Teen Missing After Decade-Long Manhunt for Mom Ends in Suicide
Police, Family Trying to Unravel Clues in Decade-Long Murder Mystery
Life on the Run
Police know Kristopher Loesch was left shortly after his mother's disappearance with Spokane, Wash., attorney Julie Twyford and her husband, Steve Cassel. In 2004, police learned that in 1999 Kristopher Loesch had been sent by Twyford and Cassel to an old family friend's house in Seattle to spend Christmas with his mother and Hanson.
The boy had been enrolled in school under the name Christopher Hanson at that time.
During the years, as the search for Loesch and Hanson grew cold, Post Falls police enlisted the help of anyone they could. They continuously checked for new car registrations, passport applications, credit card purchases -- even the Internal Revenue Service got involved.
"When it started to die down, we pushed harder," McLean said.
But without formal warrants, the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service would not get involved.
Earlier this year, with mounting concern for Kristopher and bringing the women to justice, a new prosecutor agreed to issue warrants for the arrests of Loesch and Hanson on murder charges to get things moving again. Filed on Oct. 10, the warrants were based on Steckman's statements and the knowledge that the women had once researched offshore accounts.
With the warrants in place, Post Falls police contacted "America's Most Wanted," which agreed to run a segment detailing the long, winding story.
Around 11 p.m. on Nov. 15 -- hours after the segment aired -- the Pima County Sheriff's Department in Tucson, Ariz., responded to a report of two possibly deceased women in a white Dodge Durango parked along the side of the road in a rural part of the county.
Inside, police found Loesch and Hanson, both dead from single gun shot wounds to their right temples.
The medical examiner ruled the cause of death a murder-suicide, but Pima County Sheriff's Department Deputy Dawn Barkman said two suicide notes found in the car -- one from Loesch, one from Hanson -- made it clear the women had a suicide pact.
Loesch said he was told that it was his sister who shot Hanson, then turned the gun on herself.
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