tenacity to bring him to a conviction. The Sheriff's Office would like to thank the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, the Great Bend Police Department, and the Kansas Attorney General's Office for their assistance.