Aurora family:Model's suspicious death covered up

by Kirk Mitchell

The Denver Post

8:58 p.m.

Janyce “Janny” Hansen was a glamorous, beautiful former model who died mysteriously in Aurora, Colorado 30 years ago.

Even in death, the black high heel shoe on the cement garage floor next to the convertible Mercedes Benz was a cinematic touch that reflected her glitzy life on runways and at high-brow social gatherings among Denver’s wealthy and elite.

Her second husband, Richard Hansen, 12 years her elder, was a prosperous builder. The couple raised a family in an upscale Aurora neighborhood while Richard Hansen went from one lucrative housing or retail construction project to the next.

The story of the model turned domestic socialite was an illusion.

The couple lived a decadent lifestyle. There had been costume parties in which women wore scanty clothing and even talk about wife swapping.

Like many evenings for the family, the Hansens had gone out for dinner on Thursday evening, Sept. 20, 1984, to the El Torito Lounge on East Hampden Avenue in Denver. But they didn’t eat anything. They were drinking margaritas all night.

They were talking about a trailer park they had recently purchased. He was wearing a tan sport jacket. She was wearing a lavender dress with a necklace with black beads.

But when they returned home he realized that he had left his tan suit coat at the restaurant, so he drove back to the restaurant to retrieve it and was later supposed to meet his wife at another lounge, the story went.

But when Janny didn’t arrive, he drove back home at 12754 E. Cedar Ave. in Aurora. It was 2:45 a.m.

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