In what could be one of Kansas’ oldest unsolved cold cases that ends in a conviction, a man was sentenced on Thursday, according to Barton County Sheriff Brian Bellendir. On January 24, 1980, Mary Robin Walter’s body was discovered killed at her Nelson Trailer Park residence. The park of mobile homes was close to the airport, west of Great Bend. Walter had been shot several times, and the murder weapon turned out to be a 22-caliber revolver that was discovered at the site.
Mary Robin Walter was discovered slain on January 24, 1980, in Nelson Trailer Park, close to the airport, in her home located west of the city of Great Bend. She was twenty-three years old at the time. Bellendir stated that the Great Bend Police Department provided help to the sheriff’s office while they worked with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation to investigate the matter. Although the Walter family’s neighbor at the time, Steven Hanks, was one of the suspects named, no solid proof was found.
Bellendir stated in a release that “dozens of law enforcement officers looked at the case over the years to no avail.” Detective Sgt. Adam Hales approached me in the middle of 2022 to reopen the case with the new methods and tools that were available at the time of the murder. To be honest, I was a little skeptical when I gave the go-ahead for the use of labor and resources.
According to the sheriff, the case was reopened by Hales, Lieutenant Paden, Detective Travis Doze, and Detective Brian Volkel, who were viewing it with “new eyes.” The sheriff stated, “Organizing an organized case file out of hundreds of documents collected over 40 years was the first order of business.” “Many of the interviews were done decades apart, and some of the documents were missing.” All of it was eventually combined and indexed. Even though no DNA was discovered, the evidence was reexamined and submitted for examination, including DNA testing.
Once more, the Great Bend Police Department, the Kansas Bureau of Investigations, and the sheriff’s office collaborated to determine Mary Ann’s killer. Many of the witnesses and law enforcement personnel who had initially worked the case were no longer with us, despite the fact that numerous interviews were undertaken. An affidavit was brought before the Barton County District Court close to the end of 2022. On December 8, 2022, Hanks was taken into custody when an arrest warrant was obtained, and he was accused of second-degree murder.
Steven Hanks entered a guilty plea to second-degree murder on August 8, 2024, in relation to the 1980 Great Bend, Kansas, killing of 23-year-old Mary Walter Robin. Jessica Domme, an associate deputy attorney general for Kansas, was the case’s principal prosecutor. At a preliminary hearing on April 15, 2024, Hanks was bound over on a charge of second-degree murder. On August 8, 2024, he entered into a plea deal. “A sentence of not less than five years nor more than twenty-five years was the agreement that was reached under the 1980 Kansas Statutes.”
Judge Hon. Steve Johnson of the District Court deviated from the plea deal and gave Hanks a sentence of at least 10 years and up to 25 years. According to Bellendir, “the sentence was 44 years, 7 months, and 19 days from the date of the homicide.” Hanks is still being held by the sheriff’s office, but once the required documentation is received, he will be turned over to the Kansas Department of Corrections.
Personally, I was a senior in high school at the age of eighteen when this murder happened. “I recall it vividly,” Bellendir remarked. “I joined the Sheriff’s Office in 1982 as a reserve deputy and have been a part of the Barton County Sheriff’s Office ever since,” the statement reads. The four sheriffs who came before me, including myself, have all been plagued by this homicide. The fact that so many of the persons who were deeply impacted by this terrible event have now passed away before the suspect was apprehended troubles me.
“I count it a blessing that I had the means and the hardworking staff to wrap up this case. Sheriff Bellendir remarked, “The credit for solving this homicide goes to the committed officers who had the perseverance to bring it to a conviction.
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