Solved cold cases in Kansas
1 documented case.
Mary Robin Walter
Mary Robin Walter, a 23-year-old wife, mother and nursing student, was shot to death in her mobile home at the Nelson Trailer Park west of Great Bend, Kansas, on the evening of January 24, 1980. Her husband, Douglas Walter, found her body when he returned home around 6:40 p.m. A neighbor, Steven Lawrence Hanks, was suspected early on but never charged for lack of evidence, and the case went cold for more than four decades. In April 2022 a Barton County Sheriff's detective reopened the investigation; new DNA recovered from the victim using M-Vac technology, combined with re-interviews in which Hanks admitted his role, led to his arrest in December 2022. Hanks pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in August 2024 and was sentenced to 10 to 25 years in prison, in what authorities called the oldest Kansas cold case ever solved and resulting in a conviction.