Hanson Family
In 2015, 20 year old Jessica Hernandez was baptized as a Jehovah’s witness. Baptism was a declaration to her devotion to Jehovah, and it also signaled her readiness to marry. It was anyone’s guess, though, who Jessica would settle on. Jessica always had a thing for goofy guys. So when Jessica stumbled upon Clyde Hanson’s photo on JWMatch.com she knew he was the one. Her closest sister Jasmine reacted with “This guy? Jessica, he’s older than our dad! What’s his deal anyway? He’s obsessed with Star Trek!” Though in time, at the constant behest of Jessica proclaiming her love to this man, the Hanson family remained optimistic that this would be a good match.
Clyde’s older brother was employed at The Kingdom Hall in Bethel, New York; the utmost honor for any Witness, and while she hoped that Brent’s high status wouldn’t be enough to earn her family’s approval of her marriage to Clyde, she knew that wouldn’t be the case. True to form, Jessica punched her ticket to love by leaving New Work and married Clyde Hanson the same day she stepped off of the plane in his hometown of Milbank, South Dakota. Brent was the only guest to their private wedding, which would prove to be foreshadowing to newlywed life in which Brent operated, uninvited, in the shadows.
After the wedding, Jessica and Clyde moved into a property owned jointly by Clyde and Brent. Brent had expertly renovated the duplex which allowed the brothers to live at the same address, but in separate spaces. Soon came the birth of their beautiful son, Ty, though with that birth came a bout of severe postpartum depression. With Clyde at work, Jessica frequently called on Brent for help. The task he seemed most frustrated by was walking Clyde and Jessica’s dog, Bonnie. On one such occasion, Jessica asked Brent to walk Bonnie while she took her young son to the pediatrician. Furious with yet another request to care for the dog, Brent destroyed their apartment including several sentimental objects.
Tensions continued to rise, especially after Jessica and Clyde brought serious allegations against Brent, claiming he had molested their young son Ty. Family members pleaded with Jessica to move out of the home, and away from the reach of Brent, and until then they demanded she check in with them for a weekly welfare check phone call.
In December of 2021, Jessica’s weekly check-in phone call was replaced with a call from the Milbank Police Department letting family know that Jessica and Clyde had been brutally murdered though miraculously, their young son Ty was spared in the massacre. Brent Hanson was arrested the same day and was later sentenced after pleading guilty to the crimes. When asked for the reasoning behind the “I snapped.”