OLD CHATHAM -- If only Hanna could talk, police would have immediately solved the murder of Neil Olsen.
The real killers tried to blame the gentle mare for the death of her owner, and send the horse to the slaughterhouse.
Olsen, 48, of Lanesboro, Mass., was found dead Jan. 10, 2005, in Hanna's stall. He suffered severe trauma to his head. The horse's hooves were bloody.
"I got a call in the middle of the night asking, could I take a horse that may have murdered his owner," said Lynn Cross, who runs a horse rescue operation at Little Brook Farm on County Route 13. "They even took her hoof prints to see if they matched the marks on Mr. Olsen's head.
"I was reluctant because I have schoolchildren touring the farm all the time and did not want a dangerous horse."
At the farm last week, Hanna, 33, a dark brown standardbred, stretched her neck forward, stuck out her head, rolled her eyes and curled her lips in pleasure as Cross' daughter, Summer Brennan, scratched her back. Numbers branded into the soft tissue inside Hanna's upper lip showed she was once a harness racehorse.
"Now does that look like a murderer to you?" Brennan asked as Poppers, the family's pet Chihuahua, pranced around the horse.
On the day of Olsen's death, his wife, Patricia Olsen, 42, told Massachusetts State Police investigators the horse killed him. She immediately called someone to get rid of Hanna, to sell her to a slaughterhouse.
Instead, State Police asked Cross to take the horse.
Two days later, an autopsy showed that Olsen was shot several times in the head with a .22-caliber rifle. His skull was bludgeoned with a metal pipe to hide the bullet holes and make it look like the horse had trampled him.
On May 23, after a three-week trial, Patricia Olsen was found guilty of first-degree murder. Her sentence is for life without the possibility of parole.
Testimony showed Patricia Olsen had for months pressured her son, Christopher A. Robinson, 21, to get rid of Olsen so she could get her husband's wealth and insurance. She gave her son money to buy a rifle.
Robinson pleaded guilty last week to second-degree murder, admitting he hid in the barn of his stepfather's 333 S. Main St. house and waited for Olsen's regular 11 p.m. feeding of Hanna, when he shot Olsen seven times in the head and beat him with a 40-inch metal pipe. The only witnesses were Hanna and Bosco, Neil Olsen's Labrador-chow mix.
Robinson also was sentenced to life in prison.
Bosco "suffered post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the killing. He just could not be saved," Cross said.
Hanna arrived in Columbia County in great distress. "Horses have memories," Brennan said.
The horse was jittery around abrupt, loud noises and did not get along with the other horses.
"It took us two weeks to even be able to get her to go into the barn," Cross said. "It took even longer for her to be comfortable in a stall again."
Now Hanna has settled in. She tolerates Poppers and has befriended Annabel, a 20-year-old miniature horse who is blind in one eye.
Cross, who never met Neil Olsen, said she learned he cared a great deal for the horse.
"He had veterinary records up to date, even with shots the horse really didn't need," Cross said. "He had an office in the barn next to her stall and put in a window so she could stick her head into his office. He obviously loved Hanna."
ing her with Gasoline and a Match...
