You can listen to episode five of “Aren’t You the Girl?” Podcast here or anywhere else you like to listen to podcasts.
In 1965 in a quiet neighborhood on a late Summer night, a peeping Tom and repeat sexual offender took 14 year old Barbara Iversen from a home where she was babysitting two young children.
Today in Minnesota, the law that stems from her case is still a controversial topic.
In this episode of “Aren’t You the Girl?” I’ll be covering the abduction and murder of Barbara Iversen and the dangerous sexual offender law in Minnesota that’s keeping people like Timothy Crosby away from society.
To really understand how a dangerous sexual psychopathic offender works, I want to share the case of Barbara Iversen and serial predator and murderer Dennis Linehan.
The 1965 case that eventually led into a 1994 law in Minnesota to keep people like Linehan away from the public.
The men who still pose a great threat to society if left on their own.
Barbara’s case is eerily similar to the disappearance of Timothy’s Eagle Lake neighbor Belinda Vanlith in 1974. A peeping Tom situation that escalated into entering the home to assault them then eventually kill them.
Only difference is a confession leading to the body of 14 year old Barbara. To this day, Belinda has never been located.
Minnesota is somewhat infamous for our strict policies on sexually dangerous predators. If an offender shows a pattern of assault, they are immediately placed into Moose Lake Treatment center after they serve the time sentenced to them. Where they’ll stay until they die for most who are placed there.
It’s controversial because technically they did serve their time. But if they continue to show they are a threat to the public, it becomes a public safety issue to everyone else.
I personally believe we need places like this. Tim’s story is a huge reason why I have this belief.
But the one big example that set these laws into place was the case of Barbara Iversen.
I want to share her story with Minnesota as a way to remember and honor Barbara.
Barbara disappeared on June 9th, 1965 while babysitting only three doors away from her own home in suburban shoreview.
Barbara was spending the night at the Hansen home as she frequently did before. The Hansen’s both worked night shifts and Barbara would watch the three small children as they slept.
When Mr. Hansen left that night, Barbara was in the home.
When Mrs. Hansen arrived at 3am, she found Barbara was gone.
While the kids slept, Barbara planned to work on a pattern for a beach jacket. She had purchased the material the day before and it was found pinned to the cloth. The work was undisturbed on the table.
The door was unlocked and the lights and television were turned on. Her clothes were neatly stacked. Missing with her were her pj’s and a pair of tennis shoes.
Mrs. Hansen was surprised to not see Barbara but wasn’t immediately alarmed. She thought that she had gone home for a minute and didn’t come back because she saw she was home from work. It’s important to note that Barbara lived only a few houses away.
The following morning at 9am, her brother arrives at the Hansen’s to pick up Barbara and immediately they realize something was very wrong and the police are called.
Neighbors reported they heard screaming the night before and a car screeching with a noisy muffler. However, no one called the police.
A huge search across the nation ignited.
George Iversen was absolutely destroyed over his daughter’s disappearance and he took a temporary leave from work to search for Barbara aided by friends and his four brothers.
Sadly, it was a miserable experience for the Iversen family. They received prank calls from people who were asking to speak with Barbara. The police rammed into his car and refused to pay to fix it so he was left without a vehicle to try to search for his daughter.
June 19th, George Iversen finds one of Barbara’s tennis shoes during a search along with three of her hair curlers. The discoveries lead to greater searches of the area but turned up nothing more.
The 23,000 acre game farm was combed intensively after the items were found.
Three helicopters and seventy recruits from the Twin Cities U.S Naval Air station were pressed into service.
Nothing more was recovered.
At the end of June, searches were halted.
More than 500 people were questioned in her case but still they had nothing. The Iversen family were told nothing by police and felt totally out of control.
Barbara’s birthday was June 28th and it was painful for her family. George said,
“We tried not to think about her birthday. How could it be any worse than it’s been? Yet it was.”
Dennis Linehan first came into question when it was learned he had an aunt and uncle who were living across the street from the Hansen home she was babysitting.
Since July 16th, Dennis had been held in Anoka County on felony charges not related to Barbara. He was held on breaking and entering and two counts of indecent assault.
The offenses occurred July 15th in Lexington Village. A week after Barbara disappeared.
Two girls, ages 11 and 12, were molested by an intruder in their home. The intruder threatened to murder them by stabbing them with a knife if they refused.
The intruder was Dennis Linehan.
Dennis was a husband and father. On July 30th, his wife Marianne had asked for protection against Dennis for herself and their two children.
Around this time Dennis gave two written confessions saying he was responsible for Barbara’s murder.
Dennis Linehan was 25 years old. Brown hair, blue eyes and numerous tattoos including “mom” and “love.”
Dennis Linehan was drinking heavily during the day of June 9th and then went window peeping in the Shoreview area. Saying he regularly peeped into houses.
He saw Barbara in the home and said he became aroused when he saw her reclined on the couch.
After partially unscrewing a light bulb leading to the kitchen, he knocked on the front door.
When Barbara opened the door, he asked for a fake person. He then told her that someone was in his car that wanted to see her then took her arm to try to lead her there.
Barbara started struggling and screaming when she realized the car was empty.
He dragged the red pajama clad Barbara into his car while she screamed for help. He tried to cover her mouth then sped off. Multiple people reported to hear Barbara screaming for help.
Somehow Barbara ended up strangled. His story changed multiple times.
He drove to New Brighton where he drank more than carried her body to the underbrush of a refuge. He went home and immediately told his wife.
The next day Dennis and his wife move Barbara’s body from the refuge to a well near Stanchfield.
On June 11th, the couple buried her body near a rural road.
When asked why he took Barbara outside he said he had, “sex emotion” and added,
“I didn’t really have anything particular in mind. I was just going to talk to her and monkey around.”
Mrs. Linehan is the one who led police to Barbra’s shallow grave, confirming her part.
Barbara’s body was beyond recognition but one foot bore a tennis shoe matching the one her father George had found earlier.
She was identified by comparing x-rays with others taken in 1959 and 1961.
After 6 weeks, the Iversen family can finally take their first born home.
Barbara’s mother with her hair in curlers sat with friends and family around the kitchen table talking quietly. She had stayed home to take care of the other 4 children while George spent night and day searching for his daughter. Saying at night he was so tired he’d sort of just collapsed into bed. He had not been eating well and was admittedly becoming very numb.
August 6, 1965 Ramsey County charged Linehan with murder in the first degree, murder in the third degree, and kidnapping. He was deemed competent to stand trial.
In September Dennis tendered a plea of guilty to murder in the third degree on the theory that acceptance of this plea would bar prosecution on the other counts appearing in the indictment. The plea was rejected.
Dennis Linehan was sentenced to 40 years for the kidnapping and murder of Barbara Iversen.
Dennis Linehan’s controversy began in the early 1970’s when he shared his achievements in prison so far publicly in newspapers.
Dennis has always loved the press.
So far he had gotten married, completed 4 years of high school, completed a business course and even a course in criminology.
He also announced a new relationship with God and was clean from alcohol. He wished to be a free man in society.
He was paroled after serving 7 years of a 40 year sentence.
The father of Barbara couldn’t understand how Dennis could get paroled so early on saying,
“Just one year after he made a guy a vegetable with a hammer in the prison.”
George was referring to the attack of a fellow inmate by Dennis Linehan but was justified because he was only resisting a homosexual attack.
George went on to say that Dennis was a conman, able to escape serious punishment by convincing people he has changed his ways.
Telling newspapers,
“The way he talks you’d think he was in there on a drunk rap.”
After a huge backlash, Dennis’s parole was overturned.
Dennis escaped prison on June 20th, 1975 and was found 12 days later in Michigan where he was charged with two sexual charges involving a twelve year old.
He attempted to sexually assault a 12 year old girl in a ditch before people came onto the scene and rescued her.
George Iversen was very angry that Dennis was allowed to escape Stillwater Prison. Dennis simply just walked out. George compiled a thick file on Dennis telling reporters,
“As near as I can gather. Linehan has had 38 arrests from the time he was 12.”
George compiled a long letter for the Niles, Michigan Daily Star.
The letter deals with Linehan’s crimes over the years and his opinion of him. He decided against sending it for publication as it could be considered prejudicial pretrial publicity affecting Linehan’s Michigan charges.
George wanted Dennis to be charged consecutively rather than concurrently.
“Let him do 25 years there and then come back and do his Minnesota time,” said George.
Linehan ended up serving a few years in Michigan before returning back to Minnesota to serve out the remainder of his sentence for Barbara.
In 1992, controversy arose again when it was announced Dennis would be paroled. Dennis was an extreme flight risk. He had escaped six times while serving his time.
In Feb. 1993 he told hospital staff he was fantasising raping after an escorted visit to St. Paul.
When asked if it was safe with him on the street he said,
“Not with that thinking in my mind.”
Sue Iversen was 9 years old when her older sister Barbara was murdered. At this time in the 1990s she was getting strange phone calls like,
“Your dad is dead – who is going to protect you now?”
Even when she changed her phone number.
Sue feared Linehan would hurt others if he was ever released to the public. Sue said,
“He took away Barbara’s right to life, to be a kid, to be an adult.
Why are we so concerned about his rights?”
The State tried to have him committed. In July 1994, the Minnesota Supreme Court held that he needed to be released because the State “failed to prove that Linehan had an utter lack of power to control his sexual impulses.”
There’s been a reign of terror when Dennis Linehan has been free. He admitted to nine sexual assaults of women and children. It was finally said,
“Nine is enough in the states eyes”
The Sexually Dangerous Person Act: 1994.
Reacting to the Linehan decision for parole, the Minnesota Legislature enacted the Minnesota Civil Commitment and Treatment Act, which provided for the commitment of an individual found by the court to be a “sexually dangerous person” or a “sex psychopathic personality”.
Generally speaking, they must be found to have an utter lack of power to control sexual impulses; and is a person who has engaged in harmful sexual conduct, has manifested a sexual mental disorder, and is likely to engage in future acts of sexual misconduct.
Under this standard, Linehan was again committed.
The mother of Dennis Linehan described her son in 1965 as so gentle. She recalled at the time of Barbara’s death that he had a police record but hoped police wouldn’t,
“Try to pin something on him because of the record.”
Dennis’s father said his son was,
“As nice a guy as you ever want to meet.”
Adding that he loved children and frequently babysat. Though admitting his son had an anger issue. Saying his son could turn just like that. His temper would flare up over nothing at all.
His mother said Dennis was highly emotional and would cry sometimes hysterically when his feelings were hurt.
Even as a man at 25, he often broke down and cried.
His family said Dennis was like two people. One affable and gentle. The other hot, tempered and wild.
“He was more considerate with kids than a mother could be.” His sister added.
His family knew Dennis had a past – they just couldn’t believe he could actually kill Barbara. Blaming a previous head injury for why he killed her.
His father shook his head and said,
“It isn’t the bumps on the outside of his head that have been the trouble, it’s the bumps on the inside.”
As a young boy, he threatened to murder his whole family while they slept. Another time as a teen, he called police and begged them to take him out of their care.
He completed grade 10 then dropped out of school. He worked as a mechanic.
At 19, got into an auto theft scrape in California and served a year and a half in a California reformatory. He got out just before his 21st birthday.
In November of 1962, Dennis underwent treatment for window peeping in Circle Pines. Minneapolis Police had picked him up many times on suspicion of peeping but not charged.
In 1964, police were told officials couldn’t handle him and no effort was made to keep him – he escaped after 2 weeks.
He married wife Marianne around this time. He was unemployed at the time of Barbara’s abduction and was 25 years old.
Barbara’s mother Joan resisted the urges of revenge on Dennis Linehan on the day of her daughter’s funeral. George tried to continue on and adapted to drinking 20 cups of coffee a day to keep him going.
“We just want to get this whole thing over with, so our family can try to return to a normal life. God will things ever go back to normal again? I don’t see how we can live without the love of that girl.”
Barbara lived a bright, short life. She was born nine weeks early at Abbott Hospital weighing two and a half pounds. Her parents waited 6 weeks to bring their beloved baby girl home.
She grew to be a cute little blonde with a sweet attitude and eventually became the older sister of three brothers and a sister.
I personally relate to Barbara as I was born in that same hospital as a premature baby also weighing 2 pounds. I also have a family of three brothers and a sister.
She was in junior high school and would have been a sophomore at Mounds View High that fall. She was planning a pajama party for her upcoming 15th birthday party. Barbara was excited for her first possible teenage party.
Barbara wanted clothes for her birthday. She was beginning to really love clothes and dressing up.
I want Minnesota to know who this girl was and why we have the sexual offender laws we have today.
Minnesota took a stand against violence against women and children in 1994 in creating this law. It’s still heavily debated whether we should have this law today.
Barbara gets lost in the narrative. I feel it’s important to remember her and the decades long advocacy work of the Iversen family. Without their strength; these men would still be on Minnesota’s streets.
Barbara is not forgotten.
Sources:
- St. Cloud Times Star Tribune, The Daily Journal, The Winona Daily News, and The Minneapolis Star.
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